Every election season since I left the final church I was a part of in 2019 is a reminder of why I don’t think I could ever go back. And I know many ex-evangelicals agree with me. I’m writing this…
How evangelical and Mormon deconstruction is playing out on TikTok and YouTube
Mainline and evangelical churches aren’t the only religious communities losing members these days. According to a new study published in the Journal of Religion and Demography, Mormonism is no longer followed by the majority of residents in Utah. Ryan Cragun, a professor…
‘Do you think I am still a Christian?’
My work with Doubter’s Parish puts me in correspondence with large numbers of people. Many of them ask interesting questions about God, Jesus, faith, theology and church. For example, a few months ago a reader who no longer believes in…
Theology Beer Camp?
Tell somebody you’re going to Theology Beer Camp and you will be met with either a delighted giggle or a wrinkled brow. In the churches of my youth, the words “theology” and “beer” never occupied the same sentence — “for…
You don’t have to demonize us just because we’ve left the faith as you believe it
One of the most dismissive and hurtful statements ex-evangelicals hear from our conservative evangelical family and friends after we deconstruct their walls is: “You must have never been saved to begin with.” Another way they say it is, “You must…
What really happens with Christian deconstruction on a college campus?
“Deconstruction” is a buzzword today for people who seek to unravel the constrictive faith of their childhoods. But the same word might be used to describe the educational process that often happens when students like me go off to college….
Six lessons I’ve learned about doubt
“I have doubts. I have such doubts.” Those are the closing words of Doubt, a 2008 Academy Award-winning film starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Those anguished words of doubt were spoken by Sister Aloysius,…
4 places to put your tithe money if you no longer attend church
You’ve tithed all your life to a church, dutifully giving that 10% “back to God” as you were taught. But then something happened. A loved one came out. Or you came out. Or Trump got elected. Or the pandemic happened….
My long farewell to traditional religion (and what remains)
If I had to summarize my religious journey with one Bible verse, I would choose Matthew 28:17, “When they (the early disciples) saw him (the risen Christ), they worshiped him; but some doubted.” For more than 50 years, since my…