Thread by @schadhayes

i was born into the southern baptist church. my grandfather was my pastor for the first decade of my life. i was "born again" when i was 6 after a particularly terrifying sermon about hell. i spent 32 years in white evangelical churches, and it fucked me up in a lot of ways 🧵

i attended bob jones academy, a conservative fundamentalist christian school where interracial dating was banned until the year of their lord 2000. i was taught that the bible is 100% literally true/historically accurate and that the earth is 4-6k years old don't ask questions

the #purityculture movement of the 90s and 00s shaped the way i viewed sexuality, gender, marriage, and divorce--basically that sex is a sin anywhere outside the context of a cis/het monogamous marriage. and it motivated me to get married at 21, which is my single greatest regret

#evangelicalism instilled racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic firmware in my brain that required a lot of work to overcome. i was taught to see poverty as a moral failing, democrats as baby killers, scientists as agents of the literal devil leading people away from god

some of those views mellowed over the years but it wasn't until 2016 that i went through the process of #deconstruction and re-examined my beliefs. because my theology was based on the inerrancy of the bible, the whole thing crumbled pretty quickly when i started reading it again

i'm an atheist now, but other people land in different places, and that's ok too. i don't have an issue with religion or religious people. but i have a big problem with the way particular expressions of religion harm both the people in them and the people outside of them

christianity isn't *a* religion. it's thousands of religions, depending on how the bible is interpreted. the same bible that was used to justify slavery was used in the fight for abolition. the bible used by queer-affirming churches is the same one trump held upside down for a 📸

the only expression of christianity i know is the one that i experienced. and looking back i see the many ways in which it negatively impacted my life, and the ways that it has intentionally been used by cis/nominally strait white christian men to maintain power and privilege

it's not necessarily that the people in the pews are bad people. some of them are. but most of them are victims of a system that manipulates them to enact political or societal changes to maintain power. intentionally. sometimes admittedly.

white evangelicalism causes significant harm, both on an individual level and on larger scales. it stands in the way of social reforms. the christian nationalism that generally accompanies it is a legitimate danger to our nation, and was a key factor in the 1/6 insurrection.

it fosters/covers up sexual abuse, and perpetuates many other forms of abuse as well. it causes very real lifelong trauma. no matter what your religious background and current beliefs are, it's a really important subject that affects us all, especially those with less privilege

so i'm writing about my lived experience in the church and the way my perspective has changed as an #exvangelical. and i'll be tweeting about it. i'm sure it will resonate with some of you, enlighten some of you, make some of you think, and piss some of you off.

those are all ok

here's the whole story whollyreckoning.com/blog/my-testim…