Post by sandra on Jan 17, 2010 21:51:54 GMT -5
Hello to you all.
I have been reading this and several other ex-fundy-Christian blogs for several months and decided it was time to delurk. I grew up in what we called evangelical Christian fundamentalism back in the 70s but compared to what I've been reading, it was more like fundy-lite: all the same ideas being propagated but not so hard core in the application. Still, we were pretty weird! I grew up with the same fear of "the world", feeling responsible for but powerless against the evils of sexuality that were men/boys, covered our heads at prayer, couldn't wear jeans (boy clothes) or close-fitting tops (drew too much attention to my over large chest--as if it were my fault that D cups on a 14yo were pretty noticeable), and so on.
I haven't read any patriarchal/QF/back-to-the-lander ideals that didn't float through our various Baptist or non-denominational "faux" Baptist churches. Our family had the added pressure to perform because Dad was always a Somebody in our churches: sometimes the senior pastor, more often the music director, missions minister or something but everyone always knew us (or thought they did). Dad's rep in the church was always more important than anything going on at home. I come from a long line of people with a holy reputations: my father's ordained, as is my brother; my uncle was a missionary in the back jungles of a Pacific Island, my grandfather was president of the Christian Businessmen's Association of a major city. You can't go anywhere in that city without bumping into someone who, upon hearing my maiden name, says "are you related to...(insert one of at least five names here)?"
Early in my teens, I started thinking Christianity was the biggest farce ever perpetrated on humanity--God is love, but don't do anything he won't like or he'll get you. Christians never gossip, we only talk about one another in love because we want to "help" them... well, I'm sure you all know the contradictions and hypocrisies inherent in fundamentalism (Christian or otherwise). By my early twenties, I started realizing that I didn't believe any of the basic tenets of evangelicalism and was really only hanging around out of fear of "losing my salvation". When I came to the logical conclusion that if God was gonna revoke my get-out-of-hell-free card for unbelief, then he would do so whether I kept up appearances or not. He could read hearts and minds, right?
So I left organized religion altogether and quit calling myself a Christian. Unfortunately, I threw out the baby (spiritual tradition) but kept the bath water (legalism, perfectionism, doing things from fear rather than passion). I married, had kids, and tried to raise them without contamination from Big Pharma, conventionally farmed foods, public school--whatever came up in the mothering of my kids, I researched the heck out of it, learned enough to write books on it, found the "best" way to do anything, and hated myself because I couldn't live up to my own standards. I managed to keep the worst of my baggage and lost the best.
Just a few months ago I tripped over the Duggars on television and started researching fundamentalism (that research obsession). I realized that I identified oh-so-closely with much of the emotion and dysfunction of women who have left extreme fundy communities. It was the first time that I considered that perhaps my experiences with Christianity constituted something similar to the spiritual abuse I was reading about.
About the same time, it occurred to me that I missed Christianity. I mean, I missed having a meaningful spiritual tradition that I belonged to. Over the years I have looked into most of the major religions, enough to find out that at the heart of their Scriptures, they all say pretty much the same thing--"love/respect that which is bigger than yourself, do good to others"--and that all of them have managed to create a fundamentalist Us/Them, works-based applied theology that contradicts the founding philosophies. But at least Christianity is my mixed-up, hypocritical tradition. I just never felt a belonging to the traditions of any other religion.
When I learned that the American Evangelical experience of Christianity comprises a tiny minority of Christianity worldwide, I realized that there is literally a whole world of Christian traditions outside of the box I grew up in that I can choose from. So for the last couple months I've been devouring books on Christian theology from all those sources I used to believe weren't Real Christians (like Catholics or "mainline" Protestants) to see where what I actually do believe about Life and how it is to be lived fits into a spiritual tradition I can accept. I still can't imagine myself even attempting to go to church again any time soon--I might find ideas that I belong to but the people still scare me.
My family pretty much wrote me off as a heathen when I left Christianity, didn't cast me out of the family exactly but I certainly haven't been kept close to the family bosom. My father moved out from the aforementioned big city to near me here in the Wild West. He has become hugely 'liberal" in his thinking over that last couple years and actually is very supportive of my spiritual quest. My siblings, however, are suddenly concerned about me and have told me "in love" how they now worry for my salvation. No one seemed all that worried any time in the last decade and a half---apparently my having become a heretic rather than merely a heathen is more threatening to them.
Sigh. So glad to have found all you here in the virtual world. How have those of you who have not thrown out your Christianity with your fundamentalism found peace with your traditions?
Sandra
I have been reading this and several other ex-fundy-Christian blogs for several months and decided it was time to delurk. I grew up in what we called evangelical Christian fundamentalism back in the 70s but compared to what I've been reading, it was more like fundy-lite: all the same ideas being propagated but not so hard core in the application. Still, we were pretty weird! I grew up with the same fear of "the world", feeling responsible for but powerless against the evils of sexuality that were men/boys, covered our heads at prayer, couldn't wear jeans (boy clothes) or close-fitting tops (drew too much attention to my over large chest--as if it were my fault that D cups on a 14yo were pretty noticeable), and so on.
I haven't read any patriarchal/QF/back-to-the-lander ideals that didn't float through our various Baptist or non-denominational "faux" Baptist churches. Our family had the added pressure to perform because Dad was always a Somebody in our churches: sometimes the senior pastor, more often the music director, missions minister or something but everyone always knew us (or thought they did). Dad's rep in the church was always more important than anything going on at home. I come from a long line of people with a holy reputations: my father's ordained, as is my brother; my uncle was a missionary in the back jungles of a Pacific Island, my grandfather was president of the Christian Businessmen's Association of a major city. You can't go anywhere in that city without bumping into someone who, upon hearing my maiden name, says "are you related to...(insert one of at least five names here)?"
Early in my teens, I started thinking Christianity was the biggest farce ever perpetrated on humanity--God is love, but don't do anything he won't like or he'll get you. Christians never gossip, we only talk about one another in love because we want to "help" them... well, I'm sure you all know the contradictions and hypocrisies inherent in fundamentalism (Christian or otherwise). By my early twenties, I started realizing that I didn't believe any of the basic tenets of evangelicalism and was really only hanging around out of fear of "losing my salvation". When I came to the logical conclusion that if God was gonna revoke my get-out-of-hell-free card for unbelief, then he would do so whether I kept up appearances or not. He could read hearts and minds, right?
So I left organized religion altogether and quit calling myself a Christian. Unfortunately, I threw out the baby (spiritual tradition) but kept the bath water (legalism, perfectionism, doing things from fear rather than passion). I married, had kids, and tried to raise them without contamination from Big Pharma, conventionally farmed foods, public school--whatever came up in the mothering of my kids, I researched the heck out of it, learned enough to write books on it, found the "best" way to do anything, and hated myself because I couldn't live up to my own standards. I managed to keep the worst of my baggage and lost the best.
Just a few months ago I tripped over the Duggars on television and started researching fundamentalism (that research obsession). I realized that I identified oh-so-closely with much of the emotion and dysfunction of women who have left extreme fundy communities. It was the first time that I considered that perhaps my experiences with Christianity constituted something similar to the spiritual abuse I was reading about.
About the same time, it occurred to me that I missed Christianity. I mean, I missed having a meaningful spiritual tradition that I belonged to. Over the years I have looked into most of the major religions, enough to find out that at the heart of their Scriptures, they all say pretty much the same thing--"love/respect that which is bigger than yourself, do good to others"--and that all of them have managed to create a fundamentalist Us/Them, works-based applied theology that contradicts the founding philosophies. But at least Christianity is my mixed-up, hypocritical tradition. I just never felt a belonging to the traditions of any other religion.
When I learned that the American Evangelical experience of Christianity comprises a tiny minority of Christianity worldwide, I realized that there is literally a whole world of Christian traditions outside of the box I grew up in that I can choose from. So for the last couple months I've been devouring books on Christian theology from all those sources I used to believe weren't Real Christians (like Catholics or "mainline" Protestants) to see where what I actually do believe about Life and how it is to be lived fits into a spiritual tradition I can accept. I still can't imagine myself even attempting to go to church again any time soon--I might find ideas that I belong to but the people still scare me.
My family pretty much wrote me off as a heathen when I left Christianity, didn't cast me out of the family exactly but I certainly haven't been kept close to the family bosom. My father moved out from the aforementioned big city to near me here in the Wild West. He has become hugely 'liberal" in his thinking over that last couple years and actually is very supportive of my spiritual quest. My siblings, however, are suddenly concerned about me and have told me "in love" how they now worry for my salvation. No one seemed all that worried any time in the last decade and a half---apparently my having become a heretic rather than merely a heathen is more threatening to them.
Sigh. So glad to have found all you here in the virtual world. How have those of you who have not thrown out your Christianity with your fundamentalism found peace with your traditions?
Sandra
