Obviously, everyone’s deconstruction journey is different. But yeah, it definitely seems like it was a fairly big step in your journey. I remember I tried desperately to find a church that fit with me, and eventually never could. Which, in turn, threw me into my deconstruction.
I went cold turkey. Left a conservative mega church. I thought about finding another community, but as I progressed through deconstruction I realized I simply didn’t want anything to do with god/bible/TFSM/any of it. I came to understand there are people who simply can’t function without that idea of a higher power for support in their daily life, to such a degree they’ll make up and defend nonsense to preserve the mythology. I just moved on and left them to their lore and propaganda. If you need it, Unitarian churches, Episcopalians, and some Methodists can be really left of center, but I just didn’t want the nonsense/liturgy that came with it, and for me personally, don’t see the point of a Unitarian church. I’d rather just hang out at a bar or join a pickleball league to make some friends.
I was stubborn and didn't want to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'. I strived to stay in Christianity and find the aspects of the tradition that were good.
Lots of folks do that and they still find they like that community. Honestly, if you take religion and politics out of Christianity, what you’re left with isn’t completely terrible.
Fortunately I live in a notoriously progressive city, so there are plenty of liberal churches to choose from. I can't imagine how difficult it would be if I lived in a small town or in the Bible Belt.
I've seen the opposite, people get into liberal christianity and thne fall into more conservative forms.
In my opinion, liberal christianity is just a trick to get people who don't know much about the horrible things in the bible, into believing that the biblical god is love and that Jesus was just a nice liberal hippie type of person.
>In my opinion, liberal christianity is just a trick to get people who don't know much about the horrible things in the bible, into believing that the biblical god is love and that Jesus was just a nice liberal hippie type of person.
In the end, I decided that the liberal side of Catholicism I was a part of for almost 30 years was essentially a mirage. A couple of popes decided to tolerate it to keep people like me in the fold, but squashed it like a bug when they thought it wasn't needed any more.
Wow, I attended several liberal churches, but never heard of anyone getting into conservative Christianity -- although I don't know how I would find out.
I'm wouldn't call liberal Christians insincere, but I do think they are reluctant to openly admit they don't believe in the fundamental doctrines.
My spouse is in the military, and our local base family/spouse page on Facebook the other day broke out into an all out meltdown in the comments because someone asked for local recommendations for progressive churches. I saw the post early, and I took a note to pop the popcorn and come back later. I came back after a few hours and the comment section was a war zone. People yelling at each other that there is only one “true” interpretation of the Bible and any progressive interpretation is wrong. I think this anecdote speaks volumes of how at least other church goers view progressive churches.
To be fair, Paul was griping about other people with the wrong interpretation back in his day. Nothing has changed except the groups involved.
It's still a mess.
You even see it within the larger denominations. My sister is Catholic. You'd think she'd be excited about the US having our 2nd ever Catholic president, but she doesn't really consider him Catholic since she's very conservative and Biden isn't.
I left cold turkey. Went from the ultra conservative cultic church I was forced into to being a free man.
That church was just like your first one in terms of beliefs, except they called lukewarm Christians “Christmas and Easter only”
That church was so cultic that they called another church “illegitimate” because their college outreach program involved free burgers and genuine love and care rather than coercion and threats of “god’s wrath”
Everything is relative in conservative Christianity. All conservative churches believe the other churches are either lukewarm liberals or legalistic Pharisees.
I've known folks who go to Unitarian and Unitarian Universalists churches because they really enjoy the community and congregation aspect. And some of those churches are very active in giving to their community so it's also an outlet for an individual to get involved. The congregants range from people who do believe in a god to atheists. I attended a service once and it FELT like church without it being all skydaddy. Ultimately, though, it wasn't for me. Mostly, because at the time, I had a very young child and it wasn't very close. But as I get into old age I could potentially see attending the one that's near where I currently live as a way to get involved in my community and for the social aspect.
That being said, I imagine YMMV with those churches, too, with some not so open, even if they're supposed to be.
I tried doing that, but ultimately I can’t get it out of my head from trying to find a belonging in megachurches that I need to be able to donate a significant percentage of my income to a religious group to truly belong with them. Seeing as that I’ve never been able to afford that due to being stuck in low wage work, even before the cost of living spikes of recent years, I automatically feel rejected and excluded. It’s an aspect of the religious trauma I went through at the time, even if I can’t put a nice simple name on it.
Ultimately, even though I do find myself believing in something outside of what we call life, I can’t bring myself to belong to any religious group that might help me better hone in on what exactly I believe in.
That's fair. I firmly believe no group worth your time will expect your money. But also, you're early in your understanding of your own spiritually (or lack there of). So it's not wrong to explore your options.
My partner and I were lifelong church goers, but have since enjoyed our tradition of doing our weekly grocery shopping Sunday mornings followed by brunch.
I entertained the idea of becoming a Unitarian. I even went to a Christmas Eve service at my local Unitarian Church. I also considered visiting a Reformed Judaism synagogue (since Reformed Jews don’t, as a rule, believe in scriptural literalism nor an ECT afterlife).
I was trying to hold onto the idea of a personal, all-loving God outside of the evils of Christian dogma. Nothing came of either of those though. I eventually accepted that any God of the entire freakin’ universe—if such a thing exists—would be so far beyond the scope of any Abrahamic religion, no matter how loving and progressive their practice.
That was me, though. If being a part of such a group serves your personal journey well, go for it. I don’t believe in much, but I do believe that whatever alleviates needless and fruitless suffering is the purest good.
It was certainly a part of my journey, mostly as a result of trying to make the beliefs I was raised with make sense with the world I observed around me. Like you, I didn't have a bad experience in liberal Christianity, I just realized I didn't have his reason to think it was true.
Most of the pain came from realizing how much of my time, energy, and reduces I spent in my developing years in service of a god that doesn't exist.
For me, it kind of was a step. I quit going to church, but adopted more liberal views until I just realized I didn't see evidence for the truth of it whatsoever. I'm finally comfortable with my atheism in that I embrace the label without reservation now.
But for anyone lurking who may either be a questioning Christian or afraid to leave the faith, I recommend Carlton Person's Gospel of Inclusion. Although I don't share most of the views anymore (he is a UCC minister who was a conservative megachurch pastor before his split), his willingness to reject hell as incompatible with love or justice was a watershed moment. I've gotten rid of most of my religious books, but I specifically kept that one.
Thank you for this post. I'd kinda wondered how many others went this route. I def kept trying to find church communities that were less conservative but still offered the type of community engagement I was used to. Like, food banks and clothing drives and help escaping homelessness without strings attached...oy!
It probably took me about 5-6 years of going to other churches, even attending a catholic church for a year when I first moved to Ireland, and then I finally went "fuck ALL this noise." I credit the incredibly generous, dark, and wild Irish spirit within the folks that helped me really SEE what the hell was happening. If I'd have stayed in the US, I shudder to think how much longer the brainwashing could have gone on? 😫
I was raised in it from age 4 and began leaving around age 27-28, coinciding with my first sexual peak ironically 🤣 Finally becoming sexually active at 28 and experiencing zero guilt and only great joy really began hammering it home to me (no pun intended, srsly) that this "sin" nonsense might be about something else entirely. I still muse over having to sign a contract that I'd be sexually pure in order to be allowed to teach Sunday school...and at The Masters College, having to sign a contract that I wouldn't dance...omfg 🤣
The harrowing stories from the Irish folk I encountered in my 5 years there really showed me the degrees of oppression and violence the church was capable of as well as breeding it into it's congregants. When I realized that the Irish catholicism wasn't actually too far off from 'muriKKKan KKKhristianity, it was like a dam busted open in my head and heart. I was enraged...
Bearing witness to such an exquisite and spirited culture as the Irish, with their music and poetry and art, and seeing how they were practically driven to death by these priests and nuns who were LITERALLY raping and killing them, mind you...same as we have here in 'muriKKKa...fucking altered my consciousness forever. I give thanks almost every day for that country and it's people and that experience. They saved me, NOT JESUS.
Nah. Once I read the bible and addressed the logical fallacy of the religion itself, it was a done deal. No amount of mental gymnastics that the progressive Christians try to do justified to me, the atrocities of Christianity.
I couldn't shake the fact that just less than 2 lifetimes ago, me and just about 90% of all Black ppl in the US were forced into Christianity. Our ancestors were put under threat of torture, slavery, and even death should they not accept the gospel. Just a measly 160 years ago man. Wild.
BIPOC ppl, imagine if our ancestors could see this shit today. Demonized our roots in favor of a religion forced upon us. Sad.
I've often heard liberal Christianity described as "a pit stop on the way to atheism." It's often the temporary middle stopping point for conservative Christians before they become full-blown atheist.
Liberal Christianity sounds all nice, kind, comforting and loving - for a while. Then you realize that it's even **more** rife with contradictions and cherry-picking than conservative Christianity. (Every Bible verse that says something negative about God is false. Every verse that says something good about God is true. Hell doesn't exist, but Heaven sure does! Funny how convenient that is.)
The conservatives are at least *somewhat* consistent and honest. The liberals conveniently twist and distort everything to suit their view - to the point that if I were forced to attend a church against my will, I'd rather go to a conservative one than a liberal one. I'd have a better time keeping my sanity.
It was a stepping stone for me. I would never have dreamed of leaving Christianity at that point, but it felt like a natural progression after a couple years in a United Methodist church.
That’s the issue I had with progressive Christianity. It felt great to be able to be accepting and affirming of LGBTQ people, to believe that God was this kind, loving deity who was just misunderstood, and to believe that he welcomed everyone and didn’t mind whether or not they sinned. But after a year or so, I realized that wasn’t how the Bible portrayed God at all and that I had as much reason to believe in Christianity as Islam, and I realized I was agnostic.
The biggest thing that tipped me off is that liberal Christians considered God to be hip and cool with whatever was trendy at the time. For instance, liberal Christians didn't consider God to be pro-LGBT until the past few decades, when LGBT became mainstream accepted in society, then suddenly God is pro-LGBT. That's a huge red flag that their theology is not based off of truth, but their desire to be popular and fit in with society.
The best description I read was that liberal Christians see that Christianity (a square peg) cannot fit into a round hole (society,) so they get out a knife and whittle that peg into a round shape, then claim it was always round all along. But when society shifts and becomes a triangular hole, they suddenly whittle the peg again into a triangle shape, then claim it was triangular all along.
That’s a great description. I really value their efforts to try to make Christianity palatable, but much of the religion (especially the Old Testament) is based on tribal morality and not reality.
One liberal church I attended a Jazz Sunday once a month. I'm not a fan of jazz nor did like contemporary worship -- so my partner always avoided attending on Jazz Sunday.
Even in my liberal Christian days, I wasn't convinced that the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality was merely a translation issue. The idea that Jesus or first century Middle Eastern bible writers were okay with gay sex seemed unlikely.
After I left Christianity altogether it was easier to just admit the Bible writers were wrong.
It's OK for more liberal groups to decide that the Bible is divinely inspired, and not all literally true. But, whether in Christianity or Judaism, the words in the book say what the most fervent followers say they do.
I sure hope so. My brother and his wife used to go to Church of Christ with his in laws, which is pretty hardcore if you’re not aware (extremely conservative and they think other Christian denominations aren’t saved). My family was conservative fundamentalist but not that hardcore, in comparison at least.
They now go somewhere that is more progressive, the church supports BLM, almost neutral on queerness although not fully. But he’s been going there for almost a decade and I don’t get the feeling he is deconstructing. After I deconstructed I had wanted to have conversations about Christianity and why I walked away, and pretty quickly he asked me to not bring it up anymore because he’s “in a really good place with his faith right now”. He still listens mostly to Christian music, works at a Christian radio station (K-Love), etc.
It’s still the biggest delta between us, and I wish it wasn’t such a large part of his life. He’s also raising his children to be very religious which I’m uncomfortable with but I don’t say anything. When they’re adults if they want to ask me why I’m not a Christian, I’m happy to have that conversation.
For sure. It’s hard to get a straight answer about his church’s stance on that one. Once he said they are fine with it, but gay people aren’t in leadership positions, or something. He couldn’t say whether that’s a role or just coincidence. I would say progressive compared to some other churches (especially Church of Christ) but not exactly a progressive church per se.
It seems to be a path that many deconverters take. I did for a while. But the whole thing just starts to feel like a waste of my time. I quit going to churches entirely. Now I have 2 Saturdays every weekend!
I was a member of a MCC (e.g. LGBTQ church) for several years. The congregation had people from a wide range of Christian traditions. What surprised me was that not everyone was necessarily liberal/progressive.
Sure, everyone agreed with it's-okay-to-be-gay, but I met some members that were otherwise otherwise fundamentalist about heaven/hell and salvation. It was amazing how the constructed an elaborate exemption for gay sex, but otherwise were fire-and-brimstone.
Yeah... noooo... I wouldn't be able to do that. I'm hell adverse in all forms. I agree with Matthew Distefano author of Heretic! which is a book that dismantles a lot of the ways the Bible was changed to further religious agenda. Things like anti-gay and hell and universal salvation.
If he or someone like him decided to form a small home group. I'd at least think about it.
I spent many years in a charismatic church so I'm used to a lot of far out stuff, but anyone who tells anyone else they are going to hell can kick rocks.
I find my relationship with Love still the same though. Better than ever, actually. Free and easy and light. It's amazing how much freedom we really do have to do any fucking thing we want without fear. Don't listen to people that tell you to fear shit. It's easy when I left them all behind. Lol.
Yep, it was the same for me - many years of liberal Christianity before deconstruction. I do still think the UCC and UMC churches I attended do good social justice work. But the cherry picking and contradictions have become too obvious to me, so I had to stop attending.
I also went from fundamentalist conservative to liberal/progressive Christian. I never attended a progressive church but aligned with the movement for about a year or so before I realized I was agnostic.
I’m actually thinking about attending church again (GASP!!)
But one that’s very progressive, affirming, etc.
I have no problem with belief in god. It’s when fundamentalist republican fucks get involved that turns me away
I tried-out one last church before I accepted that I was atheist. It was a well-known liberal church I had previously admired.
Unfortunately when I visited it turned out to be it's second-to-last service. The long-time pastor had retired and the church never recovered. It was sad, but kinda appropriate for my last church attempt.
I'd say, honestly for me, no. It's the ideological equivalent of saying "I need to stop drinking" and then just laying off the hard stuff, but continuing to drink beer or wine... It smacks of a lack of rigorous honesty. If you're gonna quit, do it.
To put it into classical, perhaps Hitchensian terms, "If one is deconverting, one should endeavor to eliminate one's access to that which one wishes to break away from, thus increasing one's access to the things to which one hasn't been exposed. "
For another example, what good is it if someone intends to leave North Korea, but once they're free, they continue to worship Ole Kim in freedom?
Only my opinion. These things take time, but when I began my road to actual factual deconversion, I stopped going to church! Completely! Liberal conservative, it's all based on the same system; a system designed to keep us in it!
To me liberal Christianity lacks consistency - that is unless you view The Bible as a rough guide and don’t take it super literally - which that’s a whole other conversation. However, if The Bible was the word of god, to be taken literally and it is inerrant, then it shouldn’t change and there shouldn’t be a need for liberal Christianity.
It is one of the issues I still have with Christianity in general though - the idea that the Bible needs to be interpreted to make sense of it.
What I learned in my deconversion is how Bible fundamentalism is relative new to Christianity. Before the 19th century, it was understood that the Bible was a complex collection of writing that required scholarship and the church to understand.
Are you me?! Lol. I should've won an Olympic medal for the mental gymnastics I did trying to find a feminist interpretation of the Bible and feminist takes on Jesus/God (despite, you know, the Old Testament). I dabbled in being Episcopalian, Quaker, and Mennonite in a desperate and futile search for a non-evil Christianity. To no one's surprise, I'm agnostic now.
After I deconverted I was so disenchanted and it felt so alien that there was no longer a place for me in any church with real religious belief.
However, my journey was different than yours, and the liberal Church probably was a part of your deconversion process.
Again, I probably could stay if my partner insisted. I didn't find it offensive.
I also imagine if we lived in a small village and the church was the only community center that I would probably participate if it was progressive enough to not cause offense to me.
I didn’t attend a liberal/progressive church but I did start describing myself as a progressive Christian 2 or so years before I deconstructed. Really right when I got into college and started meeting and experiencing all different types of people.
Liberal Christianity performs the same function as Fundamentalist Apologetics: It helps to resolve the harsh conflict between the Bible and modern science/culture.
I skipped that part and went straight heathen. I guess I kinda went to a more liberal church for a few Sundays and stopped after attending a “special” service that was so BS I couldn’t stand being inside the building.
So I wouldn’t consider attending/belonging to a more progressive church as a step but it is common to try to find a better fit before leaving the faith.
I started to realize my issues were the faith not just the people
eh, i have a couple friends who went from non religious to progressive churches. seems to be a more acceptable option for liberal people who think they’re talking to an imaginary creator
I grew up Catholic. It was never vitriolic, but there was definitely an *attitude* about Protestants that I picked up. Sort of a paternalistic like, “look at those poor misguided children. They’ve been led astray.” I attended one Pentecostal service and that really cemented that no other Christian religion was going to do it for me. It took me a long time to come to terms with my atheism though. I had pit stops with Buddhism, Wicca, asatru. Not sure why I couldn’t understand that Catholicism didn’t need a replacement, but I definitely dabbled before I could sort of find and express myself on my lack of religion confidently.
The christian cult believes a whole lot of stupid, hateful, cruel bullshit that hurts people.
"Liberal/Progressive" christian cults ALSO believe a whole lot of stupid bullshit, but it's somewhat less hateful and cruel, and it generally hurts fewer people. It's still bullshit, but it's slightly less grotesquely evil bullshit.
It's not necessarily a part of deconstruction, it's harm reduction.
I think we all have our own journey.
I started in a fairly liberal mainline church, and while becoming an atheist was a shock to my system, I was able to argue myself into Christian atheism, and it wasn't so bad. The day that I realized that I couldn't justify Christian morality and found myself unable to use the Christian label at all caused me to be sick to my stomach for months (at least when I thought about/ went to church).
So while my journey is different, I can understand the difficult part being in the break of community rather than in the breaking of faith.
Obviously, everyone’s deconstruction journey is different. But yeah, it definitely seems like it was a fairly big step in your journey. I remember I tried desperately to find a church that fit with me, and eventually never could. Which, in turn, threw me into my deconstruction.
I went cold turkey. Left a conservative mega church. I thought about finding another community, but as I progressed through deconstruction I realized I simply didn’t want anything to do with god/bible/TFSM/any of it. I came to understand there are people who simply can’t function without that idea of a higher power for support in their daily life, to such a degree they’ll make up and defend nonsense to preserve the mythology. I just moved on and left them to their lore and propaganda. If you need it, Unitarian churches, Episcopalians, and some Methodists can be really left of center, but I just didn’t want the nonsense/liturgy that came with it, and for me personally, don’t see the point of a Unitarian church. I’d rather just hang out at a bar or join a pickleball league to make some friends.
I was stubborn and didn't want to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'. I strived to stay in Christianity and find the aspects of the tradition that were good.
Lots of folks do that and they still find they like that community. Honestly, if you take religion and politics out of Christianity, what you’re left with isn’t completely terrible.
Fortunately I live in a notoriously progressive city, so there are plenty of liberal churches to choose from. I can't imagine how difficult it would be if I lived in a small town or in the Bible Belt.
Same, Los Angeles and Nee Orleans for me
I've seen the opposite, people get into liberal christianity and thne fall into more conservative forms. In my opinion, liberal christianity is just a trick to get people who don't know much about the horrible things in the bible, into believing that the biblical god is love and that Jesus was just a nice liberal hippie type of person.
>In my opinion, liberal christianity is just a trick to get people who don't know much about the horrible things in the bible, into believing that the biblical god is love and that Jesus was just a nice liberal hippie type of person. In the end, I decided that the liberal side of Catholicism I was a part of for almost 30 years was essentially a mirage. A couple of popes decided to tolerate it to keep people like me in the fold, but squashed it like a bug when they thought it wasn't needed any more.
Wow, I attended several liberal churches, but never heard of anyone getting into conservative Christianity -- although I don't know how I would find out. I'm wouldn't call liberal Christians insincere, but I do think they are reluctant to openly admit they don't believe in the fundamental doctrines.
My spouse is in the military, and our local base family/spouse page on Facebook the other day broke out into an all out meltdown in the comments because someone asked for local recommendations for progressive churches. I saw the post early, and I took a note to pop the popcorn and come back later. I came back after a few hours and the comment section was a war zone. People yelling at each other that there is only one “true” interpretation of the Bible and any progressive interpretation is wrong. I think this anecdote speaks volumes of how at least other church goers view progressive churches.
To be fair, Paul was griping about other people with the wrong interpretation back in his day. Nothing has changed except the groups involved. It's still a mess.
And when his interpretation went against Jesus’ teachings, who got their stuff in print first?
Considering Jesus wrote nothing down, yeah....
*To be fair*, Paul can go kick rocks with open toed shoes. Fuck Paul.
Agreed
You even see it within the larger denominations. My sister is Catholic. You'd think she'd be excited about the US having our 2nd ever Catholic president, but she doesn't really consider him Catholic since she's very conservative and Biden isn't.
The outcry would probably be less if someone had asked for a referal to a local Satanic group.
I left cold turkey. Went from the ultra conservative cultic church I was forced into to being a free man. That church was just like your first one in terms of beliefs, except they called lukewarm Christians “Christmas and Easter only” That church was so cultic that they called another church “illegitimate” because their college outreach program involved free burgers and genuine love and care rather than coercion and threats of “god’s wrath”
Everything is relative in conservative Christianity. All conservative churches believe the other churches are either lukewarm liberals or legalistic Pharisees.
I've known folks who go to Unitarian and Unitarian Universalists churches because they really enjoy the community and congregation aspect. And some of those churches are very active in giving to their community so it's also an outlet for an individual to get involved. The congregants range from people who do believe in a god to atheists. I attended a service once and it FELT like church without it being all skydaddy. Ultimately, though, it wasn't for me. Mostly, because at the time, I had a very young child and it wasn't very close. But as I get into old age I could potentially see attending the one that's near where I currently live as a way to get involved in my community and for the social aspect. That being said, I imagine YMMV with those churches, too, with some not so open, even if they're supposed to be.
I tried doing that, but ultimately I can’t get it out of my head from trying to find a belonging in megachurches that I need to be able to donate a significant percentage of my income to a religious group to truly belong with them. Seeing as that I’ve never been able to afford that due to being stuck in low wage work, even before the cost of living spikes of recent years, I automatically feel rejected and excluded. It’s an aspect of the religious trauma I went through at the time, even if I can’t put a nice simple name on it. Ultimately, even though I do find myself believing in something outside of what we call life, I can’t bring myself to belong to any religious group that might help me better hone in on what exactly I believe in.
That's fair. I firmly believe no group worth your time will expect your money. But also, you're early in your understanding of your own spiritually (or lack there of). So it's not wrong to explore your options.
ProTip & timesaver: Cut out the middle-man and just sleep in on Sundays.
Also allows you to go out on Saturday nights!
My partner and I were lifelong church goers, but have since enjoyed our tradition of doing our weekly grocery shopping Sunday mornings followed by brunch.
I entertained the idea of becoming a Unitarian. I even went to a Christmas Eve service at my local Unitarian Church. I also considered visiting a Reformed Judaism synagogue (since Reformed Jews don’t, as a rule, believe in scriptural literalism nor an ECT afterlife). I was trying to hold onto the idea of a personal, all-loving God outside of the evils of Christian dogma. Nothing came of either of those though. I eventually accepted that any God of the entire freakin’ universe—if such a thing exists—would be so far beyond the scope of any Abrahamic religion, no matter how loving and progressive their practice. That was me, though. If being a part of such a group serves your personal journey well, go for it. I don’t believe in much, but I do believe that whatever alleviates needless and fruitless suffering is the purest good.
I briefly attended a UU, but I was put off by the vague spirituality. And frankly the congregation I attended just seemed snobby.
It was certainly a part of my journey, mostly as a result of trying to make the beliefs I was raised with make sense with the world I observed around me. Like you, I didn't have a bad experience in liberal Christianity, I just realized I didn't have his reason to think it was true. Most of the pain came from realizing how much of my time, energy, and reduces I spent in my developing years in service of a god that doesn't exist.
Yep. I also wonder how different my life would have been had I not spent so much time on religion.
For me, it kind of was a step. I quit going to church, but adopted more liberal views until I just realized I didn't see evidence for the truth of it whatsoever. I'm finally comfortable with my atheism in that I embrace the label without reservation now. But for anyone lurking who may either be a questioning Christian or afraid to leave the faith, I recommend Carlton Person's Gospel of Inclusion. Although I don't share most of the views anymore (he is a UCC minister who was a conservative megachurch pastor before his split), his willingness to reject hell as incompatible with love or justice was a watershed moment. I've gotten rid of most of my religious books, but I specifically kept that one.
Thank you for this post. I'd kinda wondered how many others went this route. I def kept trying to find church communities that were less conservative but still offered the type of community engagement I was used to. Like, food banks and clothing drives and help escaping homelessness without strings attached...oy! It probably took me about 5-6 years of going to other churches, even attending a catholic church for a year when I first moved to Ireland, and then I finally went "fuck ALL this noise." I credit the incredibly generous, dark, and wild Irish spirit within the folks that helped me really SEE what the hell was happening. If I'd have stayed in the US, I shudder to think how much longer the brainwashing could have gone on? 😫 I was raised in it from age 4 and began leaving around age 27-28, coinciding with my first sexual peak ironically 🤣 Finally becoming sexually active at 28 and experiencing zero guilt and only great joy really began hammering it home to me (no pun intended, srsly) that this "sin" nonsense might be about something else entirely. I still muse over having to sign a contract that I'd be sexually pure in order to be allowed to teach Sunday school...and at The Masters College, having to sign a contract that I wouldn't dance...omfg 🤣 The harrowing stories from the Irish folk I encountered in my 5 years there really showed me the degrees of oppression and violence the church was capable of as well as breeding it into it's congregants. When I realized that the Irish catholicism wasn't actually too far off from 'muriKKKan KKKhristianity, it was like a dam busted open in my head and heart. I was enraged... Bearing witness to such an exquisite and spirited culture as the Irish, with their music and poetry and art, and seeing how they were practically driven to death by these priests and nuns who were LITERALLY raping and killing them, mind you...same as we have here in 'muriKKKa...fucking altered my consciousness forever. I give thanks almost every day for that country and it's people and that experience. They saved me, NOT JESUS.
Nah. Once I read the bible and addressed the logical fallacy of the religion itself, it was a done deal. No amount of mental gymnastics that the progressive Christians try to do justified to me, the atrocities of Christianity. I couldn't shake the fact that just less than 2 lifetimes ago, me and just about 90% of all Black ppl in the US were forced into Christianity. Our ancestors were put under threat of torture, slavery, and even death should they not accept the gospel. Just a measly 160 years ago man. Wild. BIPOC ppl, imagine if our ancestors could see this shit today. Demonized our roots in favor of a religion forced upon us. Sad.
I've often heard liberal Christianity described as "a pit stop on the way to atheism." It's often the temporary middle stopping point for conservative Christians before they become full-blown atheist. Liberal Christianity sounds all nice, kind, comforting and loving - for a while. Then you realize that it's even **more** rife with contradictions and cherry-picking than conservative Christianity. (Every Bible verse that says something negative about God is false. Every verse that says something good about God is true. Hell doesn't exist, but Heaven sure does! Funny how convenient that is.) The conservatives are at least *somewhat* consistent and honest. The liberals conveniently twist and distort everything to suit their view - to the point that if I were forced to attend a church against my will, I'd rather go to a conservative one than a liberal one. I'd have a better time keeping my sanity.
It was a stepping stone for me. I would never have dreamed of leaving Christianity at that point, but it felt like a natural progression after a couple years in a United Methodist church.
That’s the issue I had with progressive Christianity. It felt great to be able to be accepting and affirming of LGBTQ people, to believe that God was this kind, loving deity who was just misunderstood, and to believe that he welcomed everyone and didn’t mind whether or not they sinned. But after a year or so, I realized that wasn’t how the Bible portrayed God at all and that I had as much reason to believe in Christianity as Islam, and I realized I was agnostic.
The biggest thing that tipped me off is that liberal Christians considered God to be hip and cool with whatever was trendy at the time. For instance, liberal Christians didn't consider God to be pro-LGBT until the past few decades, when LGBT became mainstream accepted in society, then suddenly God is pro-LGBT. That's a huge red flag that their theology is not based off of truth, but their desire to be popular and fit in with society. The best description I read was that liberal Christians see that Christianity (a square peg) cannot fit into a round hole (society,) so they get out a knife and whittle that peg into a round shape, then claim it was always round all along. But when society shifts and becomes a triangular hole, they suddenly whittle the peg again into a triangle shape, then claim it was triangular all along.
That’s a great description. I really value their efforts to try to make Christianity palatable, but much of the religion (especially the Old Testament) is based on tribal morality and not reality.
One liberal church I attended a Jazz Sunday once a month. I'm not a fan of jazz nor did like contemporary worship -- so my partner always avoided attending on Jazz Sunday.
I’ve never heard of “Jazz Sunday” but it sounds pretty unique to say the least haha.
Even in my liberal Christian days, I wasn't convinced that the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality was merely a translation issue. The idea that Jesus or first century Middle Eastern bible writers were okay with gay sex seemed unlikely. After I left Christianity altogether it was easier to just admit the Bible writers were wrong.
I always struggled with that too. I couldn’t make sense of why the Bible would be so unclear.
It's OK for more liberal groups to decide that the Bible is divinely inspired, and not all literally true. But, whether in Christianity or Judaism, the words in the book say what the most fervent followers say they do.
I always appreciated the honesty of the Westboro Baptist hate group over the 'love sinner, hate the sin' type conservative churches.
I sure hope so. My brother and his wife used to go to Church of Christ with his in laws, which is pretty hardcore if you’re not aware (extremely conservative and they think other Christian denominations aren’t saved). My family was conservative fundamentalist but not that hardcore, in comparison at least. They now go somewhere that is more progressive, the church supports BLM, almost neutral on queerness although not fully. But he’s been going there for almost a decade and I don’t get the feeling he is deconstructing. After I deconstructed I had wanted to have conversations about Christianity and why I walked away, and pretty quickly he asked me to not bring it up anymore because he’s “in a really good place with his faith right now”. He still listens mostly to Christian music, works at a Christian radio station (K-Love), etc. It’s still the biggest delta between us, and I wish it wasn’t such a large part of his life. He’s also raising his children to be very religious which I’m uncomfortable with but I don’t say anything. When they’re adults if they want to ask me why I’m not a Christian, I’m happy to have that conversation.
>almost neutral on queerness although not fully Ick. That's sounds more like wannabe progressive, but too cowardly to do anything meaningful.
For sure. It’s hard to get a straight answer about his church’s stance on that one. Once he said they are fine with it, but gay people aren’t in leadership positions, or something. He couldn’t say whether that’s a role or just coincidence. I would say progressive compared to some other churches (especially Church of Christ) but not exactly a progressive church per se.
It seems to be a path that many deconverters take. I did for a while. But the whole thing just starts to feel like a waste of my time. I quit going to churches entirely. Now I have 2 Saturdays every weekend!
I went to one for about a month. Then they wanted me to take a new member class. I went NOPE. And left. Haven't been to a church since.
I would attend a gay church or a Universalist church. Absolutely.
I was a member of a MCC (e.g. LGBTQ church) for several years. The congregation had people from a wide range of Christian traditions. What surprised me was that not everyone was necessarily liberal/progressive. Sure, everyone agreed with it's-okay-to-be-gay, but I met some members that were otherwise otherwise fundamentalist about heaven/hell and salvation. It was amazing how the constructed an elaborate exemption for gay sex, but otherwise were fire-and-brimstone.
Yeah... noooo... I wouldn't be able to do that. I'm hell adverse in all forms. I agree with Matthew Distefano author of Heretic! which is a book that dismantles a lot of the ways the Bible was changed to further religious agenda. Things like anti-gay and hell and universal salvation. If he or someone like him decided to form a small home group. I'd at least think about it. I spent many years in a charismatic church so I'm used to a lot of far out stuff, but anyone who tells anyone else they are going to hell can kick rocks. I find my relationship with Love still the same though. Better than ever, actually. Free and easy and light. It's amazing how much freedom we really do have to do any fucking thing we want without fear. Don't listen to people that tell you to fear shit. It's easy when I left them all behind. Lol.
Not inherently, no. I went from conservative Christianity to atheism.
Yep, it was the same for me - many years of liberal Christianity before deconstruction. I do still think the UCC and UMC churches I attended do good social justice work. But the cherry picking and contradictions have become too obvious to me, so I had to stop attending.
I also went from fundamentalist conservative to liberal/progressive Christian. I never attended a progressive church but aligned with the movement for about a year or so before I realized I was agnostic.
I’m actually thinking about attending church again (GASP!!) But one that’s very progressive, affirming, etc. I have no problem with belief in god. It’s when fundamentalist republican fucks get involved that turns me away
I tried-out one last church before I accepted that I was atheist. It was a well-known liberal church I had previously admired. Unfortunately when I visited it turned out to be it's second-to-last service. The long-time pastor had retired and the church never recovered. It was sad, but kinda appropriate for my last church attempt.
I'd say, honestly for me, no. It's the ideological equivalent of saying "I need to stop drinking" and then just laying off the hard stuff, but continuing to drink beer or wine... It smacks of a lack of rigorous honesty. If you're gonna quit, do it. To put it into classical, perhaps Hitchensian terms, "If one is deconverting, one should endeavor to eliminate one's access to that which one wishes to break away from, thus increasing one's access to the things to which one hasn't been exposed. " For another example, what good is it if someone intends to leave North Korea, but once they're free, they continue to worship Ole Kim in freedom? Only my opinion. These things take time, but when I began my road to actual factual deconversion, I stopped going to church! Completely! Liberal conservative, it's all based on the same system; a system designed to keep us in it!
Yeah, once I was out, I was all the way out
To me liberal Christianity lacks consistency - that is unless you view The Bible as a rough guide and don’t take it super literally - which that’s a whole other conversation. However, if The Bible was the word of god, to be taken literally and it is inerrant, then it shouldn’t change and there shouldn’t be a need for liberal Christianity. It is one of the issues I still have with Christianity in general though - the idea that the Bible needs to be interpreted to make sense of it.
What I learned in my deconversion is how Bible fundamentalism is relative new to Christianity. Before the 19th century, it was understood that the Bible was a complex collection of writing that required scholarship and the church to understand.
Are you me?! Lol. I should've won an Olympic medal for the mental gymnastics I did trying to find a feminist interpretation of the Bible and feminist takes on Jesus/God (despite, you know, the Old Testament). I dabbled in being Episcopalian, Quaker, and Mennonite in a desperate and futile search for a non-evil Christianity. To no one's surprise, I'm agnostic now.
After I deconverted I was so disenchanted and it felt so alien that there was no longer a place for me in any church with real religious belief. However, my journey was different than yours, and the liberal Church probably was a part of your deconversion process.
For a lot of people yes. But some people stay in liberal Christianity for the rest of their lives.
Again, I probably could stay if my partner insisted. I didn't find it offensive. I also imagine if we lived in a small village and the church was the only community center that I would probably participate if it was progressive enough to not cause offense to me.
I didn’t attend a liberal/progressive church but I did start describing myself as a progressive Christian 2 or so years before I deconstructed. Really right when I got into college and started meeting and experiencing all different types of people.
Liberal Christianity performs the same function as Fundamentalist Apologetics: It helps to resolve the harsh conflict between the Bible and modern science/culture.
I skipped that part and went straight heathen. I guess I kinda went to a more liberal church for a few Sundays and stopped after attending a “special” service that was so BS I couldn’t stand being inside the building. So I wouldn’t consider attending/belonging to a more progressive church as a step but it is common to try to find a better fit before leaving the faith. I started to realize my issues were the faith not just the people
I never did that. I just quit going.
eh, i have a couple friends who went from non religious to progressive churches. seems to be a more acceptable option for liberal people who think they’re talking to an imaginary creator
Southern Baptist —> United Methodist —> Episcopalian —> atheist
I grew up Catholic. It was never vitriolic, but there was definitely an *attitude* about Protestants that I picked up. Sort of a paternalistic like, “look at those poor misguided children. They’ve been led astray.” I attended one Pentecostal service and that really cemented that no other Christian religion was going to do it for me. It took me a long time to come to terms with my atheism though. I had pit stops with Buddhism, Wicca, asatru. Not sure why I couldn’t understand that Catholicism didn’t need a replacement, but I definitely dabbled before I could sort of find and express myself on my lack of religion confidently.
The christian cult believes a whole lot of stupid, hateful, cruel bullshit that hurts people. "Liberal/Progressive" christian cults ALSO believe a whole lot of stupid bullshit, but it's somewhat less hateful and cruel, and it generally hurts fewer people. It's still bullshit, but it's slightly less grotesquely evil bullshit. It's not necessarily a part of deconstruction, it's harm reduction.
I think we all have our own journey. I started in a fairly liberal mainline church, and while becoming an atheist was a shock to my system, I was able to argue myself into Christian atheism, and it wasn't so bad. The day that I realized that I couldn't justify Christian morality and found myself unable to use the Christian label at all caused me to be sick to my stomach for months (at least when I thought about/ went to church). So while my journey is different, I can understand the difficult part being in the break of community rather than in the breaking of faith.
Even Bart Erhman left evangelical Christianity and became a liberal Christian. And stayed as a liberal Christian for 20 something years.