Trying to understand the point of this article. Of course Jesus loves us. Of course he makes demands on us, requiring changes that make us uncomfortable. We are all sinners and rely on his grace and mercy but that still requires our cooperation with him as He gives us the strength through prayer and the sacraments. Once I started praying daily and consistently the chains of sin loosened and my freedom and love for God increased, slowly and sometimes imperceptibly. I guess my point is I am striving for a virtuous life and that’s uncomfortable and often difficult. In pursuit of virtue my character changes and my ordered life brings me peace and contentment as I align myself with his will.
I was a Church of Christ person, as in Kip Mckean Boston Church. What a crazy ride. Happily Catholic now after being received into the Church many years ago. I wandered in the desert for years flirting with martial arts and meditation and various strains of religion. Very glad God rescued me from my aimless wanderings. The desert isn’t fun.
When you’re trying to walk a path of forgiveness, it can be so hard to call people out in the moment, especially when it’s a public moment. But I am so tired of being asked to treat cruelty and prejudice as if they are tenants of faith, to give those ‘beliefs’ equal space alongside things like compassion and humility. Reading your unspoken thoughts was really cathartic— and it felt like a kind of justice. Thanks for sharing them.
I just wanted to say thanks for the reminder of dear Walt Whitman at the end of the entry. He was excoriated by the religionists of his day of course, but such a huge heart, overflowing with awe and mercy. American Xianity has hardly yet dealt with the deep truths of biology brought to light in the 19th century by people like Whitman and Darwin (each of whom were my collegiate exit doors from the evangelicalism I'd been raised in in the 70s-80s).
G_D help the healers (and you are among them for me, Diana)!
Amen Diana I left the Catholic Church because they wanted me a vote for Trump.
When a priest stands up and says every democratic woman needs to be excommunicated. That was the end for me. I walked out of that church. Never to return. Thank you for all you do Diana
Reading what you wrote about why you answered the way you did caused an almost visceral reaction in me. I "felt" that need to protect myself...to be liked. I don't like that about myself. I had that same reaction when you wrote about those "still haunted by...rapture fears." Only the Lord knows what it was like for me in the mid-seventies. I was very seriously mentally ill...I had quit functioning several years before. I was attending church, but it was all I could do to get there (I no longer drive) and sit there for an hour at a time. Most days found me lying on my living room floor, trying to get my breath. End times talk was everywhere. "The Late, Great, Planet Earth" book and movie by Hal Lindsey had been out for a few years by then. People were seeing the "mark of the beast" in everything. I remember a guest speaker one Sunday. The entire sermon was about the Bermuda Triangle. Then my father committed suicide (three years after my brother did). My mind collapsed. I began to "see" signs of the end of the world everywhere I went. I "saw" stairways crumbling and bushes dying. My fear of God wasn't the healthy kind. I felt was sheer terror when I thought about what he was about to do. Fast forward to Covid lockdown. A friend kept trying to talk about the possibility that "this was it!" I tried to tell her that I had trauma memories and didn't want to discuss that particular topic and she just couldn't understand. I was surprised I still physically and psychically felt so strongly...but "the body remembers." Church trauma is real. I'm thankful for this community, and for you, Diana.
I feel your pain! I can't help but wonder, though, if maybe you took the question about your opinion about Evangelicals the wrong way. I doubt it was asked with ill intent by the questioner, but with your recent experience of being with so many people who all had bad experiences in an Evangelical church, you were naturally feeling their pain and probably were reminded of your own painful experiences. However, to be fair most of those people probably came from hundred of different churches, whose people were mostly kind. It only takes a few bad apples to do a lot of damage. I think the majority of Evangelicals are good Christians who are loving people, trying to sincerely grow as Christians and who help many people in ways pleasing to God.
However, my husband and I recently left a church of people deceived by Trumpism, but who in their individual lives are loving and kind and sincerely want to be good Christians. We were frustrated, though with Evangelical leaders who don't follow Jesus' passion for the poor and who are more interested in growing numerically than in discipling people to show mercy and kindness to the poor in ways that show respect and actually lift the poor up.
We're now in an independent Evangelical church, much less apt to be deceived by Trumpism, with pastors wanting to be accepting of minorities and the poor. However, the people, who are well educated Evangelicals, seem to be rather complacent about ministering to the poor. They love theology! I'm going to do what I can to stir them up without antagonizing. We still feel a bit like newcomers.
I truly pray for healing in the church universal, especially those wounded by fellow Christians. I pray Jesus' love and compassion can bring true healing and unity.
From Evangelical Free Church (because of Swedish grandparents) to Presbyterian USA Berkeley (because of deconstruction/reconstruction before I had the language.)
Alumni of Westmont like Diana. Went to my 50th reunion where I was so uncomfortable but had some fun opening my mouth and spicing up the conversations!
Recently went through an exercise with my Spiritual Director: Who was Jesus to me in each decade of my life? From 0-10 Jesus Loves Me This I Know to 19-20 Certainty to 70+ acknowledging and embracing the ambiguity.
I just recently edited Tripp Fuller and Thomas Oord's new book, God After Deconstruction. It brought up a lot of memories for me and I was able to use my own deconstruction & reconstruction experiences in helping them find ways to convey their ideas and connect with their audience. It seems to be getting a very positive response so far from people it has already helped.
Thank you Diana for your words of truth and compassion. As an American I would say to the Canadians posting here, if all evangelicals had the outlook of Tommy Douglas there would be no problem. Americans look him up. Unfortunately this is not the case. For far too many, evangelicalism promises a kind of security but at the price of losing your freedom. Often it gives its followers answers to the questions but at the price of creating an intolerant tribalism. I grew up with evangelicalism/fundamentalism. After much struggle I was finally able to say, " Free at last, thank God Almighty free at last."
I wept as I ready today's post. Words given to some of my wounds, so many of them untold. I grew up as a daughter of an evangelical pastor. I became a pastor and walked through many moments of rejection as a female pastor, but I always had such a strong sense of calling and unwavering support from my husband. After navigating so much of the complexity surrounding Covid times in the north east of the States, I thought our small, independent church had "made it." And then where there was once unconditional love and acceptance of all, the violent hatred of politics ripped everything apart. I'm still astounded and glad I am. The Evangelical church shaped my young faith and i am so grateful that I've been able to grow in new, green pastures. It's far simpler and somewhat lonely, but it is completely authentic. Thank you Diana, we all come to your words from different lenses and they feed us.
I also am an “exvangelical” — and I have this angst inside me, bc while I do not identify as evangelical, I do believe that there is difference between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. I made that differentiation after reading the absolutely WONDERFUL small missive: “Letters by a Modern Mystic” by Frank Laubach, who identified as an evangelical. But what a beautiful soul he was — in fact I was amazed that he identified as such.
He actually admitted learning from those he was evangelizing, and what a poet’s heart he had.
Thank you for this reflection. There was a time when US conservatives followed the doctrine of compassionate conservatism, driven by GW Bush. My point is not whether progressive folks can support that, but that conservatives actually used the language of compassion.
The great violation of decency, came from not just an amoral but an immoral 45th President. He enabled the language of compassion to become a dirty word in US discourses. From him came the idea that civility and decency were anathema to Christian human beings. It's how families got split and polarised and demonised. There is now no in-between of the far right and the far left, according to this dogma. Family members are now the enemy. I wonder where compassion is in this landscape?
The book of Revelation suggests that people will worship the Beast. That they will be so enamoured they won't recognise him, but worship him in their midst.
I'm not an American. In a globalised world, when America sneezes, 5,000 people in my country lose their jobs. So what happens across the Atlantic is important. It is a source of chagrin that so many "Evangelicals" worship this orange man who has unleashed vulgarity. It is hard to imagine a man so boorish and uncouth and crass could become the most powerful man in the world - again!
What you have expressed here, is that he is not all that far from the Evangelical church itself, where there is a dearth of compassion and a certain crudity in how it treats people. Where Moses is the preferred embodied model over the Good Samaritan. Where turning the other cheek is considered weakness. Where concern for the foreigner, the widow, and the women caught in adultery are all subsumed by revenge politics. Where congresswomen behave as if they're headlining the Jerry Springer Show. Where the KKK-endorsed POTUS brags about paying off a porn star. How did we get from Special Counsel Ken Starr to this?
It is exactly what happened on January 6th where a mob lost all sense of boundaries and appropriateness of behaviour and gave in to their basest, basest instincts.
The Evangelical wreckage has landed on society via a "social media" that is weaponised against society. Right in the centre stands the Evangelical Church, egging it all on.
I'm on the outside, and I see this toxicity. It's baffling indeed. I'm not sure how you will get out of this bind. I pray you will stay strong, keep the faith, speak for justice and compassion; "they will know you are Christians by your love."
May I be bold enough to make a prediction? Over the next decade, the mainline churches are going to fill their pews like it's 1969. (That date just popped into my head) With ex-evangelicals. I also left my non-denominational mega-church in 2019 for a tiny sanctuary of an Episcopal church. I am not alone.
In many circumstances, the church is its own worst enemy, inflicting the most damage on its own people.
Trying to understand the point of this article. Of course Jesus loves us. Of course he makes demands on us, requiring changes that make us uncomfortable. We are all sinners and rely on his grace and mercy but that still requires our cooperation with him as He gives us the strength through prayer and the sacraments. Once I started praying daily and consistently the chains of sin loosened and my freedom and love for God increased, slowly and sometimes imperceptibly. I guess my point is I am striving for a virtuous life and that’s uncomfortable and often difficult. In pursuit of virtue my character changes and my ordered life brings me peace and contentment as I align myself with his will.
I was a Church of Christ person, as in Kip Mckean Boston Church. What a crazy ride. Happily Catholic now after being received into the Church many years ago. I wandered in the desert for years flirting with martial arts and meditation and various strains of religion. Very glad God rescued me from my aimless wanderings. The desert isn’t fun.
When you’re trying to walk a path of forgiveness, it can be so hard to call people out in the moment, especially when it’s a public moment. But I am so tired of being asked to treat cruelty and prejudice as if they are tenants of faith, to give those ‘beliefs’ equal space alongside things like compassion and humility. Reading your unspoken thoughts was really cathartic— and it felt like a kind of justice. Thanks for sharing them.
Exevangelical too😎😎wrote about it in my second entry
I just wanted to say thanks for the reminder of dear Walt Whitman at the end of the entry. He was excoriated by the religionists of his day of course, but such a huge heart, overflowing with awe and mercy. American Xianity has hardly yet dealt with the deep truths of biology brought to light in the 19th century by people like Whitman and Darwin (each of whom were my collegiate exit doors from the evangelicalism I'd been raised in in the 70s-80s).
G_D help the healers (and you are among them for me, Diana)!
Amen Diana I left the Catholic Church because they wanted me a vote for Trump.
When a priest stands up and says every democratic woman needs to be excommunicated. That was the end for me. I walked out of that church. Never to return. Thank you for all you do Diana
Reading what you wrote about why you answered the way you did caused an almost visceral reaction in me. I "felt" that need to protect myself...to be liked. I don't like that about myself. I had that same reaction when you wrote about those "still haunted by...rapture fears." Only the Lord knows what it was like for me in the mid-seventies. I was very seriously mentally ill...I had quit functioning several years before. I was attending church, but it was all I could do to get there (I no longer drive) and sit there for an hour at a time. Most days found me lying on my living room floor, trying to get my breath. End times talk was everywhere. "The Late, Great, Planet Earth" book and movie by Hal Lindsey had been out for a few years by then. People were seeing the "mark of the beast" in everything. I remember a guest speaker one Sunday. The entire sermon was about the Bermuda Triangle. Then my father committed suicide (three years after my brother did). My mind collapsed. I began to "see" signs of the end of the world everywhere I went. I "saw" stairways crumbling and bushes dying. My fear of God wasn't the healthy kind. I felt was sheer terror when I thought about what he was about to do. Fast forward to Covid lockdown. A friend kept trying to talk about the possibility that "this was it!" I tried to tell her that I had trauma memories and didn't want to discuss that particular topic and she just couldn't understand. I was surprised I still physically and psychically felt so strongly...but "the body remembers." Church trauma is real. I'm thankful for this community, and for you, Diana.
I feel your pain! I can't help but wonder, though, if maybe you took the question about your opinion about Evangelicals the wrong way. I doubt it was asked with ill intent by the questioner, but with your recent experience of being with so many people who all had bad experiences in an Evangelical church, you were naturally feeling their pain and probably were reminded of your own painful experiences. However, to be fair most of those people probably came from hundred of different churches, whose people were mostly kind. It only takes a few bad apples to do a lot of damage. I think the majority of Evangelicals are good Christians who are loving people, trying to sincerely grow as Christians and who help many people in ways pleasing to God.
However, my husband and I recently left a church of people deceived by Trumpism, but who in their individual lives are loving and kind and sincerely want to be good Christians. We were frustrated, though with Evangelical leaders who don't follow Jesus' passion for the poor and who are more interested in growing numerically than in discipling people to show mercy and kindness to the poor in ways that show respect and actually lift the poor up.
We're now in an independent Evangelical church, much less apt to be deceived by Trumpism, with pastors wanting to be accepting of minorities and the poor. However, the people, who are well educated Evangelicals, seem to be rather complacent about ministering to the poor. They love theology! I'm going to do what I can to stir them up without antagonizing. We still feel a bit like newcomers.
I truly pray for healing in the church universal, especially those wounded by fellow Christians. I pray Jesus' love and compassion can bring true healing and unity.
From Evangelical Free Church (because of Swedish grandparents) to Presbyterian USA Berkeley (because of deconstruction/reconstruction before I had the language.)
Alumni of Westmont like Diana. Went to my 50th reunion where I was so uncomfortable but had some fun opening my mouth and spicing up the conversations!
Recently went through an exercise with my Spiritual Director: Who was Jesus to me in each decade of my life? From 0-10 Jesus Loves Me This I Know to 19-20 Certainty to 70+ acknowledging and embracing the ambiguity.
Music carried me through it all.
I just recently edited Tripp Fuller and Thomas Oord's new book, God After Deconstruction. It brought up a lot of memories for me and I was able to use my own deconstruction & reconstruction experiences in helping them find ways to convey their ideas and connect with their audience. It seems to be getting a very positive response so far from people it has already helped.
Thank you Diana for your words of truth and compassion. As an American I would say to the Canadians posting here, if all evangelicals had the outlook of Tommy Douglas there would be no problem. Americans look him up. Unfortunately this is not the case. For far too many, evangelicalism promises a kind of security but at the price of losing your freedom. Often it gives its followers answers to the questions but at the price of creating an intolerant tribalism. I grew up with evangelicalism/fundamentalism. After much struggle I was finally able to say, " Free at last, thank God Almighty free at last."
I wept as I ready today's post. Words given to some of my wounds, so many of them untold. I grew up as a daughter of an evangelical pastor. I became a pastor and walked through many moments of rejection as a female pastor, but I always had such a strong sense of calling and unwavering support from my husband. After navigating so much of the complexity surrounding Covid times in the north east of the States, I thought our small, independent church had "made it." And then where there was once unconditional love and acceptance of all, the violent hatred of politics ripped everything apart. I'm still astounded and glad I am. The Evangelical church shaped my young faith and i am so grateful that I've been able to grow in new, green pastures. It's far simpler and somewhat lonely, but it is completely authentic. Thank you Diana, we all come to your words from different lenses and they feed us.
I also am an “exvangelical” — and I have this angst inside me, bc while I do not identify as evangelical, I do believe that there is difference between evangelicalism and fundamentalism. I made that differentiation after reading the absolutely WONDERFUL small missive: “Letters by a Modern Mystic” by Frank Laubach, who identified as an evangelical. But what a beautiful soul he was — in fact I was amazed that he identified as such.
He actually admitted learning from those he was evangelizing, and what a poet’s heart he had.
Thank you for this reflection. There was a time when US conservatives followed the doctrine of compassionate conservatism, driven by GW Bush. My point is not whether progressive folks can support that, but that conservatives actually used the language of compassion.
The great violation of decency, came from not just an amoral but an immoral 45th President. He enabled the language of compassion to become a dirty word in US discourses. From him came the idea that civility and decency were anathema to Christian human beings. It's how families got split and polarised and demonised. There is now no in-between of the far right and the far left, according to this dogma. Family members are now the enemy. I wonder where compassion is in this landscape?
The book of Revelation suggests that people will worship the Beast. That they will be so enamoured they won't recognise him, but worship him in their midst.
I'm not an American. In a globalised world, when America sneezes, 5,000 people in my country lose their jobs. So what happens across the Atlantic is important. It is a source of chagrin that so many "Evangelicals" worship this orange man who has unleashed vulgarity. It is hard to imagine a man so boorish and uncouth and crass could become the most powerful man in the world - again!
What you have expressed here, is that he is not all that far from the Evangelical church itself, where there is a dearth of compassion and a certain crudity in how it treats people. Where Moses is the preferred embodied model over the Good Samaritan. Where turning the other cheek is considered weakness. Where concern for the foreigner, the widow, and the women caught in adultery are all subsumed by revenge politics. Where congresswomen behave as if they're headlining the Jerry Springer Show. Where the KKK-endorsed POTUS brags about paying off a porn star. How did we get from Special Counsel Ken Starr to this?
It is exactly what happened on January 6th where a mob lost all sense of boundaries and appropriateness of behaviour and gave in to their basest, basest instincts.
The Evangelical wreckage has landed on society via a "social media" that is weaponised against society. Right in the centre stands the Evangelical Church, egging it all on.
I'm on the outside, and I see this toxicity. It's baffling indeed. I'm not sure how you will get out of this bind. I pray you will stay strong, keep the faith, speak for justice and compassion; "they will know you are Christians by your love."
May I be bold enough to make a prediction? Over the next decade, the mainline churches are going to fill their pews like it's 1969. (That date just popped into my head) With ex-evangelicals. I also left my non-denominational mega-church in 2019 for a tiny sanctuary of an Episcopal church. I am not alone.