My Divorce From Christianity (1St Post)

[Abrooks2007]

Hi everyone.

 

So I'm a little shy in new places...haven't posted in a forum like this or introduced myself in a new forum like this in years...but I need support inasuch as I consider myself a "recovering Christian" at the moment.

 

The following is a post I made on Microsoft Word in case my computer crashed, so please forgive any syntax errors.  Here goes:

 

            On Monday, April 14, 2014, at 6:23 p.m. PDT, I quietly stormed out of St. Thomas Anglican-Catholic Church for the last time.  I finally had it.  I was done.  Done with Christianity and its historical and contemporary hypocrisy.  Done with the egotistical arrogance of both heterosexual and “gay-friendly” priests.  Done with the fluffy “kum by yah” of worship which glossed over Christianity’s historical atrocities.  And most of all, done with the way that I and other gay people have been ostracized by religion’s short-sightedness and arrogance.

 

I was, and hopefully am forevermore, DONE, DONE, DONE with Christianity.

 

My introduction to the Christian faith was through my mother, at around the age of 3 or 4.  Unlike most Protestant denominations, the notion of “hell” “gahenna,” or, otherwise, some place where “evildoers” and the “non-believers” went to be tortured for all of eternity was never brought up.  It was mentioned in slang in films and with my peers in school (i.e. “Go to ‘hell’ and burn”) and things like that, but not as an actual ‘place,’ per se.  So, until the age of fourteen, it was a very foreign concept to me.  Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses that I associated with for a time associated “hell” with “the grave.”  The fire and brimstone concept was also alien to them, or, at least, to the people I had spoken to.

 

Then at the age of thirteen, I became blatantly aware of my sexuality, that I was physically and emotionally attracted to other guys at school.  My enlightened knowledge of gay people at that time was that they were weird and demented people who did strange sexual stuff in the woods and should be avoided.  Thus began the repression of my sexuality.  It is a torturous state of mental and spiritual dissonance I would never wish on my worst enemy.  This repression was intensified when I associated with the Baptists, who said over and over again that the evil, wicked, cowardly and sexually immoral (paraphrasing from Revelation) would be sent to the “lake of fire which is the second death.”

 

Being young, vulnerable, and impressionable, this fear wore at me day and night.  I feared that God would strike me dead at any time and that I was worthy of damnation.  Like other people on this website I was, essentially, brainwashed…not so unlike those cults which rewire their followers into believing and doing what exactly they say to do.

 

I was thinking about it this morning as of this writing (5/18/14) and shudder that I had been so horribly influenced by them.

 

At any rate, my mental health spiraled downhill to the point of believing that I would rather see death than live another day in torment.  I made three non-consecutive attempts on my life in my teens, the final one landing me in a mental institution for a week.  The really sad thing is that my therapist at the time and even the mental health staff were trying to convince me that my physical and emotional desires were normal.  There was nothing wrong with me.  However…and this is why I am very, VERY selective in the types of discussions I get into with Christians or religious people for that matter…in order to change one’s own opinions or attitudes, one MUST be able to be RECEPTIVE TO NEW INFORMATION that might CONTRADICT PREVIOUSLY HELD BELIEFS.  I was not yet at that point.  So after I got out of the hospital, I convinced myself that it was “just a phase” and that I was lonely.  I was, oddly enough, even able to reconcile my physical attractions without labeling myself as “gay.”  So what happened?  I joined the local Foursquare Church.

 

Over the next year and a half, I garnered a reputation for my knowledge of Biblical scripture and Judeo-Christian history.  I made it a goal to read the entire Bible over the summer of 2000, which I accomplished.  The Gospels I had already read dozens of times.  I was ready to be a “disciple of Christ.”  And so I was.  I successfully converted people who either were looking for a new way of life or had left the faith but wanted to possibly return to it.  I spoke at “testimonial” meetings and was very active in Foursquare Church activities.  For those who don’t know what the Foursquare movement is, it is a splintering-off from Pentecostalism, founded in 1920 by an Evangelist by the name of Aimee McPherson.

 

Still struggling with my homosexual orientation, I made a visit to my pastor, whom I had developed a close bond with at that time.  Unlike many pastors, he was more sympathetic to my situation but still said that it was “not a good path” for me to develop a relationship with a man.  Oddly, unlike other churches I heard of, he did not recommend I attend Exodus (organization dedicated to making gay people straight, which has since disbanded) or any organization of that sort.  He just said he would pray for me.  And it was left at that.

 

The next year I developed feelings for a man in my freshman class of college.  Realizing that I could no longer run away from this part of my human identity, and also realizing that suicide was not a good or responsible option, I decided to do research.  I spent the entire summer of 2002 at the library, reading on homosexuality, reading stories of people who had come out to parents, and the like.  Finally, on August 01, I came out to myself as a gay man and then to my dad, who is not religious, a couple of weeks later.  He accepted me immediately.

 

My affiliation with the Foursquare Church, now in another city, did not end immediately, however.  I did find that I was questioning doctrine more and more.  Finally in September while I was listening to the pastor’s sermon, I reflexively rolled my eyes at him.  I realized that it was finally time for me to go.  So, when he and his wife moved to Colorado, I left that church on September 26, 2005 and never looked back.  No one called or missed me, which was good riddance.

 

I went the next six months without a church until I found the Episcopal church, which was very gay friendly. For the next few years, I felt at home.  I re-established and redefined my Christian identity within the confines of my being.  However, I was reading more and more of the Bible, and began to be disturbed by verses such as God ordering Saul, through Samuel, to murder entire populations, including babies (yes, BABIES, mind you that hadn’t even had a chance to TALK YET) directly dictating commandments such as an eye for an eye and a foot for a foot, and then Jesus contradicting those in the Gospels.  These inconsistencies began to disturb me, so I asked my priest about them.  He said that he looked at the Bible as a “series of voices.”  Indeed, it was and is.  However, those series of voices…make up the Bible.  Which is a contradictory work, as I finally realized this year. 

 

Then in 2010, I dated a man for a year who was a devout Catholic.  Being attracted to the faith at that time, I began to absorb his doctrine.  I still believed that there was such a thing as theological certainty.  And once again, I allowed it to brainwash me.  That, accompanied by the church’s incessant peddling for more and more money, alienated me from St. Luke’s.  I briefly attended another parish for a time before ending up at St. Thomas Anglican-Catholic Church in 2011, after a disasterous breakup with my boyfriend.

 

Again, I thought I had found a church home.  At St. Thomas, I felt at home from August 2011 to April of 2014.  However, I was acquiring more and more knowledge from documentaries I was watching on DVD and online, as well as various analyses I was reading from Bart Ehrman (The Lost Gospel of Judas) and Marvin Meyer (Professor at Chapman College and well-renowned author) and just getting more and more disturbed.  Finally, what slowly began to put Christianity in the coffin for me was praying the monastic practice of four prayer sessions a day and reading psalms such as 137, which advocated dashing babies’ brains out on the rock, and a psalm between 100 and 110 which advocated making God’s enemies fatherless, widows, and children orphans.

 

Also, there were the observance of the liturgical seasons.  I began to realize that they’re all repetitive.  And, to an extent, barbaric, in terms of Lent.  I mean, essentially in the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Orthodox Churches, Jesus is crucified over and over and over and over and over and over again.  It is the most prominent example of sado-masochism I can possibly think of. 

 

Anyhow…

 

In May of 2011, a documentary appeared on Youtube by a young man (ok, he’s close to my age lol) who had lost his boyfriend because he accidentally fell off a rooftop.  Naturally, the loss of someone he loved so dearly was horrible enough.  But his boyfriend’s family—a group of holy and righteous Christians to be sure (sarcasm intended) threatened to shoot him dead if he showed up to his funeral.  He had zero rights under law since same-sex marriage was not recognized much anywhere at the time.  I sat in my chair, stunned, for nearly two hours with tears pouring out of my eyes.  Now mind you, these are Christians—who, in their Bible, they say, that the compassionate will inherit heaven.  And yet, they are an example of what true hypocrisy can be, and, sadly, is.

 

Again, I met with my priest (I forgot to mention that St. Thomas is gay friendly—but has its own sets of hypocrisy as I will mention later here) and he conceded these issues within Christianity.  Again I mentally fought and held my faith close.  But crumbling?  Oh, yes…yes indeed, it was crumbling.  And the big “KABOOM!” was yet to come.

 

After my time in the Roman Catholic Church with my ex boyfriend, I kept in touch with a certain priest.  We had our differences, but he was still fascinating to talk to.  Then last July he sent out a sermon on homosexuality.  I knew this was going to be trouble.  I read it and when I saw that he said that “the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexuality…” I knew that our friendship had ended.  We exchanged e mails, with me saying something to the effect that I wanted nothing further to do with the Roman Catholic Church, and it was done.

 

I stopped attending Mass altogether at St. Thomas the next three months.  But I had not arrived to the point yet of renouncing my faith.  When one is brought up with a belief from a young age, it is difficult to let go of…at least for me.  So I came back.  But I found myself less committed than before.  I went to the weekday Masses, but not to Sunday Masses.

 

Then along came Holy Week of this year, 2014.  I assumed it would be like years past, in which I would attend all services and do my volunteerism.

 

Boy was I wrong!

 

At 6:10 p.m. on Monday evening, I quietly arrived at St. Thomas the Apostle with the intention of doing my annual confession.  For those who may not know, it is recommended of the faithful to do an annual confession in order to fully cleanse one’s soul before the Easter feast, so that one may be pure.  My confession was basically in regards to failing my exam a second time.  I am obtaining a Master’s and passed my second section, but failed my first.  The exam is read by a panel and then voted on to pass or not pass.  As I found out later, it failed by one vote.

 

The priest, who had been supportive in past confessions, proceeded to say that I needed to study a lot harder and that if I didn’t pass, my employment opportunities would be limited.  He went to say some other comments, not knowing I had studied for an entire year and a half and criticizing me knowing the pain I had endured with the passing of my mother and grandma a few months before.  Initially, for the first few minutes, I accepted his statements and finished the confession.

 

Then I sat by myself in the pew and my blood began to BOIL.  My thoughts went like this:

 

“Who is he to judge me?  I am a hard worker, a good student, and have been told as much.”

 

“He knows the pain I went through and yet he still criticizes me.”

 

“You know what…THAT DOES IT.  I AM DONE!!!!!!”

 

That last quote was inspired by the Disney cartoon version of The Jungle Book when Bagheera loses his patience with Mowgli.

 

I got up, grabbed my sweater, and quietly stomped out of the church.  EVERYTHING THAT WAS CHRISTIAN WITHIN ME DIED THAT DAY.  EVERYTHING.  It finally got to be too much.  The hate messages in the media.  Seeing my new friend’s documentary.  Seeing the innocent people whose lives had been terrorized by dogmatic statements of “hell” and “damnnation.”  And, finally, just realizing how stupid, hypocritical, judgmental, and full of itself the whole religion is.

 

I forgot to mention earlier in this testimonial that I happened on ex-Christian.net during that first three month excursion from the church.  I returned a few days ago and finally joined.  I wanted this to be my first post.

 

Thank you for reading.  Comments and feedback are appreciated.

 

Your new member,

 

Andrew

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Welcome, Andrew!  You've had a rough ride. So glad you're here.

[bfuddled]

Welcome, Andrew! I just joined a few weeks ago, but the group is awesome and very inviting. I'm glad you made it through and are here

[Darkillusion]

Welcome to ExC! Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, it really resonated with me. I have a friend who is a lesbian, trapped in the labyrinth of fundamentalism. For five years she's suppressed who she is, mentally tearing herself apart because she has "lesbian thoughts" that she can't get rid of. She looks at it as something god will cure her of someday. She's in Christian college and has no idea I've deconverted because she would probably stop being friends with me since she would think id lead her down the wrong path. If she tells anyone her thoughts they shun her like she's a freak and toss her off onto counselors. She was even removed from a dorm because they felt she was a threat to the girls there, just because she told a close friend about her temptations.

 

I want so badly for her to realize the truth, like you did. Like you said, she has to be receptive to it otherwise it falls on deaf ears. What can I say to her? It kills me to watch her emotionally torn apart and betrayed by supposed friends. She will never truly be happy with herself while trapped in this mind f*** known as Christianity.

 

I think Christianity is so toxic particularly for those who are gay because you will NEVER be able to live up to those standards since, contrary to Christian thought, you can't just stop being gay NOR SHOULD YOU!!! Embrace yourself, love yourself, revel in being human for once, enjoying this life you have. Take pride in what YOU do and have accomplished without tossing the credit at some deity. Keep posting here on ExC whenever you have a problem, rant, or triumph in your ExC life. Everyone here is so supportive and helpful and give so many good resources. And again, WELCOME!!

[Margee]

Welcome to Ex-c Andrew! Thank you for sharing your personal story with us. It was well written. You should become an author!! Your story writing is so nice to read.

 

Every letter I read on Ex-c brings me back to the first day I joined this site and wrote my "Please Forgive Me' letter. That seems so long ago to me now. When I read about you going and doing 'confessions' it rang strangely to me......almost like I was reading about a cult!!! And so it is!! It's all a lie! It's all a tribal lie! It's just a story that the ancient man made up  as he was evolving! There is no christian god up there who is going to  bring us to heaven or send us to hell!

 

Andrew, this will rock your world. My whole world view crashed and I stood alone wondering who I really was? I have completely changed in the last 3 years and and now a much stronger person. So many things have changed. It's quite the journey you are about to go on!! Stay here with us and we'll go on that with you and help you as much as we can. I'm so glad you are here with us!!

 

I remember so clearly the day I also renounced christianity. I haven't been back to church since the day I left. It was like leaving an abusive husband behind and saying, 'I've had enough - No More!!''

 

My son is gay. I was a hairdresser for 40 years and worked with gay men. My first cousin and best friend was gay. Trust me, I know the pain that gay people go through. You are soooo welcomed here. I hope you'll stay with us awhile? I can't wait to see how strong you get just by writing out ask your frustrations. The gang was so good to me. Post after post, they would help me to understand how I believed in a big lie my whole life. It's getting better by the day. I want that to happen for you!!

 

Best of luck on this bumpy ride!! *hug*

[buffettphan]

Thank you for sharing your story with us, Andrew.  Isn't it amazing that when we really read the bible and study the church's history -- sans god-goggles -- how obvious the biblical contradictions and downright hatefulness of christianity become?  Welcome! 

[Ellinas]

Welcome.

 

You have experienced the very worst side of Christianity - the side that says you cannot be what you are because you are allowed only to be what we think god wants.  The side that says you must deny yourself whatever suffering that causes because that glorifies god.  The side that never admits that its' true agenda is social conformity to maintain the influence of the Christian hierarchy.

 

Congratulations on your escape and the freedom to be yourself.

[Abrooks2007]

Hey.  Thank you everyone for your replies.  Hope you are all well.

 

There was another thing I forgot to mention in that testimonial.  It was how constricted the role of acolyte was at my previous church.  You were supposed to bend and genuflect a certain way, do this or that a certain way, etc.  Felt so…artificial and strange.  Heh.

 

Being an inherently spiritual person, I don't think the word "atheist" or "agnostic" suits me, at least not at this time.  As my profile states, I believe in the stability of the universe and community with other human beings.  That's my religion of sorts.  I've also found that the atheist and agnostic are more kind and compassionate than most Christians I encounter.

 

I look forward to sharing this journey with you all and I look forward to continuing to read and comment on other posts.

[Aries256]

I am definately glad you saw through the bullshit, and left the horrible atrocity of xtianity. Welcome, and I wish you best on erasing the horrors

[Abrooks2007]

Thanks again, everyone.

 

I admit, I was slightly apprehensive of putting my sexuality out there, given that sadly, there are homophobes even amongst ex christians, albeit far fewer than in Christianity.  But I am glad to see and feel, albeit this is a website, the amazing support.

 

I have been reading the stories on here and salute you all, as  you've saluted me, in making it through your struggles.  I look forward to contributing to this site.

 

Andrew

[dutchie]

Hi Andrew, 

 

I´m so happy for you that you got out of big shit hole. It is just crazy that a group supposed to be compassionate and loving, will find  

that you at you very core are wrong. I can´t imagine what you must have gone trough. 

 

Btw, you have a nice writing style  

[Abrooks2007]

Thank you all once again.

 

I have been on this site reading testimonies at least once a day, albeit not posting much, the past couple weeks since I joined on May 09.  They have been very inspirational.

 

Andrew