Leaving Fundamentalism

Today as I walked through the neighbloghood, I came across an interesting site.

Leaving Fundamentalism.

Many of you probably already know of this site, but I didn't until today. It was fascinating to me, and so I poked around there for awhile. As I began to follow the links to other sites and reading about people who have been abused by fundamentalism, my heart broke.

I have not really identified myself as a fundamentalism/spiritual/religious abuse survivor, but I have identified with people who do identify themselves that way. I can clearly see how abuse happens and I have experienced some incidents of fundamental spiritual abuse in my life, although it was not the norm.

I do feel like I have been lied to and abused by the church in some ways, but I know that for the most part these things were taught by well-intentioned Jesus lovers, not by people who sought to purposefully manipulate or abuse me. I have always had a free-spirited relationship with God, and I think He designed me that way on purpose. But that means I don't work well in an environment where I am told precisely what to believe, how to live, who to judge, even how to vote; and told not to "rock the boat" if I disagree. I think God is so much bigger and more lenient than the church might want people to know, lest we find our freedom.

For the most part I think spiritual abuse and fundamentalism is advanced by people who whole-heartedly believe what they teach (even THEY love Jesus), and not by evil-doers who seek to destroy poor souls. I do see an unhappy trend that as people heal from fundamentalist spiritual abuse, they are often gravitating to agnosticism or paganism, ceasing to relate to anything vaguely christian, even God. So yes, souls have been destroyed. I only pray that in their journey, eventually these people will find a place in themselves where they can reconnect to God and Christ on some level. He is forever patient.

In my wanderings I have had to cling hard to Christ, for I, too have deeply wanted at times to disavow God. It's only in my honesty with Him about this feeling that He has been able to hang on to me. He has convinced me that He can handle my doubts, He can cope with my anger and He loves me no matter what. He has continued to shape my faith, and He has reined me in when I wander too far from His heart. Most of all, He has simply held my hand and let me grow. I hope that I never again think I know anything at all about God for sure, other than what He has promised in the Bible about Himself. I will never again pronounce that I know who God favors and who He condemns. I will never again promote an angry, punishing God, for His patience with me could never be compatible with wrath.

I digress.

What really moves me is how the internet has enabled these people to come together and support one another. In a real-world community, it can be darn near impossible to bring up the subject of abuse, let alone find people who share your experiences. But the internet opens that world up, again like I have said several times before, it makes people aware that they are not alone.

It kills me that so many Christians think they have all the answers, that they know the ONLY way - the only way to believe, the only way to have church, the only way to live, that their church is the only church that has "got it right". It kills me when fundamentalist, legalistic people believe they are entirely grace-filled and unconditionally loving. But what REALLY kills me is when people who are abused by such fiction are unable to connect with and find healing through others who have "been there".

I love to see the coming together that is going on because of the internet. A while back the authors of the Left Behind series (which I enjoyed as entertainment, though not as serious eschatology) portrayed the internet as being an essential tool christians use to connect in the "end times".

[Note: I'm not a "the end is near" fanatic. I am not concerned with when the end will be or whether or not it will ever be or what it will be like. ]

I can agree that the internet is fast becoming a place where christians can connect. In Left Behind, the internet is used because christians have to go "underground" in order to avoid the persecution of the secular world. In real life the internet seems to me to be a place where christians go "underground" from their "real-world" spiritual environment in order to avoid persecution of their church world.

Just some disjointed musings.