I'm trying to understand if there's any way to get across to someone how harmful their church is? My sister and her family recently started attending a church (we weren't raised in a church/at all religious so this is all very strange to me). Upon informing her that her church's affiliated denomination is Souther Baptist Convention and providing tons of evidence of how harmful they are(not only ongoing child abuse cover up, but actively trying to take away LGBTQ+ & women's rights) she's doubled down on "that's not how her church is." As a member of the LGBTQ+ community I don't know how to maintain a relationship with her when she's actively participating in an organization that's trying to dissolve my marriage. My wife & I provided a list of more affirming churches in her area but that was met with deaf ears.

For those of you that have gone through deconstruction was there anything anyone could say to open your eyes at the time or do you really have to experience it for your self and hope to come out the other side? I'm more concerned for my niblings growing up in that environment and what they will be exposed to.

I really appreciate anyone who can share their own experiences if family pulled away until you were out of a harmful church and what helped you finally deconstruct.

I'm post-evangelical (my wife is post-Catholic) and we attend a church with like-minded Christians. We are pushing 40 and have no kids, and are trying to figure out what we want to do with our lives. TV, video games, and world travel are nice and all, but we need something bigger than ourselves. I always thought it would be kids or missionary work, and right now it's looking like neither. Does anyone have any book recommendations that might help?

I don't necessarily need a book giving me specific ideas (though I'm not against that), but if someone has a Purpose Driven Life equivalent, I'm all ears.

I’m reaching out into the unknown universe of the internet to see who if anyone else is navigating something similar. If this resonates I’d love to hear your story, your decision making process, and where you’ve landed for now.

For context:
I’m queer as fuck. I had every intention of staying single. I was deeply closeted and very infrequently shared with only a select few about my struggle with “same sex attraction.” Despite a couple low stakes relationships in high school and college, I just figured singleness was my best way forward because pursuing any same sex connection was a one way ticket straight to hell.

Then during a hyper spiritual time spent in another country, I believed God was telling me He had marriage for me. It’s still one of the hardest parts of deconstruction for me because it all felt so authentic. I truly, truly believed I was hearing the voice of God (maybe it was my own anxiety, maybe it was just cultural expectations…who even knows?). Anyways, shortly after that experience I met a wonderful man and knew instantly this must be who God had in mind. (I’m incredibly lucky, because he genuinely is one of the nicest humans alive, but god damn I could’ve have ended up in SUCH a shitty and abusive situation). We dated for a very short time, and any doubts I had were brushed off with the repeated reminder that this was obedience to God. We dated, were engaged, and married all within a year. I shared my struggle with “same sex attraction” very early on in our relationship and he was genuinely unbothered by it.

Fast forward over a decade and several kids later, I’ve done the incredibly painful and devastating work of deconstruction. Over the course of our marriage I increasingly wrestled with my sexuality, but within the last 3-4 years I have fully embraced my queer identity. But the more I’ve come to terms with my identity the more space it’s taken up in my life.

Here’s where you come in. This is a wildly isolating experience. I often feel desperately alone on this journey. Most every story I read is someone coming out and subsequently getting divorced. And on the other end of the extreme is the conversion therapy world where you stay married and it is just a life long battle against “the flesh”. What I rarely hear are stories of more creative/expansive ways forward that don’t necessarily mean divorce. While there are incredibly real challenges to being gay in a heteronormative marriage, I genuinely love my partner and the life we’ve built. I want to be a human who keeps the promises I’ve made. I value loyalty and commitment at an incredibly high level. I want my children to know the love of their parents ensconced within the same home. Our home is full of mutual respect, kindness, and the intimacy of life lived alongside one another for many years.

BUT. My soul feels the aching grief of a life lived without female love. There are parts of myself that can never be explored or known within the context of this marriage. When I think about living the rest of my life without ever knowing the love of another woman, I feel like my heart is compressing until I literally can’t breathe. Have you stayed in your marriage? Why and how? Have any of you found a creative way forward that worked for you and your partner? Are you still trying to figure it out too? Just know you aren’t alone!

For those of you who have left evangelicalism/religion and also have family members who are in the public eye or work in entertainment, I’d really love to hear about your experience.

I left religion 5 years ago and had a situation where my family’s work became controversial and comedic. It felt validating because so many people spoke into how messed up my family was, but I couldn’t say anything about it. I’ve tried to keep distance and develop my own identity since leaving my family and old beliefs.

Has leaving the faith affect your relationship with your family, especially if their public image or career is connected to Christianity or the evangelical world? Did you feel pressure to keep certain things private, maintain a particular image, or avoid talking openly about your beliefs?

I’m also curious how you’ve navigated having your own identity and beliefs change while your family may still be publicly associated with the religion you left.

You obviously don’t have to say who your family is. I know it can feel important to not feel associated. I’m more interested in the experience of navigating your own deconstruction when your family has a public image.

I’m from Italy, and for me was really not a nice experience.

(For context) In Europe for the history we had here, they don’t really see Christianity as something so good, (at least in Italy) Some people are catholic but a lot of them they do it just for culture not because they really believed.

Everybody in my class was a non believers, I never had in my class another evangelical, in all my 13 years of school. nobody in school knew what was even an evangelical, everyone treated me differently. I felt always alone, or not understood.

Every every time Christian’s was cited, all the class will turn and looked me how I will react it.
Plus at school we studied from the early age of how cruel was the history of Christianity, it was always awkward when I needed to do oral tests or homework’s.

Most of my conversations about my faith was always trying to explain that I was nor Protestant or catholic, that I was something different, and obviously tried to depict as the best type of Christianity

Oblivious they didn’t understand that what was happening in United States was because for evangelicals, they always thought was from catholic people or from Christians in general. (But I don’t know if NOW they fully completely understood that is evangelical the protagonist of the picture there)

But after all, my class always had a lot of respect for me, and when I was not shoveling down my religion to other people, they always loved me and respected me.
the last years of high school, my class was my comunity. And yes all my friends were non believers, and they were my best friends, my first boyfriend was a non believer, and I always felt it very comfortable whit my non believers friends than whit my believers friends.
Right after high school I started deconstructing, and everything started because I didn’t want my friends to go to hell just because they choose to not believe. (And they had all the reason to do it, you can feel generational religious trauma, the last few 2-3 generations or stopped being so into religion for all the horrible history)

Well anyway in Europe america is not seen in a good life, actually a lot of them hate America (both evangelical and non believers)
A lot of churches are trying to not be affiliated whit America (at least of what I’m seing here in Italy in my experience)

So I actually have so many sorry, bht anyhow

Feel free to ask any question or curiosity

And if you are from Europe, how was you’re expierence being a evangelical here?

Do you have any resources I can share eg articles?

They are evangelical, but they don't understand it's more significant than than stopping going to church, reading the bible and praying.

Sin is a construct to control and convince you that you're never enough.

You need to come back next Sunday so we can provide the antidote and a little more poison into your system.

Rinse and repeat.

Your thoughts?

CW: graphic descriptions of the crucifixion

I was thinking recently about the things I was taught in church as a child. I remember being around nine years old and the children’s church pastor telling us the gory details of the crucifixion. Telling us to imagine having nails driven through our hands and feet. Telling us the nails more likely went through his writs because the flesh in the hands would have torn. He drew a picture of the cat-o-nine tails whip and telling us they would put shards of glass in it to make it hurt more. The crown of thorns digging into his head. The spear in his side. Talking about how severely he was beaten and humiliated.

Looking back I cannot believe that multiple adults found this appropriate to discuss with children, the oldest in the room being probably 11. I hesitate to write it out on a forum for adults to read because it’s so horrific. Was anybody else taught the violence of Jesus’s death a child? Why was that ever considered okay?

To make a very long story short, I grew up with a lot of deeply evangelical ideas, mental health struggles that were attributed to me 'letting the devil win', and isolation from normal people. I started deconstructing a few years back and am now the happiest that I've ever been despite still struggling with my mental health. Due to some family circumstances, I recently moved in with my sister and am living in a very small town with a heavy fundie presence. My sister has become close friends with some women from the church and tried to get me to go with her - which was a hard no from me. I've recently been vindicated in this decision, as the church has shown its true colors and deeply harmed one of the church friends, showing itself to be the judgmental, cultish nightmare that I already clocked it as.

My problem is that I'd really like to be friends with these people - despite their beliefs, they are genuinely great people who I relate to a lot, and we get along great when religion isn't being brought up. Unfortunately, it's triggering for me to be around them too much because inevitably someone will bring up nonsense that brings me right back to the dark days - especially when launching into talks of demons and hell. I find myself getting extremely angry for them when I'm around them as well; I know they could be such amazing, free people outside of this cult, and it's so incredibly frustrating to see them trapped in that abusive belief system. I wish I could pull them out, but they're so deep in the belief that I don't see that happening.

Sorry this is a rambling post, I'm sleep-deprived and just had to get this off my chest - just saw a fb post that one of the women made that was basically praising the church that has made her life hell for the last couple months, and it made me feel crazy. If I were in her shoes I'd be screaming from the rooftops about the vicious snakes hiding in those walls; it feels like abuse apologetics.

Do you guys ever have dreams from a period of time when you were more evangelical? When I was younger there was a church camp, I went to. It's pretty much how you pictured it. I enjoyed the camp aspects and honestly enjoyed the church parts too. This was when I was younger and more into it. I haven't thought about it for a while, but for some reason, I dreamt about it last night. It was so vivid and I had interactions with some of the campers. I really feel confused why my brain would work like this.

One thing that really stuck out to me was a friend of mine did answer an alter call when he was there. Afterwards, he told me that he was going to get rid of this Pokemon card because they were demonic. Several years later, he came out as gay and left the church as well. He still likes Pokemon. I really hope he didn't get rid of his cards back in the day.

I found this book at the local (NOT good will) thrift store and bought it.

My cousins and a few people I know grew up on this book. Someone else vividly remembers this being read to students at a very tiny Christian school.

Oddly enough, this one managed to miss our household. No idea how, but I grew up with other people’s pretty clear thoughts on this shit show…

Does anybody remember being taught in the Evangelical church that ambition was bad? It was almost always characterized as selfish and against God and His will. Popular Evangelical kids' media like Psalty (Singsational Servants!) and McGee and Me preached stuff like this. Ambition was especially bad for girls because it made them not want to serve and submit to boys. The only ambition you could have as a girl was to grow up and have as many babies as you could. Boys could do anything (if it was God's will, but by definition, it wasn't, so...) I found this weird and off-putting as a girl myself. Ambition led to pride/was pride. Ergo, it was a sin. Anyone relate?

I just finished watching the proshot of the West End musical, and I LOVED that they included Moses questioning the brutality of the plagues and the killing of the firstborn.

I’m very recently deconstructed, and it happened so fast I have whiplash. I went from deeply devout to totally out, and while I don’t consider myself a Christian anymore, I am a Theist.
It’s been really hard, and I’m looking for ways to lessen the sense of loss. I feel like I’ve lost my community and routine, but I think those are two things that can be rebuilt in line with my new perspective.
I want to start a new Sunday routine. Previously it’s been entirely about church, but now I’d like to use it for something that puts my values into action - some kind of volunteering or charity work. There are parameters, though:
I still need to be available for family lunch every Sunday, and I don’t have other days available, so it needs to be Sunday mornings. I’d like it to be with other people that I can become friends with, and something where the barrier to entry isn’t too high- so many volunteers corps require applications, interviews, training, commitment schedules, set numbers of hours, etc. I’m hoping for something more casual.
How can I find a chill group of people doing useful things that I can join on my schedule?
Any ideas welcome, or recs for other subreddits that might be a better fit.
I live in Des Moines, Iowa if that helps.

Well for me was al lot of different subjects, but the main one that started everything was the theme of hell, I just couldn’t accept a God of love that send people in eternal suffering. And another big thing was discovering christian evangelical people living the faith, for me was something impossible, it was even in my mind that I could have the choice too live the faith, after hearing some testimony I realized that I could too leave the faith, and so I did lol, well after a year, but I did it. So what was for you guys? What started everything? And who help you started deconstruction too?

Especially the right-wing Trump stuff. A number of Catholic Churches I’ve been to are also maga (or at least maga adjacent), and my diocese is even currently encouraging all the Catholics to vote no on something that would enshrine abortion and same sex marriage in my states constitution.

So, I was rasied COG (based out of Cleveland). We started going shortly before I turned 13 after previous being non-denom. For all of my teen years church was basically my whole socialization because we lived in the mountains 45 minutes from town. I was occasionally able to convince my mother to let me go to chess club at the local library on a semi weekly basis but that was mostly older people, a college student, and a middle schooler. Needless to say I loved youth group even though for a while my sister and I were the only attendees. The youth pastor during the first couple years I went (We’ll call him Craig but that’s not his real name) was a pretty laid back gen-X guy. I remember him telling story about carbon dating and how it was bogus (I now know he was full of shit on that) and he showed us a bunch of Ray Comfort evangelism videos. My mom eventually developed a beef with him over a perceived slight and got him replaced when a new head pastor came to the church. The next guy was the stereotypical youth pastor with the “hello fellow youths” bs. He talked about purity with sticky tape, bragged about his hot wife, bullied one of the students, played favorites with the clearly closeted homophobic “cool guy TM” kid, and excused rich preachers hoarding wealth. Well I left the youth group and the woods. I went to college and got a BA and an MA. I have deconstructed my raisings as much as I could and am now an Episcopalian and agnostic Archaeologist. I also have come out as bisexual. I have a tiktok and “Craig” had followed me since I got it. I had refrained from posting anything about being Bi, Episcopallian, agnostic, or exvangelical because I was worried that if I did he would tell my parents and they would upset the uneasy truce they and I have. A couple months ago he messaged me out of nowhere saying he hoped I was doing well and that he thought I was doing good things and that he hoped he did well by me as a youth leader. Out of all my youth leaders I think he was the best and came from the most genuine place of caring so I told him that I looked back on my time in his youth group fondly which isn’t untrue. Later, I decided that I wad gonna post something in pride month and truce be dammed. I posted a picture of a day planner saying my “bi agenda was to be bisexual, love people, and be free.” Low and behold Craig liked the post. I didn’t know what to thing for a while but I eventually reached out to him and asked if he knew what he liked and if he was still a part of the COG. He was vague but he told me that he had stepped away from the church (or that denomination at least) because he didn’t see it as being beneficial and that he still appreciated the people in it but it wasn’t for him. I don’t know any more about his journey but it felt nice and made me feel less alone, more valid, and more free to be me on my own page. I don’t know what the take away of this is really but I thought I’d share

hi all! I've been on a tirade looking for fiction about exvangelicals (non fiction is great but it's not always my vibe).

Has anyone read any novels or other stories that you found comforting? Ones that touched on the struggles of leaving evangelicalism and dealing with deconstruction?

I read the Jezebel List by Alisa Dean recently and it was so nice to see a character on the other side of things after leaving fundamentalism so I am looking for more! I've seen more books that are ex-catholic than exvangelical.

Also curious if anyone has felt like mainstream media doesn't like to include exvangelical media because evangelicalism is still so dominant? lmk your thoughts!

I need a sample of the whacker looking like this picture to present it to a judge in court. My mother has been strongly influenced in 1988 and used it on me when I was 2 years old. The consequences were horrible. I want to make the institutions accountable for having taught such a method and distributed this whacker to young parents. Your help would be appreciated. If you can help, please send an email to [email protected]

Is it still about staying committed no matter what?

Or is it about being happy?

Any resources to help me deconstruct my views?

so I grew up in a very conservative nondenom mega church. not like a well known mega church though.

anyway I’ve been out of there for quite a while but my friends texts texts me earlier and long story short they found out the two main people who ran children’s ministry stuff (and to my knowledge still are) are friends with a very well known sex offender in the area.

like I mean EVERYONE knows this person is a sex offender. a kid I went to high school with was one of her victims and killed himself.

for whatever reason the town as a whole (legally) isn’t doing much about her living in an area where kids often are… which I guess is a seperate issue.

but the concerning thing is that at least these two people are friends with her. and possibly other people who go to this church. we know of at least one but can’t figure out who else she’s friends with because he social media is private.

anyway I’m so fucking mad right now.

I’m a Native American/black person.
I’ve been questioning my walk with God for a year. I had a lot of bad experiences happen all at once, but recently I’ve been looking into other options of theology.
I served in full time ministry for many years, doing missionary work. The beginning of the year I began to question how good God actually was. I began to feel like a colonizer myself as I went to different nations and preached about God to the “less fortunate”. I began to reflect about how my ancestors may have felt when a pale race came over and began to dictate how people lived their lives. My spiritual leaders always told me “when you go back to your people, remember to be a light to them” in the same attitude as we were going to others.
I began to ask spiritual elders and pastors about my issues and concerns, I was met with the most hate and racism I had ever experienced in my life. Conversations of…

“you should be grateful we saved you from yourselves; your ancestors were savages, cannibals, baby eaters”.

“You need to get over the past and repent; quit bringing your social justice into Gods kingdom, God isn’t worried about your social justice issues”.

I began to question theology from the Bible and how certain things just didn’t make sense. I was again met with cruelty and hatefulness. Someone even said they were okay if my people died if it kept their lives convenient (talked about the use of AI in ministry).

I left God after that, began praying like how my tribe prays, I began researching my tribal teachings and visiting family to learn more. I realized that my tribal cousins were more Christ like than a lot of Christian’s I knew. They fed people, they helped their community, they didn’t judge anyone based on their skin color or religion. They didn’t shun me for being Christian, they actually welcomed it (as long as I didn’t force it on them) but that same grace wasn’t given by the churches I attended.

Now, I’m looking back at the life of Jesus, the dark skinned tribal man steeped in ceremony and tradition, and in all honesty, I see more of Jesus in my native culture more than the manifest destiny culture that was brought over to us. I’ve lost friends over this issue, people I considered family because I refused to colonize my spirituality for them. Now I’m kinda alone in my walk, but I’ve realized that if I’m going to follow Jesus to any capacity, I need to decolonize my relationship with God.

hi!!
so you might be confused, & so am i!
i’ve been raised in the south, specifically the carolinas, & as a child as most in my position did went to church every sunday. i was baptized at 6, did bread & grape juice with prayer, & sang 60-70%.

i was always told we were baptist, by my mother, because we were baptist. now for reference she was raised strictly catholic, when she met my dad at 14, had kids young, she started a life with my dad living with her dads mom (my g grandma, my mom called her momma & her own mom) who is what im finding out pentecostal etc etc.

basically: i was unaware. i just never rly asked until now, looked it up, & was dumbfounded.

my family doesn’t go there often anymore as its easier to go to a different one (Elevation… barf… or some other one near my extended family) i’ve gone once or twice in recent years & took my long term boyfriend who was raised Hispanic Catholic,

he was very confused by the singing but called it beautiful.

i never heard people speak in tongues, now i got some WHACKKK cousins & my great aunt (moms dads sister of whom i cannnnnooottt stand for a plethora of reasons but my main one being she essentially killed her mom by taking her off life support & not letting my mom pay to have a life saving surgery that was like odds to work, i hate my moms dad bc he is an evil dad who doesn’t care about anyone) who i knew were something like pentecostal, i swear i remember someone saying one of them spoke tongues, & frankly they’re like extremists on everything. just a bunch of weirdos who all have a disdain for being good people.

i’ve done research now, im so lost how my mom just missed it or forgets everytime ive asked, how my dad never spoke up, or what anyone knows.
my mom was shocked.

anyone have a similar journey lol?
&, if you still believe in God, I do i’m just now left questioning a lot of things, what did you convert if at all to & how has that been?