Skip to main content

Weak in Faith

By Sara ~

A Take On Judgement
A Take On Judgement (Photo credit: Taylor Dawn Fortune)
I am 23 years old, and I would definitely say I am an 'ex-christian.' My father was a heroin (and whatever else) addict, so my sister and I were raised by my mother. We struggled all our lives, and a lot of terrible things happened. When I was 12 years old, my father was killed. I began a downward spiral. By 14 I was using drugs and just acting crazy. My mom worked 2 jobs, so supervision wasn't an issue. My freshman year in high school, a church by the name of Church on the Rock did a small revival-like 2-day conference in my town. Suddenly there was a blast of teenagers in my school being dragged by their parents, or the group of zealous converts, to church, every week. Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights. I don't know how to explain the difference between this church, and the other churches in the area, any other way except: The people were militant. Every person I ever talked to from there had a misguided sense of authority. There was a mission in mind every time they opened their mouths. They dominated every conversation, and twisted your words.

I had recently begun to spend time with another girl in my class who's whole family went. It took them another year and a half to drag me to a service, but from the moment I walked in the door they took advantage of the weakest and most vulnerable parts of my life. I was forced to admit every sexual encounter I had had to that point. Every lie I had told and secret I had kept was dragged out of me by guilt and fear. I was told that God had to make me clean again, and he would, but it was going to be a process, changing my habits. I was going to want to let other people give me advice, but I had to remember the only advice that would keep me out of HELL was out of the Bible or the preachers mouth. They began to mold me into something they could use to convert others. I would run bible studies for my class mates and say things that make me feel sick to think of now.

Absolute hubris... and all for the sake of making them members of the church.
I would lie on my bed at night and cry, over the shame and fear of the questions in my head. See I had given everything I was to this belief... this shadowy, questionable doctrine. To make you understand how seriously: I was running multiple Bible Studies, 'discipling' multiple fragile girls like myself. I was in engaged to a boy at 18 that I had only known for 5 months, because the church thought we would 'work well together.' Our preaching style was dynamic and sure to save some souls.

I was scared, and felt out of control. I started digging into the leadership of our group. Things I found out were so disturbing and to the CORE hypocritical, I was having a hard time ignoring it. But I was scared to leave. Everything I had been taught, said that if I left, or searched for answers to my questions, and comfort for my doubt, that I would not only fail in life, but end up spending eternity in hell. I knew that if I told anyone what I was thinking, or the info that I had found out, I was going to be accused of 'creating discord in the brethren.' I had seen it happen before... to a few others. They just moved away and no one ever talked about them. Occasionally, when their names would come up, there would be a few wild rumors about how they were doing terrible since they left... but communication with them was looked at as a sign of being 'weak in your faith.'

Over time I found myself on a journey of enlightenment. There was always a fear to ask questions and seek answers, since denying the holy spirit is an unforgivable sin. It seemed that doubting was the last thing I wanted to do. However, when your curious about the truth, but too scared to to hunt for it, sometimes it will seek you out. It was a fight to get out. They told lies about me, caused me to lose my job, and a lot of the people in my town though I was 'demon possessed.'
Now here I am on the other side, at 23 with more peace than I ever found in the church. I would say I'm an atheist... It's a freeing thing to admit. I don't say that in rebellion or anger towards the church. I say that because after recalling my experience I can see that there were very specific tactics used to break me to the point that I was at. I can see, on a large scale, the DAMAGE religion, as a whole, has done to mankind. Real happiness is found in taking control of your life, and responsibility in your world.

I still have serious trauma issues from the emotional and mental abuse. The anxiety that I feel when I think of it, will keep me up at night.

However, now, when I lie my head down at night, its next to the man who loves me for exactly what I am, and I have peace with myself. My peace comes from fighting for people, and not against them.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

THE FRIGHTENING FACE

By David Andrew Dugle ~ O ctober. Halloween. It's time to visit the haunted house I used to live in. When I was five my dad was able to build a big modern house. Moving in before it was complete, my younger brother and I were sleeping in a large unfinished area directly under the living room. It should have been too new to be a haunted house, but now and then I would wake up in the tiny, dark hours and see the blurry image of a face, or at least what I took to be a face, glowing, faintly yellow, high up on the wall near the ceiling. I'm not kidding! Most nights it didn’t appear at all. But when it did show itself, at first I thought it was a ghost and it scared me like nothing else I’d ever seen. But the face never did anything; unmoving, it just stayed in that one spot. Turning on the lights would make it disappear, making my fears difficult to explain, so I never told anyone. My Sunday School teachers had always told me to be good because God was just behind m

The Blame Game or Shit Happens

By Webmdave ~ A relative suffering from Type 1 diabetes was recently hospitalized for an emergency amputation. The physicians hoped to halt the spread of septic gangrene seeping from an incurable foot wound. Naturally, family and friends were very concerned. His wife was especially concerned. She bemoaned, “I just don’t want this (the advanced sepsis and the resultant amputation) to be my fault.” It may be that this couple didn’t fully comprehend the seriousness of the situation. It may be that their choice of treatment was less than ideal. Perhaps their home diabetes maintenance was inconsistent. Some Christians I know might say the culprit was a lack of spiritual faith. Others would credit it all to God’s mysterious will. Surely there is someone or something to blame. Someone to whom to ascribe credit. Isn’t there? A few days after the operation, I was talking to a man who had family members who had suffered similar diabetic experiences. Some of those also suffered ea

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

Reasons for my disbelief

By Rebekah ~ T here are many layers to the reasons for my disbelief, most of which I haven't even touched on here... When I think of Evangelical Christianity, two concepts come to mind: intense psychological traps, and the danger of glossing over and missing a true appreciation for the one life we know that we have. I am actually agnostic when it comes to a being who set creation in motion and remains separated from us in a different realm. If there is a deistic God, then he/she doesn't particularly care if I believe in them, so I won't force belief and instead I will focus on this one life that I know I have, with the people I can see and feel. But I do have a lot of experience with the ideas of God put forth by Evangelical Christianity, and am confident it isn't true. If it's the case god has indeed created both a physical and a heavenly spiritual realm, then why did God even need to create a physical realm? If the point of its existence is to evolve to pas

Why I left the Canadian Reformed Church

By Chuck Eelhart ~ I was born into a believing family. The denomination is called Canadian Reformed Church . It is a Dutch Calvinistic Christian Church. My parents were Dutch immigrants to Canada in 1951. They had come from two slightly differing factions of the same Reformed faith in the Netherlands . Arriving unmarried in Canada they joined the slightly more conservative of the factions. It was a small group at first. Being far from Holland and strangers in a new country these young families found a strong bonding point in their church. Deutsch: Heidelberger Katechismus, Druck 1563 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I was born in 1955 the third of eventually 9 children. We lived in a small southern Ontario farming community of Fergus. Being young conservative and industrious the community of immigrants prospered. While they did mix and work in the community almost all of the social bonding was within the church group. Being of the first generation born here we had a foot in two