The Journey, Entry #1 - A Brief Catalyst Story

(original artwork by Ursula Schneider)

The reason I am undertaking this effort has many facets. One, which concerns me greatly is that I've come to believe that significant psychological and emotional damage occurs within any dogmatic system. This statement is difficult, not the least bit sugar coated. 

That said, it is often quite difficult to detect the damage until one is fully outside of the system. One of the damaging aspects, is the blindness that occurs whenever we are fully immersed in only one, narrowly focused system of thought and are unwilling to entertain any other.

With that in mind, I want to briefly describe how it happened that I began the process that would ultimately lead to my leaving the Evangelical Christian system. I'm going to avoid going into very much detail as I'm still sorting some of that out, however, I think it's worth noting that many times people are propelled outside the system by deeply jarring experiences within the system.

My husband and I have attended Evangelical churches since we were children. We both spent a relatively brief time in adolescence and early adulthood, where we weren't at all faithful to the system, however, its doctrines still flowed within and informed our thinking. 

Each person responds to their surroundings in ways that are individually unique. Factors of one's early years, personality, ongoing experiences, cultural patterns, family and close friend influences and the like make us all respond very differently to the same stimulus. It is important to say that the experiences I describe are my own and do not reflect the way my husband would describe our experiences.

The Catalyst. 

In May of 2018, circumstances led Jeremy (my hubby) and I, to begin doing some in depth study into one particular doctrine of the Church. This was a doctrine which both of us had always submitted to uncomfortably. I refer here to the doctrine of Complementarianism, or Traditional Roles specified for men and women in the church and in the home. 

Ultimately, I came to a place where I could no longer support the doctrines which required women to always be subordinate to men. There is an alternative doctrine called Egalitarianism. The gist of it is that both women and men can do all the things in equal partnership within both the Church and the home.

Prior to May 2018, I would have said that this (Complementarianism) wasn't a doctrine central to the church we attended, in that it wasn't considered to be a question of salvation. However, shifting our understanding on this issue caused considerable tensions among the leaders of the church we attended. Since we acted as leaders in that community, it seemed to feel like a threat to the official leadership of our church for us to continue our involvement there. What happened next, in my estimation, is that we were pushed out of the Church, since we were at odds with that particular stance.

In addition, the studying we did which led us to our conclusions about men and women in the church, threw niggling doubt onto other doctrines to which we'd long submitted. These doubts, coupled with the hurt of being thrust out of our community led me to a deep dive into 'what I believed and why.'

I began to listen to loads of podcasts and read piles of material on varying beliefs about fundamental doctrines such as: the doctrine of atonement, the doctrine of hell, the doctrine of salvation, the doctrine of the innerrancy of scripture, teachings on modesty, purity, abortion and so many other issues. What I discovered was that the diversity of opinion on these matters was wide, long, well researched/supported and that within the framework of Christianity, there really wasn't much consensus(this topic will come up in more depth later).

There was also a role played by those closest to me. My closest friends and family members, for the most part, would not discuss any of my questions with me constructively. Any discussions we had were extremely difficult and involved loved ones expressing only their fear that I was heading 'down the slippery slope'.  There was a tone of correction, coupled with the fear that even asking the questions was inherently wrong. When defense wasn't the response, then dismissal reared it's head. There was a complete inability to acknowledge the validity of my questions and observations about problems within the system. The posture was defensive, protective and dismissive in turns. 

This led to me feeling absolutely isolated from my community. I was alone. If even those who knew me best were unwilling to trust the fervency of my heart to know the Truth then I certainly couldn't talk with anyone else within the Christian community.

Ultimately, I lost almost every single close relationship that I had with people in the faith community. The few that remained have since largely drifted away. I don't blame them, but I do think it is important to note that unwillingness to be with people in times of doubt leads people further away.

Anyone who's gone through this type of journey will tell you that these sorts of discoveries are deeply unsettling. The entire foundation is found to be unstable, even untrustworthy, and one is forced to dismantle the whole thing and start fresh. The obvious problem with this is that you are at once faced with the reality that you can't continue as you are and also the staggering truth that the more you know, the more your realize you DON'T KNOW. One of the primary foundations of Evangelical thinking is that you can be certain of the absolute truth of the Bible, or usually, it is termed, THE WORD OF GOD.

And in comes the fear.....................truckloads of fear. Gigantic trucks dumped their quarry and covered the quivering pile that was me.

I can only describe the subsequent months as the experience of clawing my way out of the deepest, darkest period of my life so far. I've had some pretty difficult experiences, but having your foundations swept away in a tidal wave of uncertainty has been the most profoundly disquieting experience of my life.

The catalyst had done it's work. There was no option to not walk this path. Not for me. Who I am prevented me from ever going back to what had been.

Next time, I will talk about what has kept me from openly discussing my experience until now. Thank you for reading. If this is your first post, please take a look at The Journey for an introduction.