Mere Nonconformity

My first time writing about leaving Christianity

Just to catch you up in case you didn’t see: I didn’t write here for months, I moved to Maine, everything is different, and now I just want to let the soft animal of my body love what it loves. Which is definitely going to be interesting, all things considered…

And with that in mind, this may seem a strange way to begin. But the heart wants what it wants, and my heart wants to be a guidepost pointing towards healing. So, we here go!

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I knew something was wrong when I was five. I remember laying in my bed, in the house I lived in until I was six, trying to make things I had heard in church make sense. I turned it over and over in my head but I couldn’t do it. I remember trying again, much more agitatedly, when I was an early teen. Still, something wasn’t right. Years later I would come to think of these problems as “plot holes,” and I blamed myself for having found them.

I was raised in white, evangelical churches and spent my early adulthood devoted to a Presbyterian church. In 2020, I left Christianity. I didn’t make a ruckus when I left—I could have but instead I quietly slipped out the door and most people pretended not to notice. But four years on I’ve grown both tired of being quiet and stronger in myself.

I have watched modern Christianity¹ cause immense harm personally, within my community and loved ones, on a national level, on a global level and now my eyes are open to what it has wrought historically. I am tired of seeing this. Harm is not the only thing this religion has done—it has accomplished positive things both broadly and for individuals. However, that doesn’t make it ok that it has also caused harm broadly and for individuals. 

Even though I’ve been hurt, I don’t believe that the harm is inherent to the core message of Christianity. It’s not necessary for the religion to exist or spread or be true to its roots. It’s not just because—as people in the church like to say—humans are broken. It is—in many, many cases—a choice.

That means it doesn’t have to keep happening. 

I’m tired of being bottled up. I’ve never told my story online but I haven’t spoken it fully in my personal life either. It feels necessary to do so now.

I’m well aware this is not an exceptional story. Sadly. I am not the first person to talk about the harm caused by white evangelical Christianity or Christianity more broadly. I also won’t be the last. But I feel like now I can finally start doing my part to tell the truth and illuminate the shadows.

꩜ Birth to 20

I was born into a white evangelical, Pentecostal, non-denominational church.² My grandparents were Charismatic believers who had been converted through the Jesus Movement in the 1970s. My best guess is that I first attended church at one week and two days old. At two months old, I played baby Jesus in the Christmas play. My nuclear and extended family all attended the same church, moving to a different Pentecostal church when things with the pastor went awry.

Even as a kid something felt wrong and I blamed myself for that. I remember obsessively asking Jesus to “come into my heart” as I laid in bed at night—doing it again and again, night after night, because when I did it the first time I felt nothing. Surely, I was supposed to feel something. At thirteen, I thought I was a deist³, and that was a terrible, terrible problem. I just couldn’t make myself believe it all well enough to make all the “plot holes” go away.

But I kept going to church because there was no choice not to. I participated wherever possible: babysitting for Bible studies, becoming a greeter, packing and giving out Thanksgiving dinners, setting up the monthly “coffee hour.” At seventeen or so I stopped taking communion because it was my only means of rebelling against a pastor I knew I didn’t like. At the time, all I knew was that I didn’t like that he shouted at us from the pulpit, I didn’t like his incoherent sermons, and I really didn’t like that for stupid reasons he’d kicked out the newly minted worship leader that I had a crush on. Now I understand that he was abusive and coercive. I would try to glare at him all through the sermon, but I still thought I had to believe the words he was saying. When I went to college I stopped going to church regularly and felt ashamed yet also unmotivated to find a one near my school. However I still thought I was a Christian because I had to be.

꩜ How do I tell this story?

I’m still figuring out how to tell this story.

I’m still learning which terms to use. What I select is colored by my experience and how I’ve educated myself since leaving the church (because I was not educated about many of these things whilst in it). My language will be imperfect and it may shift as time goes on.

I’m also figuring out my tone. I’m trying to stay away from anger, undue snark and being adversarial. Honestly, this will at times be hard for me. But I would like to try because I want to take care of my nervous system and the nervous systems of readers who are fellow victims of religious trauma. We have been through enough. Rage is an important emotion and we should feel it fully—we have every right to be angry. But here, now, I want to avoid igniting anger purposefully. I want this to be a conversation.

If you are a Christian and you are reading this, I am not attacking you personally, even if it feels like I am. I like to think of it this way, you may have heard of something similar: Hate the belief, love the believer.

Every day for years I’ve been undoing what was done to me in white evangelical and Reformed Christianity. That has been a monumental task—it seems to have touched every corner of my life—and I thought it was enough to do that for myself. But the more I looked the more I saw it wasn’t just me. Quite by accident, I started to percolate a theory about why this happened to me, why it happens to others, and what Christianity has done to the world. I started to see a pernicious thread running through modern Christianity, perhaps in all its denominations. I can’t seem to stop thinking about that and wondering what would happen if more of us were talking about it.

But for today: my story.

꩜ 21 - 27

At twenty-one, I found my way to a PCA Presbyterian church⁴ that I became deeply involved with. When I started out there I thought it was wildly different than the evangelical churches I’d been in. But turns out that was mostly just aesthetics.

I started attending because that’s where the man who would become my husband went with his family. People in the church referred to it as the “island of misfit toys,” though I don’t know why. Through our twenties, that church was a major part of my life and my husband’s life, second only to our jobs. We gave our time to the church constantly and unreservedly. We did anything asked of us. Even when we were told the young people were selfish and never volunteered for anything, we gave. Even when elders and leaders in the church were rude, disrespectful and undid work that we had done only to make us do it again, we gave. Even when we did not have the energy, bandwidth or money and it put a strain on our relationship we gave because we did not feel we had a choice. Volun-told, a friend called it once. There was a hierarchy of age and we, the young ones, were at the bottom. We gave and gave. But we were not getting much back.

And then we left.

The unraveling started with realizing women could not be elders or pastors. Women couldn’t hold any positions of true power or authority in our church—they couldn’t even lead classes in non-religious subjects they had expertise in. Out of nowhere I suddenly woke up to this fact. I was close to our pastor so the next time we had coffee I questioned him about it. We went on to have multiple conversations about what he called a God designed “hierarchy” within the church. Men above women. Women were not supposed to be ordained—God said so and our pastor agreed.

I had just acquired what I realized was one of the three official positions a woman could hold in our church: hospitality. So, snacks and coffee on Sunday mornings. The other two positions were worship leader and church secretary. I was proud of my new position, but I could not make sense of why I was limited to that. Not that I wanted to, but I would never be able to become ordained, preach, or be an elder just because I was born female.

Then George Floyd was murdered and our church did nothing in the wake of that. Nothing was said, not a vague reference in the pastor’s prayer that week or the weeks after. Even after a lifetime in Christianity I couldn’t comprehend it—I thought our church and our pastor were different. Nothing was done that year at Christmas to support local families effected by the economic impacts of the COVID pandemic. Again, I was confused. Wasn’t this our calling, caring for people? When I brought it up with the pastor I was told, “The poor will always be with us.” I had just read The Myth of the American Dream: Reflections on Affluence, Autonomy, Safety, and Power by

D.L. Mayfield

.⁵ I couldn’t look at the world, my church, or the religion I’d been raised in the same. My radicalization was complete. I quit my hospitality position and we never returned.

What came after was months and years of realizing the harm we’d experienced in the church. Leaving was lonely—we lost our community and many of our friends. But we gained much more than we lost.

꩜ This past week

A few days before the 2024 election I read an article about why one pastor thought evangelical Christians would be voting the way we now know many of them voted. I had already been considering writing about my upbringing in white evangelical Christianity but I was on the fence about publishing anything. Halfway through reading the article I realized I would absolutely be publishing those essays regardless of how the election went and that my scope would be even wider. Because I know those people that pastor was talking about. I’ve never been to his church, but the people he described sounded just like many of the people I sat beside for twenty-seven years. I knew that regardless of who won the presidency those people and their influence would not be going away any time soon. Evangelicals and other Christians had a major hand in bringing about the election results we are now just beginning to live in the shadow of.

The evangelical churches I grew up in were the ones that would, in 2016 and 2024, be filled with voters that helped elect Trump. But fundamentalism is part of what got us here and it is not restricted to a denomination. The Presbyterian church was also full of members and leaders who wrote racist Facebook posts, attacked people online, spread misinformation online and in person, shared conspiracy theories, and ultimately also helped bring about the election results.

Here is the thing I can’t unsee: the people in the churches I attended did these things with the backing of their leaders and by cherrypicking elements of their religion to justify their actions. Others who didn’t support Trump would and will say things like “we’re trusting in God” or “we’re praying for this country” as a means of bypassing the hard work that needs to be done. This too contributes. Collectively, we are dealing with the effects of these choices.

꩜ Now

I want to say this before I go further, because I have heard it too many times: Yes, there is no perfect church. Got it. I agree with you.

When I have dissented, questioned or expressed that I was hurt by Christianity—or heard others do so—this reply has come back far too often: Well, there’s no perfect church, you silly goose! You need to settle for the status quo and come back into the fold, you wayward sheep! And I would like to say: That is not what I’m talking about.

It isn’t as though I was going around, searching for a perfect church and got angry when I came up empty handed. I was in this religion from the time I was born and I thought I had no choice but to be there. To go elsewhere, do something different, to ASK A QUESTION was to risk eternal damnation at worst and being reprimanded at best. For twenty-seven years I thought it was impossible for the church to be improved or changed in any way—everything was set in stone because it was the Right Way, God’s Way. If something was uncomfortable or wrong, the problem was me. Keep your head down was the message and I tried my best.

For most of my life, Christianity has made me feel like a square peg in a round hole. I was ashamed that something about Christianity felt off to me and I prayed that it would just go away so I could accept what I was told. I was led to believe something was wrong with with me—there always had been, there always would be, but I needed to work hard to make up for it the best I could.

The church, I was told, was perfect. Perfect: typically meaning excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement. I was told that the church is something you can’t step away from, you can’t question, and you can’t change. Not perfect, no! Just excellent and complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement. 

As they say on the internet:

I was never looking for a perfect church. The church marketed itself as perfect. When I realized it wasn’t I found there was no room for the conversation I needed to have. Then I finally realized how hurt I had been and I got tired of being uncared for, used, and gaslit, and seeing that happen to other people. So I left. That’s the story. That’s what we’re talking about. 

And personally I think it’s a much more interesting story.

Because when people told me I had to come back to the church, back to fold, they said I’d get eaten alive out there in the world. Turns out, not so much.

That is the other half of this. There’s the story of my experience with Christianity, then there’s what comes after—and that is happening now. I didn’t realize that when you make the choice to step away from Christianity you get to choose what comes next. I thought when people left they fell into a void and became depressed, selfish hedonists that just wandered around not having any moral compass or purpose and could only make very destructive decisions.

But personally I’ve fallen into a creative, intuitive, challenging yet enlivening process and the healthiest chapter of my life so far. I actually feel less confused and cynical, and my lifelong depression has greatly reduced. I feel humbler and more able to connect with people than ever before. I feel so much more wonder, awe and love. Sadness and grief can be truly felt and moved through the body because I don’t feel pressured to do spiritual bypassing or tell myself platitudes to get through hard stuff. My body is no longer my greatest enemy. I’m not always looking over my shoulder for who or what might get me. My inner world is so much more peaceful. The natural world has become a place and web of relationships I am in love with. I feel less judgmental and also better able to access kindness and compassion. My partnership is healthier than it’s ever been and I’m a better friend. I am far less self focused, in no small part because I’m not constantly examining myself for sinful behavior. I’m more truthful. I’m more patient. My nervous system is steadier and I am learning to self regulate for the first time. The Divine feels much closer, much more tangible.

When it became clear I’d left the Presbyterian church a friend called me and tried to convince me to come back. I needed to be around other Christians, they said. It was early days in this new chapter, but somehow I was able to say to this friend: I’m actually doing really well now. I didn’t speak in rebellion—I spoke in joy, which surprised even me. Joy that my mental health had improved, joy that my relationship had weathered the storm of a high control religion, joy that for the first time I really wanted to live. This friend couldn’t seem to understand that and distanced themselves from me after. That was the last conversation we had.

Within this new chapter, full of choice, I’m trying to forge new traditions and understand what I believe because I believe it fully, not because someone told me I had to. That is some of what I plan to share here now—that process. Some of it is heavy, but some of it is also doing things like: What do I celebrate now? How do I do the winter holidays? How to I connect with what is larger than myself?

Now what am I, you ask? It felt good to shake off the label of Christian, particularly considering what it’s associated with in this culture. For a little while I wondered if I was an animist. I love the thought of my pre-Christian ancestors and also the ones that lived on the historical edge, with one foot in the old ways and one foot in the story of this wild mystic called Jesus. I’m curious about those folks and how they saw the world. Mostly, I want to be free, responsible, and humble in the pursuit of my relationship with the sacred.

For now, I think my beliefs are best summed up in these lines from Mary Oliver, in her poem “Mysteries, Yes”⁶:

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
   who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say
   “Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
   and bow their heads.

꩜꩜꩜

I know there are some of you out there with similar stories, and those who will be baffled by my tale. I would like to hear your comments, whomever you are, if you want to share. Let us speak with honesty and kindness, and forge new paths. 

1. I thought originally I was writing about just white evangelical Christianity, then Reformed theology too, but more and more I think the problem is more encompassing and goes back further. I have a distinction I call Christianity: The Empire Edition, which I’ll talk about another time. For now, I am making a sweeping generalization because to the best of my knowledge I think that is appropriate to what I am talking about.

2. If you don’t know what that means…congrats!!! I will explain it more in an upcoming essay.

3. I was into the American Revolution thanks the classic and highly underrated television series Liberty’s Kids and had read that Ben Franklin was a deist. It’s a niche choice and I love little me for being so unique but also specific, ok?

4. There is more than one kind of Presbyterian church. If you don’t know anything about the plethora of Christian denominations…hold onto your hat!

5. DL, I know you’ve gone through a transformation since writing it and I don’t know if you still stand by that book, but I’m grateful for what it did it all the same.

6. https://readalittlepoetry.com/2018/03/17/mysteries-yes-by-mary-oliver/