I’ve discovered a lot about my identity over the past couple years (a post for another time), but also changed my beliefs dramatically too. I had been drifting away from protestant Christianity for a while, but then over the past year that hit a boiling point.
I already knew that the church I’d grown up in had “outdated” opinions of sexual and gender identities (to put it mildly) and that was already a minor point of contention between me and the church’s senior pastor, but I also underestimated just how dim their views on premarital sex were.
A few months went by, increasingly tense emails were exchanged between me and senior pastor. In one I was asked to no longer partake in communion due to my lack of repentance. A request that actually made me chuckle since I’d been tossing the Body and Blood into the trashcan under the sound console for months before that because I couldn’t stand the idea of partaking in communion with many of the people sitting next to me. I felt that if I did, in my own conscience at least I would be equally guilty of their prejudices and ignorance. As Psalm 1 says, sit not in the seat of mockers.
I was prompted to meet with the pastor and a few elders several times to discuss how I justified my actions and my faith, which only drove me away further when I realized that the church leadership, not just the senior pastor, felt it okay to concern themselves with what I do in my bedroom. Not to mention that by this point I was out as trans to even them and they obstinately insisted on referring to me by my old name and gender.
I wonder how much of my apostasy was the church’s inspiration for sermon and sunday school topics, as it was around the same time that their sunday school on “science” decided to discuss transgender people. From a purely factual perspective alone the class was a sham; I only heard about it in the first place through the outcry of some disgusted friends. I emailed the pastor who conducted it, calling out the inaccuracies and bad faith arguments (ROGD, Caitlyn Jenner, “war on children”, etc.), and was ultimately blown off. Apparently trying to bring logical arguments to evangelical ministers is tantamount to “the devil instilling lies” in their eyes.
I ultimately requested to have my membership removed, which apparently they can’t simply do as the church Session must meet on it. Only recently was I informed that due to my obstinate attitude in refusing the authority of the church, I was officially “excluded from the sacraments and cut off from the fellowship of the church”. I celebrated.
I have nothing against Christians at all. That is, people who actually believe in God and the salvation of Jesus Christ, which is different from evangelical Christianity by a long shot. Evangelicalism is a “religion” that pays lip service to God while actually believing in the power of men and their ability to govern others. Its pastors speak with forked tongues, on one hand preaching love, light, and truth while on the other shaming those who aren’t just like them. They parade their crusades against the supposed injustices of the sinful world which they set up against themselves, while doing the least to combat the harmful conspiracies and lies their own members propagate. The blood on their hands is not the blood of Jesus Christ, but the blood of innocents trampled under their feet. The Cross has gone from being just a symbol of Christ to instead representing “respectable” conservative ideals and American patriotism.
I needed no further proof that behind their veil of fellowship and love they hide their desires for control, than their outrage at my will to live life by my own conscience. I fell in love with a woman who I courted and ultimately married, and who I have been and will always be faithful too because I love her. And yet, even after we were married, they still took issue with me because I didn’t wait until marriage and refused to repent before them for doing so. That’s when I knew for sure what I always suspected: it was never about sex or “Christian living”, it’s about control and fear of losing that control. A fact I doubt they can even admit to themselves.
I now choose instead to live my life by my own conscience, loving my wife, casually following the gods and goddesses I feel a connection to, and caring for friends thrown to the wayside by evangelical “love”. I’d rather meditate in front of pretty crystals and pleasant-smelling candles in the glow of the moon than bend the knee to arrogant men and the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-fake god they claim to serve.
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
Marcus Aurelius