The Question of Denomination

I have a confession to make: my faith tradition frightens me. As the product of almost 23 years in the Baptist church, it is only now that I am beginning to question the denomination and its beliefs. I, like many teenagers, had my rebellion from God and any institution He was involved with in my senior year of high school. But looking back, my struggles with God were not because of Him or who He is. They were struggles with my own self and what I had been through in my life. Even when I returned to God as a prodigal daughter, I did so by running into the open arms of my small Baptist church in Georgia.
Through the first half of my career as a religious studies major, I fought to keep my Baptist beliefs and the conservative Republican politics that almost inevitably follow. At an extremely liberal and democratically-run (at least within the religious studies department) Presbyterian women's college, this was no easy task. Years of attending a church where everyone felt the same as me, as well as living in a community which overwhelmingly agreed, had not prepared me for the myriad of differing viewpoints I would find. Still, I held strong to all that I knew and pledged to remain a faithful Baptist for life. I pledged to bring my children up in the Church and be a member until I could no longer be one.
That Baptist strength began to waver, however, when I started to sense God's call on my life into the ministry. As nervewrecking as discerning a call can be, I found myself doubly burdened when I informed my parents of that call. I won't go into details, but I learned that day that Baptists don't take too kindly to female preachers. In fact, the Southern Baptist Convention (of which my church is not a member, but I suspect that it is more a money issue than a belief issue- I will probably discuss that more at a later time) has condemned numerous churches for allowing female preachers to be in charge. I never before had the occasion to know Baptist feelings on female preachers and this came as a shock. If Jesus could call on women to preach the message of His ressurection (Matthew 28), why could He not call on me to do the same? My blinders fell off and, all of a sudden, the lights were way too bright to see.
Subsequently, I began to see a lot more cracks in the Baptist facade that I had lived under. Those cracks, such as the Baptist view on Biblical authority as absolute and literal, became clearer to me as I learned more about the specific tenets of the denomination and the way the Bible had been put together. Those same cracks became gaping holes as I read differing interpretations of the Bible and Jesus' life. While a few cracks can be overlooked, holes through which torrential rains of doubt fall cannot.
I hesitate to question my membership in the Baptist Church. We are taught from a young age that the way of the Baptist Church is the one and only way to reach Heaven. I am not keen on the prospect of going to Hell, so my indoctrinated guilt tugs at me when I question any part of the church. My own personal church has been my home and religious center for almost seven years. The family I have there is, to me, as important and loving as my earthly family. But, just as I often question my earthly family's statements and actions, I find myself questioning my church family's religious and political beliefs. I do not question my love for these people; I believe that they will be my family in Christ forever. But I do question whether or not my interpretation of Jesus and how He called Christians to live lines up with theirs and whether or not the two can live in harmony.