I’m kind of dogshit at making blog posts and setting aside time to write well thought out things, so I think I'm going to start using this as a place to write short and somewhat incoherent ramblings.
I went on a date this weekend with someone who went through really bad shit at a church they used to go to, and fully deconstructed from christianity. They grew up christian and put all of their time and energy into their community and following god, and had some bad experiences that made them leave all of that and decide they don’t even think god exists. The date was super fun and I had a good time, but hearing this person’s experiences with church made me deeply sad. I know too many people who have had similar experiences with christians and churches.
About two years ago, I was super involved in the church I was going to. I had what I thought was a community of people who loved me for who I was, I was playing the drums there weekly (sometimes in front of 1000+ people), and life felt good. Except I was bisexual and had to hide a large part of my identity just so I could be around my church friends and play the drums, because openly gay members had been barred from being volunteers there in the past. And then my church that claimed to care about social justice took zero stances on Trump’s harmful policies and police brutality. And then two of my dear friends who worked at this same church went through insane abuse at the hands of some people I used to really admire. And I decided to give up on church for good, because that hadn’t been the first time I'd experienced bad shit at churches and I decided it wasn’t worth putting my effort into trying to belong to a place or religion that wouldn’t accept me and constantly made me feel like shit.
I know so many people who have been hurt by christians. We’ve watched mainstream evangelical christians spend the last seven years supporting a fascist. I have close friends who have been looked down on by their churches for leaving abusive marriages (because divorce is a sin no matter the context to these fucking clowns). Several pastors made headlines this year for abusing their power and preying on women (Carl Lentz and Brian Houston). Is god even real? This is the question I keep coming to during recent months. So many christians and church institutions continue to steamroll over people. If god is real, if the god of the bible who went into fits of righteous anger whenever someone was being mistreated is real, then why does he continue to let people get hurt by those who claim to follow him? If I was god and my followers were being dickheads, I would immediately set them straight. But I don’t see that happening. The people at my old church who hurt me and my friends are doing great. The abusers of the person I went on the date with are still doing well.
I consider myself to be Spiritual these days. I think there’s a god that exists, but I think they’re an asshole. Nature and the dirt and plants and human beings are too intricate and complex for me to think we all came into existence by happenstance. So I think there’s some omnipotent figure chilling in heaven but they don’t really care and just let their followers treat everyone like shit, and post racist boomer memes on facebook, and vote for fascists, and yell at women at their churches for trying to divorce their emotionally abusive husbands. Who knows.