Former Fundamentalist Evangelical Christians Check In!

I know I'm not the only one. Give us your testimony ;). I'll offer my tale of freedom in a bit.

(Yay! A religion board! Thanks, Admins!)

It's nice to know that there are people *leaving* fundamentalism, because I know so many people are being converted to it. It's scary to me. The movement is growing.

I'd like to clarify that I'm not slamming all of Christianity; I actually consider myself a Christian. This is directed at the hate-monger fundamentalists.

I was in AoG

I have always been a "seeker" looking into the unknown.
When I was going through a bad time in my life,I had moved into a place away from the city I was used to,family and freinds chasing work,
We became very emotionally vunerable and was recruited by christians through my partner.We started out thinking armegeddon was about Jesus coming to wipe out the bullies.

We at first were very LIBERAL,but as we read the bible and associated with fundies our beliefs in order to be consistient with a bible that is not liberal if you take it word for word literally.we began to change.
We saw the cheesy left behind series and saw some rapture crap by Jack Van Impe.

Christianity is a very toxic belief it effects yyour mind like a drug trip or delusion can.

I actually believed god set up appoint ments so I could convert people.At one point I was in the WAWA convienence stotre with my partner getting stuff,and I thought he had been raptured.For a moment I was disspointed that I would not be whisked to paradise,too.But I supressed that and the fear came rushing in that I would be facing tribulation alone.

You cannot imagine the stark terror I felt

Well for one reason is I believed it and was entranced by the bible and was emotionally unable to handle my uncertain life.

Second I have an abuse history When I was little my neighbor was a fundie pedophile and he used armegeddon imagry on a filmstrip projector to terrorize me.

So all that fear ,pain and traumas from back than and the gruesome images came to mind too.
I was scared.I saw a book after that when I realized that was just a rapture scare called Fear no Evil.It spoke of a minister and his outreach.I had images of traveling around helping people.
I contacted this guy and he set us up with AOG.He was a fat pig of a hypocrite scam artist named Denny Nissley.He was a dominionist kingdom now rethuglican monster.He was always tryuing to sway our politics to the right.
As we got deeper into AoG we found ourselves in "cell churches" which are biblwe study groups in homes but really it's intense indoctrination.Unawares we were being"shephered,and we were messed up with this kind of heavy duty undoctrimation shit.I was "excorcized" and we almost went to"cleansing stream" and I am so glad I NEVER went now that I know how abusive these "encounter groups" for god are..We were baptized in a big toodoo ceremmony that had to be arranged quickly for who knows why. Son we were hanging around Denny with a stepford wife and his 10 kids who ran this outreach called"christ in action".Denny used
Christ in action ,he helped"arrange" for us to move to Manassas closer to "christ in action" and since we were going through emotional stress Denny offered to help us isolate ourselves further like any cultist would.We saw it as kindness than but in reality he weas taking advantage of us.He used his truck ,and Christ in action members to move us to a house we got through obne of his freinds in realty.

Under his pressure and the pressure of Aog and this clique I threw out alot of my things,all my jewelry my She Ra/He man collection from the 80's,my transformers and thundercats too.
I lost my huge crystal collection and all my CDS records and tapes that took years to collect,Alot of belobved music was gone..
I tossed sculptures,even my own art portfolio.

I still reget it and I am angry at myself and even more pissed at AoG and denny asshole.


Every week Christ in action would curse people and do magic which they call prayer to torment people until the convery,or close down businesses.Jay Sekulow is on the board of this group it is just notr openly.I met CIA people there and also thier oldest daughter,

spent quite a bit of time in brazil.Knowing the"midas touch " styled gold scams goin on She down there it makes you wonder.

Anyways Soon I left Aog because the I could not adhere to the grueling hypocraisy,I could not reconcile the bible it was too inconsistient to take literally the book of Joshua was abuse and gOd looked abusive and I didn't want it.I was betrayed hurt and emiotionally crushed.

The delusion was lost,the enchantment was breaking up and I saw reality for the first time.I saw that I was used.I was living in the middle of nowhere,I had no freinds(since I couldn't believe the church"freinds" dropped me like a hot potato),We had an unstable income,a mortgage,I had given up my health insurance(I was pushed into marriage)I had no income of my own(I was a stepford wife) I had taken out my pierces(luckily they had not closed)I had grown out my hawk(I reshaved it) and I lost all the things of my lifetime,things I had that were near and dear to me.My art portfolio was GONE.I never felt so injured ,duped betrayed and pissed in my life.and I felt like killing myself.
I went to this used record store in manassas to get music that WAS NOT christian,to comfort myself and lo and behold some of M<Y OWN record collection was there,rare stuff that had small notes I made in the cover,the alan parsons DCD where the rain warped the cover just so. You cannot imagine the rage I felt. and the joy of getting something of MINE back..at the same time.
So we sold the house because the tech bubble burst.We had not lived there 2 years so we paid taxes,and the house was nice on the inside a dump on the outside.It was a cheesy house and the realators were manipulating, taking us to see houses at night..
So now I live in my moms basement with no income no insurance,
I can't afford to get much help and when I can and every session comes with tears.
and I hate fundie religions and thier evil manipulating conning church structure with my whiole heart.
They prey upon people with emotional stresas and traumas. the evil fuckers.

I thank you for posting it and sharing such personal things. I've had gnawing and growing concerns that a couple of our family members have been exposed to a same-like experience in their "City-Church". I felt the concern over a year ago and tried to do some internet research which brought me to Dominionism and I had that sick feeling in my stomach that their church choice was amongst the arms of the umbrella dominionism. As near as I can tell dominionism has gone to a lot of trouble to have a loose network that isn't directly connected, preferring instead indirect connections not as easily tracked back to dominionism parent churches.

The clues for me were the use of what I call some buzz phrases, like cells, shepherding, encounter groups, freeing themselves up from greatly-valued personal possessions. I wondered if this mega city church they had found was not what it appeared to be on the surface. What you describe in so much detail parallels what I've seen them do as they become more and more insulated within their city church structure.

Having bumped up against this kind of "unwavering" indoctrination which is reinforced over and over again through the required almost daily attendance, I felt great sadness wash over me in recognition that it is next to impossible to help them see through the thorough programming to see that it is indeed programming.

By your own story, it seems you came to your own dawning recognition and in so doing came up against the accusations and guilting of weak faith. It sounds like when you did not fall back in line, you experienced a kind of "shunning" and were left without your faith community and to find your own way. I understand that can be a very difficult emotional isolating, loss and grieving experience. One that is subtly understood as a consequence when a person is questioning the validity of the teachings as promoted within the dominionist type churches.

Well, I go on too long, but wanted to thank you for sharing your story, it took courage, and to wish you well in your quest to find personal relationship with Creator, however you eventually come to define it.

I was a fundamentalist Christian until I was about 15 years old. I was not a fundamentalist because I was raised in a fundamentalist family. I chose to be a fundamentalist to deal with the abuse I suffered as a child. My family attended church, but I was the only one in the family who really bought into evangelical Christianity. It was my way of making sense in the world that seemed so harsh.

I would wake up every morning and do an hour of bible study before school. I attended church on Sunday at noon and at night and on Wednesday as well. When other boys went off to look at Playboys or do other typical teen things, I refrained b/c those were sins.

I was also a science geek. At around 15 I started studying the theory of evolution. That caused me to question my beliefs. From there I went from rebellious atheism to nihilistic agnosticism to a religious philosphy based on the teachings of Budda and Jesus.

That and astronomy. And geology. The 'science' teachers in church school could twist/obfuscate/obscure science enough to keep me in line, but college screwed all that up.

I remember going to my (religious) university biology teacher's office, and saying something like, "hey, you know this genetics/evolution stuff is pretty convincing - even though you say it's not true - could you explain why your model is a better fit to the observable data?"

You know what he said to me? "Are you having a problem with drugs or alcohol?"

That was sure a convincing argument, wasn't it?

I grew up going to fundamentalist and evangelical Baptist churches, but I never really bought into it the way my parents did. The more I thought about it, the more it looked like fundamentalists were merely picking and choosing parts of the Bible they thought went well with each other and disregarded the rest. And they could never mount enough evidence to cast any real doubt on evolution. So, I got out. I consider myself Quaker now.

I have to say I love the idea of specific forums like this. Now we can disuss issues of interest to us (e.g., THIS one) and "not bother" those not interested.

A few threads to pull in here:
(Religion Alert): Debunking the Rapture Theory ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2669589

Ok. I've got some questions on the Rapture that I need explained, please:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2669323

"The antichrist is in the world now. He has just not been revealed."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2668818

My earliest memories are of church. When the doors “were open,” at the small town Assembly of God church, we were there. And the doors were open at least 3 days a week. And twice on Sundays. And in the summer, for 2-6 weeks, the “doors” (to the tent) were open nightly. Have the flu? Still going to church. The rule was we had to go unless our fever was above 102. Snowstorn? Still going to church. We would sometimes have to shovel our way there. Roads were we lived were not plowed, and we would get to an impassable spot, pile out of the car, grab the shovels from the trunk, and clear the path.

The church was a “holy-roller” speaking-in-tongues, slaying-of-spirits, healing-of-sickness, obsessed-with-the-rapture kind of church. My parents both say that my first word was “why.” And they (and others) recall how their friends in church would take turns holding me on their lap, then asking me to sit with them, because they thought my questions were “cute.” When I got older, and the questions got more … pointed, I guess … my Dad essentially explained the stuff I wrote above (i.e. that what doesn’t make sense logically is a trap – a test of our faith. “For now, we see through a glass darkly…Now, we know only in part ..” (1 Cor. 13:12) – and asked me to stop questioning the leaders of our church in public, because I could cause people to doubt their faith.

At the same time, I DID believe the church’s teaching. I wrote a little “short-short” story about that a while ago, explaining why I cannot abide horror stories to this day – because so much of my early (and mid … and pretty much late too) childhood was filled with these horrid/horror-like images of the Rapture, and the Tribulation – and hell. (Those really interested can read it .) My mother literally read aloud to us as small children (if you’re not familiar with that book, it’s a compendium of the various horrid tortures that early Christians were subjected to – and that – per our faith, people would again be subjected if they were Left Behind in the Rapture.) Our church showed the Left Behind movies - and although we had no TV and were't permitted to go to movies, we saw those movies. My mom also read Raptured to us as small children - the story of a young couple "left behind" and forced to face the terrors of the Tribulation. Her view (and our pastor's view) was it was better to scare, literally, the hell out of us, than to risk losing our souls. It worked.

Although my mind rebelled, my “soul”/heart believed. (Another story: My parents went to our pastor to ask what to do about the fact that every time he had an “altar call” – for people who weren’t saved, or for people who had “backslidden” (i.e., sinned/drifted away from the Lord) -- which was at every single sermon, including funerals, I went up to be “re-saved.” He told them it was a good thing that I recognized my own sinful and rebellious nature and continued to repent. It is hard to explain how REAL it is. What an alternate universe it is. In any event, I was very active in the youth group, made it all the way to “Honor Star” of the Missionettes (“Girl Scouts” of the AG church), was captain of the Bible Quiz Team for several years (which required literally memorizing entire books of the Bible – King James Version, of course.)

I can tell you – knowing what it says about me – that some part of me BELIEVED this and/or FEARED this at some level into my 20s. I still have flash-backs. I still have .. a panic attack when I lose my partner in a crowd, or when I come home and he’s not there, but I don’t know where he is. (Which, I recognize, is totally illogical since – well – he is most definitely NOT a “believer” by .. MOST “standards,” much less their standards.)

As for how was I “freed from the bondage of fear and fundamentalism” ~ I can’t explain the “how” – just that it grew. After I moved away from home to college, and could look back with some distance, I realized just how removed from reality most of it was. I took biology in college and learned about the “theory” of evolution. (My high school science teacher was also a minister – so we did not learn about evolution in high school.) That being said, both of my sisters have a 4-year+ college education --- and they still “believe” (and, I suspect, think I have been seduced by the “wisdom” of the world, and am “lost” – and that they pray for my “salvation” all the time).

~Tes

I was a Wisconsin Synod Lutheran from birth till the age of eighteen, when I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. When I was a kid, women still didn't have the right to vote in church council elections, although at about that time, they had loosened the rules and allowed women to ATTEND. They still weren't allowed to speak up in the discussion. They believed they were the one true religion, saving some of their most poisonous venom for the Catholic Church.

I didn't attend any church at all for over a decade, then wandered into an ELCA Lutheran church in Columbus. I couldn't believe the difference! These guys are not only tolerant of gays, but welcome them into their midst -- although attitudes on that subject may vary depending on the congregation. Most ELCA Lutherans embrace ecumenical activities and now have shared communion with several other faiths -- including Catholics.

Once or twice in the past ten years I've attended my old Wisconsin Synod church (once for my Dad's funeral) and I can't believe that these people are still around.

to several conservative churches over the years, but different enough from each other that my little kid's brain must have realized that when they say "We are the only way to Heaven. We are the Right Way to live" and yet contradict each other, well, there's something wrong with that picture.

Tried to be a good little conservative evangelical girl in HS because I was desperate for SOMETHING to make me feel better about myself. Didn't work and I gave it up, but not before I snagged me a boyfriend whose father is a conservative evangelical minister.

So, I ended up marrying the boyfriend and am still with him today. There is a bit of friction from our different view points on faith.
More on that here: http://www.livejournal.com/users/gpv/324.html

------------------------------------
Would Jesus love a liberal?
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/

Laguna Beach, Ca. She didn't want me to be a hippie (it was in the 60's). When I told her I was dropping out, around the age of fifteen (in 1973 or 1974), she was devastated. I told her that I could not participate in a faith that did not recognize women as equals, advocating complete equal opportunity for them.

30 years later, at 45, I investigated liberal churches, and joined the Church of Religious Science (using the power of your mind positively), and I also like going to Unitarian church also (they are very similar).

This is one of my favorite topics. I think that people need to investigate liberal churches, and find one in which they not only feel welcome, but one that encourages independent thinking, flat out doesn't tell them what to think, or with whom to associate, and recognizes that we each on individual paths to the Great Spirit. If those qualities aren't there, run!

Still married to him but he left the ministry 20 years ago. I was raised with a fairly fundamentalist upbringing - not really strict at home but the church was along those lines. I think I really gravitated toward it as a teenager because it was black and white - and I was of course scared to death of burning in hell. It was security, someone in charge, because my home life between two step-parents and a nasty divorce with my parents was so insecure. Went to a Christian college, married my guy who was a preacher's son and did what was expected but after a few years in it decided to get out. We were always liberal politically and saw no conflict between politics and religion (before the Christian Coalition bunch hijacked it). Hubby said he was in the pulpit one day and looked around the rural church we were in and thought "I wouldn't be friends with any of you if I was not your minister and you are hung up on these stupid issues of tobacco and pants wearing and couldn't have an abstract thought if you tried," and it was not long before we made an exit. There were always more ministers than positions available and he decided he should not take up space when someone else really wanted that space. So that is my fundamentalist story...

I loved yours, TenDemo, because that's kind of the thought I had in church one time (similar to your spouse's thought). I didn't want to be a sheeple that just got married, didn't complete my degree, and sat home with the kids, while the husband cheated. That was what I observed generally in my teens.

...from 1988 to 1992, but I got better.

From about 1970-1976.

I wonder why when a persons personality when it gets too much of instability the internal personality structures undermined seeks stability and when it does it seeks fundamentalism.Like fundamentalist rigidity of beliefs may offers the vunerable personality a feel of a structure,like a 'container' so it can reformulate itself..
There was a book about this process I think it was called The protean self,that discribed this whole phenomena in people.

If there is this come and go desire for external rigidity ,a fixed belief and structure however temporary,and it serves a need and is a normal psychological phenomena of personality(or trauma healing) that is part of a growing psychological process in humanity..

Than a church scam structure setting itself up to exploit a vunerable personalities in human need for outer structure to hold personas together during times of upheaval is EVIL indeed..And a scam to the core .

I HATE AOG.

nt

devout christians. They are not the same.

When I think of fundamentalism I think of speaking in tongues, belief in the power of prayer (including healing), the preeminence of men in the family, belief that non-believers are possessed of Satan and salvation only comes from accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and saviour, and faith that the rapture is imminent.

There are lots and lots of devout Christians that do not hold these beliefs or do not apply them with the ferocity of damnation that Fundamentalists do. When I speak of fundamentalism, I intemnd no malice to the many devout Christians who are very good people for the most part.

It seems to me that there are two primary characteristics of fundamentalism. (1) A belief that some selected scripture contains words literally authored by their god, either handed down by angels -- e.g., the gold plates handed to Joseph Smith -- or spoken through prophets -- e.g., Moses, Mohammed. Usually, this is accompanied by a belief that they also have the key to the correct interpretation of that scripture. (2) A focus on the afterlife as the purpose of religion, of life here, and as the justification for their moral outlook and their behavior here.

This combination is potentially frightening, because it distances the fundamentalist from all ordinary discussion that the rest of us use to consider moral issues and reach political compromise. It seems to me to characterize both Christian and Islamic fundamentalism. I think you're right that most fundamentalist religions emphasize a submissive role for women in the family. I don't know whether that is because they have a common origin in Judaism, or because the authoritarian nature of revelation, interpretation, and soteriology is replicated in the family, or for other reasons besides. Not all fundamentalists believe in glossolalia or predispensationalism.

and charismatics are serving the devil. Your indpendent fundamentalist Baptists are adamantly opposed to speaking in tongues, etc. They consider charismatics to be liberals, because charismatics often rely on experience more than the Bible. There is a real difference between the two camps. Jerry Falwell represents the non-charismatic fundamentalist, where Pat Robertson would represent some in the pentecostal and charismatic circles. Others fall more into the Creflo Dollar/Benny Hinn name it and claim it circles. Still others are even more out there on the fringes part of the Revival movement (Toronto Blessing, Brownsville Revival). The church I went to was associated with Mike Bickel of Kansas City (aka the Kansas City Prophetic movement) and Rick Joyner of Morning Star in North Carolina, and also part of the Toronto Blessing movement. They were trying hard to have a Toronto-style 7 day a week revival thing going - hence the emphasis on the supernatural. One thing I noticed in this movement is that everyone has a favorite teacher who is a like a guru for them. Some in this church followed Benny Hinn avidly, while others were Mike Bickle freaks, others were really into Rick Joyner, still others were followers of John Paul Jackson or Dutch Sheets. Frequently there were little battles in the church over which direction the church would take following which model. One group wanted us to become an IHOP (International House of Prayer) using the Harp and Bowl model. Some wanted to focus more on the prosperity gospel, and another group was working more on signs and wonders wanting to see a Toronto-styled revival. It was very divisive even within that one church. Outside the church, though, we had to be united, as other preachers throughout the area preached that our church was in apostasy. It was generally accepted locally that this church was a fringe/cultlike church and other people did not believe the folks at this church were "saved." It's all very confusing.

All this to say that even all the fundamentalist/evangelicals aren't united. They don't all believe that everyone from those circles are saved. Check out a couple of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist apologetics sites and you will see that they don't even think Billy Graham is saved much less the likes of Pat Robertson, Bishop Earl Paulk, Mike Bickle, etc. are saved.

http://www.apologeticsindex.org

http://www.rapidnet.com/

http://www.banner.org.uk/contents.html

I find it hard to tell the difference. SOme are obvious (not one attempt at conversion) but others are harder. If someone makes a reference to Bible, I tell them I don't know it, they give me a weird look.

Some of my family are borderline or complete fundies. One wants to kill gays everywhere and the other wants Christianity to be the only religion in America since Jesus was an American (WTF?!)

They tried to get me into it but I seen what it really means.

:hi:

People are always really shocked when I tell them that. I certainly don't look like one. The road to recovery is a long and hard one. My mom and my sister are both born agains and of course church was mandatory. I've always been very different from the rest of my family, and all the pressure started getting to me and finally one day I just broke down and responded to the altar call. I was 12 at the time and a very confused kid, I thought there was something wrong with me because I'd always been different (dark sense of humor, was a tomboy and never interested in things girls were "supposed" to be interested in, etc)...so I thought getting born again would "fix" me. I thought my mom would accept me more (my mom and my sister are practically best friends and I've never been that close to either of them, again because I was so different).

So, I did it for the wrong reasons. But I did agree with what Jesus taught, that was never my problem. My problem was the Pauline crap...you know men and women having "their distinct roles", etc. I hate being chained down with rules and I have always had issues with authority, so I really didn't appreciate that. I also am by nature a very curious person and if something doesn't make sense to me I constantly ask questions. I joined the church youth group figuring I would make some like-minded friends (I've always been a loner). Boy was I wrong. I felt even more out of place, and the youth pastors never let me forget it. I was labelled a troublemaker because I would never just go along to get along, I would always ask questions and argue and they told me my faith was weak and if I was really a Christian then I would just "know". I read the Bible and while a lot of it I agreed with (pretty much everything Jesus said) I completely didn't agree with the Pauline stuff because it was antithetical to every value I held dear. It seemed like everything I did was wrong. Again I was told my faith was weak and that if I was really born again I wouldn't even be interested in the "worldly" stuff I liked (fantasy books, rock music, etc). The gender stuff in particular really screamed ignorance and intolerance to me and I was always challenging them on it. Finally I was asked to leave because apparently I was a "bad influence" on the other kids.

Needless to say mom wasn't exactly thrilled. I started reading about Buddhism, alternative religions, etc. I was drawn to Taoism because I have studied martial arts and the spiritual side of it seemed intriguing to me. However when I was 15 I had to do an oral presentation for my sophomore mythology class and for some reason "witchcraft" popped into my head and I chose it as my topic. My research led me to start reading about Wicca. I was floored because suddenly I had found a philosophy and a worldview that totally made sense to me, and represented things I had always really believed in. I've been practicing ever since, about eight years.

Of course mom was even less thrilled about that but that's a whole other post.

I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home and used to watch TBN off and on (mostly for amusement, big hair and glittering gold).
That's how I know so much about them and how they think.

I slowly left fundamentalism when I got on the evil internet. I was looking up something on christianity and I came across websites that debunked alot of fundamentalist christianity.

I don't know if there is a god/spirit or not. But life is better without fundamentalism, that's for sure.

Right here. At least until I turned 18. I've tried to tell my parents since, if you wanted me to stay in line with your closed-minded, sheltered little religion, you never should have sent me off to college.... Oh well we're all better off now -- I'm MUCH happier and I still have a great relationship with the folks. I'm sure one day they'll start in on the "but you don't want to go to HELL, do you??" stuff, but in the mean time it's all good.

Welcome and thanks for your story. :hi:

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

a fundamentalist church--a Pentecostal church, to be exact. I don't know if all Pentecostal churches are fundamentalist; I know there's some variation among them. But anyway, this particular was very hell-and-brimstone and anti-women, and the person who tried to "witness to" me nearly brainwashed me. I'm ashamed to admit it, now, but I know I'm not the only one.

Southern Baptist in New Jersey! LOL

Then in my 20's I became a born again - baptised - Pentacostal evangelical bible thumping, gospel quoting, no drinking, no dancing, no fun having Christian. I was this way for about 3 years and then I like to say "I woke up form a long sleep" and left that church and set out on my own jurney to find my truth. 20 years later I am an Agnostic and Pagan. It's been a long strange trip! LOL

If so, I guess I could be a part of this group!

In short, I've come to the conclusion that this happened to me because:

1. It was during a scary part of my life, and

2. I needed someone/something to give me a list of do's & don'ts because of my wild past.

Thanks!

I got into "the movement" at 15 and hung in there through high school. To be fair, I have to say I was more of a "fanatic/"Jesus-freak" than a "fundie" because my church was always quite liberal but even the "fanatic" part ended when I got out of high school. I did actually study for the ministry in the Methodist church (women had gained that privelege a few years prior) and I know there are devoted Christians who are not fanatics.

College is what opened my eyes to the fact that it was ok for me to believe whatever I wanted but it wasn't right to want to coerce anyone into believing it and it was stupid and arrogant of me to believe that only "we" had the correct answer to very subjective questions.

Like you, I attribute it to a difficult period in my life and that I needed some do's and don'ts and absolutes to get me in line. (I had seen friends really screwing up their lives with drugs and alcohol even at that age and really didn't want to go that route.) I do attribute my participation in the church youth group to keeping me out of a great deal of trouble.

I regret and am embarrassed by my naivete, stupidity and ignorance during those years and that's probably why, just like an ex-alcoholic or ex-smoker, I am more vehemently opposed to forcing one religion down everyone's throat than most non-"ex"-fanatics.

...and left when I was 18, never to return. Took me the better part of twenty years to heal from that trauma. In time, I became an Episcopalian.

...a fundamentalist/pentecostal minister for a father. Not to mention my 3 uncles who were pentecostal ministers as well (2 current, 1 former). Needless to say, I have a shit-ton of cousins, and we're all really close in age, so it was nice growing up. Basically, I'm one of a handful out of my family that are so-called backsliders. Why? Probably, as my dad would say, "those liberal professors" in colllege.

Basically, I didn't fully emerge from my shed-skin of faith until I was 21 or 22. I used to be huge into youth group and all that, and even when I "strayed from the path", I still deep down thought I'd return to it later, and that deep down I knew that was the right way. But, my dad is probably right. It was college that really made it hard for me to believe - between philosophy, political philosophy, and biological/psychological anthropology, faith just couldn't stand the test of logic and reason. I also am more forcefully opposed to the fundamentalist Red-State thought process, because that used to be me, and I know how they think.

...that there might be _current_ fundamentalist/evangelical Christians here at DU that support a so-called "liberal" worldview. They exist. You can find them at:

www.sojo.net

for a few years in the 1980s.

Here's what sticks out:

Our "Bible study" group didn't do much Bible study, and spent more time watching and discussing Rapture movies. This was long before Left Behind. Back then the movies that every evangelical saw at one time or another were the series of rapture movies made in the 1970s and early 1980s, "A Thief in the Night", "A Distant Thunder", "Image of the Beast", and "The Prodigal Planet". Anyone else who has seen those will know why I say I cringe at the thought of even bringing them up. They're really bad movies with some gore and a lot of screaming that were supposed to scare you into accepting Jesus.

Reading Chick tracts and actually taking them seriously. Also there was a small group from my church that would head out into the streets on Friday and Saturday nights, armed with boxes of Chick tracts, and shout at people who were out at the nightclubs and bars that they were going to Hell, shouting Bible verses at them, and throwing Chick tracts at them. Talk about obnoxious. Only at the time I didn't see such behavior as obnoxious, but as Christians being obediant and "going into all the world".

Christan rock. One thing we were expected to do was throw out our entire collection of secular music and replace it with Christian music. There were a few who I still remember as being good artists in their own right (Larry Norman, Mylon Lefevre), but most of it was really bad stuff. I can't believe I actually listened to Stryper, Petra, Whitecross, Amy Grant, Degarmo & Key... Today Stryper gets my vote for worst. band. ever.

One guy tried to talk me into getting into the "discipling" movement. I balked, ironically because I had read some warnings about cult-like aspects of "discipling" from some evangelical sources. Another friend who went to a different church than I did tried to insist that I wasn't really saved because I had been baptized "in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" instead of "in the name of Jesus", and tried to get me to switch to his church. Again, I balked. He finally drew a line and said that he wouldn't talk to me anymore and I was going to hell because I had rejected his version of the gospel.

"Satanic Panic" was a hot topic. Rumors of organized Satan worship and several popular books claiming to be by ex-Satanists. Supposedly there were Satanic rituals being held in the woods (actually a neopagan group) and a few people went to the site right before Halloween to hold a "prayer meeting" asking God to remove the Satanism menace. We passed around Mike Warnke's "The Satan Seller" and Rebecca Brown's books and were shocked, started holding regular prayer meetings to attack Satan and "bind" demons. One member kept getting "messages from God" and "visions" of all the demons which Satan supposedly had over the city, and "God" directing him to go witness to one person or another who was supposedly into Satanism. Also, Halloween and trick or treating were forbidden because supposedly they had Satanic origins. We were supposed to give gospel tracts to any trick or treaters who showed up instead of candy.

Besides panic over Satanism, there was also panic over Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. Both of them, we were told, were "cults", and there were a couple of people in my church who made it their mission to try and "witness" to Mormons and JWs - with no success.

There was another person in my church who had been involved (so he claimed) in smuggling bibles into the Soviet bloc. He kept us fascinated with tales of how he kept seeing angels appearing to him and protecting his shipments of bibles across the border. That, and another book called "Angels On Assignment" that got passed around the congregation, started a big angel craze in the church.

Watching TBN and the 700 Club, and listening to Bob Larson on the radio - and taking it seriously. Looking back, there were some real kooks and charlatans on TBN and I can't believe I took what they were saying seriously, while Bob Larson was just a gutter-level shock jock. Critical thinking just didn't seem to enter into the picture at the time.

Also I went to a Mike Warnke concert. He was the proclaimed "ex-Satanist" who had since launched a career as a Christian comedian. Later (long after I got out of the evangelical rathole), Warnke was exposed as a fraud. But when I went to the concert I thought he was solid. During the concert he seemed edgy and paranoid, and there was an incident there when somebody in the audience started shouting "praise Satan", and Warkne stopped the show to perform an exorcism. Right after the incident he launched into a gory tale of kids caught in Satanism and human sacrifice, and passed the buckets to collect money for his "ministry" to rescue kids from Satanism. I had gone to the concert expecting a fun Christian comedy show, and came away confused, sickened, and suspecting Warnke was just in it for the money. The whole thing seemed staged to me, and that was the point when I started questioning evangelicalism and my involvement in it.

Overall there was a paranoid atmosphere. Satanists, Secular Humanists, and New Agers were a big conspiracy; the Rapture was supposed to happen at any time; people were seeing angels or having God tell them things; and our subculture of Christian rock, Christian comedy, Christian TV, Chick tracts, rapture movies and street "witnessing" reinforced a mindset that we were some kind of underground resistance.

After going through a few years of guilt and fear that I was going to hell for "backsliding" after leaving evangelicalism, I started looking back and recognized much of what I had taken seriously for the nonsense that it was. These days I have settled into a comfortable Deism. I believe there is a God, and that there is truth to be found in many sources (Bible, Koran, other scriptures, nature, science, etc) but reject the idea of a one true religion and look to science and reason. I don't believe that God actively intervenes in human affairs, and certainly doesn't give "visions" or "prophecies". He's letting us settle our own affairs. Common sense and critical thinking are important when considering any religious belief. I only wish I had known how to apply critical thinking back in the 1980s - it might have "saved" me from getting mixed up in what I now recognize as a cult.

Oh man, those were great. The acting was atrocious, the special effects abysmal, and the GORE!!! Love to get the DVD Box set of those suckers.

Born again missionary wannabee to fire breathing atheist to finally a regular guy with a voracious appetite for books. I'm now essentially a Taoist Pantheist, which means I'm not a fundy of any kind any more.

I grew up in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), after college, I joined a Presbyterian Church (USA). After I got married, my husband and I joined a Unitarian Universalist Church. We went there for 5 years, but wanted something else. We went back to the Presbyterian church for a couple of years, but something was missing still. We then went to a Baptist church for a couple of years, because this one claimed to be different - their worship was different (very charismatic), but soon the Bible thumping got out of control. We liked the charismatic worship style of this church and started looking for a church where experience was more the focus than the Bible. We found one. A non-denominational church with a banner out front "In this place, you are loved, accepted, received!" We thought - wow, that's what we want. We began to go there.

This was a fully charismatic church, and some things were a bit weird. They were big in the prophesy movement, spoke in tongues, cast out "demons," still they had a very accepting attitude. There were bikers there, teenagers covered in tattoos and piercings, lots of old hippie types. The people were nice, and no one was judged by outside appearances. But over the year and a half we went there, we noticed that there was hidden legalism. Someone would get up and tell the congregation that God had told them something that everyone needed to do. At first these were things like "Love everyone," "Set the captives free," etc. But gradually as the prophets of the church got bolder these utterances became more lagalistic. I had studied Wicca as a UU and what I was seeing more and more was really witchcraft - but not the witchcraft I had witnessed in Wicca where people believed in the law of 3, but witchcraft where there were no rules - outright manipulation, because these people had a mandate from God. The church became more and more engrossed in the supernatural. As the focus shifted more to the supernatural, people became more and more nasty. Everyone had an angle they were working - not that they knew it. If you didn't accept a prophesy someone offered you, you were outside God's will. I even had one of the church prophets tell me I had to change my son's name because his name meant "Demon." I knew full well what his name meant - it is old English and means "Tamer of men." I told her that, and she replied, "That is what Satan is - a tamer of men." My son is autistic, and I was told he was autistic because I had cursed him by naming him the way I did (a family name mind you and no one else in the family with the name had ever been autistic). I was told what name to name him, and told I was to repent and declare him healed. I was to start acting as if he was healed and take him out of special ed. I was also told I needed to quit my job and homeschool. Well, obviously, I didn't go along. After that, people started treating me differently. The head of the prophetic team, who had been a friend of mine, refused to allow my kids to sit with her one Sunday (my husband and I were both musicians on the worship team). My kids always sat with her during worship, but she said, "They are disobedient, so they can't sit with me." Also after this, during worship different people on the worship team would sing prophetically - which just means singing prayers. Well, I noticed one week my mic was turned off. Bear in mind I used to be a professional singer, so it wasn't because I had a bad voice. I thought it was a fluke, but then the next week, I noticed again, my mic had been turned off. A few days later, I received a phone call telling me I had been suspended from the worship team. They said it was because they had received a word from the Lord telling them I was not right with him and was being disobedient. That was it.

We just quit going. We would get the phone calls telling us they lovedd us and wanted us to come back and get right with the Lord. Well, I wanted no part of their lord. We stayed out of church completely for about a year. We then joined a Methodist church. It wasn't nearly as conservative as that one. The worship was dead, the sermons stunk, but at least no one was telling us we were disobedient because we refused to change our son's name. We stayed there for about a year, but it wasn't a fit either. The people were hypocritical and too conservative for my taste. We stopped going to church again for about 6 months. Then we found a Disciples Church, which we are going to now. I am still a bit wobbly. Through the time outside of church, I clarified my beliefs. I studied other religions, and I spent a lot of time in meditation. I now am fully aware of what I believe and what I need. I have talked to the new pastor about my beliefs, and he doesn't care that they don't fall within the realm of orthodoxy. We really like this church and are probably going to join. I am just a little shy because of the religious abuse I suffered at my old church. It is like someone who comes out of an abusive marriage and then falls in love again. It's hard.

I've just read every single one. I've never been a fundie, but my sister-in-law is one. I see all the time how she drives loved ones and friends away with her zealot behavior, when I know all she wants is to bring everyone else to God! I'm seeing the same phenomena in many of these stories: fundamentalism driving people away from Christianity. I'm very happy for the people who have found something else. I just wish fundies could see how detrimental their behavior is to TRUE Christian faith, and how they give Christianity a bad name.

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Frogtutor

The folks at my old church would go out and pray for people, but instead they were really preying on people. They had a booth at the local flea market and as people would walk by they would jump out at them and ask to pray for them. I used to try to convince them that this was counterproductive, beause for every person that allowed them to pray for them, there was always several others who were really turned off.

They're spot-on accurate in all their absurdity and pain. I think a good sense of humor (or at least an appreciation of the surreal) is a requirement to "leave the fold" realtively unscathed.

I remember this one woman in my old church who believed if you didn't hit the floor when she prayed for you, then God didn't answer the prayer. Of course, all her prayers were answered, because she pushed so hard on your head that she could have knocked over a 300+ pound man. Another time, I was praying the Sh'ma in Hebrew, someone later offered me an "interpretation" of my speaking in tongues. I tried to explain I was praying a prayer from the Bible, but they still offered their interpretation and told me I was speaking Latin - yeah, right.

My mother was baptized, confirmed and married in the Lutheran church, but she married an atheist. Their compromise was to drop the kids off at Lutheran Sunday School and take themselves out for breakfast, but never discuss religion in the home. I stopped going to the church at confirmation age, because they required a parents note if we missed confirmation class, Sunday School, or worship. Apparently no one noticed that my parents didn't attend church at all.

I became a "born again" Christian through an evangelical group called Young Life which had these great summer camps where they brainwashed you in between swimming, horseback riding, mountain climbing, and great food. I went to a state university and joined a Bible church as well as the campus Christian groups. None of this is nearly as bad as what has been described in some other posts. No scary movies, no overbearing leaders, no speaking in tongues, no control over your finances and personal habits. Still, a worldview which is pretty limited. I noted that the best thing for a woman to be in this atmosphere was either a missionary or a minister's wife. I wasn't sure how you went about the latter, but I and two girlfriends spent time overseas doing volunteer work as missionaries.

I spent a summer in Africa, living with missionaries who were very conservative. The thing is, living in a third world country for 10 weeks did more to open up my eyes and enlarge my world than any other experience I've ever had. I worked in a clinic, and I wondered why we were most worried about saving souls in a country where the average lifespan was 43 and the infant mortality rate was 40%.

During the first year after college one of my best friends fell in love with a married man and became pregnant. All of the people in my group of friends talked about her and judged her, so she cut us off. My other closest friend became involved in a group which was very controlling and turned into a cult. She called up all friends and family and told us how evil we were. A few years later the cult broke up when the leaders went to prison for stopping the parents of a sick child from seeking medical care. The 11year old boy died of diabetes, but the leaders said he was masturbating and if he repented the illness would go away.

I led a church Bible study and talked to my pastor about going to seminary, but he told me he did not think women should be in leadership. I never went back. A few weeks later I went into a liberal protestant church for the first time in my life and there was a black woman preaching to a mostly white congregation. This was a real moment of epiphany for me, as I figured that where the "business as usual" order of things was not in place, maybe god was alive.

In the years to follow I struggled intellectually with the creationism vs evolution issue and finally understood how to think about this. I watched born again Christians who had refused to allow themselves to have sex before marriage get into marriages that were poor choices and did not last. After years of trying to talk homosexuals out of being homosexuals I finally realized how unloving and judgmental and unchristian I was being.

I believe that God is radically inclusive and theoretically I could worship anywhere. But in terms of a worship community I have chosen to belong to the UCC where the congregation is in charge and people think for themselves and everyone is welcome.

:kick:

:bounce:

I grew up in the middle of nowhere in a rural area. As a young child I was sent to the local church mostly for the social interaction. There were only a few other young kids in the area. As I got older I drifted in and out of the church.

Then I went to college at Six Flags Over Jesus. My reaction within my first 24 hours on campus was: "who do you think you are - I'm going to show you." Seven years and three degrees later I finally left. During my tenure there I studied history, business, poly sci, education and law. Some of my former professors and classmates have penned some of the inspirational tomes of the religious right. I understand and can speak the lingo. I've studied the book. And I have a pretty good grasp of the religious motivations of thereligious right. While I was in school I was viewed as a troublemaker who asked too many questions and was too rebellious and independent.

Shortly after finishing school I completely left the church. I was completely bored to death during service one Sunday and had counted all of the ceiling tile, all of the plants on the podium, and all of the rows and seats surrounding me. I started watching the people sitting nearby and concluded that I did not want to be there - and I did not want to be anything like the people who were there. I got up and walked out in the middle of the sermon. By the time I hit he front door I swore I would never go back. During the next 7 years I darkened a church door once for my brother's wedding and once for my grandmother's funeral.

It was at this point that I experienced the loss of a long-term relationship and a unusually stressful business venture. I did go back to the church briefly - and even worked on staff there for a couple of years.

I left about four years ago. My faith is my own. And I personally despise the self-righteous, judgmental attitudes of many within organized religion. There are a few ministries and churches that I follow just to keep up with what is going on in the church.

I am committed to (and working on) writing a book on faith and politics which will express my own very unique views. I am looking for a secular publisher.

I am a recovering fundamentalist. But please do not call me Christian. I reject both their methods and their gospel of hate.

the daughter and grandaughter of deacons, the descendant of preachers...on my dads side..the descendant of hardshell baptist on my mothers...

I switched to RC when I turned 18...and am now a very liberal (read heretical to conserve RC's)Roman Catholic...yk one of those that think gays should be allowed to marry, bp and abortion is up to the individual, women should be priest and priest should be allowed to married....

In other words I am a christian not a paulian..

Ya want to hear something ironic..the reason I went to my first Mass? Because of all the Jack Chick style sermons that were preached about the Pope being the antichrist and the RCC being the whore of babylon...I wanted to see just what it was all about, cause the claims seemed so over the top.

If I was checking into the RCC now I probably would be turned off..but in 1979 the RCC was in the heyday of liberalness especially at campus newman centers...I stay now, cause I know how it was and can be again, if we don't surrended to the extremist conserves in the church...

I was "born again" and educated in Christian Fundi schools. My father is still a Southern Baptist minister, as is my uncle. Had some problems with what I saw as hypocrisy in the church, and had many questions on doctrine that was answered only by "You have to have faith". Seperated from Christanity when I was about 20. Had a long and educational spiritual path that included paganism and Thelema, among others....

Now I'm Muslim.

I think my acceptance of Islam after 20 years of being away from the church has been the hardest for my Mother and Father to accept. LOL.

Salaam

Wow :)

Bump.

I wasn't born that way. It's a long story that I'm not ready to tell just yet.

I'm also the proud mother of a thirteen year old Atheist who saw crap as crap in the reaction of my ex-church to Foulwill's venom following 9/11.

The kid never gave up on me even though I'm sure he must have wanted to just as much as you want to give up on your own fundie relatives.

I grew up in the classic family lifestyle during the sixties. We went to a Christian church every Sunday. I would have been pretty normal except that I got involved with Campus Crusade at twelve years old. "Get them young and impressionable" should be this Christian movement's motto. I remember listening to the College student spouting the Campus Crusade spiel about Jesus and his fight with the devil. I have to admit I was more enthralled with the sword and sorcery battles with the devil then the Jesus loves you dogma. From there the group activities including group prayer, ritual, "witnessing", and youth outings kept me committed as they programmed my mind.

But my teen harmones and natural curiosity finally force me to break with this movement’s tunnel vision view of the spiritual world. It took a long time to work my way out of nightmares of the apocalypse and eternal damnation. Heavy stuff to deal with when you're fifteen.

My turning away from the monotheism led me to contemplate and practice many other spiritual paths. Ultimately I learn that all belief systems have their good points and bad points. Once I look past the elitism of any organized belief system I saw the good and could ignore the bad. I've learned to see the spiritual energy in even the most insignificant elements of the universe.

I've embraced eco-Paganism for it's nature based philosophy. However I respect all spiritual paths except the ones that are "exit only."


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PaganWarrior/

Raised in the Seventh-Day Adventist dogma of my grandparents, moved to southern Utah amongst the Mormons(still hadn't been baptized), then became born-again in the Church of Christ in North Carolina while in the Navy. The only white among my beautiful brothers and sisters of color.

Moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area after the Navy. Began preaching and was being considered for a TV ministry(something about my preaching style taught to me by my more rythmic brothers). Had what I call my "Benevolent Vision" one night at the pulpit when lightening hit the building about my path towards destruction because of my own vain glory. Stepped back, watched for awhile, listened, considered and realized that the churches couldn't feed me anything but dead letters and dogma. I left, went through my "dark night of the soul." Met my Native American heritage and never looked back.

Questions?

::edited for clarity--still not great, but it's late::

Ex-Bible believing Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. God said it, I believed it, and that was that.

Strangely enough, I think I was rebelling against my "unchurched" upbringing. When I became a mom and started thinking about the meaning of life, etc., I embraced the church wholeheartedly. (Fast forward 10 years.) Then my mom died and my pastor delivered a sermon at her funeral. I'm sure in his view it was perfectly appropriate to talk about the "good news" of salvation through Jesus, but unfortunately he hadn't paid attention to the fact that she wasn't a church-going born-again walking-in-the-spirit Christian, and he was pretty much announcing to all present that she was going to be spending eternity in hell. To make a long story short, I cycled through guilt (for not working harder witnessing to her), anger, more guilt, and eventually decided that christianity was a bunch of bullshit. I was pretty bitter for awhile. Now I've figured out that everyone has to make up their own minds what they believe and that no one religion is the only true religion. I truly believe that Christianity being the one true religion was added by some early church mainstream media person and was not part of Jesus' original message. Much like the Dean scream; it was merely taken out of context and blown up to mean something it didn't.

If a pastor is not going to be nice, he shouldn't be officiating at a service.

That's one underlying principle of the congregation I attend; no one traditional faith is perfect. We believe in all paths to Spirit. The Unitarian-Universalists are even more open. They address a different traditional faith every week, and celebrate all of the neopagan holidays (the major ones, I mean).

I like going to the UU church every once in awhile too.

I would recommend his book "What's so Amazing About Grace?" to anyone who has occasional funamentalist guilt. It's a powerful book.

:hi: