How Evangelical Christianity Fucked Me Up: A Post

[sebenikela]

So, there’s this book called “The Martyr’s Mirror” which was first published in the 1600s, with stories and woodcuts about Christian, and especially Anabaptist, martyrs. It was supposed to be inspiring: all these people died for their faith, you should be like them! There was a traveling exhibit about it, complete with specific descriptions and actual 16th century torture devices, that came to my town when I was about 9 years old. Just old enough to understand something about what torture really meant, not old enough to know how to process it.

(side note: I wasn’t allowed to watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because it was “too violent” but educational exhibits about torture were apparently fine. It just occurred to me that this is …not particularly consistent.)

So the story I remember from this book was about a guy called Dirk Willems. He was in jail, waiting to be burned at the stake for being the wrong kind of Christian, and somehow he escaped. He was running across a frozen pond, being chased by a guard, when the guard fell through the ice.

Dirk Willems stopped, went back, pulled the guard out of the water, the guard re-arrested him, and he was burned at the stake.

The moral of the story being, you should sacrifice your life to save others, even when those others are trying to kill you.

It didn’t occur to me that this was deeply fucked up until I was in my 30s.

I was telling my therapist the story at our last session, and she was like “Well, okay, if he believed that strongly, good for him. But me, I’d see that as a blessing and keep running.”

---

Today I was listening to an episode of “The Life After”, a podcast about getting out of fundamentalist evangelical Christianity.

For the sake of the lovely people who go to the church I grew up in, I should say that they weren’t that bad, mostly. We had a woman pastor for a while. I wasn’t told I couldn’t do whatever because I was a girl. I wasn’t told that my goal in life should be to get married.

But hoboy did I get a full dose of purity culture. And that’s what this episode was about. Purity culture, or as Jaimie Lee Finch called it on this podcast, “religious and cultural sexual suppression.”

And there was some stuff in there that was… enlightening.

Like, you can’t be a whole person if you’re taught that a part of you – your sexuality – is Bad. How people end up so disconnected from their bodies, because your body is dangerous.

That sex and sexuality are key parts of being human – fundamentally, after all, what we’re here for is to have sex and reproduce so the species continues.

So telling women they’re not supposed to feel sexual attraction, not supposed to recognize that part of themselves, is inhumane.

“You were not given this hunger in order to starve”

---

Some things I am still trying to teach myself:

I am a whole person. Sexuality isn’t just “not evil” it’s good. My body is mine, all of it.

I am not required to rescue people who are trying to kill me.

My life, my health, my needs, my desires matter. Just as much as anyone else’s.

I can find a story to tell about myself – who I am, where I came from, how I got here – that rings true.

I still don’t believe any of those, not really. But I don’t disbelieve them as much as I used to. I can write them down.

Comments

[lilalanor]

♥ It’s progress, it’s definitely progress to be able to write it down and to articulate these things

[ironed_orchid]

But I don’t disbelieve them as much as I used to.

That is an excellent way to put it, and a step towards actually believing.

[elusiveat]

Thank you for sharing this. And good luck.

[roguedemon]

((Hugs)) Back in the day I worked at a college counseling center for a while. I definitely saw my fair share of people who had been fucked up by their religious conditioning. Purity culture is so endemic in the US that most people don’t even question it.
I’ve been actively hostile to religion pretty much my whole life because of this — it started with Reagan and the Moral Majority for me. I was ten, but I was infuriated by Christians trying to control everyone’s lives because of their god.

The idea that you should just sacrifice yourself to help your oppressor/abuser is something I have made a point of criticizing for a long time. It’s a desperately unhealthy idea to carry around with you. And frankly, I think it’s destroying society —- we’re supposed to be merciful and forgiving to our abusers, and give them the chance to continue kicking us when we’re down. That’s crazy, and it facilitates the rise of facism.

[cesy]

Good luck. If you want more stuff from people trying to deconstruct that culture, Vicky Walker's book "Relatable" has results of a survey that can be validating, that other people had a similar experience and it messed them up in similar ways. I've found some of it helpful, though it's still very het-focused.

[kaberett]

Hey, go you for progress. <3

[sebenikela]

I think the part where it's so endemic makes it hard to recognize as a traumatic Thing, because hey, everybody got this shit and THEY're all fine, so why am I acting like it's a big deal?

i mean obviously, a) not everyone who got this shit is fine and b) that's not actually how shit works, but y'know.

and just writing "i am not required to rescue people who are trying to kill me" made me go WOW YEAH THAT'S FUCKED UP, like yes "don't be a dick" is a good rule but you forfeit that when you start acting like a dick to me and certainly by the time you literally want me dead! sheesh.

[to_do_list]

Sometimes I feel your posts so much that I leave and keep them in mind, hoping to return and articulate something potentially meaningful.

So I just looked at this one again, and something hit me. And I feel a bit like I am stepping on eggshells in bringing this up because these things are raw - and that means potential for misunderstanding and misinterpretation is big. But I hope I can articulate this well *enough*.

Your words about how “I still don’t believe any of those, not really. But I don’t disbelieve them as much as I used to. I can write them down” felt devastating. And I carried them around for a while. And then it felt like there is a discrepancy. A potential "sparkling moment"/"exception" in therapy-speak.

What I mean is, you also seem to *DO* - at least a number of things - as if you do actually believe them.

The occasional Mo selfie shows your personal presentation is not at all confirming with rigid traditional femininity. It seems to be your own. You found your own presentation and you are doing it. The adventures with quakers you write about, several of them. Taking steps to find your community. And sure, I can see in your writing that they are hard/early/tentative, etc. Yet you are taking those steps.

Difficulty believing those things may be making those steps hard - but it is not stopping you from taking at least a number of them.

So where I am going with all if this is… It kind of seems like your own narrative right now may be missing many other things you have been actively doing - practicing - living(?). That is, in addition to writing them down as clear concepts/ideas. Because for many things, people may write them down but not actually practice or be active about them. Yet you have been: Not just articulating or reminding yourself, but also trying on, reaching out, processing. Living your life, at least in some ways, as if you do believe them.

So your narrative right here seems to me missing all of those other aspects and sides that also support the change in allowing yourself to be(?)/develop(?)/nourish(?) you.

I hope you feel free to do with these thoughts whatever you will <3

[sebenikela]

thank you for this! it's very ...affirming? like oh hey maybe i'm not actually as stuck as i sometimes think i am!

there's a whole complicated Thing where when I was ~18 I was like "nope fuck all that evangelical shit let's pretend it's not a thing" and while I could act like that was true for a while it wasn't really long-term healthy. so now i'm trying to do it the hard way and explicitly notice and deconstruct shit and not JUST acting like I believe these different things.

but you're right that sometimes acting like i believe things and actually believing them are tied together and it's not a linear 1. believe thing 2. act on thing but more complicated than that.

IF THAT MAKES SENSE IDK

but anyway yes thank you this was helpful to read <3

[to_do_list]

Ok, so it totally makes sense. And I will attempt to elaborate on what makes it so complicated - as I see it.

I find there is often a bit of a tension between action/doing and processing/deconstructing when we deal with mental health or other difficult things. Experiential avoidance is a part of many mental health problems, and this is likely why controlled and purposeful behavioural activation is a part of many solutions. Which in practice kind of looks like “fake it till you make it”, “try it anyway”, “don’t wait for motivation to appear - just do something”, “take one tiny step”, etc: I.e., this step is about taking action and doing things. On the other hand, processing/deconstruction is about contemplation and reflection; it helps create a narrative and integrate things into self stories.

Both aspects are essential. Believing - a sense of efficacy/ownership - needs an integration of both. And there should be a balance between them - action and processing, in small manageable bits, with self-compassion.

Yet in practice, it often feels like a tension because sometimes one is easier than the other, sometimes doing what is easier makes sense, and other times pushing oneself makes even more sense, and yet other times both are so hard that only distraction or avoidance are tolerable, and how the hell are we supposed make decisions on what to do, and there goes the wall of awful, and so on. Well, that’s where it kind of comes down to just trying a bit of this and a bit of that. Something will kind of work. And then remembering the damn self-compassion because something will fall apart or break or feel stuck and that’s ok too.

[sebenikela]

these are good words. thank you