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The Dizzying Reason the Church Isn’t Sorry
Last month, a reader asked this question in response to my post Sorry. How do they not see it, the terrible harm they inflict in the name of their higher power? I was momentarily confident enough to say that I think I can answer the question. I spent decades in the world of unapologetic Christianity.…
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Sorry
Life’s altered you as it’s altered me. What would be the point in living if we didn’t let life change us. – Mr. Carson, Downton Abby Back before social media and hashtags, someone like me might have been called apostate or rebellious or simply someone who left the church. Perhaps, if people were trying to…
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Resources I Have Loved
Early in my journey out of the church, I was still a stay-at-home-mom. In those days I read an average of a book a week and preferred bound books and had several shelves full. After starting work full-time and commuting, I shifted to audio books and podcasts. Some of those books from my early deconstruction…
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Weigh Down Before There Was Weigh Down
In retrospect, it really isn’t surprising that I fell for Gwen Shamblin’s Weigh Down Workshop diet. In my family of origin, thinness was next to godliness. The only thing my mother wanted to see more than a thin kid walking in the door of the church on Sunday morning was a kid who outperformed the…
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Twenty-three and Me
My partner knows of my love for studying history and culture and looking into my family lineage, so for Christmas he bought me a 23andMe membership. I was already fairly certain of the geographical roots of my ancestors and had only one small surprise. What I wasn’t prepared for were some of the physical and…
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Beaches Bodies and Elisabeth Elliot
As the equatorial sun toasted their skin, they walked, not schlepped: some with canes or strollers, others with toddlers on their hips or lovers on their arms.
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Caleb’s Story: Healing
(Part 5. New readers can click here to start at the beginning of the story.) Caleb was gesturing and speaking with an urgency that made me immediately regret making him wait to tell me. As I reached out to hug and reassure him, I wished that there was someone there to hug and reassure me.…
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Caleb’s Story: Eyes Opening
(Part 4. New readers can click here to start at the beginning of the story.) During Caleb’s high school years, I kept busy with homeschooling, Caleb’s vocal training, and my kids’ local theater involvement on top of my church volunteer work. But my mind was still churning because a bumper crop of national church and…
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A Tale of Two Cover-ups: The Pastor’s Wife
Originally posted September 2022 This seems an appropriate time to share the tale of this church cover-up because eighteen years ago my world was turned upside down. And, as it is prone to do, the church prioritized its own reputation and protected and coddled the man responsible. In 2001 my husband (now ex) was in…
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A Tale of Two Cover-ups: The Girl
I imagine that there are as many ways for churches to cover up their corruption as there are churches. Though shame and intimidation are primary, pastors and church boards and denominational leadership can be quite creative with their methods. I have a handful of church cover-up experiences that I could share. But there are two…
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Caleb’s Story: My Mind’s Dissonance
Our family made an unspoken pact that day for my sake. For years we continued to pretend that the obvious wasn’t the obvious. And my son carried the weight of his burden alone until it wore away at his soul.
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Caleb’s Story: The Light Faded From His Eyes
(Part 2. New readers can click here to start at the beginning of the story.) Since I was a serious kid, I held tightly to the church and, as someone riddled with anxieties, held tightly to the assurances the church gave me. It is funny to me now that I recognize just how many of…
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Caleb’s Story: How I Learned to Be
(Part 1) “We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented.” – Christof, The Truman Show I think the foundational doctrine of Christian parenting is what most evangelical and fundamentalist churches refer to as original sin. Parents are taught that every child is born sinful by virtue of being descended from Adam.…
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Pro-life Apostate
Though I was once ardently anti-abortion, my views have shifted. As I dared to step outside of evangelical dogma, I allowed myself to study things I would have never studied while still under the gaze of authoritarian preachers. When a person does that, they quickly learn that their preachers and teachers are not always completely…
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In Name Only
Had I been raised to be nominal, I would likely still be in the church.
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Lunch with Two Men
The day I went to lunch with two men – neither my significant other and one of them married – felt to me like a day that warranted a gold medal. That may sound a bit hyperbolic to some but hear me out. As a former evangelical, I spent most of my life in very…
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Why I Finally Left the Church
I chose to speak rather than silently submit to the misogynistic nonsense.
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Snicklefritz Chronicles 