Roman As Fuck
October 15, 2021 12:21 PM Subscribe
The real tragedy of purity culture, authoritarian parenting and the culture war ethos is not that we failed, but that we succeeded. This unholy Roman trinity may not have produced culture warriors or even prevented us from losing our faith, but it nevertheless worked as designed. Raised on war, we came to see all the world as a threat. Our birthright was not holiness, but hyper-vigilance and crippling anxiety.Author KucingNoir talks about how the evangelical christianity movement (and authoritarianism in general) of the 80s and 90s has created a generation of people who are terrified of something bad happening all the time.
Well...I'm not an evangelical Christian, or a Christian at all, but it has been my experience that bad things DO happen all the time, and I'm pretty much terrified all the time.
posted by Billiken at 12:55 PM on October 15, 2021 [18 favorites]
posted by Billiken at 12:55 PM on October 15, 2021 [18 favorites]
Well...I'm not an evangelical Christian, or a Christian at all, but it has been my experience that bad things DO happen all the time, and I'm pretty much terrified all the time.
I'm prone to anxiety + have been since I was a kid, but as I've gotten older, I've seen repeatedly that the bad things that have happened have come almost completely out of left field, and were never featured in my sort-of-always-running-in-the-background mental soundtrack of impending disaster.
This has dovetailed helpfully with low self-esteem to convince me that I'm probably too clueless to foresee whatever other catastrophes may be coming, and has weirdly helped me to relax a little.
But this sounds like it goes beyond anxiety to the learned helplessness and despair that real, sustained emotional and physical abuse can cause. You don't "defeat [a child] totally" over and over without breaking their spirit, in most cases.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:10 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
I'm prone to anxiety + have been since I was a kid, but as I've gotten older, I've seen repeatedly that the bad things that have happened have come almost completely out of left field, and were never featured in my sort-of-always-running-in-the-background mental soundtrack of impending disaster.
This has dovetailed helpfully with low self-esteem to convince me that I'm probably too clueless to foresee whatever other catastrophes may be coming, and has weirdly helped me to relax a little.
But this sounds like it goes beyond anxiety to the learned helplessness and despair that real, sustained emotional and physical abuse can cause. You don't "defeat [a child] totally" over and over without breaking their spirit, in most cases.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:10 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
Wow, an article aimed at ppl like me. This web site really is the 'bee's knees'.
posted by kfholy at 1:11 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by kfholy at 1:11 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
I could have written this. Wow. Thanks for posting.
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:37 PM on October 15, 2021
posted by Lutoslawski at 2:37 PM on October 15, 2021
When I think of the damage that Evangelical Christianity has done to its children, I think it would have been better for a lot of pastors and parents to have been drowned in the ocean with a millstone around their necks[1.] than to put all this abusive shit into God's mouth.
1. Cf. Matthew 17:27, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2.
posted by gauche at 3:31 PM on October 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
1. Cf. Matthew 17:27, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2.
posted by gauche at 3:31 PM on October 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
Conservativism is toxic masculinity all the way down.
posted by ob1quixote at 3:36 PM on October 15, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 3:36 PM on October 15, 2021 [8 favorites]
Fundamentalists are not animated primarily by malice, but by fear. They are afraid of losing control.
An excellent essay.
posted by meinvt at 3:53 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
An excellent essay.
posted by meinvt at 3:53 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
If you want a Catholic version, there's Gil Hedley's _Reconceiving My Body_.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:32 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:32 PM on October 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
I grew up surrounded by this without being part of it. All my school friends talked about this stuff all the time but I was lucky in that my parents were lukewarm about religion at best. My mother would go to Methodist Church if she happened to have a Sunday off and take me if I happened to be awake and well behaved. I think I saw it as a treat the time or two a month I got to go and sing and read and put a dollar in the plate when it went around.
Coming from that perspective I almost feel like I’m trespassing when I say this but I do find it difficult to square this view with the recent observation that many evangelicals don’t appear to believe in anything at all.
I think many of my friends and classmates had the experience the author had but it’s probably either not fair or too charitable to assume the average Evangelical Christian I meet suffered in this way.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 4:33 PM on October 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
Coming from that perspective I almost feel like I’m trespassing when I say this but I do find it difficult to square this view with the recent observation that many evangelicals don’t appear to believe in anything at all.
I think many of my friends and classmates had the experience the author had but it’s probably either not fair or too charitable to assume the average Evangelical Christian I meet suffered in this way.
posted by The Monster at the End of this Thread at 4:33 PM on October 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
Evangelical is a broad term. For me, as someone raised as an Independent Baptist, the article resonated strongly.
But particularly in the south-eastern US evangelicalism is also a lifestyle brand. Think Chick-fil-A and Tim Tebow and the Duck Dynasty guys. There are some messy social connections between these faux-evangelicals and the Republican Party as well thanks to dedicated work to tie one's morality entirely to one's position on abortion rights. It's basically assumed that you are an evangelical of some kind unless you make it a point to say otherwise.
But for the True Believers, the ones who went to church 3 times a week and didn't drink or go to movies or dance or listen to rock music? This dynamic that the article describes is much more likely to affect them--us--especially those of us who for one reason or another left the faith.
posted by JDHarper at 5:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
But particularly in the south-eastern US evangelicalism is also a lifestyle brand. Think Chick-fil-A and Tim Tebow and the Duck Dynasty guys. There are some messy social connections between these faux-evangelicals and the Republican Party as well thanks to dedicated work to tie one's morality entirely to one's position on abortion rights. It's basically assumed that you are an evangelical of some kind unless you make it a point to say otherwise.
But for the True Believers, the ones who went to church 3 times a week and didn't drink or go to movies or dance or listen to rock music? This dynamic that the article describes is much more likely to affect them--us--especially those of us who for one reason or another left the faith.
posted by JDHarper at 5:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
It's the kind of Christianity only neoliberalism could produce: graceless and utterly dependent on the will of the individual to avoid all forms of ruin.
Or: The Capitalist Ethic and the Spirit of Protestantism. Funny how things turn around over time.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 5:37 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
Or: The Capitalist Ethic and the Spirit of Protestantism. Funny how things turn around over time.
posted by Sheydem-tants at 5:37 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
Not long after I lost my Evangelical faith, a United Church pastor parent of a friend of my commented that she'd noticed that when Evangelicals lose their faith, they tend to lose it completely.
I think some of the reason for that is captured in the essay. The Evangelical God is an asshole. A domineering asshole. He has (and is) the Truth, though, and even if you feel uncomfortable with that, even if you wish for a more empathetic God, it doesn't matter because God is the way He is and that's the Truth. You might not like it, but you don't have to like it for it to be true.
So when you realize it's not true, there's not much of value left. What's the point of an imaginary jerk?
posted by clawsoon at 5:57 PM on October 15, 2021 [39 favorites]
I think some of the reason for that is captured in the essay. The Evangelical God is an asshole. A domineering asshole. He has (and is) the Truth, though, and even if you feel uncomfortable with that, even if you wish for a more empathetic God, it doesn't matter because God is the way He is and that's the Truth. You might not like it, but you don't have to like it for it to be true.
So when you realize it's not true, there's not much of value left. What's the point of an imaginary jerk?
posted by clawsoon at 5:57 PM on October 15, 2021 [39 favorites]
Recent, thanks for posting this. Very strong writing, heartening, and 100% consistent with my lived experience.
One of the money quotes: “What if we are lovable because of who we are, rather than in spite of it?”
Even after years of therapy and personal growth, asking that type of question still makes me flinch. The underlying fear is that if we ever let our guards down and love and accept our sinfulass selves for who we are, then we’ve assured our eternal damnation. Because even if we can no longer consciously believe, as long as we loathe ourselves we still have a conscience. Which means that the Holy Spirit has not abandoned us entirely and we can still be saved.
Evil stuff, and it’s always good to be reminded that the reason it still feels true on some level is not that it is true but rather because it was relentlessly drilled into our undeveloped psyches.
Love to all the evangelical kids of all ages who are struggling.
posted by lumpy at 6:37 PM on October 15, 2021 [14 favorites]
One of the money quotes: “What if we are lovable because of who we are, rather than in spite of it?”
Even after years of therapy and personal growth, asking that type of question still makes me flinch. The underlying fear is that if we ever let our guards down and love and accept our sinfulass selves for who we are, then we’ve assured our eternal damnation. Because even if we can no longer consciously believe, as long as we loathe ourselves we still have a conscience. Which means that the Holy Spirit has not abandoned us entirely and we can still be saved.
Evil stuff, and it’s always good to be reminded that the reason it still feels true on some level is not that it is true but rather because it was relentlessly drilled into our undeveloped psyches.
Love to all the evangelical kids of all ages who are struggling.
posted by lumpy at 6:37 PM on October 15, 2021 [14 favorites]
many evangelicals don’t appear to believe in anything at all.
David French is not a favorite of mine, but this post of his is worth reading: "[W]hat seems to be happening at scale isn’t so much the growth of white Evangelicalism as a religious movement, but rather the near-culmination of the decades-long transformation of white Evangelicalism from a mainly religious movement into a Republican political cause." Thank you, The Monster at the End of this Thread.
And thank you, rebent. I've shared this essay with some friends who will resonate with it.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:40 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
David French is not a favorite of mine, but this post of his is worth reading: "[W]hat seems to be happening at scale isn’t so much the growth of white Evangelicalism as a religious movement, but rather the near-culmination of the decades-long transformation of white Evangelicalism from a mainly religious movement into a Republican political cause." Thank you, The Monster at the End of this Thread.
And thank you, rebent. I've shared this essay with some friends who will resonate with it.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:40 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
Sheesh, whatever happened to forgiveness, Grace, all that?
posted by eustatic at 6:50 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by eustatic at 6:50 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
eustatic, the powerful in the church define sin and grace in such a way as to insulate themselves from faultfinding while keeping the boot on the necks of kids, poor people, women, etc.
when Evangelicals lose their faith, they tend to lose it completely.
I think there are a lot of factors in the faith that lead to this. For my part, I can separate my Christian God from evangelicalism, but not from an Evangelical narrative that sees god as endlessly active and involved - a god that would address the evangelical heresy with signs of power were they to exist.
Another perspective is that Evangelicalism lays bare a lot of the structural abuse of power issues inherent to all institutions and leaves one rather cynical and burnt over.
Another that religion as an individual's encounter with what is supposed to be a timeless and univocal truth rather poisons one for other traditions.
And the list is probably longer than the number of exvangelicals. For a tradition that prizes personal narratives of redemption perhaps it's only right that it falls to personal narratives of leaving.
posted by wotsac at 7:34 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
when Evangelicals lose their faith, they tend to lose it completely.
I think there are a lot of factors in the faith that lead to this. For my part, I can separate my Christian God from evangelicalism, but not from an Evangelical narrative that sees god as endlessly active and involved - a god that would address the evangelical heresy with signs of power were they to exist.
Another perspective is that Evangelicalism lays bare a lot of the structural abuse of power issues inherent to all institutions and leaves one rather cynical and burnt over.
Another that religion as an individual's encounter with what is supposed to be a timeless and univocal truth rather poisons one for other traditions.
And the list is probably longer than the number of exvangelicals. For a tradition that prizes personal narratives of redemption perhaps it's only right that it falls to personal narratives of leaving.
posted by wotsac at 7:34 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
In my upbringing they spent a fair bit of time saying, more or less, that any other variation on Christianity--say, one that accepted the evidence of evolution, or one that considered the Bible to be anything less than the literal, inerrant, infallible, inspired word of God--was unworthy or false. They left no flexibility in the system.
And so when I read the stories of the atrocities that God required Israel to perpetrate on their neighbors in the books of Joshua and Judges, I could not retreat to a position like "the books of history were written well after the events they describe, to benefit the then-current rulers of Israel, and god had no part in such an act." It was all or nothing, so I was left with nothing.
posted by JDHarper at 8:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
And so when I read the stories of the atrocities that God required Israel to perpetrate on their neighbors in the books of Joshua and Judges, I could not retreat to a position like "the books of history were written well after the events they describe, to benefit the then-current rulers of Israel, and god had no part in such an act." It was all or nothing, so I was left with nothing.
posted by JDHarper at 8:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
The Pearls parenting is responsible for so so much child abuse and pain.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 8:51 PM on October 15, 2021 [1 favorite]
I was never very good at fundamentalism, at least the "don't ask questions or speculate" part, but I did learn to keep those thoughts to myself. My parents were on the cusp of this kind of hardcore committment, my mom being a social Baptist, my dad being inclined to the fundamentalist stuff but unable to drag her along. And unwilling to make it too big of a fight.
So from that mixed message I never completely adhered to the worldview, though I went farther than I should have, and it did take a long time to break out of the fear of Hell and not getting Raptured.
I later dropped Christianity entirely for the more fitting label of "agnostic" which seemed to give me the room to breathe while also not taking away what good memories I did have of feeling connected to the Divine. I told a friend that finally walking away from the religion of my childhood was liking leaving a rickety hut with boards over the windows (to keep everything out) to go out onto a mountainside. Dangerous, terrifying, confusing, but beautiful. All the energy I had put into patching up that hut and not looking out those windows was now available to me to use as I pleased.
I feel terrible at how much worse the already-bad conservatism of my childhood got for kids like the writer. I was lucky to be as shielded as I was; my parents never thought I shouldn't go to college or that I should have lots of babies.
posted by emjaybee at 9:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
So from that mixed message I never completely adhered to the worldview, though I went farther than I should have, and it did take a long time to break out of the fear of Hell and not getting Raptured.
I later dropped Christianity entirely for the more fitting label of "agnostic" which seemed to give me the room to breathe while also not taking away what good memories I did have of feeling connected to the Divine. I told a friend that finally walking away from the religion of my childhood was liking leaving a rickety hut with boards over the windows (to keep everything out) to go out onto a mountainside. Dangerous, terrifying, confusing, but beautiful. All the energy I had put into patching up that hut and not looking out those windows was now available to me to use as I pleased.
I feel terrible at how much worse the already-bad conservatism of my childhood got for kids like the writer. I was lucky to be as shielded as I was; my parents never thought I shouldn't go to college or that I should have lots of babies.
posted by emjaybee at 9:01 PM on October 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
Wow, great essay. Lots of touchpoints in there for all victims of Authoritarianism :
The authoritarian gardener, by contrast, demands that all flowers be tulips. If he finds himself with an orchid, he will deny and deflect, and stubbornly treat it as if it were a tulip. He will over or under-water, place it in full sun when it needs partial shade, and then feign shock when he realizes that instead of raising a tulip, he has killed an orchid.
posted by travertina at 11:49 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
The authoritarian gardener, by contrast, demands that all flowers be tulips. If he finds himself with an orchid, he will deny and deflect, and stubbornly treat it as if it were a tulip. He will over or under-water, place it in full sun when it needs partial shade, and then feign shock when he realizes that instead of raising a tulip, he has killed an orchid.
posted by travertina at 11:49 PM on October 15, 2021 [11 favorites]
Linda Kay Klein's Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free is filled with the same fear.
posted by scruss at 10:48 AM on October 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by scruss at 10:48 AM on October 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
Something bad is happening to these people all the time, it's just not what most of them think it is.
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:28 AM on October 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:28 AM on October 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
She’s right. Fundamentalists have misinterpreted the phrase “faith like a child.” They have equated it with submission, as if Jesus admired little children for their willingness to unquestioningly download religious and conservative propaganda. Verily I say unto thee: poor people are lazy, gay marriage is bad, and it’s very important that we elect conservative judges to the Supreme Court. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after the elimination of the capital gains tax. Now go and think no more!
Powerful essay. I think it's worth repeating that Evangelical Christianity of today should not be confused with Christianity: there is nothing Jesus condems more strongly than blind, rote rule following while forgetting the really important heart of the matter, love and grace. Part of me can't help but wonder how much this inversion has been deliberate political sabotage to create a convenient fascist mindset.
posted by blue shadows at 2:16 PM on October 16, 2021 [10 favorites]
Powerful essay. I think it's worth repeating that Evangelical Christianity of today should not be confused with Christianity: there is nothing Jesus condems more strongly than blind, rote rule following while forgetting the really important heart of the matter, love and grace. Part of me can't help but wonder how much this inversion has been deliberate political sabotage to create a convenient fascist mindset.
posted by blue shadows at 2:16 PM on October 16, 2021 [10 favorites]
Related, this interview with historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez (author, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation)
"Instead of theological criteria, what comes to define evangelicalism is instead your stance on issues of gender and sexuality, the embrace of patriarchal authority, belief in female submission. That’s how you determine who is in and out of the fold. So we’ve arrived at the point where progressive evangelicals who can check off all those ideological boxes but have a different opinion on LGBTQ issues, for example, fall outside the evangelical fold and are ostracized. This realignment and redefinition of boundaries takes place in the last half century or so....
"Purity culture pretty much dominated evangelical youth culture for more than a generation. If you were an evangelical kid in the ’90s, this is what you talked about in youth group. There was a whole speaking circuit where speakers would go to church youth groups and Christian schools and talk about all the bad things that happened if you had sex.
"And then there were the purity balls, which still happen today. The idea is that a dad has to show his daughter what a proper romantic relationship looks like, and that her virginity is her father’s ultimate responsibility. So he will take her to one of these balls and she’ll be all dressed up, and there will be a ceremony where he bestows upon her a purity ring. As she accepts it, she promises to keep it on and remain a virgin until her wedding day, when the father literally hands her over to her husband. She is then under her husband’s authority, and can have sex and please him as God intended.
"In reality, many evangelicals who received these teachings or participated in these rituals did not wait for marriage to have sex, and that has caused them decades of guilt, which many still carry. If their marriages didn’t work out, that was why, or so they were led to believe. Meanwhile, many who did wait discovered, to their deep disappointment, that married sex or their marriage itself wasn’t all that great. Overall, this culture has generated a lot of disappointment, guilt, and shame."
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:14 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
"Instead of theological criteria, what comes to define evangelicalism is instead your stance on issues of gender and sexuality, the embrace of patriarchal authority, belief in female submission. That’s how you determine who is in and out of the fold. So we’ve arrived at the point where progressive evangelicals who can check off all those ideological boxes but have a different opinion on LGBTQ issues, for example, fall outside the evangelical fold and are ostracized. This realignment and redefinition of boundaries takes place in the last half century or so....
"Purity culture pretty much dominated evangelical youth culture for more than a generation. If you were an evangelical kid in the ’90s, this is what you talked about in youth group. There was a whole speaking circuit where speakers would go to church youth groups and Christian schools and talk about all the bad things that happened if you had sex.
"And then there were the purity balls, which still happen today. The idea is that a dad has to show his daughter what a proper romantic relationship looks like, and that her virginity is her father’s ultimate responsibility. So he will take her to one of these balls and she’ll be all dressed up, and there will be a ceremony where he bestows upon her a purity ring. As she accepts it, she promises to keep it on and remain a virgin until her wedding day, when the father literally hands her over to her husband. She is then under her husband’s authority, and can have sex and please him as God intended.
"In reality, many evangelicals who received these teachings or participated in these rituals did not wait for marriage to have sex, and that has caused them decades of guilt, which many still carry. If their marriages didn’t work out, that was why, or so they were led to believe. Meanwhile, many who did wait discovered, to their deep disappointment, that married sex or their marriage itself wasn’t all that great. Overall, this culture has generated a lot of disappointment, guilt, and shame."
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:14 PM on October 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
I think it's worth repeating that Evangelical Christianity of today should not be confused with Christianity: there is nothing Jesus condems more strongly than blind, rote rule following while forgetting the really important heart of the matter, love and grace.
I understand the point you're making, but if you look at the history of Christianity, it seems suspiciously like the teachings of Jesus are, shall we say, honored more in the breach than in the observance.
A church that might have been recognizable to Jesus may have existed for, what, a couple of centuries—at most?
To give credit where it's due, the very early Jewish Christians seemed to hew pretty closely to what many today understand as the core teachings of Jesus (going so far as to refuse to participate in the Bar Kokhba revolt, which I'd imagine must have made life somewhat awkward for them at the time).
But by two centuries in, there are already restorationist movements claiming that mainline Christianity had strayed. (E.g. Marcionists.)
And then by around 380, when Christianity becomes the state religion of the Roman Empire, all the radical anti-authoritarianism that was originally so threatening—all that "woe to you who are rich" stuff—is essentially gone, in practice if not in liturgy, in favor of something compatible with being the state religion of a world-spanning empire.
It's that strain of belief—the weaponized one, evolved to become an Imperial religion; the one Constantine realized he could use to strengthen his empire—that's been the dominant, defining strain of Christianity, the rule rather than the exception, in the West ever since. The three largest Christian denominations to this day are the state churches of the Roman Empire (1.345 bil), the Byzantine Empire (220 mil), and the British Empire (110 mil).
The Christianity that most people have experienced, over its entire history, is not one of benevolence and egalitarianism and questioning authority. What most people have experienced under that banner is a belief system that exists to legitimize and empower imperial, hierarchical, patriarchal power structures.
What we are seeing right now with the Trumpublicans and Evangelicals is, in my opinion, an entirely conscious and deliberate effort to build a fourth great temporal church—a state religion of the American Empire.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:54 PM on October 18, 2021 [9 favorites]
I understand the point you're making, but if you look at the history of Christianity, it seems suspiciously like the teachings of Jesus are, shall we say, honored more in the breach than in the observance.
A church that might have been recognizable to Jesus may have existed for, what, a couple of centuries—at most?
To give credit where it's due, the very early Jewish Christians seemed to hew pretty closely to what many today understand as the core teachings of Jesus (going so far as to refuse to participate in the Bar Kokhba revolt, which I'd imagine must have made life somewhat awkward for them at the time).
But by two centuries in, there are already restorationist movements claiming that mainline Christianity had strayed. (E.g. Marcionists.)
And then by around 380, when Christianity becomes the state religion of the Roman Empire, all the radical anti-authoritarianism that was originally so threatening—all that "woe to you who are rich" stuff—is essentially gone, in practice if not in liturgy, in favor of something compatible with being the state religion of a world-spanning empire.
It's that strain of belief—the weaponized one, evolved to become an Imperial religion; the one Constantine realized he could use to strengthen his empire—that's been the dominant, defining strain of Christianity, the rule rather than the exception, in the West ever since. The three largest Christian denominations to this day are the state churches of the Roman Empire (1.345 bil), the Byzantine Empire (220 mil), and the British Empire (110 mil).
The Christianity that most people have experienced, over its entire history, is not one of benevolence and egalitarianism and questioning authority. What most people have experienced under that banner is a belief system that exists to legitimize and empower imperial, hierarchical, patriarchal power structures.
What we are seeing right now with the Trumpublicans and Evangelicals is, in my opinion, an entirely conscious and deliberate effort to build a fourth great temporal church—a state religion of the American Empire.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:54 PM on October 18, 2021 [9 favorites]
“Goodbye, End Times,” Chrissy Stroop, Pipewrench, October/November 2021
posted by ob1quixote at 3:27 PM on October 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 3:27 PM on October 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Well...I'm not an evangelical Christian, or a Christian at all, but it has been my experience that bad things DO happen all the time, and I'm pretty much terrified all the time.
♩ ♬ you're so vain / you probably think this essay that you didn't read about kids raised evangelical who struggle with anxiety and depression as adults is about you ♪ ♫
posted by Spathe Cadet at 8:36 AM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
♩ ♬ you're so vain / you probably think this essay that you didn't read about kids raised evangelical who struggle with anxiety and depression as adults is about you ♪ ♫
posted by Spathe Cadet at 8:36 AM on October 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
We're gonna need a post on Chrissy Stroop, aren't we? Twitter post: "Are you also someone who attended Christian schools as a kid who wants the public to understand how extreme and authoritarian they are? Please share your stories and memories using the hashtag #ExposeChristianSchools"
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:04 PM on October 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:04 PM on October 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
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posted by gauche at 12:54 PM on October 15, 2021 [5 favorites]