#leavingchurch

[boldrockfreshpressed-blog]

Leaving Church pt. 1/?

It’s a book by Barbara Brown Taylor. I haven’t read it yet, but I did leave church. That’s not even the whole truth; I left the patriarchal system, which taught me to hate myself in order to love others, to ignore myself and take care of others, and that I should always remain pure and righteous. 

See, I loved church. For many years of my life, it was the only place I wanted to be. It was the place I was connected: to other people, to myself, to God. It was the first place I was given music. It was the first place I was given leadership. It was the first place I was given a voice. It kept me out of trouble. I didn’t have sex, didn’t drink alcohol, didn’t do drugs, didn’t curse, didn’t even wear a two-piece bathing suit after a while. Anything to be good. 

But

For everything church gave me, it also took something away. The church gave me music, but the church took away “secular” music. The first step to being righteous: only listen to Christian radio, and don’t let your friends convince you it’s no big deal to listen to Top 40 pop. The church gave me leadership, but the church took away my ability to make decisions for myself and the people I was leading. Everything came from a script. Every question had a clear answer from the Holy Bible. The church gave me a voice, but eventually they stopped listening, because what I said started to sound “too radical”. The ironic thing is, what I was saying actually reflected their most conservative values. I had the crazy belief that if we were going to sit around reading the Bible and using it to frame our entire existence, then shouldn’t we be working really hard to actually do what it says? But people didn’t like that. Alas I’m getting off track. 

When I eventually left church, I did so in an abrupt and cynical way. I was angry. Every Christian was a hypocrite, and any time I so much as mentioned a doubt or question I had, I was shut down. Some of my closest friends started to look at me like the heathens we used to walk around town and pray for and try to convert. That’s when it unraveled for me. When I realized that the voice I had been given by the church, the one that had been celebrated for so long, was now betraying me, I dove off the deep end. 

I suppose this will be some sort of chronicle. I’d love to hear from anyone else who loved church, then left it. Whatever the reason, let’s connect. 

There’s more to my story. In fact, my story is still in its middle. My hope is that be naming all the things I’ve been keeping secret, that I can finally build a faith that works for me. I don’t know if that faith will lead me back to the same God I knew before, but it will take me somewhere, and that’s the only place I want to go. 

[pmcguffin]

The women in the kitchen…

The Wednesday night Bible study was moved to Thursday nights. We boarded the “home-groups” train that was trending in those days, and we were grouped according to which Elder’s house was proximal to ours.  Logistics, naturally -the Elders were engineers.

I was impatient for that first meeting.  This Catholic girl gets a little unnerved by those Sunday services where the preacher reads a Bible verse, then fiercely expounds on it, sometimes with an intensity that yanks him out of his jacket in his frenzy over all that hellfire and damnation. Nope, all that fired-up hollering from the pulpit never edified my spirit.  I longed for a calm, contemplative study where exchanging ideas and perspectives would enrich our spirits and foster closer friendships among this earnest little band of Bible scholars.

Thursday came.  I stepped into a spacious living room, settled on a large floor pillow, and rested against an ottoman.  The atmosphere was casual and subdued; it felt pretty good.  After the initial prayer, we opened our Bibles to the chapter of focus in the study, and before I knew it, I was happily engaged in a lively discussion.  One deacon leaned my way as he spoke, inviting me into a dialogue. He was erudite and eloquent, with a keen intellect and a wonderful sense of humor -I genuinely liked him.  Never condescending, he offered his perspectives while validating mine as we looked to the practical applications of the scriptures at hand, and I appreciated his wisdom.  It was good, to feel connected and valid. The moment was short-lived.

Once the meeting was over, the women retreated to make coffee. The men remained. I stayed until I noticed a raised brow with a directional glance toward the kitchen. Oh. I got it. I stood and slipped through the door to find the Women in the Kitchen caught up in animated chatter about diaper rash ointment and -I kid you not- whether it is worth the effort to wash and reuse plastic sandwich baggies. It was made clear that my input was irrelevant when I was told that until I have a baby, I "can’t possibly understand..." anything apparently.  I understood this:  the Women in the Kitchen were not my tribe.

Easing back into the living room, I sidled onto the sofa armrest.  The men were discussing the current socio-political climate, the Church’s place in the world at large, practical ways we could best minister to our community, and whether to address our need for more space by expanding or moving... the big picture. 

Creative ideas, some lofty goals, and a good measure of healthy debate were happening in that living room full of men, with me precariously perched on an armrest -the only woman not in the kitchen.  They didn’t miss a beat.  No one noticed.  None of the men moved to make room for me on that sofa.  Not one.  Yet, there I sat like a glaring neon sign blinking in the face of their purposeful disregard.  Refusing to take the hint, I remained, invisible, silently swallowing swells of rage as those men planned our future and decided our places within it without any input from us -the Women in the Kitchen, and me.

On the drive home, I was confronted with my behavior.  Why couldn’t I sit quietly like the other wives, refrain from joining the discussion, and stay with the Women in the Kitchen where, I suppose, I belonged?  I wanted to scream, “Why aren’t the Women in the Kitchen invited to stay and encouraged to participate in the discussion?”  Instead, I tightened my jaw and muttered, “They weren’t talking about anything interesting, and since I’m not a mother, no one cares what I have to say.”  He asked me to try.  I bit my lip.

He doesn’t get it:  no one wants me, but the exclusion by the men is more than oppressive; it is insulting.  The Women in the Kitchen are their wives, the mothers of their children, and the ones who keep life going forward against all that would interfere.  They are the anchors in their homes, the very hearts of their families. It will be the Women in the Kitchen, without voices, bearing the burden of the men’s decisions.  Although the Women in the Kitchen are not seated at the table for discussion, they will be expected to strategize sacrifices from their household budgets to finance the men’s plans (washing and reusing disposable sandwich baggies --do the men even know their wives do that?)  The Women in the Kitchen will be “holding down the fort” while the men devote their evenings away from their families to manage new and ongoing projects and church business.  After preparing breakfast to ignite the morning and ushering everyone to the day’s destinations, the Women in the Kitchen will be parenting solo until they get the children into bed.  Finally, once the men have returned home, these devoted wives (veiling their own weariness) shall cheerfully serve their husbands a carefully reheated dinner. 

Imagine.  Though they are the ones who create the very propulsion that provides the momentum to move the work forward, The Women in the Kitchen have no voices.

None, because the Women in the Kitchen are not invited to that table... except to serve it.      

[feelingforgod]

The Church Taught Me to Leave the Church

“As a middle-aged ex-Mormon woman once told me, ‘everyone says that if your testimony was ever actually real or as strong as it was supposed to be you never would have lost it. But that’s not right. We were doing everything we were taught, as much if not more than anybody else…It’s really the best of us who leave.’” (Source 1) “....David had been quick to recognize and point out: that the church had made me who I was, including many of the best parts of me. ‘You left out of principle,’ David told Grace and me, ‘pretty much the same principles you were raised with. And your departure was both a rejection and an affirmation of everything you were taught....’ Weeping, I had asked him how he could possibly say such a thing. We were betrayers. ‘In a way,’ he said, ‘leaving Westboro Baptist Church was the most Westboro Baptist Church thing you could have done. They’re the ones who taught you to stand up for what you believe in, no matter what it cost you. They taught you that. They just never never imagined you’d be standing up to them.’” (Source 2)

The Church taught me to leave the Church, and to stand up for my beliefs. In some ways, leaving it was the most Mormon thing I could do. 

That is such a healing thing to realize. 

Source 1: E. Marshall Brooks, The Disenchanted Self: Anthropological Notes on Existential Distress and Ontological Insecurity Among ex-Mormons in Utah,   https://link-springer-com.csulb.idm.oclc.org/article/10.1007/s11013-019-09646-5 Source 2: Megan Phelps-Roger, Unfollow, page 274, 2019

Photo by Ajsa Boros, https://www.asjaboros.net/

[brministries]

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[pmcguffin]

Never again...

There is an old saying about "being at church every time the doors are open." That’s us.  Those doors are open, so here we are, though I am just not feeling it tonight (my chronic condition these days.)  As we step inside, an eerie sense makes the hair on my arms stand on end. I want to go home.    

Only the altar light is burning, shrouding the sanctuary in just enough darkness to set the scene and subdue the mood.  Dramatic.  I suppress an eye-roll.  We greet one another in whispers as though we were a conspiratorial cell of the French Resistance. Now, I don’t disparage the good that can come from the power of communal prayer -but these things?   It is hard to explain, but there is sometimes a layer beneath these orchestrated vespers that I find unsettling. Invasive.

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret... (Matthew 6:6)  

Shuffling my feet like a decrepit old drunk, I stumble across the threshold, and despite my efforts to slink beneath the shadows in the back row, I am piloted further down the aisle.  Chilled to the bone, I wish I had brought a sweater.  I stop walking, and without asking, I sit. I am tired.

I don’t want to be with people, not tonight.  I have a cold, which is my reward for helping in the nursery, of course, because Church is pretty much the only place I go (except to visit my parents, who aren’t sick.)  Since no one will keep their sick babies home and miss a Sunday service, I am now numbered among the afflicted. I can’t thank them enough.  My face feels on fire.  I should be comfortably nestled at home, on the sofa, in my jammies, chest slathered with Vicks Vapor Rub, clinging to my box of Kleenex, and peacefully sipping a steamy cup of tea -but no.  I could not make that happen, so I sit, quietly, hoping no one will notice.

Shivering, I reach for the sweater I forgot to bring.  I can’t shake the sense of impending doom that weighs heavily on my chest (or maybe it is the onset of pneumonia.)  Have I mentioned that I don’t want to be here?  My head weighs a ton.

The Elders begin to pray (not one woman among them, per, as I recall, Paul’s suggestions somewhere in I Corinthians.)  Offering their supplications, each voice rises and falls in turn...on and on...thanks to the two Pharisees who have long been saving their petitions for this performance.  It is a practiced cadence, this collective chorus of “Yes Lord, Amen,” the rhythm of which lulls me almost to sleep.  I shake myself awake.   

A chair is pulled to the altar with a declaration of the need for “healing in this place."  We are encouraged to come forward where the Elders shall pray by the “laying on of hands” (Hebrews 6:2) and the “anointment with oil” (James 5:14) and we shall by faith receive the "healing to come."  I slyly look around, trying to gauge...how many...  I sigh and dab my reddened nose with a wadded tissue.  Good Lord, I am so cold.

One by one, they come forward and the Elders pray for release, healing, and the casting out of whatever demon is causing their troubles. The pleas are fervent, unending... exhausting.  Anxiety continues to gnaw at my very bones.  This is excruciating.

Coaxed forward, I remain rigid. “You need this, you’re sick,” he whispers with a nudge.  I resist with a shake of my head, “It’s just a cold.”   He persists until I give in and slide into place.  The Elders anoint me, their voices rising as they press their hands onto my shoulders.  Oil drips down my nose and I reach for a tissue, but my arm is pinned.  One of them has pushed against me, leaning so damn close that I can feel his breathing against my neck.  He smells of coffee and mints, and his mouth moves against my ear as he hisses, “You neeeed…to confesss…your sssin.”  I cannot move.  Breath so hot, my skin feels scorched.  I fear my head will explode.  I shudder, smacked with the sudden realization of my growing dread.  A scream swells but it finds no voice.  I have lost my voice.  In here it has no place.

I don’t remember leaving. In the car, I sit in stunned silence, feeling strangely defiled.  Once home, I open the linen cabinet, grab a clean washcloth and unwrap a new bar of soap. I let the shower run hot before stepping into the steam, where, under the scalding spray, I furiously scrub every inch of my skin until the water runs cold and I emerge, purged.  Dripping and shivering, I wipe the misted mirror to reveal a reflection I no longer recognize.

I open my jar of Vicks and inhale slowly, deeply, inviting its stinging vapors to clear my head and reawaken my senses. Anger swells, and I make a promise to the face in the mirror:  Never again, for I will find my voice and reclaim my space--no matter how long it takes.

[orgbosslady]

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[desert2stream-blog]

Saturday Share with Julie Dibble

Welcome to Saturday Share!  

The purpose of this weekly feature is to provide a space for regular people to share their real-life encounters with Jesus. It’s about living in the middle – on the way to the finish line.  Our stories are not finished and that’s the main point!

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which…

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