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exfundierants · 3 years

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This is the strangest tumblr account I’ve ever made in my life. Here’s my anti-testimony.

Sometime in October, in the midst of deep seasonal depression, I realized that I didn’t believe in Christianity anymore. I attend Christian college, was raised in a Pentecostal/nondenominational setting my whole life, and didn’t see this life change coming.

Earlier on this year I discovered the lost years series that Rhett and Link (from GMM) sat and recorded for their podcast. At first listen back in February, I was disgusted. How *dare* they come out as exChristian!

Pride Month this year rolled around. I’ve known I was bisexual for ten or so years now. My husband knows. My friends know. I’ve started coming out to people from my past.

Never my family.

I was a progressive Christian, even if my church wasn’t. I believed in rights for all people, loving who you want, and the power of positive thinking and manifestation in conjunction with prayer.

A lady in one of my small groups at church came out as a “reformed lesbian.” I gagged. She cut ties with all of her queer friends in favor of the pious church crowd, and created a Bible study. Because that’s what church makes you do, right? Abandon all sense of self for the identity that God wants you to have.

Anyways. Shortly after that, COVID-19 happened. Churches shut down. Everything went digital. My church started practicing messianic Christianity and appropriating Jewish holidays.

I tugged on the tether where I stood bound.

My church said DON’T practice your gifts outside of church. No reading or writing or singing if it’s not biblical/church approved.

The tether became more taut. I walked back a few more steps.

My church celebrated Passover but the Christian version and started staying that Judaism was created to be a prophecy for Christians.

The tether felt like a noose around my middle. It got tighter and tighter.

My church condemned the LGBTQIA lifestyle and barred queer people from acts of service within the church.

I turned. I pulled. I tugged. I fought that rope with everything in me.

I watched my queer friends leave church. Turn from God. Turn from religion.

I dabbled in witchcraft. Lighting candles of intention, making Moon water, being respectful of other deities that might be loitering in my presence.

My brother told me I was going to hell in October. That gay people didn’t deserve love. That queerness was wrong. That abortion is murder. That men own women after marriage.

A single conversation.

I got out of his truck to go into my house, and I felt it.

The cord.

The rope.

The tether that had been around me for eighteen long years.

Snapped.

I was free. Holy shit.

Since then, I’ve identified as agnostic. I relistened to Rhett and Link’s podcast. I started writing my own spiritual deconstruction. I’ve opened myself up to different paths of faith and belief, but nothing organized. I’m probably done with that kind of religion forever.

My family doesn’t know. I don’t know if I’ll ever tell them. But the freedom in finding myself meant that I could write again. Sing again. Laugh again.

I want to share my journey here. If anyone else learns anything from me, that’s a bonus. But I just want a place where I can grieve and laugh and remember.

I feel like I’m finding myself for the first time, and it’s wonderful.

#ex christian #exvangelical #exfundie #ex fundamentalist #ex fundie #pro choice #pro lgbt #life change #rant #exfundierants #faith #religion #losing your religion #new beginnings

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exfundierants · 3 years

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Atheism or Omnism?

My spiritual deconstruction has been taking place since October, and right now I’m faced with new labels/the decision to relabel myself/the fact that I don’t feel rushed to make this kind of decision...

For the first time in my entire life, the decision is my own. My faith, or lack of, is my own decision to make, and it feels strange.

I know that I definitely identify well with agnosticism, but that has more to do with just knowledge rather than a system of beliefs.

Atheism calls to me like nothing else, in fact in my normal conversation over breakfast with my husband I talk about how *if* God exists, versus an actual existence. I’ve started realizing that maybe their isn’t a god, or a supreme deity, at least not in the personal way that I was raised to believe.

I still follow my old church on social media. I think that my old pastor indirectly called me out the other day (because despite being a closeted exfundie, I am still outspoken about my distaste for pulpit liars), by posting a verse about remaining silent.

Ah yes, I guess I will.

As you take the stage for four consecutive weeks to teach about a woman’s place in this world, I will take my place in this world.

As you write books about people drowning in their own decisions because they chose to walk away from god, I will sit here in my own personal pool of self-righteousness and not feel sinful.

I will write again, for myself.

They tried to steal that from me, but they couldn’t.

I have also toyed with the idea of Omnism, that is, the idea that all gods exist but none to fill any particular purpose, or that they all exist to fulfill every purpose all at once.

Right now, I’m not sure what to believe, but I’ve started believing in myself and that is a far stretch above what I used to believe.

I’m also getting some tattoos this next weekend, and one of them is going to be deeper and more freeing than anyone will ever know.

I am no Christian.

I am no Jedi.

I am no perfect worshipper of some perceived perfect deity.

I am human.

I am who ***I*** say I am.

and that might just be okay.

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