From the “Dear Jim” folder (emails I receive):
“I was an Evangelical for 27 years of my life.
What I got most out of church was:
read and pray every morning, go to church every Sunday and Wednesday,
tithe (one church wanted a tithe of my student loans), be republican,
it’s okay to joke about gays, liberals, and Muslims, Harry Potter is bad, but magic in Narnia is good,
alcohol is bad, sex is bad, women are inferior to men, the bible is just doctrine and theology.
At church, I learned that God loves me less because I’m female.
Organized Christianity insisted that I am a filthy, stinking, horrible, sinful person deserving of Hell.
I’m less than worthless, and knowing so is a godly attribute.
Church taught me to despise myself and be afraid of God.
In church,
I learned that a grand performance as the ultimate Christian is preferable to an honest confession of failure,
and that the honest, broken people are shunned, gossiped of, and never forgiven.
Overall,
I have to say that I lost my individuality through my experience with organized religion.
I lost me in the process, the real me.
That has damaged me more than anything.
Now I’m trying to find the real me.”
