My De-Conversion Story: The Unbecoming Part (Part 1)

St. Colman's Cathedral in Cobh, Ireland.

About seven years ago (May of 2012) I walked away from Christianity.  When people have asked why, I have not been able to articulate an answer.  It was too complex, and subtle, and near.  It is an understatement to say that the years since have been spent sifting through all my belief systems, unlearning deeply ingrained habits, and developing a healthy self-image.  Though I am far from finished with that process, I think now I can finally put words to the experience. Buckle up, because you don’t unpack 35 years of religious construction and deconstruction in a single paragraph!

I was a very earnest Christian. I loved God so hard (SO HARD!). I was an extremely extroverted child (I have only mildly mellowed out on that front *grin*) and school was not nearly enough social time for me.  So through middle and high school I practically lived at church. Because more friends.  I was also extremely eager to learn (still am), so I soaked up my church’s teachings like a sponge. I went to a Christian university. I was a youth pastor for 10 years. I even earned a Masters of Divinity (a degree for Ministers/Pastors/Preachers etc.). And then I walked away from it all. Let me be clear, I did not lose my faith. I actively rejected it. What I lost was the community and culture that went with it. So what happened?

I left Christianity as a result of two things accumulating in me simultaneously.

~ A bit of Context First ~

Before I go there I would like to contextualize a couple things that frame my experience. To be a Christian in western culture is to both adhere to certain beliefs (also known as Dogma, which is 3 core beliefs that span every Christian sect throughout history, and Doctrine, which are the list of arguable beliefs that create the distinctions between the Christian sects… this is important for later) as well as to be part of a local Christian community (also known as church, which has its own subculture, rituals and rhythms). Christian beliefs affect the Christian culture just as the Christian culture can affect Christian beliefs. For example, the Old Testament, with its obsession with purity, coupled with the New testament, which echoes the deep patriarchal beliefs of Roman culture, ended up creating a Christian culture in the 90’s that became obsessed with sexual purity. (Side note, at 16 I got a Purity Ring from my father to symbolize my purity belonging to him until marriage.  But to be fair, I am pretty sure I asked for it.) Conversely, in the early 1800s, when western culture started looking at the world through the lens of science, Christians decided to apply that same scientific lens when interpreting the Bible, and TADAH! you get Genesis 1 being read like a scientific paper. (Seriously, no one even considered taking the Christian Creation story literally until only 200 years ago!) So yeah, scripture informing culture, and vice versa.

The second bit of larger context, especially for those of you not familiar with all the Christian infighting for the entirety of its history, is pertinent because my journey is a mini version of it in reverse.  Hold on, because I am about to drop a couple thousand years of Christian history grossly summed up in, like, eight sentences. Most people in the U.S. know that it all starts with the Jewish faith, which produces a rabbi named Jesus who causes a shift to happen about 2000 years ago. And like all human endeavors, it gets rather over dramatic. For your sanity I will keep it simple. 

The followers of Jesus call themselves Christians and refer to the emerging church as the catholic church, which is super oppressed in Rome.  About 500 years later the church gets adopted as the major religion of Rome and suddenly it’s on the map and the original Christians, who followed Jesus before it was cool, were super peeved about that and set about creating some rules. About 500 years after that the now solid Catholic church can’t agree on a certain single piece of basic Dogma (those pesky beliefs), so it splits, with the Catholics in the west part of the world the Orthodox Church in the east.  Yet another 500 years go by and there is a mass rebellion because the Catholics are doing Christianity wrong, and thus begins the reformation where a bunch of people go off and make their own Christian groups (as a whole they are called Protestants). One group in particular gains dominance, becoming the Church of England, so most the rest jumped ship and claimed different parts of North America and then fought over who would dominate here instead (Dude yall, the original colonies were VICIOUS with each other!).  Over time those groups developed into formal denominations (think Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans and so on), but woe unto them for they too were doing Christianity wrong and therefore, over the last 50 years or so, non-denominational churches have sprouted up everywhere (these would be your Calvary Chapels, Something Something Fellowships and most Mega Churches).  Denominational churches are similar to the Catholic church in that they are very organized and there is a common set of Doctrines held by all churches within that denomination. Whereas non-denominational churches are rogues and are beholden to no one… which is why lots of them are rather cultish.  Very generically speaking, in the U.S., the denominational churches tend to be more liberal and open, generally valuing love over correct beliefs.  While the non-denominational churches tend to be more conservative, valuing what they perceive as defending truth above everything.

Right, so Christian beliefs and culture over lap and influence each other and there is a whole range to what different Christian groups consider correct belief.

~ The Evolution of Belief ~

So back to my religion walk out. As a child and up through my teens I was deeply immersed in a non-denominational church that proudly considered itself fundamentalist. When I was preparing to leave for university I was pulled aside by my both my grandfather and my pastor and very seriously warned against those Quakers (the university was founded by Quakers and they are one of those original Protestant denominations) and then given a list of 11 things one MUST believe in order to be a Christian.  After all, being fearful of losing one’s faith and being wary of Satan’s pull are very Fundamentalist things to be.  But I found the Quaker beliefs to be much more gentle, loving, and just, even if the culture was still just as conservative. During my 20’s and 30’s I chose to be part of Denominational churches rather than going back to my Fundy roots.  And that list of 11 things slowly began to whittle down.

Once I finally got permission to go to seminary (basically Christian graduate school…. And yes, I worded it that way on purpose.  But that is a story for another time I think) I was over the moon.  I took to seminary like a feline takes to catnip. For four years, full time, I got to be neck deep in a rigorous study of church history, theology, anthropology, psychology, and self-reflection with a light smattering of ancient languages thrown in for good measure. Through the course of it all my mind was continually blown away by how wondrously human it all is. I honestly believe I have a deeper respect for the Bible now than I ever did as a Christian. It was here that I learned the difference between dogma and doctrine and how if you take all of Christianity as a whole, really there are only three things required to believe in order to be defined as a Christian (only two if you want to go way back to the first split and include the Eastern Orthodox Church). And the second and third belief rely on the first.  That primary belief being that there is a God. 

By the end of seminary, I had jumped into the deep end with the Christian Mystics of the Catholic church, which is as far as you can get from my Fundy Christian roots.  I also came to the point where I found it equally plausible that there is a God who has intervened in very subtle ways with a specific group of people throughout human history as the possibility that there is no God and that Christianity is a deeply complex and fascinating human endeavor.

~ Betrayal, Shame and Dare I Say Emotional Abuse ~

But I just got a little ahead of myself. Remember how I said to be a Christian involves both beliefs AND community?  From the time I was a child, church culture had been both explicitly and implicitly reinforcing in me a multitude of things which can mostly fit into three very specific categories. First, I should be ashamed of being female on most every level including being ashamed of my skin. Second, I have little to no value, except in servitude to my husband and children. Third, I am always a hairs breadth away from disappointing the God I love so much. Maybe in a future post I will spell all of that out, but suffice to say, having all of that culturally reinforced in a multitude of ways over 35 years can take a toll on a person.

As I said back at the beginning of all this; two simultaneous things were happening to cause my religious doom. On the one hand I had intellectual honesty demanding a decision, and on the other hand my heart was bleeding out from a thousand paper cuts (and a few stab wounds if I am perfectly honest) inflicted over a very long time.

~ The Glorious Moment of Freedom ~

So there I am, two years after finishing seminary, sitting in an old nunnery which has been converted into a school, with my spiritual director (basically a religious therapist) who is a former Nun. My belief in God is hanging by a thread and I explain to her how I struggle every week to keep forcing myself into the heart of Christian culture, aka Church. I tell her I feel like chains are wrapped around my neck and wrists, choking the life out of me. And I asked her if I can just stop. Just not go to church anymore. And she says of course. Jesus came to break the chains and set us free (the doctrines around this are actually quite beautiful and profound and of course generally ignored… but I digress). In that precise moment her permission catalyzes something in me.

Before I realize the words are coming out of my mouth I ask her what I really want. With tears streaming down my face, I timidly whisper… can I just not be a Christian anymore? She turns and picks up a bottle of oil, anoints my forehead, and says go and be at peace.

I did and I am.