escapingexvangelical

[escapingexvangelical]

I keep circling back trying to understand how it is that so-called Christian "unconditional love" is at once both extremely conditional and also extremely mandatory.

Christian love is not unconditional in the sense that there are no conditions placed on you by God when you are loved. There are, quite famously, a whole book's worth of conditions that you are expected to follow in order to prove your devotion, signs of God's loving presence moving through you. Depending on your denomination, those conditions might be enforced by the threat of hell or just plain social ostracization or Bible study cliques or elaborate rituals of penance and forgiveness. But consistently and across many denominations, once you are Christian, you are expected to comply with these conditions. You must conform. You are not free to be as you once were.

But neither are you free to reject their love. It is universal, and therefore definitionally boundaryless, all-encompassing, and heavily enforced. Welcoming in the lost sheep is not a passive process. It is an active process of going out and hunting for the sinner, of teaching them the example of Jesus's life, of bringing them into the fold. And once they are fully indoctrinated, they are expected to continue to actively practice, to abstain from "sin," and to show a high degree of conformity to the group standard, whatever that means for the particular community. If you don't—you get hunted down and re-educated, pestered and threatened, shunted back into rituals of sin and repentance. There is no saying, "no I'm not interested" that the loving Christian can accept, because Christian love is for everybody. There is no opt out. There is no consent.

It comes of viewing the whole world as sinful, I think—human beings as not worthwhile in their own right but only in so far as they are potential conduits for God's grace—potential converts—everybody a broken people needing to be saved. The Great Commission ("go make of all disciplines") means that everyone must be converted—not welcomed, converted—and this is mandatory for everyone forever.

[escapingexvangelical]

okay, am I the only one who grew up being terrified of heaven?

when we've been there ten thousand years/bright shining as the sun/we've no less days to sing His praise/than when we'd first begun.

how is that not horrifying? to be trapped anywhere, even in a guilded cage, never able to rest, never able to go home? never mind about being forced to praise some overbearing lord all day long. I'm talking about being trapped somewhere forever. maybe it just freaked me out as a kid because I could never wrap my head around the concept of infinity but can you imagine living day after day in the same stasis, held captive by an infinitely powerful spirit, being forced to serve him, and knowing yourself to be completely helpless? the drudgery, of living there a thousand days and knowing that you can do it all over a thousand thousand times and it won't matter, because you can never

never

leave

[escapingexvangelical]

the fact that a lot of progressive people truly cannot tell the difference between a woman who is sexually objectified, and a woman who is an active sexual participant is bad bad bad bad bad bad bad

[escapingexvangelical]

I feel like I'm constantly oscillating between feeling like, okay, religion is a part of culture, and the stories we tell as myths may not be strictly true, but they're a way of passing on certain cultural values and traditions, and even if I don't believe in the literal veracity of them anymore, I can still honor that part of my lived experiences and my family and my personal history and community and accept that other people are capable of having a more balanced relationship with it than I am

and on the other hand feeling utterly revolted and betrayed by my religious upbringing, and the people who taught me to believe in these things and the people who still remain, because how can you be a part of an organization that believes all of those things? can't you see you hurt me? can't you see the harm you're doing, the lives you're ruining in the name of an abusive god? and it's not even true

[escapingexvangelical]

We want you here, but we don't want you. We love you, but we don't love you. Die to yourself. You are nothing. Become nothing. God is love!

All are welcome! All are wretched. Love the sinner, hate the sin. Everything you are is sin. Everything good comes from God. Empty yourself of your own being. Be filled by God. Take up your cross, deny yourself. Come, follow. Come, die. We love you!

[escapingexvangelical]

Fucking hate being raised Christian what the fuck you mean men and women actually have the same amount of ribs FYM I JUST FIND THAT OUT TODAY!!!

[escapingexvangelical]

I am honored to walk beside so many lovely people making their way out of Christianity. Y'all are better walking companions than any poem about footprints could brag about.

[escapingexvangelical]

You know what I'm gonna COMPLAIN!

Vanilla sex isn't "wholesome sex"! Sex is not more pure just because it's done within the framework of a monogamous relationship and free from elements of kink!

"Person is so pure they probably don't even know what sex is." Purity isn't defined by the distance from sex! As if the more a person encounters sex in any context the less pure their soul becomes!

You🫵are not immune to propagating the beliefs and ideas of purity culture!

[escapingexvangelical]

I've been learning a lot about atheopaganism & religious naturalism lately, and I think that mentally separating practice from belief is kinda helping to give me a framework to think about and recontextualize why I decided to leave Christianity.

I think I might never have started to question Christianity if I wasn't made to feel so unwelcome in that space—as a queer person, as a trans person, as an aromantic and acespec person, as a person in an afab body. As a person who thrives in the margins with the weird, the mad, and the outcasts. As a person who cares about justice. At a minimum, it would have taken me a lot longer to question it, I think, if I was better able to perform that normative Belonging that most Christian communities expect.

Not Belonging to the community gave me the distance to start to question the actual teachings that my community fostered. In time, I came to find better Christians, better communities—places where I could Belong—but I could not stomach the fact that these communities shared many of the same beliefs that my original community had taught that so hurt me. Softened, often—quieter, maybe, but at their core, just the same. And I had already come to find these beliefs harmful and not true.

And I know now that there are some Christians who disagree with those beliefs, who don't take the whole thing so literally, a lot who go to church just to Belong to their community, and nothing more. But that is not enough for me, because many members of the community do take those harmful beliefs so literally, and in a dominative, hierarchical, dogmatic context, those who do believe have a lot more say in what the community teaches and the way it treats people than those who don't believe. And because the dogma is so calcified and so sacrosanct, there is no openness to greater justice or to any other kind of change.

Even if I thought that there was a chance that the dogma would change, slowly and gradually over time, I don't fit into that community anymore, and wouldn't for a long long time. And trying to Belong in that space where I was not welcomed was hurting me deeply, whether I believed in the dogma or not.

I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting a spiritual practice that is personally meaningful, or with the very human desire to Belong. But I think that I will not be able to access those things without a space where people like me are truly welcomed, and where there is the flexibility needed to work towards greater justice and a willingness to change when necessary to make that happen.

[escapingexvangelical]

i'm excited to live the rest of my life like it belongs to me

[escapingexvangelical]

youre never alone. bacteria

[escapingexvangelical]

Having religious trauma is wild, I'm getting overwhelmed because I don't understand some college stuff, and my choice in topics to engage in to calm down and recenter include videos debunking religious things I was taught growing up

[escapingexvangelical]

dance like nogody's watching ✨️

[escapingexvangelical]

The real hell is the heaven they preached along the way

[escapingexvangelical]

otherwise interesting post ruined by the bold insistence that you can never accidentally abuse someone & that all abusive people are self-aware evil masterminds

[escapingexvangelical]

Creationism: Isn't it impossibly convenient that the physical properties of the Earth just happen to be so perfectly suited to the existence of human life?

The Anthropic Principle:

[escapingexvangelical]

I loved the singing.

Being in a room full of people, not everyone's voice is good, but blended together it's beautiful. And when I did believe in God - I thought I felt him then.

The last worship service I attended, I couldn't keep myself from crying during the songs. Because they sounded so beautiful, but the lyrics were so horrible - "I'm worthless without you", and just a lot of... blood. The grief really hit then. I wished I could experience what that was like again, without the twisted words. Concerts get close but they're not quite the same.

I also found so much comfort in God when I was sad or panicking. It was my coping mechanism. Whenever I was lonely or upset, I could pray and feel like there was someone listening who cared. I was never alone.

Now, I try to be there for myself. But again... it's not quite the same.

I would never go back in a million years. But those are the things I miss.

fellow ex-christians, this is a question i've had for a while: what were your positive experiences of christianity? i'm not being sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek, i'm genuinely wondering, because despite the significant amount of time i spent in the church, i really didn't have any positive experiences surrounding god and actual christian beliefs. like, my good memories are things like going on a fun retreat with a church group, but whenever it came to thinking about god/my church's teachings/his plan for the future, it was nothing but fear and worry and shame.

but there's many people on here who seem to really be grieving the loss of their faith, despite what has otherwise happened to them. it's something that's of course valid, but i just can't wrap my mind around it. so if anyone is willing to explain this, i'd really appreciate it. i'm genuinely just really curious about this.