I don’t know if god is real. Here is what I do know:
The evangelical church is highly manipulative on purpose.
They aim their efforts at children, regardless of their parents’ wishes.
They recruit their own kids to go convert their friends and bring them back to church with them.
They do not hold their own adults, including and especially church leadership, accountable for their actions and in some cases cover for them.
They encourage social isolation and discourage learning about perspectives other than theirs from anyone besides them.
They prey on the most vulnerable, especially single moms and kids.
They consistently hold outdated beliefs and then pretend they never did once it becomes impossible to continue holding them.
They allow one interpretation of every passage in the bible, and that interpretation is not plain from the text.
They encourage their members to see themselves as better than everyone else and objectively correct while everyone else is objectively incorrect.
They discourage therapy, funneling those seeking it back into their own in-house “counseling” that only functions to make you feel inadequate and guilty and tells you your problem is that you don’t read the bible or pray or believe enough.
They tell you that you are the most awful thing possible and that the only way to escape eternal torture is to listen to them and structure your life around them.
They hold beliefs they claim not to and enforce them strictly (no drinking, no tattoos, you must be at church every Sunday) through intense social pressure.
They chase those who leave fiercely, using the power they gained over them to do everything they can to make them come back or at least not share their experiences and opinions openly.
The evangelical church is a horrible organization. If god is real, he has nothing to do with it.
