Thread by @JoLuehmann

I get it, for those of us who have been harmed and abused due to toxic Christianity, it’s hard to not look at Christianity and condemn it as a whole. And as a survivor we are absolutely entitled to toss the whole thing and never look back.
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I don’t care if you never open a Bible, frown every time you see one, and never want to step foot in a church again. You don’t have to like Christianity at all, you don’t ever have to engage with it, you can scoff at the mention of it.
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I genuinely think what matters is moving toward healing and wholeness and neither one of those is predicated on your relationship with an ancient book, or a faith adjacency.
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That being said, it is important to recognize healing means we don’t deny other ppl’s journey and reality. If we see all expressions of Christianity through the lens of the toxic Christianity we were abused w/, we can’t see the faith and spirituality that has liberated many.
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Condemning the whole of Christianity and demanding all people do too, means we are erasing the faith of Harriet Tubman and Gustavo Gutierrez, Mother Jones and Ida B. Wells, Jon Sobrino, Martin Luther King, Leopoldo Zea, Ignacio Ellacuria, Delores Williams, queer theologians,
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and countless many others we may have never heard of, because oppression sure centers itself and wants to be the loudest in the room, but that doesn’t mean oppression is the only path there’s been.
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Are most famous Christian theologians pushing toxic aspects of Christianity? Sure. Are most prominent books on theology and Christianity seriously problematic? Without a doubt. Is that the whole of Christianity? No!
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That’s the privileged inside it talking, that’s the privileged in society using Christianity as a weapon. And we may not have books or entire encyclopedias on hermeneutics and exegesis from the marginalized, but we exist, and the Christ has meaning for us that is valid...
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and should not be erased, or diminished because the “mainstream” one has had more of your attention.

Demanding everyone limit Christianity to the toxic version of it, is oppression, it’s erasure, it’s deleting the experiences of thousand of marginalized ppl
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that in the notion of the Christ and the decolonized words of this ancient book, found for themselves liberation. Not because we wanted to start a religion, make ppl follow in our footsteps, or manipulate anybody w/it all, but because in a very real way,
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we saw divinity in ourselves and the many ways in which the world has dehumanized us lost power over us, because it allowed us to show up more aligned with our true self, more whole, healthier, evolved.
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Condemn Christianity all you want, call out its hypocrisy, abuses, harm, and deception. But in doing so, make sure you are not also erasing the very real and transformative faith of many marginalized people throughout history.