Why I am no longer a Christian.

[substitute]

In 1991 I underwent a religious conversion during a time of great personal stress. Since then I have been a Christian, but I’ve only gone to church for the first two years and very intermittently since. My particular faith is most easily described as “evangelical”.

The reason I haven’t had much to do with churches is that nothing about the culture of American evangelical Christianity is tolerable to me except the Gospel itself. This is a big problem, because you’re not just supposed to pray and learn, you’re supposed to interact with others. I’m instructed to be a member of a spiritual group and also to share the faith with others. At first it was just the problem of everyone being sort of corn-pone and not culturally aware, which is a lot more important when you’re in your 20s. Increasingly I ran into disagreements about science and politics that were a bit worse, and I stopped spending a lot of time with churchy people. After this election, though, I’m through. I’m walking out.

It’s time I stopped describing myself as Christian. I can’t do it. I look at the people who claim an evangelical faith and they make me physically ill. I can’t break bread with them.

The first thing that happens after a fellow believer discovers my spirituality is congratulation and a big smile.The second thing that happens is some political or theological litmus test. We are all supposed to support the war, support the current government, love capitalism, despise “liberals”, hate homosexuals, and deny the last 300 years of Western civilization. I am not to agree with the theory of evolution. I must support not only my own government’s wars but all those of the state of Israel. I am supposed to care very deeply about unborn children but let them starve or be bombed once they’re born. I’m supposed to reject the last 200 years of biology and embrace crackpot pseudo-science.

I look at the people around me that I love and you want me to hate all of them. I refuse. Hate me too, instead.

You people physically disgust me. All of you. I can’t be in fellowship with a nation of murderous ignorant hypocrites. Go back and read Amos and Isaiah, and think on this: are you the prophet, or the faithless nation?

You can call me a “liberal”, and I’ll thank you. You can call me a “humanist”, and I’ll smile. You can even tell me, as you have been lately, that I’m un-American and unwanted in your country, and I’ll respectfully disagree. But don’t call me Christian. My conscience won’t allow it.

Comments

[mcbrennan.livejournal.com]

i was a regular churchgoing christian once, myself. it was a long time ago, and i was just coming of age. the church was one of the early converts to the moral majority. it was like an overnight coup. one week there were idyllic paintings of jesus leading baby lambs through a field, the next week there were full-color portraits of aborted fetuses. one week there were festive singalongs, soon thereafter there were bonfires of kurt vonnegut books and john lennon albums. i learned about all the different satanists from elton john to elvis presley to judy blume.

i only wish i was kidding.

anyway, even at this age i knew what my deal was regarding gender/gayness/whatever, so i knew these people would probably physically kill me if they knew. but that wasn't enough to get me to stop going. not even when they claimed the UPC code was the signifier of the beast or that the 1982 planetary alignment would bring forth the apocalypse. no, what happened was john lennon got shot. and the following week, they were so happy, conrad. they were yipping and smiling and laughing, "take that, satan!"

that day is just seared into my memory. i never looked at god and christians the same way again. whatever grace and goodness there is in the world, i know it didn't come from the church. the christians' subsequent years of gay-bashing and record-banning and book-burning--not to mention the jaw-dropping hypocracy of pedophile priests and philandering pastors from bakker and swaggart to ol' paul crouch--only reinforced my negative views. it opened my eyes and taught me to seek god on my own terms and to avoid his self-professed followers like the plague.

having said that--i have often found comfort in the gospel and i refuse to let the so-called christians take that away from me.

i'm not sure what, if any, salvation awaits us. but i know for a fact that we walk more in christ's footsteps when we walk away from the big-money, big-judgement machine of "christianity" than we do when we accept the false fellowship of bigots and hypocrites. one struggles to imagine a god that would allow such hateful and blasphemous followers.

i'm sorry you've come to such a difficult place. i understand it, i agree with it, but still, i'm sorry. it's a lonely and painful thing.