Faith and spirituality are deeply personal experiences for every person. When I began deconstructing from organized religion in 2014, it was truly one of the most difficult things I have ever done. And while the journey has been challenging, it has brought so many blessings that I could never have imagined. Here’s my story…
I was raised in a moderately conservative Christian home. My family went to church each Sunday, attended Sunday school regularly, and often participated in other church events throughout the week. I spent my summers visiting a different church each week as a guest soloist, providing special music while their choir took a summer vacation. In college, I became the lead singer in a Christian band. We were a praise band in the ’80s before praise bands were even really a thing.
Later, while doing my master’s degree, I also worked as a paid soloist in a church. After college, I worked in ministry as a Minister of Music. I directed choirs, handbell ensembles, children’s choirs, and led the praise band. The church was a part of my life and my identity. I read my Bible regularly, listened to pretty much only Christian music, and prayed daily. My relationships with God and with the church were front and center in my life for a very long time. And I could not have imagined not having the church and Christianity as a part of my life.
Now I rarely attend church except for the few occasions when I am paid to sing for different church events, such as a funeral or wedding.
Why did I walk away from organized religion?
I wish I could say that just one thing contributed, but years of negative experiences that I had within the church definitely were a contributor. This was especially prominent during my time working in ministry. As a woman in ministry, I faced a lot of misogynistic remarks from the men of the congregation. The patriarchal mindset was real, and I felt it daily. Women were looked at as less than and very often treated that way.
I also experienced a female congregation member bullying me for months. She complained and caused issues each week. She didn’t like how I was running the choir. I did my best to appease her, but each week she had another complaint. The bullying from her continued to escalate. I met with the pastor to discuss the issue, and he had no solutions other than to “take her out for coffee”. I struggled enough socially then because of my undiagnosed AuDHD, so the idea of taking that woman out for coffee was terrifying…and traumatic! And there was no way that was going to solve the issue. So the trauma continued. Not long after I left that church, but that experience left an indelible mark on me. It left me with religious trauma. Even with the bullying, I didn’t begin deconstructing at that time. I stayed firm in my faith and found another church.
Studying the history of the Bible
I had also begun a deeper study into Christianity and the Bible. Although I had read the Bible numerous times and had been to more than my fair share of Bible studies, I began to look into the history of both. This is when I began learning about Emperor Constantine, the Council of Nicaea, King James, and how these men with political power in their time period changed and edited the Bible. I learned about the texts that were removed from the Bible (although many of these texts still appear in Catholic, Orthodox, and Ethiopian Bibles). I also learned that many of the stories we know from the Bible actually appeared in the mythology of other cultures, such as Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt, and India, long before Christianity existed.
Also, I started to learn about the many translations of the Bible and how certain interpretations of words were chosen over the actual meanings of the original Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic words. It gave me a greater understanding that the Bible was not the infallible word of God any longer because powerful men had interpreted it for their own benefit. And yet, I still didn’t start deconstructing, but I started having a lot more questions about the faith that was so much a part of my identity. A seed of doubt had been planted.
Starting to deconstruct
I had a couple of big life events that happened in 2014 that were a catalyst for me starting to deconstruct. In August of that year, I lost my best friend and biggest cheerleader to cancer…my mom. My mom meant so much to me. She was one of the few people who not only saw me but also understood my challenges. I think she was neurodivergent herself, so she recognized the challenges. She always had my back, often standing up for me with a father who definitely didn’t understand having children who were different.
Losing her was the most painful thing I’d faced. Then, 6 weeks later, my husband informed me he was moving out. He moved out two months to the day after my Mom’s passing. I was grieving hard! Physically, I was struggling. The stress of everything I had been facing had taken a toll on my body, and I felt very unwell. I had not been able to fully grieve the loss of my mom because my grief was a trigger for my husband. And our relationship was already strained. So I pushed the grief down. And it made me sick…literally! Once he had moved out, it was time for me to begin healing.
Healing begins
My healing began with a paintbrush. Within days after my husband moved out, I made the decision to begin making some changes to my home. The first task was to begin changing the bedroom that my husband and I had shared. To make it mine again. So I bought some paint, and in spite of physically feeling awful, I climbed on a ladder and began to paint my bedroom. While I was up on the ladder, I began questioning a lot in my life. I questioned how I really felt about my pending divorce. And I realized that many of the ways that I had been responding to it were aligned with how others expected me to react…but weren’t actually the truth.
The truth was that I was relieved that the marriage was over. I had realized that I would never truly be allowed to fully be myself in the marriage. But people expected me to be angry…and that’s what I had shown to the world. Realizing that my anger was performative was a big “aha” moment for me. And that “aha” moment led me to start questioning other things in my life and asking myself what wasn’t working.
Questioning theology
This led me to start looking at the theology I had grown up with. And I started asking myself some pretty heavy questions. I struggled with parts of the Bible where God called for the Israelites to wipe out entire populations. I struggled with the fact that the Bible does not condemn slavery. And I struggled with how women are viewed and treated within the context of Christianity.
I struggled with the concept of an all-loving God who would create us, but then demand that we follow Him or face burning for all eternity. That didn’t seem like love to me. That was very conditional love. And it always made me sad that an all-powerful God would have His own son killed to “save our souls”. Why? If he truly was all-powerful, that didn’t have to happen. I struggled with a God that could allow so many atrocities to happen in the world each day and not intervene. That made it challenging for me to believe in God.
And I struggled with the performative nature of Christianity and the amount of guilt and shame I experienced because I could never “be enough” as a Christian. As a neurodivergent person, I know that masking to be more “acceptable” to society is common. But in Christianity, everyone I met was masking on Sundays and while out in the world. Knowing that God created me, but that I wasn’t allowed to be who He created me to be was always very confusing…and exhausting! I didn’t want to mask anymore.
The knowing
I never would’ve believed that painting my bedroom would be the catalyst to my deconstruction, and yet there I was questioning so much of what I was taught by my parents and the church. It led me to realize that I was taught not to question. To have blind faith in the church, the Bible, and the church leadership. And I did feel a lot of guilt and shame about all of the times when I did question.
Then it came…
There was a moment up on that ladder when I had an overwhelming knowing. I could no longer align myself with the organized Christianity that had been such a part of my life for my entire life. I could also no longer align with the conservative politics I had grown up in. Just as at the end of my marriage, when I realized that if I stayed, I could never truly be myself, I knew that by staying in conservative Christianity, I could also not truly be myself. And that just made me feel as if I was living a lie. And I couldn’t do that anymore.
Staying in the deconstruction closet
Deconstruction includes shredding old beliefs and identities, and for me, it was a very painful process. At that time, there was no one I could share my deconstruction with. All of my family and friends were conservative Christians and definitely would not have understood. So I stayed “in the closet” about my deconstruction for a decade. I slowly moved away from attending church services. I stopped listening to Christian music. And I stopped using the term “God” because I struggled to align with the God of Christianity. And I continued to make my way through the process of deconstructing.
Grieving
If you had told me 15 years ago that I would no longer be a practicing Christian, I would not have believed you. It was so indoctrinated into me that I could not believe back then that it was possible. But here I am. One unexpected thing for me was that no one prepares you for the grief. I had to grieve the person I had been my entire life. To grieve the relationships that would change because of my deconstruction. To grieve the community I had been a part of for so long, that I could no longer count on. There are still moments now when I grieve things. This post was being written just after Easter. I miss celebrating holidays like that, although I still celebrate the secular version of Christmas.
A new world
And while I do still have moments of grief, what I’ve gained is so much more! I’ve let go of the shame that was such a predominant part of my life for so long. I’m taking off all of the masks and for the first time in over 50 years am not only reconnecting, but feel safe to be who I really am. I feel a profound sense of freedom that I did not feel in organized Christianity. A freedom to not have to constantly feel like I need to conform to the rules and expectations that made me feel oppressed as a woman. I now know just how valuable I am as a woman. And I’m redefining what my faith is. While I do not believe in the God of the Bible, I do believe in a divine creator. And I believe in the words of Jesus. But I’m choosing my own sacred path now…and I wouldn’t have it any other way!
