Wow this one sums up why I left. It's a good cartoon. One of the last sermons I heard as my IFB was the pastor telling us if we obeyed God, that we would be blessed in life. Many in that world thought they were more holy in having stable housing, good jobs and money. Religiously things are complicated for me.
I wonder how many chronically ill/disabled/broke people exit out of evangelical Christianity and decide to be done. Some may still believe in God/Jesus, or have other religious yearnings. It wasn't a very friendly world for any of us. Remember when I wrote this article about the poor and disabled in churches, you can see the seeds of my feet moving out the door back then! Jesus taught the kingdom of God is within you, not in brick church buildings. I've had other thoughts about how the Christian world has paid far more attention to his death than life. A lot of corruptions came in early.
I remember praying and begging God, as bad things happened and then later, the prayers became "Stop hurting me!" It wasn't going to set up a good relationship with God was it? I still believe in God or a higher power etc, but definitely now I am only interested in a nice and loving God not a mean narcissistic Dad behind a shut door ready to beat you for the smallest transgression. Regular churches don't understand the damaging messages they give. I have been trying to figure out connection to a loving God. I'm not sure where that's going to go. Religion still is complicated. Fundamentalism always told me to seek out first concrete answers to everything but real life is a lot messier.
I even have been reading the Bible again but am reading the words of Jesus directly trying to take all church baggage away from them. Hell is still a problem for me though if there is a hell, I don't mind if Fauci, Bill Gates and others like them go to one.
This cartoon by Hayward [he is a liberal Christian from what I can tell but questions the system as a whole] was very hard hitting. How can you have a good relationship with a God that you think is out to hurt you? Too many want to turn God into a monster who just seems to want to squish you. I always felt the evangelical view of life was twisted especially when it came to hardship and yes as the Venn Diagram shows, it built up the terror. You start being afraid as it seems God is out to hurt you, after all that's what the churches tell you is happening, you sinned and didn't have enough faith and weren't "blessed". So wonder religious trauma has become an issue for so many people.
As I told a few folks back in 2016: "If your orange hero really is God-sent -- if I see him at the Pearly Gates after I die, I'm gonna turn around, and head straight to the other place. Why? Because I'll figure, 'The bar can't be that high anymore.'" Same for Bret Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas (or Claz, as I've taken to him calling him lately), Cleta Mitchell, and the rest of that whole rotten crowd who claims the Almighty's imprimatur as their reason for being.
ReplyDeleteEven as a kid, though, I remember feeling vaguely uneasy about the whole business. I'd think, "Hey, I wasn't around back then, and even if I was, I wouldn't agreed with them getting out the nails -- why do I have to be dragged into all this stuff? What's this have to do with me?"
The virus of literalism has certainly caused a great deal of harm and suffering. I was reminded of this the other week, when Vice ran a special about women losing what few rights they had in Afghanistan, before the Taliban arrived to reclaim their throne (such as that is -- it's a rather less sumptuous model, I suspect, than the one their king enjoyed, before his ouster in the late '60s, which set much of the present day tragedy in motion).
Among other things, that includes the outright trafficking of girls -- as young as 10, in some cases -- to much older men. God knows what horrors they end up going through. But seeing such excesses unfolding on my TV set does not restore my appetite for what they tried to force feed me as a kid. As Elvis Costello says, "I've seen the movie, and it does not move me." And I'm afraid that this particular movie has not gotten any better, with age. --Mr. Peep
I know one reason I left was the evangelical/fundamentalist world just seemed about money and power. Of course everything is being encroached on. I plan to write about what is happening to the UU next on here. Liberal religion is in their sites. I know now there's no such thing as a pure church out there, though I guess my track record in the ones with control freak pastors who want to control everything I say and do, didn't go well. I do think my first IFB pastor was a sincere man you know. He had his faults, but he left the IFB over the corruption and sex scandals and is a truck driver now, I looked him up on Facebook. Almost decided to refriend him, I may later. Religion is used for power and full of abuses. Remember that one creepy pastor from First Baptist of Hammond from years ago, I can't remember his name, and he was preying on girls. I think religious systems that teach forgive the wicked constantly enable the wicked, they always ignore the parts on reprobation. Smakintosh's videos are good in exposing that. Sometimes I think if there is a heaven, probably people they don't expect to get in will and all the power loving creeps will find themselves shocked at what happens on the final day.
DeleteYou know I am pissed off at the liberal world for their subservience to the globalists, but still fear the Dominionists making their Handmaid Tale march. I've seen the slavish devotion to the Orange One never falter even now. You know that last IFB church we were in, it's good we got out. The pastor there became a huge Trumpster. Not sure if I showed you their public Facebook account. I think they are still praising Trump even now. Now I'm in a funny place agree with conservatives on more since the left is running off the rails, but I'll never like that guy. He already had his chance to clean the swamp and failed.
At this point I feel like the left hates women too, shoving Dylan Mulvaney in our faces, mocking them, but the right wing is no pal either, some seem eager to force women back into the ways of the past fast with no recourse.
Too many narcissists describing a God just like themselves to us.
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Well, they did say, "God made man in his own image," but what if that particular image happens to be noxious? Then there's no saving that one. Or, as I used to say, "If that's the best blueprint the designer could come up with, it's time to look at a different one." --Mr. Peep
ReplyDeleteThat confuses me because mankind is a messed up thing. If I remember correctly they say sin changed mankind but then why design mankind with propensity for sin? I don't understand it all either.
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