Flowers

I think the most powerful critiques of Christianity are often subtle in their approach and nuanced by a robust bibliography’s worth of arguments. GLMIS is not a work of that type. Remember, I’m telling my story for all to hear because so far I’d only ever told it to myself. I don’t know if they’re closer to Usher’s or Augustine’s, but these are my confessions.

I am not able to write about my experience in church life with the same abstract distance with which I critique theology and biblical studies. This is not to say I left the community that reared me for a different set of reasons than those I’ve introduced already. It’s all bound together and irreducibly manifold. 

My problems with Christianity began as problems with the Church, it was only in seminary that I began to see the Church as a faithful image of Her God.

My wife and I have worked in a number of churches over the last decade or so. In their own special way, each one of them attributed to a heap of cynicism and bitterness in our hearts. To the best of our ability we tried to heal with the tools the churches gave us. We heeded their counsel, read our Bibles, and begged God to restore us. For all that, the Church still lost us and it happened while I was in seminary. I’ve seen my wife be mistreated and downright disrespected—simply because of her sex—in every single church we’ve invested in. At some point we had to ask, “Our we taking care of ourselves? Is it wise to thoughtlessly put ourselves in a position to be abused again?”

If we must learn from experience, my experience of church has taught me to flee from all forms of organized religion.

I’ve had pastors withhold promised pay as an “incentive” for getting more people to attend. I’ve also had multiple worship leaders fail to pay out for thousands of dollars worth of contract gigs. I’ve worked under pastors who have doctorates, pastors without even a bachelors, some with huge expense accounts, some who pastored pro bono. All of them, every single one, have proved to be a small man with an enormous ego. Some of them say unimaginably hateful things about queer people, some believe that Trump is right to ban muslims, some think Jesus is coming back to destroy everyone except the real Christians… One or two of them hid their bigotry and narcissism better than the others — but what they all have in common is a following of people who trust in their words every single week. This is not an institution I wish to associate myself with.

I’ve spent the last decade in close quarters with hundreds of Christian leaders, in academic and worship settings. I have been made sharply aware of the general anti-intellectual attitude of most ministry students, and those are the few who are actually educated. My final post in this project is dedicated to the joke that calls itself theological education, so for now suffice it to say, many if not most, local ministers are essentially uneducated except for within the bounds and biases of their given denomination. They are not worthy of a following, in my opinion.

I’m not trying to be mean, just honest. I’ve learned from teachers much wiser than any of my pastors to shew off resentment. It is a poison many mistake for maturity, perhaps especially among those of us who have left Christianity. I am leaving all the vitriol and vinegar that stewed in my heart at the door of the Church, like flowers on the grave of God. I expected more from those who call themselves people of God, the self-proclaimed salt of the earth. The only way I’ve learned to overcome bitterness is honesty.

My Last Pastor

The last man I’ll ever call my pastor was among the most pathetic representatives of the species I’ve encountered. He’d never had any job outside of Christian ministry and his education came from one of the most laughable institutions modern Christianity has birthed (the same that brought us that gem of Christian fetish literature: The Left Behind Series). He has no business having an authoritative opinion, yet people listen as he spews ignorant buffoonery from a stage every Sunday.

Less than a week after I accepted his offer to work for him, we had to have a come to Jesus meeting. I had written a blog on my personal WordPress site that he found offensive and if I weren’t willing to submit to his authority, he indicated that I should find other employment. I wish I would have walked away with middle fingers high in the sky right then. But I didn’t.

My blog was a polemic against subordinating women to men in the Church, among other things. I was genuinely baffled when it got me into trouble. The problem was that I had assumed my new church and its pastor actually valued the experiences and voices of women… you know, because they said they did. It turns out, the church had decided decades ago that women are not allowed to have any positions of power and hardly any meaningful leadership in the congregation. This pastor produced a statement he had written in 1998 and handed it to me at some point during our tense exchange at a North Dallas Starbucks in 2015. According to him—and virtually all christians through history— God has ontologically placed women under the authority of men.

Why have we given these people authority over us? Are we really better than our tribal ancestors and their shamans?

I’m exceedingly grateful for Christian feminists as they have played a huge role in my development, but their very existence still seems to me an oxymoron. I want to shout to them, “GET OUT!” There are so many communities that will value your power, intelligence, strength and even your faith… but I don’t believe that the Church will ever truly be one.    

Grievances

I’ve experienced more trepidation, more fear and trembling over the content of this post than I have over any of the others so far. I wasn’t surprised to receive a hefty amount of criticism and disappointment since I began posting GLMIS. It mostly doesn’t bother me, I’m happy that anyone bothers to engage with it at all. However, the most annoying feedback I regularly receive is that I’m just angry and choosing to see only the negative parts of Christianity.

Now, I spent a very long time being angry with Christians, both specific people and in general. I was mad at them for all sorts of obvious reasons. Mostly it came down to the feeling that so many Christians were poorly representing Christ, at least the Christ I had in my head. It is only since officially leaving Christianity that I’ve been able to let go of that anger. Since I’m not one anymore, I don’t have to constantly be disappointed in people that deem themselves believers. I can just let them be. I no longer have a dog in the fight.

I would’ve never left Christianity on the grounds of poor Christian behavior alone, though it certainly didn’t inspire me to want to stick around. As I’ve attempted to indicate in previous posts, I have deep grievances with Christianity that extend to its very foundations. I honestly believe I would’ve found my way out of the Church regardless.

Finally, I wish to be painfully honest, if not exhaustively verbose, about Christianity. Selectively writing about only the negative parts or allowing personal experience entirely dictate my opinions get in the way of that, so I’ve really tried to curb that impulse. I understand that you might get annoyed with the accusations I’ve made — but I promised I’d be honest, and this is the voice I have to share. Even though it scares the hell out of me, I wouldn’t let myself remove these words from the page.

It is Christ’s body that has sinned against us.