Ex Fundamentalist - Tumblr Posts
It has consumed so much of our time and attention and energy. The processing is good and necessary, but the freedom, no longer directing our attention and energy to it…that is something really wonderful 🖤✨
I was going to use this blog to vent my exvangelical frustrations, but I find myself dwelling on it less and less.
I’ve been giving my brain the space to enjoy this life I now lead without the expectations, shame, and guilt that came with my religious past.
Oh I will still definitely have my moments because I’m still mad. It’s just not a daily feeling any more and I love that for me. 🥰
Welcome to my scrupulosity
Where god can do whatever he wants and to pray against any of it is to reject the will of god which is a sin and is selfish which is a sin and is fearful which is also a sin and is prideful to think I could ever have anything other than whatever god decides for me whatever that is and that’s also a sin and so much sin in infinite layers and unknown hidden corners of my heart and mind that even I don’t know and only the spirit of god knows so I must continually pray to expose every facet of my divide deceitful heart so that I can see my sin which god is waiting for me to be willing to see and I’m never willing enough which is also a sin
But oh my god aren’t I so spiritual, so holy, so earnest, always in prayer, gifted with discernment and words of wisdom and words of knowledge and prophecy and what’s that? I should be leading and teaching and speaking and shepherding others
Hey-o religious trauma is real and Christianity reinforces trauma and rewards your coping mechanisms which perpetuates the trauma.
Do you know how you cope with the cognitive dissonance of believing a good god can kill you at any time in any way because you deserve it and it’s his will and would be loving? You disappear. You “die to yourself”, aka dissociate. You cease to exist except in an animated body rehearsing the speech and behavior of theological dogma.
In actuality, your morals are the choices you make based on your values, derived from your ethics. If you lose your belief in god and decide human catastrophe and suffering is funny and something to be celebrated, that’s a you problem and even with a practicing belief in god, you will gravitate toward theology that still reflects those values, as the artist did.
We don’t have to think this way or see things that way. We don’t have to believe that humans are irreparably flawed For Some Reason. We can select different beliefs based on different criteria we choose to highlight and emphasize, and live accordingly.
ok i had to go read minna sundberg's christian coming-to-faith comic and this is literally a flaming trainwreck. like i don't think there's been a single scene so far where i wasn't like ''okay this is literally insane i think you need therapy"
The Christian conditioning to “pray and wait on God’s will” fucked up my life. Decades of choices, plans, skill building, wealth building, lost and unrecoverable, sacrificed to god and the church.
The years that the locusts ate were my good, young life poisoned by scrupulosity, the locusts were the high-control rules and conditions the church wielded to eat up my life.
There are three rules:
1. If you do not go after what you want, you will never have it.
2. If you do not ask, the answer will always be no.
3. If you do not step forward, you will remain in the same place.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias”
—Stephen Colbert, White House Correspondents Dinner, 2006
I’ve written a good bit about this on here and on Twitter X,
the way that authoritarian ideology, specifically salvific ideology (that is, ideology that purports humans must be saved by some external means due to some internal fault), teaches that you must separate True self (“capital T!”) from your humanity.
C. S. Lewis famously wrote, “you don’t have a soul. You are a soul, you have a body.” This emphasis on the soul and the diminishing of the physical has legitimate psychological consequences, especially when pushed through a values system that determines whether or not you are pure enough to receive not just god’s love, but his attention, his favor, his protection in your health and safety, and every possible aspect of your conscious life and your eternal retirement.
Gnosticism asserts that your body—any tangible human identity and experience—is corrupted, and only the soul can be purified. Evangelicalism insists that it is not gnostic, that Gnosticism is a heresy, but it continues to teach this existential division. One scripture speaks of the Holy Spirit acting as a sword that separates even the spirit from the soul, and this is taken up in further teachings about divisible consciousness: your flesh, your soul, and your spirit. How the hell does this work? They teach you are a spirit, who has a soul (a self, your feelings and personality) that lives in a body, and the spirit is what ascends and is perfected and made whole at the end of all things. Even factions that believe you get a physical eternity teach that your current body is either renewed, made new, or you get a new body entirely.
Your current self (the only one you have ever known and as far as you are capable, can ever know) is an offense to god, one he graciously tolerates until some time which only he has determined to make all things perfect. You are stuck.
How is any human being supposed to address this and live accordingly? Especially really serious believers who really care about getting it right to demonstrate how much they love and trust god?
The teachings get overly complex from there, trying to substantiate themselves with esoteric phrases and hidden wisdom, but the application is what remains consistent: your current conscious and physical self is corruptible, has already been corrupted, and who you are must be saved and sanctified, and even that is not enough because there is still yet another stage when “the kingdom comes in its fullness” and it’s finally complete with a Brand New Self that is not corrupted like you are now.
There are different interpretations of what that existence will be like. But for the earnest and intensely faithful of us, what else can we do now but “die to ourselves”? We become shells of people, an entity occupying a body, trying in every way to allow ourselves to be taken over by god himself, to be a conduit for his will to all humanity that we encounter. Our desires and preferences are selfish and sinful, or conversely they have been transposed with the will of god.
Often times we merry-go-round or see-saw between these extreme ends, in a desperate attempt to be So Pleasing To The Lord, and in the process we either reject any intrinsic sense of self, or we outsource it to the divine. It is so profoundly confusing to live this way, and the easiest way to make sense of it is to decide that you are nothing, and nothing you want matters.
For a time, I was asked to be a youth pastor at my small church. This was something I never wanted to do. I felt so uncomfortable, so unqualified, not at all gifted, and very unsupported materially and relationally. And because of that, I wondered and eventually “trusted” that this must the will of god because he wanted to purge me, he wanted to force me into submission and to force me to trust him because I couldn’t do it without him, and this was his good gift and perfect love. After all, the bible teaches that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope. If this is what god will do, through my suffering and struggle, why would I pray against that, ask god to change that? I stop existing, my fears, discomfort, and desires do not matter, and I only need to die to myself, give up every concern and hesitation because God’s love is poured into my heart.
The worst part of all this is that if you grew up in an abusive home, your survival mechanism of dissociation is not only reinforced in an authoritarian religious community, but it is rewarded—you’re so faithful! You have such a beautiful spirit! You’re such a servant! You are an example to the rest of the body of Christ!
The abuse-survival mechanism-reward dynamic can be extremely difficult to untangle. Who are you? If you grew up in this, there is likely never a time where you truly felt like you knew yourself, that you mattered, that your interests, preferences, and needs—all the things that make you human and shape your unique personality/self—were valid. How do you heal from this if you don’t know what you want or who you are because it was a deadly, existential threat to even think about?
It is possible, it is. Sending and extending courage to all those recovering from chronic, spiritualised dissociation.
Who wants to talk about borderline alterhuman identity acquired through cult socialization and separation of the self from human identity at an early age
DEAR EDUCATIONALLY NEGLECTED HOMESCHOOLERS
I’ve gathered some resources and tips and tricks on self-educating after educational neglect. This is only what I did and what I know helped me. I’m about to graduate college with honors after having no education past the age of 9. I wouldn’t be here without the following. Everything is free, and at/well above the standard for education in the US.
The holy grail: Khan Academy. Nearly every course you could take is available here, in order and by grade level. Their open-source free courses rival some of the college classes I’ve taken. This is your most solid resource.
For inattentive types: Crash Course offers a variety of courses that are snappy, entertaining, and extremely rewarding. They work for my ADHD brain. They also have college prep advice, which is essential if you’re looking to go to higher education with no classroom experience.
To catch up on your reading: There are certain books that you may have read had you gone to school that you’ve missed out on. This list is the most well-rounded and can fill you in on both children’s books and classic novels that are essential or at least extremely helpful to be familiar with. You can find a majority of these easily at a local library (and some for free in PDF form online low key). There are a few higher level classics in here that I’d highly recommend. If it doesn’t work for you, I’d always recommend asking your local librarian.
*BE AWARE* The book list I recommend suggests you read Harry Potter books, and given their transphobic author you may or may not want to read them. If you choose to, I’d highly recommend buying the books secondhand or borrowing from a library to avoid financially supporting a living author with dangerous and damaging views.
TEST, TEST, TEST: Again, Khan Academy is your go-to for this. I don’t personally like standardized testing, but going through SAT and ACT courses was the best way I found to really reveal my gaps so that I could supplement.
Finally: As much as you can, enjoy the process. Education can be thrilling and teach you so much about yourself, and help shape your view of the world. It can get frustrating, but I’d like to encourage you that everyone can learn. No pace is the perfect pace, and your learning style is the right learning style for you. In teaching yourself, be patient, be kind, and indulge in the subjects you really enjoy without neglecting others. You are your teacher. Give yourself what others chose not to.
EDIT: RECRUITMENT IS CLOSED!! Thank you sooo much to everyone who participated and filled out the screener. :)
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sooo um hi! I’m a graduate researcher and wondering if folks would be interested in my study! 👉🏻👈🏻
Are you an ex-fundamentalist, ex-evangelical, or ex-charismatic Christian? Me too, and I’m looking for people like us to participate in an academic research study (IRBNet NO: 1873336) on identity development among ex-Christians. If you want to participate, please fill out the screener survey listed on the flyer (bit.ly/aposidscreener). And please share with anyone you know who might be interested! Please message me or email me at fio . haire @ mnsu . edu for more information.
Thanks!
Fio Haire (they/he), master’s student at Minnesota State University, Mankato
Primary Investigator: Dr. Aaron Hoy (he/him), Assistant Professor of Sociology at Minnesota State University, Mankato
[Image description: A multicolored flyer with text that says:
IRBNet NO: 1873336
Research Study for Former Christian Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and Charismatics
Conducted by Fio Haire and Aaron Hoy at Minnesota State University, Mankato
Now Recruiting Interview Participants
Participants must be:
- 18 or older
- Live in the U.S.
- Be able to converse in English or with assistive technology
- Identify as ex-evangelical/fundamentalist/charismatic
- Not currently identify as Christian
Complete the screener at bit.ly/aposidscreener
Questions? Email fio . haire @ mnsu . edu
Scan here! - image of an arrow pointing to a QR code.
Share your story in a research study on the identity development of ex-Christians!]
Project “31 interviews in 40 days” complete! Thank you to everyone who has contributed to my master’s thesis project on identity development of ex-Christians; the interviewing process has been so life-affirming and hearing the stories of people in the ex-Christian community has reminded me over and over again why research in this area is so important.
I’ve reached recruitment capacity for this project, but I will undoubtedly be doing additional work on the topic of religious exit in the future. If you’d like me to reach out for a future project or if you’d like a copy of my master’s thesis when it is complete, please feel free to send me a message!
AAAAAAAAHHHH
YA BOY IS A PUBLISHED ACADEMIC IN SOCIOLOGY!!!!
Back in January 2021, I started writing a literature review for a class assignment that grew into something much bigger. My professor, Dr. Don Ebel, noticed my passion for the mental health of ex-Christians and encouraged me to seek publication for my literature review. Back then, I never would have thought publication in any reputable journal was possible, especially for a review article, but two conference presentations and many, many revisions later, it’s officially published as of today in Sociology Compass.
If you’re a student and/or have an institutional library access, the link below will take you right to it. If you’d like to read it but don’t have access to an academic library, please message me and I’ll happily provide a pdf copy. 🙂
(And feel free to share the link or pdf with others who might be interested!)
(P.S., for those who interviewed with me this summer, this is a completely separate project from that one, i.e., my thesis, which is still in the analysis stage.)
https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/soc4.13030
Hi folx!
I put out a call for participants in Spring 2022 for a research study on the experiences of ex-evangelicals, ex-fundamentalists, and ex-charismatic Christians. I wanted to update you on the progress of this research and provide a little info about where my analysis has led so far.
First, I want to thank those of you, from the bottom of my heart, who participated in this study, vulnerably shared your story, and contributed to a beautiful tapestry of narratives of autonomy, self-discovery, and empowerment. I was overwhelmed in the best way with the outpouring of responses, and I ended up interviewing 31 individuals with similar religious backgrounds. Far more of you wanted to be interviewed than I was able to schedule, and for that I am infinitely grateful.
My original intention with this project was to synthesize the narratives all of you shared into a study exploring the ways ex-Christians navigate the development of the self, and to have the analysis completed towards the completion of my master’s degree in May 2023. My writing and analysis for that paper is about 60% complete. During the time of interviewing and analysis, several complications arose in my own journey of self-discovery related to my own religious exit, that made continued engagement with the data difficult from a trauma perspective. I unfortunately had to put the project on hiatus during this summer, and I pursued a related but different project towards graduation this fall. That “pivot” project was an analytical literature review of existing studies that narrate mental health patterns during the process of religious exit for those leaving their religion. I graduated with my master’s this past Saturday. I would be happy to DM the PDF of that paper to anyone who would like to read it. The Appendix of the paper explains more about my decision to pivot to a different project for graduation, and the impact that this research has had on me as a researcher.
However, the project many of you contributed to is not over. I am committed to getting your stories out to the world, both to an academic audience and the general populace. To that end, I will be continuing the analysis as an independent researcher beginning in the new year, with the goal of having a complete draft to you by end of Summer 2024. During this process, if you would like, I would be more than happy to incorporate any new information you would like to share about your experience and work with one or more of you as beta readers or co-researchers (and thereby include you as a co-author on the paper if it successfully moves towards academic publication). For those I’ve already interviewed, I would also be happy to share your specific interview transcript if you would like to reflect back on the specific knowledge you contributed to the project.
I greatly appreciate your grace and patience with the writing, the analysis, and with me as a researcher-human living a journey alongside yours.
If you would like to assist with the project in any way (beta reading, ideas for analytical direction, contributing additional information or developments in your journey from the past year, being interviewed if you were not during the initial ask), I would be honored to work with you in that capacity. You are more than welcome to DM me with any questions, concerns, comments, or requests.
Thank you so much for existing as your whole self!
-Fio
sooo um hi! I’m a graduate researcher and wondering if folks would be interested in my study! 👉🏻👈🏻
Are you an ex-fundamentalist, ex-evangelical, or ex-charismatic Christian? Me too, and I’m looking for people like us to participate in an academic research study (IRBNet NO: 1873336) on identity development among ex-Christians. If you want to participate, please fill out the screener survey listed on the flyer (bit.ly/aposidscreener). And please share with anyone you know who might be interested! Please message me or email me at fio . haire @ mnsu . edu for more information.
Thanks!
Fio Haire (they/he), master’s student at Minnesota State University, Mankato
Primary Investigator: Dr. Aaron Hoy (he/him), Assistant Professor of Sociology at Minnesota State University, Mankato
[Image description: A multicolored flyer with text that says:
IRBNet NO: 1873336
Research Study for Former Christian Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and Charismatics
Conducted by Fio Haire and Aaron Hoy at Minnesota State University, Mankato
Now Recruiting Interview Participants
Participants must be:
- 18 or older
- Live in the U.S.
- Be able to converse in English or with assistive technology
- Identify as ex-evangelical/fundamentalist/charismatic
- Not currently identify as Christian
Complete the screener at bit.ly/aposidscreener
Questions? Email fio . haire @ mnsu . edu
Scan here! - image of an arrow pointing to a QR code.
Share your story in a research study on the identity development of ex-Christians!]