12 Step Recovery from Christianity

By an Alabamian ~

1. I admit that I am powerless to change the fact that I have been Christian for a good part of my life.


2. I realize that I have within me the power to free myself from the harmful part of my Christian past and that I am no longer bound by promises or covenants which I was induced to make based on the false promises of Christianity.


3. I make to myself a firm promise to listen in the future only to reason, rationality, and factual evidence in making decisions about how I should live my life, rejecting all emotional appeals, guilt-inducing threats, myths, pretty stories, promises of castles in the air, and superstition.


4. I make a searching and fearless moral and intellectual inventory of myself with the purpose of recognizing in myself those weaknesses which induced me to remain Christian for so long.


5. I am able to list the specific reasons why I can no longer be Christian.


6. I make the decision to do what is right, and to accept whatever the consequences may be for acknowledging the lies and living accordingly.


7. I begin working through each of my Christianity-related problems of mind, body, and relationships.


8. I make a list of those for whom it would be important to know of my decision and the changes I am making in my life, and prepare myself emotionally to discuss my decision with them all, realizing that many may react with hurt, anger, emotional outbursts, or other unpleasantness.


9. I discuss my decision with them (except in those cases where I think it would cause greater harm to do so than not) in a calm, friendly and loving way, without argument.


10. I continue to take personal inventory, and where I find artifacts of Christianity, I carefully consider whether they should continue to be a part of my life, or whether I should discard them.


11. I seek out truth wherever I can find it.


12. Having had an awakening and renewal as the result of these steps, I try to be helpful to other recovering or doubting Christians, and to practice these principles in all of my affairs.