Exvangelical Meditation: Happy Frankenstein Day, or: Finding Your Sacred Text
Today, August 30th, is the 225th birthday of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Her mother invented feminism, her father founded anarchy; her step-mother translated fairy tales for the Grimm Brothers, and for her whole life, Mary was surrounded by the greatest philosphers, theologians, poets, and artists of her age. So how remarkable is it that, at the…
Exvangelical Meditation: A Path Forward
I wanted to give my readers an update: Writing has slowed down here at Surviving the Spirit, but it isn’t because I’m taking a break. It’s because I’ve been busy writing an exvangelical memoir, in which I rework much of what I’ve written here while both expanding existing content and writing entirely new material. With…
Exvangelical Meditation: The Courage to Question
Growing up as Christians, we were taught from childhood that our theology was the “Absolute Truth,” and that it would never change not collapse under scrutiny. When doubts arose as they inevitably do, it was explained to us as God “testing us” or Satan “tempting us.” This is framed in a way that suggests that…
Exvangelical Meditation: The Many Faces of Good Friday
The Christian mystic Instagram page Gnostic Alchemy just published a really interesting overview about sacrificial god folklore in many cultures before Christianity utilized it for its Christ liturgy. Their brief essay reads: “Among those connected historically or allegorically with a crucifixion are Prometheus, Adonis, Apollo, Arys, Bacchus, Buddha, Christna, Horus, Indra, Ixion, Mithras, Osiris, Pythagoras,…
Exvangelical Meditation: “For Those Members.”
Forgive me if the tone of this particular meditation. But you see — I’m angry. In a speech delivered on today — April 1, 2022 (the timing of which shouldn’t be lost on anyone), Pope Francis finally got around to apologizing for the Catholic Church’s participation in Canada’s long and tumultuous residential school system, which…
Exvangelical Meditation: Global Center for Religious Research
“The Global Center for Religious Research (GCRR) has established the world’s first and most comprehensive psychiatric research group to study the causes, manifestations, and treatment options for those suffering from religious trauma (RT). GCRR has built a team of approximately 30 licensed psychiatrists, therapists, sociologists, university professors, religion scholars, and Ph.D. candidates from around the…
Exvangelical Meditation: My Internal Compass
One of the questions I often get asked when in dialogue with evangelicals who have found out that I’ve left the faith is, what do I now use as a standard for truth in my life now that I no longer believe in the Bible? This question usually comes from a very sincere place that…
Exvangelical Meditation: The Greatest Trick the Devil Ever Pulled?
Since starting this blog, I’ve always maintained that when it comes to paths forward for Christianity to survive its long history of genocide, white supremacy, and empire building, I simply don’t have a horse in this race. If religion is the act of picking a metaphor that best enables you to walk into life’s mysteries,…
Exvangelical Meditation: “Plowshare Prayer”
I’ve found many wonderful anthems for my deconstruction – from artists who were once part of the evangelical crowd and now have the courage to ask questions publicly (Kevin Max, Derek Webb), to artists who clearly grew up in the Church as seek to find meaning in its symbolism while breaking free of its confines…
Exvangelical Meditation: “What is Normality Mean to You?” A Poem about Deconstruction and PTSD
Earlier this year, a poet friend of mine and I had a conversation about returning to normalcy after the chaos of 2020 and beyond. It stirred some speculations on what “normality” looks like and how it is defined. I was in therapy at the time for work-related PTSD, which I was processing both in its own…
Exvangelical Meditation: The Good Samaritan — A Deconstructor’s Retelling
The following is based on the parable Jesus tells in Luke 10: 25-37. Historical context has been added to provide readers with some perspective on this parable — which, in its essence, is a story about religious deconstruction. —- A man comes up to Jesus as he is preaching. He asks Jesus how to inherit…
Exvangelical Meditation: How Our Bodies Carry Our History
As someone working through my own religious trauma, I have come to both comprehend and try to own the fact that both our bodies and our souls carry our history, often in ways we do not expect. Working through my trauma is therefore a lifelong process in which I am learning how to pay attention…
Exvangelical Meditation: “The Signs of the Times”
“Signs of the Times” is a popular Evangelical phrase derived from a speech Jesus gives in Matthew 24 in which he foretells of “wars and rumors of war” as the way to know that the Kingdom of God is at hand. The chapter — along with strange apocalyptic imagery in the Old Testament books of…
Exvangelical Meditation: God-Shaped Hole
I was indoctrinated from a young age into believing that I had a “God-shaped hole” in my heart that only a personal relationship with Jesus could fill. In its way, teaching the exclusivity of this theological belief (as if it is a one-size-fits-all salvation package) is very deceptive, because when a “relationship with Christ” didn’t…
Exvangelical Meditation: Hell Theology is Child Abuse
Here is today’s brief reminder that Hell Theology is child abuse, and I am doing what I can to be a part of the change that will make it reportable to children’s services. To those of you who have experienced the psychological trauma of Hell Theology: There is help and resources, and the anxiety you…
Exvangelical Meditation: Mass Graves and Residential Schools
Whether or not religious abuse is real isn’t up for debate, as the recent discovery of mass graves at residential schools for Native American children continues to prove. I’ve heard some evangelicals use gaslighting language to try to isolate the issue (and to shift blame exclusively on the Catholics, as they are keen to do),…
Exvangelical Meditation: The Sin of Pride and Religious Trauma
Marlene Winell’s book LEAVING THE FOLD, in which she coined the phrase “religious trauma syndrome,” was immensely helpful in my own healing — particularly in recognizing the ways I still carried abuse and trauma from my experience in church. (I left the church in 2006, but did not read the book until 2018.) For example,…
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