diaries of an exvangelical

[ardent-apostasy]

i've seen some posts about the overlap between antisemitic and islamophobic beliefs and the anti- and ex-christian populations. so, i just want to say: if anything i post/reblog here is harmful to other religions, please feel free to call me out.

of course, you neither need permission from me to call me out, nor is it your responsibility to educate me. but i hope you'll feel comfortable and safe enough to tell me when i'm wrong.

[and i guess since this is gonna be my pinned post, i'll tack on a brief introduction: hi, i'm ariel. i was raised as a christian evangelical and am in the process of deconstructing and working through the associated trauma. i'm a chinese-canadian, cis female, disabled, aroace. on this blog, i talk about my experiences in the church and about some of the issues the church perpetuates (e.g. homophobia).]

[ardent-apostasy]

jumpscared by my youtube recs

(i'm not about to listen to it so who knows what his thesis actually is but i'm just here sighing over everything being about "ooooh actually the bible predicted this!")

[patricia-taxxon]

the thing is, if your younger self was a bigot or an abuser, u can't make people forgive you. but you still gotta forgive yourself, like that's non-negotiable, dude. that happens before u can even ask the question of earning forgiveness from anyone lese

[patricia-taxxon]

oops, in your attempt to martyr yourself out of respect for your victims you accidentally sabotaged your own ability to conceptualize yourself as anything but a perpetual evildoer who is always one bad day away from hurting everyone you love, all but guaranteeing history to repeat itself. rookie mistake

[patricia-taxxon]

im gonna try explaining myself, cus im a gambling addict and im waiting for the day that it actually works.

"forgiveness" is personal, that's why I said in the post that you might inflict harm on people for which they can never forgive you, but that's their quest. if you abuse someone, you can't go no-contact with yourself. you actually keep living in your own head indefinitely, and ultimately you need to learn to live with yourself in order to continue living a full life without further harm. this is not necessarily an anti-carceral thought, although i am generally anti-carceral myself. I simply want people to like, fix their heart and atone for real with measured accountability & self love instead of dissociating, self-marking themselves forever and guaranteeing their recidivism.

You and a remorseful abuser would both think I'm giving the easy, coddling path. It's actually the tough pragmatic path in disguise.

[ship-of-fools]

[actualaster]

The kinds of people who argue once you abuse somebody you can never, ever change and grow past it and stop being abusive are almost 100% of the time people who will contort themselves into intricate knots in an effort to justify any and all harm they cause to anyone else in order to make sure they never have to come to terms with the fact that they're equally capable of being abusive to others (and in a not insignificant number of instances I've seen people who do this be abusers themselves but they've convinced themselves their victims deserved it so they're still morally pure).

[mswyrr]

You know, in the history of England, prisons were actually a shift away from hanging and torture and branding people with a hot iron for all kinds of "crimes," including stealing.

When I look at the punitive mindsets of some people who say they're for prison abolition, I can only imagine they mean we should go to such a system. Ideally, where they and their friends get to decide who is hanged and tortured and branded with a hot iron, of course!

I'm sure that, in such a situation, justice would pour down like living waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

[ardent-apostasy]

something something xtianity really shepherded us like lambs to the slaughter something something

[theshoesofatiredman]

Googling this quote lead me down a rabbit hole that lead to this great comic on the rapture

[ardent-apostasy]

"i was fine with trans people when they weren't demanding RIGHTS!" ...uhm do you fucking HEAR yourself "well i knew gay people when they existed QUIETLY" ...how dare they... "but now there are ACTIVISTS" ...because they... want human rights... "and now i have to be SCARED because some gays are MEAN" ...the FUCK is your point here??????

[ardent-apostasy]

when the church service singing isn't even in fucking tune. PLEASE. anyways sending you all patience this wonderful season.

[deservedgrace]

one of the cult scholars i listen to said "most children are not being raised to die" months ago and i still think "being raised to die" sums up growing up in fundamentalist christianity so well.

my friends and i didn't know if we would grow up to be adults. we would have conversations about wanting the chance to be an adult and knew we were """selfish""" for wanting to live if it wasn't in god's plan. we were raised to believe that we would either be killed for being a christian (in the us no less) or that jesus was coming soon (rapture/end times theology). we knew it was "sinful" to want something outside of god's plan but we couldn't help ourselves.

we were members of the lord's army. we were to obey orders and lay down our life if necessary. "this life is just a test" they'd say. "our real life is our eternal life with the lord." none of this is real, it's just a test. if you pass, you get into heaven. if you fail, you're sent to eternal damnation and hellfire. this is an open book test, we've been given all the answers already. if you fail, it's your own fault.

being raised to die means that your future doesn't matter. jesus is coming soon. jesus is what matters. "set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. for you died, and your life is hidden with christ in god."

i've been out for years. i'm in my late 20's. i still don't know how to set my mind on earthly things. i still struggle to believe i have a future.

[era-of-ages]

Being ex-Christian but also not wanting to be against people choosing religion is like: i want you to be happy, i hate the lies you stand for, i know you’re not a bad one, it’s an overwhelmingly awful thing, i want to belong with the people i grew up with, they cannot be comfortable with me anymore, I know you will always love me, but not over your faith, im happy that you are bfaithful, im begging you to run as far away as you can before falling too far in, im glad you’re getting baptized, i cannot trust you anymore, i understand the joke, i know im not like you anymore, this event was fun, its a cult its a cult its a cult its a cult its a cult please im begging you you don’t know how this has hurt me so much im begging you listen to me please, haha singing vegetables, im not the lie that you loved anymore

[deservedgrace]

something that's really been bothering me lately is how the church i was a part of would like... repackage doctrine to make it sound nicer and more acceptable. like, the belief that all humans are evil by nature and deserve eternal torture for the crime of existing is inherently violent and cruel. but my church didn't frame it like that. they framed it as "yes we're ALL evil and wicked and we ALL deserve hell to atone for our sin (being human) BUT god loves you despite you not deserving love or happiness or anything good at all and all you have to do to avoid the pits of hell is accept jesus as your savior isn't that so amazing????" and they framed the crucifixion as this beautiful, selfless act of god by taking our place on the cross instead of "this all-powerful being who created all the rules decided that he required torture, death, and human sacrifice to be able to tolerate us". and it's not "women will be viewed as lesser than men" it's "women must submit to their husbands the same way we all must submit to god it's not dehumanizing it's holy and yes women have different roles but that doesn't make them lesser than and sure we don't have any women in leadership positions in the church and we would never even consider it, come on now that's ridiculous, but that's just because men are supposed to lead because men and women are different and created for different purposes it's just biology". and there are plenty others! i know that the reframing of everything is part of how they can even get people to accept the doctrine in the first place, but being on the outside of it is kind of horrifying. when you get down to the actual beliefs that are held without the distortions and manipulation, so many are violent, cruel, dehumanizing, abusive. but they distort and manipulate these beliefs to make them seem acceptable, morally correct, and redefine what love is and should look like.

[deservedgrace]

The other thing about discussing harmful things about the christian church and getting "that's not what that verse really means/that's not how that doctrine should be applied/that's not actually supported biblically/etc" back is that... at a certain point it doesn't matter. Yes there are varying beliefs within christianity (understatement with 45,000 different denominations lmao), but you don't get to claim that christianity is separate from any harmful beliefs when a lot of harmful beliefs are the majority.

You can say "the bible wasn't ever talking about gay relationships in [xyz] verses" but that doesn't make the average church actually safe and affirming for queer people. You can say "actually hell doesn't have any biblical backing" but that doesn't mean very much when like 75-80% of christians believe in hell. You can say "men and women are equal in the eyes of the Lord" but it doesn't erase the rampant misogyny in christian culture.

If the members make up the church, if members are the church, then at a certain point the cultural beliefs or majority beliefs have precedence over what was intended. You can't say "oh just ignore [belief/doctrine/interpretation/etc]" when that would be dismissing the church's most predominant collective beliefs. You don't get to just disregard harm because that "wasn't the intention". You don't get to look at the result of said harm and decide it doesn't matter because it makes you look bad.

[gibbearish]

kids who werent raised christian being like "lol baptising children is whack if they tried to do that to me i would start doing things to make it look like i was possessed" no you would not. you would bask in the pride and approval coming from the adults around you and you would quietly wait your turn because you were told from birth that sinning sends you to hell and baptism is The Promise that youre dedicating your life to jesus that youve had hyped up for years and watched other people be fawned over as they cry happy tears about it and you do NOT want to fuck up your One Big True Promise To Love Jesus Forever So You Don't Get Tortured For Eternity when you are literally 8 years old. im begging yall to remember its a thousand times easier to see the church's bullshit for what it is when you're not actively in the church. eight year old you is not thinking about trying to fight back against an oppressive religious group indoctrinating children because You Are The Children Being Indoctrinated. stop acting like you would've magically known better if it were you.

[ardent-apostasy]

ok wait i have to reblog this again because i saw in the notes someone saying they wanted to get baptized twice because they were scared it wasn't enough the first time and. yeah.

whenever anyone had a "better" testimony than me; whenever i thought about the words i stumbled over; whenever i felt like i wasn't a good enough christian so what if that was fraud (because don't you know, it is worse to be the lukewarm believer?); even whenever i felt like i was being a good christian (because if i am better now, then was i good enough back then?)

the shit runs deep and when you are being indoctrinated, you are being Indoctrinated. it doesn't have to seem rational from the outside.

[gibbearish]

kids who werent raised christian being like "lol baptising children is whack if they tried to do that to me i would start doing things to make it look like i was possessed" no you would not. you would bask in the pride and approval coming from the adults around you and you would quietly wait your turn because you were told from birth that sinning sends you to hell and baptism is The Promise that youre dedicating your life to jesus that youve had hyped up for years and watched other people be fawned over as they cry happy tears about it and you do NOT want to fuck up your One Big True Promise To Love Jesus Forever So You Don't Get Tortured For Eternity when you are literally 8 years old. im begging yall to remember its a thousand times easier to see the church's bullshit for what it is when you're not actively in the church. eight year old you is not thinking about trying to fight back against an oppressive religious group indoctrinating children because You Are The Children Being Indoctrinated. stop acting like you would've magically known better if it were you.

[winged-thinged]

Look, we joke a lot, but really, "you were born evil, wretched, worse than the scum of the earth, and it took killing a god to make you salvageable, so now you'd better be grateful to that god and thank him 10,000 times a day for it and fill your thoughts with him 24/7 and abide by the letter of his every word, lest you suffer unimaginable torture for all of eternity" is a truly horrendous thing to believe about yourself and other people

[ardent-apostasy]

"time for bible study" what the fuck why are you combining my two most beloathed things: bible and study

[ardent-apostasy]

love the "oh so mcdonalds can fuck up your order a gazillion times and you keep eating there, but church messes up ONCE and you QUIT???" argument bc

actually i am boycotting mcd rn but wtv

if any restaurant continually fucks up my order i actually probably WOULD stop going there

unless the food was REALLY good or REALLY cheap, in which case i keep going because there is a practical benefit to doing so

if the food was actively harming me i sure as fuck wouldn't keep going back

i didn't quit church after they messed up ONCE, actually

and going WAS harming me.

and going to church was not benefiting me at all anyways, so why should i keep going?

really, if i treated church like a shitty fast food joint, i would have left sooner.

[oldfatwarlock]

Goddamn I wish I’d have left sooner!

[heyftinally]

The true analogy would be "if a restaurant consistently put small amounts of arsenic and rat poison in your food every single time you ate there, all the while telling you that you felt sick because you didn't eat there ENOUGH, would you trust the restaurant that has something to gain from manipulating and exploiting you, or would you trust yourself to know that eating the food makes you feel worse and leave for your own health?"

Because forgetting to leave the pickles off my food every now and then isn't a big deal - I'm not allergic, I just don't like them, so I can just pick them out.

But routinely and intentionally poisoning me with toxicity for their own gain isn't "one mistake" - it's an ongoing pattern of intentional abuse.

[ardent-apostasy]

YEP. "one mistake" my ass.

[ardent-apostasy]

love the "oh so mcdonalds can fuck up your order a gazillion times and you keep eating there, but church messes up ONCE and you QUIT???" argument bc

actually i am boycotting mcd rn but wtv

if any restaurant continually fucks up my order i actually probably WOULD stop going there

unless the food was REALLY good or REALLY cheap, in which case i keep going because there is a practical benefit to doing so

if the food was actively harming me i sure as fuck wouldn't keep going back

i didn't quit church after they messed up ONCE, actually

and going WAS harming me.

and going to church was not benefiting me at all anyways, so why should i keep going?

really, if i treated church like a shitty fast food joint, i would have left sooner.

[ardent-apostasy]

it occurs to me that perhaps my weird relationship with modesty comes from a combination of growing up fundie while also growing up a classical dancer. so sometimes i'm like "omg their BOOBS are SPILLING OUT" and sometimes i'm like "wdym i should put pants on. who cares if you can see my underwear. also who cares if you can see the outlines of my nipples"

like i've been watching ballets -- where, you know, men wear ballet tights, ergo you can kind of See What They're Packing -- since i was teensy. i've been desensitized. i do not give a single fuck.