Why I Am No Longer A Christ Follower

[lulukan]

I posted a link earlier, but thought it might be easier for some to read my blog on here. So I am cutting and pasting the first two entries. I just started this yesterday and will keep writing stories about growing up a preacher's daughter. Thanks for letting me share my story!

 

Here is the link to the blog www.whyileftchristianity.blogspot.com

 

First Entry:

 

In the beginning, there was a very young and curious child. She grew up in a military household and at the time of her "conversion" had two younger brothers. That small child who was always in the very front and middle of her classroom pictures for school, due to her small size, was me. :-) I was a very gentle, good and obedient child who mothered my little brothers and never liked to see anyone hurt. I know that my parents meant well and loved me very much.

 

 

It seems, from my memory, that one day we were a "normal" military family for a while, and then we turned into freaks. Jesus freaks. I think this happened for the same reason the some people get pulled into cults (you may decide after reading some of my stories that we were in a cult, I will explore that later). I would like to study a bit more about cults to perhaps understand this.

 

 

 

My mom's dad died when she was a teenager and her mom was a working mom who grieved and drank away her sorry. My mom and her sister were left to deal with their sorrow on their own. Perhaps a church family with open arms was appealing to her.

 

 

 

My father (from what I can gather from little stories here and there) was verbally, and perhaps physically, abused by his cold-hearted dad, who never knew how to show him love. He joined the military at age 17 and left his family behind. Maybe the pastor of the church represented a father figure for him to follow. It seems they were both searching for a family to love them, and church offered that for them. I can imagine it must have felt so good to have the Christian community gather around them and support them. In a very short time, my father went from being an ex-catholic who thought the church would catch fire if he walked in, to a leader in the Baptist church and eventually a Baptist preacher himself (but I am getting ahead of myself here).

 

 

 

As my brothers and I moved through our lives, we began to see some changes in my parents. Sunday mornings became a time of getting dressed up and heading to church. We were all pretty good kids, and I remember that I always wanted to please my parents. I learned Bible verses and went to Sunday school to learn all the Bible stories I could learn. I don't have specific memories of my actual "conversion" experience except that my parents were SO happy! We lived in Hawaii at the time and I remember I was baptized outside at the ocean on a cool, breezy day with several people on the shore watching with smiles on their faces. I am not sure if I even knew what being a Christian meant, but I knew that my parents were happy with me, and that was so important to me. So, I emerged from the water "born-again" and ready to start my new life. At age nine.

 

 

Second Entry:

 

"Women have little voice in the Bible, and what voice they do have is given them only to illustrate the deviousness, silliness, untrustworthiness and general insignificance of their sex."

Alice Walker- excerpt taken from "Anything we Love Can be Saved"

 

 

Some people say that you remember the things most that caused strong, intense emotion. Well, I was an extremely sensitive child, so I think that I blocked out a lot of memories.

 

One memory I have is being twelve-years-old. I was going on a “date” with my dad- I think maybe one of about five or less where I actually spent time with my dad- to see a baseball game. I was so excited to be going out alone with my dad. Being the oldest of four at the time (my sister had just been born) I did not always get time alone with a parent (unless I was in trouble for something). I was wearing my favorite orange (hey, it was the 70s, give me a break) bell-bottom jeans and a t-shirt. It was spring time in Washington State and I felt excited to have a plan for the night. Then, I noticed my parents having a private chat and discussing something. My mom started acting weird and got her I-need-to-talk-to-you-but-I-am-scared-of-confrontation face on. She started talking; these are definitely not her exact words, but close:

 

“Um, Lori? Your dad and I (It was never just “I”) think that you are a nice, Christian young lady now and we have been reading the Bible a lot and talking to Christians at church and we think that you should start dressing like a lady. You should start wearing skirts and dresses, instead of pants” She looked hesitant, like she knew I would object.

 

“What? Why? What is wrong with my jeans? These are my favorite jeans!” I was feeling confused and wondered what was wrong with my parents. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach; felt a sinking, sad feeling.

 

“Well, the Bible tells us that women should be ladies in God’s eyes and that women should always wear dresses and skirts and look like a woman of God. Your jeans make you look too much like a man. Don’t you want to look like a young lady?”

 

Ha ha how do you answer that one? “No?” Then you are being disrespectful and perhaps you are too boyish or even (shock) a lesbian or something horrifying like that. “Yes” then you are conforming to their stupid rules. But I was a very shy child and I knew my dad had a temper (if only the church people could see how mad he got) so I changed my clothes into this ugly flowered skirt and went, begrudgingly, with my dad to the baseball game. But the night was ruined for me. I had an extremely difficult time climbing the bleachers and felt that if anyone was down below me, they must be able to see up my dress. Is this really what God wanted me to do? Did God really hate women so much that he wanted to torture us like this? I also think that this was the very beginnings of me feeling like my body was something ugly, something that I should cover up and not be proud of. It was also the last day for a very long time that I wore pants. From that day on, my mom had her friend sewing up some of the most geeky, god-awful (hmm pun intended?) "cullots" (looks and flows like a dress, but has a cut for the legs like shorts, but long and not easy to move or play in- see pic above- except the ones that I wore were more full and had flowery fabric- ew) you have ever seen in your life. Age twelve is not really a time when you want to start looking like a freak. But my parents made damn sure that I did. I envied my brothers, who had no wardrobe changes due to our crazy religion.

 

Something I have never been able to understand about Christians and the churches we attended was the way they acted like women were evil, lust-filled creatures who should be controlled and covered up, because it was unfair for the good Christian men of the world to see their bodies (I guess their lust would get way out of control if they saw our legs? And then what? We would deserve what we got?). What an extremely sad way to bring up a young girl full of hope for the future; to be ashamed of her body and to feel like a second-class citizen. Women were not even allowed to speak in our churches. They were seen as unworthy to speak in a room with men present. They were only allowed to sing, or address other women. I will write more about this later as well.

 

I also began to wonder about this all-knowing God. I pictured a big-bearded man up in heaven- filled with harps, golden gates and white robes- looking down at me with a scornful, disappointed face when I did something “sinful.” As you will see in my future blogs, sinful could be anything from rock music (ANY THING with a drum in it) to G rated movies (Produced by the same movie makers who made the R rated ones).

 

Slowly, very slowly, I began to wonder if this God was someone I wanted to be associated with.

[dB-Paradox]

Hi lulukan. Welcome here! Interesting entries. I'll check out your blog to read more. Mistreatment of women is definitely a man-made thing, and has nothing to do with a god or any kind of deity. The whole bible teaching that women are somehow lower than men is crap! The bible is not God inspired...it's man inspired. Created to control! Thanks for sharing!

[PK!]

Welcome to the site! Great read so far. Being the son of a pastor myself i can probably relate to a lot of your experiences. Not having a baptist upbringing like yourself, i find it rather shocking regarding the treatment of women. Each denomination has it's rules and regulations(many not biblical)that in the big picture shows just how poisonious Christianity can be. Once again, welcome!

[★ Citsonga ★]

“Well, the Bible tells us that women should be ladies in God’s eyes and that women should always wear dresses and skirts and look like a woman of God. Your jeans make you look too much like a man. Don’t you want to look like a young lady?”

 

I take it she didn't show you the actual scripture that says that women have to wear dresses and skirts? I didn't think so, because that scripture doesn't exist.

 

I changed my clothes into this ugly flowered skirt and went, begrudgingly, with my dad to the baseball game. But the night was ruined for me. I had an extremely difficult time climbing the bleachers and felt that if anyone was down below me, they must be able to see up my dress.

 

Indeed, in circumstances like that, it would seem that dresses and skirts would be considered less "modest" than pants.

 

Something I have never been able to understand about Christians and the churches we attended was the way they acted like women were evil, lust-filled creatures who should be controlled and covered up, because it was unfair for the good Christian men of the world to see their bodies (I guess their lust would get way out of control if they saw our legs? And then what? We would deserve what we got?)

 

Some ultraconservative Mennonite circles take that even further and don't allow elbows to be uncovered (this goes for men and women both), since folded elbows supposedly could make a man think of a woman's breasts. Go figure. I'm a man and admittedly can admire an attractive lady, but I have NEVER had anyone's elbows prompt me to think of women's breasts. Whoever came up with that idea must have really had one hell of a sex drive!

 

At any rate, on the bright side, at least you didn't grow up in ultraconservative Muslim circles. If you think you had it bad, they've got it even worse. If a woman gets raped, the rapist usually gets off scott-free and the victim gets shunned! Women are even put to death for stupid little reasons like walking outside without being accompanied by a related man! Gawd, how can people be so cruel???!!!

[Shyone]

 

At any rate, on the bright side, at least you didn't grow up in ultraconservative Muslim circles. If you think you had it bad, they've got it even worse. If a woman gets raped, the rapist usually gets off scott-free and the victim gets shunned! Women are even put to death for stupid little reasons like walking outside without being accompanied by a related man! Gawd, how can people be so cruel???!!!

From time to time laws punishing the victims of rape come to light (while the rapists are slapped on the wrist if punished at all).

 

From Wikipedia:

 

However, the stringent requirements for proof of rape under some interpretations of Islamic law, combined with cultural attitudes regarding rape in some parts of the Muslim world, result in few rape cases being reported; even the cases brought forward typically result in minimal punishment for offenders or severe punishment for victims.

 

Regarding the Saudi imprisonment of a woman for being raped,

 

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the verdict "not only sends victims of sexual violence the message that they should not press charges, but in effect offers protection and impunity to the perpetrators."

[HRDWarrior]

The whole treatment and attitude of women was probably the primary thing that drove me away from christianity. Try as I might, I never could dismiss all the bad things said about, to, and because of women in the bible. My mother seems to be able to cling to those couple entries that are actually friendly towards women and dismiss all the rest, that, or she would lose her faith as well I believe. I think she clings to them just so that she can pretend bible god actually likes women. I tried, for years to do the same, but just never really could.

 

As far as women being treated worse in muslim countries - legally, yes, they are treated far worse. However, if our laws followed the attitudes of the christians I grew up around, women wouldn't be treated much better - perhaps slightly, but without the laws moving the way they have the last 100+ years, I don't know that it would be any different. Thank goodness they don't and didn't, but my mother would have followed her church leaders long before the law - even when she was told she had to stay with my father even if he beat her to death (this was after he had physically hurt her and had threatened to shoot her, something he was very capable of doing), because that was the role of woman, to stand by her husband and submit no matter what. She was also told that since the man had to answer for the family, it was his duty to handle situations as he saw fit to keep everyone in line.

[Franko47]

Something I have never been able to understand about Christians and the churches we attended was the way they acted like women were evil, lust-filled creatures who should be controlled and covered up, because it was unfair for the good Christian men of the world to see their bodies (I guess their lust would get way out of control if they saw our legs? And then what? We would deserve what we got?)

 

 

I've been hearing a little more of this lately, from younger men (for some reason) who attend typical "fundy" churches.

 

 

I believe there is a correlation between fundamentalist thought in any religion and maledom/sexism. But what can you say about a religion that has a sect a billion strong that refuses to ordain women or allow their clergy to marry ?

[lulukan]

Something I have never been able to understand about Christians and the churches we attended was the way they acted like women were evil, lust-filled creatures who should be controlled and covered up, because it was unfair for the good Christian men of the world to see their bodies (I guess their lust would get way out of control if they saw our legs? And then what? We would deserve what we got?)

 

 

I've been hearing a little more of this lately, from younger men (for some reason) who attend typical "fundy" churches.

 

 

I believe there is a correlation between fundamentalist thought in any religion and maledom/sexism. But what can you say about a religion that has a sect a billion strong that refuses to ordain women or allow their clergy to marry ?

 

 

What I say about it is they obviously see women as "less than" and refuse to see women as equal; which is a hard pill for a feminist to swallow!

 

 

Thanks so much for all the replies. It is so good to be in a supportive community. :-)

[Composer]

IF only these pretend story book Jesus believering bible bashers would actually tell the story book truths, they would easily show perfect gender free equality within its pages -

 

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal. 3:28-29) KJV story book.

 

christianity is a scourge on decent societies.

[lulukan]

IF only these pretend story book Jesus believering bible bashers would actually tell the story book truths, they would easily show perfect gender free equality within its pages -

 

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal. 3:28-29) KJV story book.

 

christianity is a scourge on decent societies.

 

Perfect! Exactly. Thanks. :-)

[Brakeman]

Welcome to the site,

 

I love getting womens perspective in these discussion forums. You've got great company as well.

 

I think it's sad about the quashing of a beautiful young girls spirit with misguided religious customs.

Really, If "god" didn't want women to dress like men and not cause gender confusion, then a halter top and short-shorts are definitely the way to go, not burkas.

 

I am the father of young beautiful daughters, and I want to learn how to inoculate my children from cults and men who believe in cults, and I consider all religions to be cults.

[Brakeman]

Even though I am a male myself, I consider women to be the better gender overall. Except as young boys, men's minds are constantly clouded by the drug like effects of Testosterone. It makes us competitive, belligerent, insensitive, and domineering. I think men evolved to hunt and protect, thus the need for the hormonal effect, but that which we treasure today in society, specifically relationships, is not bettered by these traits.

[Or'el]

Wow... I really appreciate the opportunity to read your story. As a woman, I can identify with what you have written because of some very similar experiences in my own life. I am very new to all of this, and reading stories that I can identify with certainly helps me not to feel so alone. Maybe I will write down my story and post it someday. Thanks so much for sharing.

 

-Or'el-

[summerbreeze]

Even though I am a male myself, I consider women to be the better gender overall. Except as young boys, men's minds are constantly clouded by the drug like effects of Testosterone. It makes us competitive, belligerent, insensitive, and domineering. I think men evolved to hunt and protect, thus the need for the hormonal effect, but that which we treasure today in society, specifically relationships, is not bettered by these traits.

[summerbreeze]

Brakeman, WoW, a great observation ! Yes, I believe that when that 'ol testosterone kicks in....so much sensitivity

and compassion fly out the window. Of course all men are different, and this happens at different degrees. I think that the testosterone "link" goes back to our primitive past, when men NEEDED to be extremely competitive, and have controlling instincts just in order to survive in a hostile world. I have a high respect & admiration for men who are man enough to be sensitive, and can put those aggressive tendencies on the back burner. I just wish that my 1st husband hadn't been "cursed" with over-the-top testosterone, he was a skirt-chasing, macho ( HE thought !) car racing, thrill seeking Jerk. Good Riddance.

[★ Citsonga ★]

Except as young boys, men's minds are constantly clouded by the drug like effects of Testosterone. It makes us competitive, belligerent, insensitive, and domineering.

 

I guess since I'm not competitive, belligerent, insensitive or domineering, you must not think I'm a man.

 

[Shyone]

Except as young boys, men's minds are constantly clouded by the drug like effects of Testosterone. It makes us competitive, belligerent, insensitive, and domineering.

 

I guess since I'm not competitive, belligerent, insensitive or domineering, you must not think I'm a man.

 

He means psychologically. Your answer is all of the above.

 

1. Competitive. You answered and attempted to defeat his reasoning.

2. Belligerent. Similar to #1. As in bellicose, warlike, you are trying to crush his reasoning.

3. Insensitive. How do you think he feels about your attack? Your sense of competition overrides your concern for his well-being.

4. Domineering. Your attack, if successful, would result in your "domineering" over him.

 

Ok, maybe a slight stretch, but you are hardly a model of peaceful acceptance of differences of opinion. That would have led you to keep your answer to yourself - passively, peacefully, sensitively and submissively.

[★ Citsonga ★]

LOL, good one Shyone.

 

By that reasoning, everyone would be characterized as competitive, belligerent, insensitive and domineering, since anyone who responds is counted as such and those who don't respond can't be counted.

 

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I've been hearing a little more of this lately, from younger men (for some reason) who attend typical "fundy" churches.

 

 

I believe there is a correlation between fundamentalist thought in any religion and maledom/sexism. But what can you say about a religion that has a sect a billion strong that refuses to ordain women or allow their clergy to marry ?

The one i went to was baptist, they believe that not only are women below men, but are their property and that we should return "our property" into our ownership.

 

In reality, I fantasize of a woman owning me, and not the other way around. That just sounds hawt.

 

IF only these pretend story book Jesus believering bible bashers would actually tell the story book truths, they would easily show perfect gender free equality within its pages -

 

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal. 3:28-29) KJV story book.

 

christianity is a scourge on decent societies.

The Bible is so full of contradictions. One minute women play a key role, the next no role. One moment they can't be church/temple (OT too!) leaders, the next they can. It depends on where you're reading. Though as the "liberal" christians cherrypick from the good parts, its seems the Baptists and those like them seem to want to cherrypick from the worst parts and use them to glorify the hely lard.

 

Anyone else think that the people in those churches are secretly gay?

1) they hate women and think men are everything

2) are so homophobic they have to be hiding something (especially since they think they've chosen not to be gay)

3) they think gays being able to marry and adopt children will somehow hurt them

 

The only thing I can think of, is that they are all homosexual. I have nothing against homosexuals, I just think that thats what they are secretly. Just put the three together.

[Shyone]

LOL, good one Shyone.

 

By that reasoning, everyone would be characterized as competitive, belligerent, insensitive and domineering, since anyone who responds is counted as such and those who don't respond can't be counted.

 

Bingo. It's not testosterone, it's chromosomes.