Part 1– Repressed Doubts

I did not leave evangelical Christianity all at once. There was no single sermon, scandal, argument, or book that pushed me out the door. The truth is I had doubts and questions for years that kept coming back until I couldn’t avoid them anymore.  I stayed because of the loyalty I felt to an ideology and many important people that I met through the church. 

The Dogma didn’t add up

While going to school in college and seminary, I lived inside a bubble and had very little real- life experience outside of my tiny Christian bubble.  That said, as I started to wait tables in seminary and thereafter, I was shocked me out of that bubble and that’s really when the serious doubts began- years before I would leave. 

                Hell? No!!

I can’t go into all the dogmatic issues, doubts and questions that I had, but without doubt the most pervasive one was the notion of a loving or even just God sending (or even allowing) people to hell.  Torture and torment was not only unloving, but also extremely unjust and irreconcilable with a loving, holy God.  It painted a picture of God as an abusive father, spanking his supposed “beloved” child for eternity for the slightest of iniquities.  And what about children that were abused, some sexually by priests or pastors proclaiming God’s word, were they destined to eternal flames because they couldn’t accept “the good news”?  Give me a break! 

                Sexuality

During my time as a server, I met and became friendly with many people from the LGBTQ community- they were incredibly kind people and often spiritual.  Some even attended church services with me!  I hated that I was supposed to believe that their lifestyle and choice of preferred partners was sinful.  Further, the more that I wanted to see the Bible’s dogma as life affirming, the less I could see Jesus as some sort of “cosmic peeping tom” concerned with people’s sexual partners and habits.  This search for answers in the scripture would lead me to my next greatest realization that would change me, my identity and my life forever! 

Original Sin/ Total Depravity

This was another doctrine that always nauseated me even when I was in the church.  First, the story goes that Adam and Eve eating that first apple from the Tree of Knowledge, tainted the rest of humanity towards sin.  We literally had no choice but to sin– at least once!  Further, even just that one sin made us dirty, sinful and deserving of eternal punishment, many even using Isaiah 64:6 to say that our good deeds were like filthy rags.  At its best, this belief of one’s total depravity because of their original sin permeated lightly throughout various church cultures in different cities and states.  I remember often hearing the refrain “better than I deserve” to me asking people how they were doing.  For many people growing up with significant shame from overly critical parents, this just gave them one more reason to hate themselves and I absolutely despised it! 

Is The Good News really that good?

Of course, on the heels of man’s total depravity comes the climax of the gospel the atonement of Christ or what is often referred to as The Good News.  But, I couldn’t help but start asking was this good news really that good?  So, I was condemned a total depraved sinner when I irresistibly sinned once, but now can be redeemed once and for all by believing in Christ’s atonement for me.  Forgive me, but as a therapist this sounds like some extreme gaslighting.  Sadly, that’s not where the dysfunction ends!  Now I’m supposed to believe in the human incarnation of the One who is blaming me in the first place to be saved from eternal punishment for something that wasn’t my fault in the first place?  The further outside the Christian bubble I got, the less sense any of it made.  I will always be grateful for my time as an evangelical Christian—it introduced me to the spiritual path that I am today and laid a foundation for how I live much of my life today.  As I see it today, Christianity was just an entry point on my spiritual journey towards the healing that has come from realizing my innate wholeness. 

Img- John Price