Christianese loves to dress up oppression, abuse, and human exploitation with fancy spiritual catchphrases and theological labels — so let me offer some more realistic terms and definitions to help y’all deconstruct the bullshit.

A THREAD “Purity culture” is rape culture
“Complementarianism” is sexism
“Male headship” is patriarchy
“Modesty” is thinly veiled misogyny
“All Lives Matter” is racism
“Colorblind” Christian subculture is white supremacy
“Missions trips” are imperialist colonization

Leaving pentecostal spaces due to their laundry list of fundamentalist flaws, yet still remaining a Christian, is a big fucking heartbreak in its own unique way. I’ve heard other charismatic progressives (queer people especially) voice this sentiment as well. I’m going to be real: I miss the (not-theologically-shitty) contemporary Christian worship music. I miss it being normal to worship however the fuck you want — whether it’s laying on the floor, sitting, standing, dancing, raising hands. Quiet or loud.

I find it hilariously ironic that C.S. Lewis is lauded by evangelicals as a bastion of spiritual knowledge & wit – a most revered Christian thinker – yet if he was alive today, the same folks who worship his innovative writings would viciously brand him a heretic & false teacher. There’d be smarmy thinkpieces churned out like butter slandering his name. Prominent evangelical leaders would take up pitchforks and rally their troops, unanimously denouncing his beliefs.

Logging online only to say:

I don’t want to hear a single “egalitarian” who does not affirm LGBT+ people attempt to speak against the #SocialJusticeStatement.

Don’t pretend to be indignant when you are still complicit in the systems that made this possible. Save it. Say you affirm PoC all you want.
Say you affirm women all you want.

But what about trans women theologians?
Married gay Hispanic men?
Black lesbian partnered clergy?
Nonbinary bisexual people in seminary?

It’s ironic to me how evangelicals romanticize 1 Corinthians 13, yet do not take it seriously — I’d argue esp the line about love not “insisting on its own way.” The entire superstructure is predicated upon control of individual people’s theological, social, & political beliefs. It insists you believe in penal substitutionary atonement. It insists you hold certain specific eschatological views. It insists you believe in a literal Dante’s inferno type hell. It insists you hold to gender roles and cisheteronormativity.

It’s so strange, because in some ways, I feel like my life is picking up where it left off back in middle school. Those years were the years where it was most prominently drilled into my head that I either choose “this specific version of God they tell me about” or “myself.” Those were the years I first developed feelings for girls, realized I loved wearing nerdy t-shirts & the color black, poured my soul into videogames & Internet forums & writing. Those were also the years my life was youth group & obsessing over scripture & the Holy Spirit.

The most interesting part of analyzing scripture through a lens that isn’t rooted in evangelical literalism, is realizing how much of it you actually NEVER READ LITERALLY BEFORE. And if you did... you would’ve been branded a heretic much sooner. They love their awfully translated passages about Gehenna (“hell”). But what do they do with “As in Adam all died, so in Christ all are made alive” and “all people will see God’s salvation?” How come we never read those literally? ...Eh?

What if “take every thought captive” doesn’t mean repressing sexual attraction or refraining from saying the word “fuck.” What if it means examining your deeply ingrained racial prejudices, questioning harmful traditions, and confronting your nationalistic idol worship? What if “do not conform to the pattern of this world” doesn’t mean forfeiting marijuana or Harry Potter.

What if it means rejecting the systemic oppression towards image-bearers that we observe in our earthly institutional structures — including in our churches and government?

If the Lord is threatened by me, a tiny little blip in the universe’s corner, and my beliefs about the afterlife, the atonement, and which pronouns I use for Her - then I’m quite sure She is not that big of a God at all. One of the major beefs I have with evangelical thought is that every single moment, you’re at risk for losing your salvation over the most arbitrary, menial things. What an abusive and perfectionistic God, if They set us on this mysterious earth and expect us to know all.

A deeply personal thread about what spirituality looks like for me, subject to change within the next hour.

This is also written specifically for my wandering, unchurched still-Christian fam. I love you. We're in this together. The most exciting part of being an unchurched Christian, aside from actively avoiding religious trauma (#lol), is being able to distance myself from cold formulaic methods of approaching spirituality & embrace the beautifully mysterious dance with the divine.