Meaning-Making
Reflections on Life, Spirituality, and God, Five Years After Leaving Christianity
Leaving was never an option, until it was the only option. At the end of 2019, every part of my life was following the “right” trajectory. I had completed my undergraduate studies in Communications and Biblical Studies and had grown to be an active member of the lay ministry of my church. I spent my weeknights leading small groups. On Sunday, I’d run the sound board and lead worship. Most of my friends were churchgoers. I applied to become an elder and was a part of the preaching cohort. Faith and belief were at the center of my existence. They always had been.
I didn’t come with a radical testimony (the narrative of becoming a believer and Christian–a badge of honor in Sunday schools and youth groups). I grew up as one of three children of missionaries to the Philippines. I grew up going to church every Sunday. I volunteered at an impoverished youth outreach. I prayed for salvation at 5, and was baptised as a teen when my faith was expected to be fully my own. When I made it to my senior year of high school, there was no question in my mind that the best way to live life was in service to God.
So I went to Bible College. I started a career in ministry work. I was diligent about my spiritual life. I strove to live according to the example of Jesus and the early church. I believed that bringing a Christ-centered approach to my relationships would bring about a better world–God’s kingdom of heaven among us. I truly believed,100%. On the surface, I was as dyed in the wool as they come. But there were so many things that just didn’t add up, so many times when a cliche or dogmatism was inserted in my honest inquiry. Little by little, conversation by conversation, I began to change. I saw Jesus’ teaching about the good tree in Matthew 7 as a damning indictment of the whole machine of American Christianity.
But I still believed. I stayed. I put my doubts aside and kept the peace for the greater good, for the sake of the community, to not bring shame upon the gospel… so many reasons I had to quell the bubbling within me and my fellow believers.
Sometimes I wonder what the alternate universe version of David would look like if the Painted Door hadn’t closed in 2020. The hows and whys of what happened at our little church on Grand Ave. would take hours to unpack, but seeing the manifestation of the great commission fall apart so spectacularly shook me to my core. And then the world shut down. And for the first time in my life, I wasn’t a part of a church. I didn’t have a small group to go to. The dam that had held back so many questions and doubts crumbled. It was time for me to take the next step in my life based on what I thought was best.
I’ve oscillated between writing and keeping these thoughts to myself. As I’ve learned more about the world around me, I have grown less comfortable sharing my own beliefs publicly. I’ve seen firsthand the ways we pigeonhole one another, and it can feel like being seen and known is to be controlled. I can hear the stories I heard growing up about prodigal sons and lost sheep. I know that, at least for some people, I fit the archetype perfectly now. Nonetheless, I hope that some of what I share resonates with you. I hope that you’re able to see another person who is still learning, still growing, still discovering.
On Christianity
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. I believe in the teachings of Christ, but you on the other side of the world, do not. I read the Bible faithfully and see little in Christendom that those who profess faith pretend to see. The Christians above all others are seeking after wealth. Their aim is to be rich at the expense of their neighbors.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
Labels are funny things, aren’t they? They can be useful–helping us know which faucet is cold or hot. They can be empowering–a Doctor having a Phd after their name, proof that they have accomplished a rigorous educational program. And of course, they can be dehumanizing and othering, like credit scores or racial slurs. A label that might be useful or empowering for some can leave a terrible taste in the mouth of another. So for the past five years, I’ve had a somewhat complicated relationship with the label “Christian.”
“There is a part of me that will always be a bit Christian. You don’t get the person writing these thoughts without the context that is my religious upbringing and deconstruction. But how I label myself is only a part of the story.”
For me, and most of the other Christians I grew up around, a Christian was someone who had made the personal decision to be a follower of Jesus. This resulted in salvation from sin and death, and hope in the promise of everlasting life. Either you were in, or you were out. We didn’t even consider those who didn’t take their faith seriously as being in the same camp as us; they were “Chreaster Christians” (showing up for service on Christmas and Easter), or “Cultural Christians.” The Calvinists and Arminians would argue about the final result of such “lukewarm” folk, but the belief remained the same across the aisle–you should be “on fire” for the Lord. Christ should be at the center of everything in your life, and everything else comes second.
Most people who are still regularly attending church probably don’t see me as someone who is a Christian. I don’t tithe, I don’t go to Bible Study, and I don’t even believe that the Bible is God’s inspired and inerrant word (more on that later). But to a certain extent, I still claim the label of Christian, albeit a Secular Christian. To most believers, that would be an oxymoron. “How can you call yourself a Christian when you don’t affirm the creeds and don’t participate in the sacraments?” I can hear my hypothetical critic ask.
I claim the label of Secular Christian for a couple of reasons: first is that whole upbringing part. As the good book says, “train up a child in the way they should go, and even when they get old they will not depart from it.” I see the world through the moral system that Christianity gave me. I’ll probably keep going to Easter dinners and opening presents on Christmas morning. Second, is that I still find a deep connection to the teaching and lessons found in the pages of the Bible. I’ve read it cover to cover a few times, and am still shaped by the teachings found within.
In truth, my Christian identity is something that people learn about me much later than a lot of other parts of my identity. I no longer see religion as the center of my being and existence. I see my religious upbringing a lot like buying a tool kit–a lot of the tools are still in good shape. I’ve got a hammer, screwdrivers, and a wrench that still work great. But as I’ve gotten older and had new problems to solve, I discovered that my tool kit didn’t include any saws, and turns out that the “brand” I got my first toolkit from doesn’t have saws either. As much as that first brand might claim to be all the tools you need for every job, I still don’t have a saw, and now I’m happy to pick one up from the other “brand”. I’ve discovered that there were many lessons I needed to learn about loving others and caring for myself and our planet that the religion I grew up with was unable, and at times unwilling, to address.
There is a part of me that will always be a bit Christian. You don’t get the person writing these thoughts without the context that is my religious upbringing and deconstruction. But how I label myself is only a part of the story. How I think, and how that’s shaped my beliefs, has undergone a major transformation in the past years.
On Belief
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
I’ve always had an inquisitive side. I grew up being a voracious reader and still spend a huge chunk of my free time reading articles, watching documentaries, listening to audiobooks, and generally expanding my knowledge base through Wikipedia deep dives. I brought that general nerdiness to my faith growing up as well. I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time, but my favorite page of the Bible didn’t have verses printed on it, rather it was found in the back with all the maps and charts.
I loved bringing a scholastic hunger to my faith. I’ve spent hours upon hours reading biblical commentaries, cross-referencing Greek words on Blue Letter Bible, and listening to sermons. There isn’t a Bible story I’m unfamiliar with, and I’ve even dipped my toes into “apocryphal” texts. I loved to study the Bible, I loved late-night discussions with other believers about what we were reading and learning. Yet the more I studied, the more I understood church history, the more I realized that the modern Christianity that I had grown up with had shifted away from the intuitive and creative interpretation of scripture that was the way Jesus approached the text.
The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy was signed by over 200 evangelical faith leaders in 1978. The main idea of this statement is essentially that God dictated the whole of Genesis through Revelation to biblical authors (Moses, Isaiah, Paul, etc.), and as a result, the whole Bible is without factual errors and is 100% truthful. This belief led many Christians to believe that their interpretation of the Biblical texts is the “clear reading” of the text and therefore correct and closed to critique that would pull in any outside evidence.
It was through this framework that ideas like young-earth creationism and “Left Behind”-esque end-times theology were pervasive growing up. Rather than modeling a faith that was open to the new scientific discoveries about the ways that life has progressed to greater levels of complexity to meet various challenges through time, I was taught that the secular scientific establishment hated God, and to listen to them was to “conform to the patterns of this world” rather than being “transformed by the renewing of my mind.” Ironically enough, the faith tradition I was a part of had no real interest in renewing their minds–the frozen chosen knew they were on God’s side, and that was good enough for everyone.
So my inquisitive mind and my soulful heart were constantly doing gymnastics to make it all make sense. Parallel processes began to form in my mind–there was a version of me who was tapping into a less-thinky more worshipful mindset, all the while another side of me found it increasingly difficult to make the inerrancy-based belief system make sense with all that I was learning about our world.
“The more I studied, the more I understood church history, the more I realized that the modern Christianity that I had grown up with had shifted away from the intuitive and creative interpretation of scripture that was the way Jesus approached the text.”
Belief became that balancing act. I had a newfound and deeper understanding of many topics, from the history of how the Bible was written, to astronomy, cosmology, biology and world history. I had put off contending with all the ways this knowledge was incompatible with the theological framework of my religion until I was stuck inside during the pandemic.
I realized I could no longer, in good conscience, affirm the core claims of most churches’ statements of faith. It no longer felt intellectually honest to myself to carve out a disposition for all things Christianity-related. I was ready to move forward in my thought life, allowing evidence-backed information to shape my decision-making.
So what place does belief have? Has the cold nihilism of a scientific worldview invaded my mind? No, not entirely. Collective belief is the framework for so many aspects of humanity, from money to laws to social categories to religions; humans have been sharing their intangible ideas about things and forming shared understanding as a result for thousands of years. The power of these shared beliefs has rippled through space and time.
I still believe that there are intangible connections between people that lead them to do things for one another that they wouldn’t do for just anyone. I believe in love. I believe that a better tomorrow is possible if we fight for it today. I believe in the power of a good story, and for that reason, I still believe in the meaningfulness of Jesus' story, even if I don’t believe in the factual claims about Jesus found in the Bible.
I’ve learned to believe in myself. I believe that I have a sharp mind that can analyze new information and incorporate it into my worldview. I know I am capable of change and growth because I’ve seen it firsthand. The world may have its unexpected twists and turns, but nothing can take away my ability to choose my attitude, to choose my way. I choose the way of love.
On Love
“What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me no more.” ― Haddaway
To me, one of the most compelling verses of the Bible is 1 John 4:7-8: “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love.” I’ve heard a handful of sermons that boil down the whole of Christianity to “love God, love others.” Realizing that we have the opportunity to choose love in our interactions with one another is a transformative belief. It allows cycles of violence to end, reconciliation to be possible, and forgiveness to be offered.
Rather than conform to the radical vision that the Bible lays out to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, many Christians have redefined love to mean obedience and conformity to their worldview. They argue that “tough love” is necessary to “pull people out of the darkness and into the light.” This redefinition of love has allowed for horrors like conversion therapy for queer kids and visions of eternal torment to be taught on an average Sunday. When any means to the end of “salvation” is loving, a culture of allowing the most unloving behaviors becomes possible.
Intuitively, I knew that the way of Love was radical. Jesus hung out with sex workers and fishermen. He attracted revolutionaries and smartasses. He made space for the messiness of those who were around him, and he freely offered himself to them. It always confused me that Christians worshiped a person who was maligned for the company he kept, and then created institutions that kept those same people out of fellowship.
So, rather than following the example of love presented to me on Sunday, I decided I was going to try to love like Jesus. I distinctly remember praying that God would break my heart for what breaks god’s heart. I tried to discover what it would be like to love every human being. And so, with time, I began to love LGBTQ+ people. I began to love immigrants. I began to love people who were going through mental health challenges and were difficult to be around. More and more, I realized that loving someone was incompatible with believing that something about them needed to change.
Loving people meant listening to them. I learned about the history of subjugation and oppression that so many “sinners” faced at the hands of a powerful religious majority. I discovered that most people were just trying to do their best to be alive and to play the hand that fate had dealt them. I discovered the ways I was responsible for upholding these same systems of oppression and exploitation, and have done my best to avoid propping them up any longer.
More than anything, choosing love has opened my heart to hear so many different people’s stories. I no longer feel the pressure to have interactions lead to a “salvation conversation” because I don’t believe anyone’s eternal soul hangs in the balance. I know that loving others should look like the story of the good Samaritan, who met the physical needs of the person in front of them without any expectation. Love is freely given out of the deep well of our humanity.
“Intuitively, I knew that the way of Love was radical.”
I also learned to love myself. Growing up, I believed that I didn’t have any inherent worth because I was tainted with sin, and God needed to send his son to die for me because of how bad I was. I separated myself from the love I was giving to those around me for a long time, until the years of neglect piled up, and I was faced with the reality that I had no clue how I was supposed to love myself. And as the great RuPaul says, “If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love someone else. Can I get an amen?”
Loving myself meant learning to listen to myself. I rediscovered parts of myself that had gone dormant because I was trying to be the version of myself I was “supposed” to be. Slowly but surely, I’ve found the things that light me up and are a part of the uniqueness I bring to the room. I used to hate myself so much, with page after page of my teenage journals filled with self-loathing and pleas for God to make me “white as snow.” Now, I’m able to say with my full chest that I love who I am, and I love who I’m becoming. I’m so glad I get to know myself best.
My love has grown to proportions I never would have guessed. It is one thing to hold love for myself, my close relationships, my connections… even all of humanity. It is another thing to discover that love can extend to ants and bees and flowers and trees. If I’m not careful, maybe the whole universe.
On Our Relationship with Nature
“The whole of life is coming to terms with yourself and the natural world. Why are you here? How do you fit in? What’s it all about?” ― Sr. David Attenborough
By far the biggest shift I’ve noticed in the past years is my relationship with the natural world. Growing up I was surrounded by the sounds and smells of the rainforest that was in constant competition with the human-built environment. When things were overwhelming at home or school, I’d go on long walks on roads that were being slowly consumed by plants.
“I realized that the theory of mind extends beyond humans, and was able to have a deeper relationship with my pets, because I understood that they were just as alive as I, and had a unique perspective to share.”
I was taught growing up that humans were created by God as a special creation–we were made in his image, as opposed to all the other plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms. This created a hierarchical and adversarial relationship between humans and everything else. As Christians, we were to be “good stewards” of creation, and remember that God had given us dominion over it. What that looked like in practice was conflicting beliefs. I loved animals but wasn’t supposed to love them like I loved people. They were below; they were secondary to human needs.
I slowly saw the rainforests being replaced with buildings and roads. The natural environment was retreating to campgrounds, resorts, and parks. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was a child witnessing the claws of industrialization and colonization reshape the land, filling waterways with chemical runoff and garbage. I was taught that climate change was invented by Democrats to control us and force us to abandon our freedom to eat red meat and drive gas-powered cars. And ultimately, I was taught that I shouldn’t concern myself with the natural world, because either A: God would take care of it, or B: It was all going to be destroyed in the end times, which were just around the corner.
My belief system was also hostile to any information about evolution, leaving me with some pretty significant gaps in my understanding of how natural ecosystems work and how humans fit into that larger picture. But all the same, I was drawn to nature. I felt the most at peace and connected to my spirituality when I was outside, feeling the wind on my face and hearing birds singing around me.
By the time I left Christianity, I had already begun the process of reassessing a lot of the junk science I had been fed about how the world works. I even wrote a paper for my Genesis class in college about different theological approaches that make space for our deeper understanding of how life has evolved to create ecological niches and cooperative relationships between organisms.
Leaving Christianity has seriously upgraded my love and appreciation for the natural world, because now I realize that I’m just as much a part of it as everything else. I wouldn’t be alive without the respiration of plants over millions of years, slowly taking carbon out of the atmosphere and increasing oxygen levels. I’ve discovered that there are cooperative relationships between fungi and plants where they are in a dance of sharing resources while still prioritizing their needs.
I realized that the theory of mind extends beyond humans, and was able to have a deeper relationship with my pets, because I understood that they were just as alive as I, and had a unique perspective to share. Learning about indigenous wisdom showed me that this information was not new for this generation, but knowledge that had been suppressed by powerful religious interests. Suppressing those who believe a loving and respectful relationship to nature is the natural result of a religion that preaches dominion. Nature becomes something to be controlled, harnessed, and exploited, rather than listened to and loved.
The lack of seriousness that Christians take to caring for our world is one of the biggest reasons I don’t see myself in the pews again. I’d rather my cathedral be a forest where I can see and be reminded that I am who I am because of the interconnected relationship that all life shares. I no longer look to a future heavenly home. I’m here and alive in this time and place, and I firmly believe that my goal and purpose is to care for it while I’m here and to try and leave it better than I found it.
It has been so much fun to learn and grow, and discover all the corners of the world that I was warned of when I was a kid. I’ve truly felt that my walking away from my religion was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I’ve truly never felt the level of freedom and excitement that taking life into my own hands has brought. The progress I’ve made toward my goals and hopes has been due to the love and support of my friends and family (and therapist) who have endured my late-night processing and mental meanderings. Just like every other lifeform on this planet, we’re all in this together, and we can all work together to keep it the best place in the universe for life.
