I can’t relate to what Amber talked about in any way, shape, or form. So let me start out by saying that. And one more time - what Amber spoke about in this episode is so heartbreaking … I absolutely cannot even imagine.
I mean.
Her own parents TOOK AWAY THE KEY TO THE HOUSE SHE GREW UP IN when they found out she was gay.
The mere thought of that brings tears to my eyes - I have no category for that at all and am not sure what I would do or how I would feel or what the future would hold for me if my parents just blew me off and didn’t support me or my journey.
HOWEVER.
And I told Amber this.
As DIFFERENT as her story is … while she was sharing, I found myself feeling a lot of different things as I began to think about how a few members of my family and a whole lot of friends from my past have taken back the key to their hearts as a result of my deconstruction journey and the ways in which my faith has evolved and changed since jumping off the ship of Evangelicalism.
I had one family member tell me that the Devil has a hold of my life.
I had a professor tell me that he’s concerned about me.
I had a friend tell me that I’m different than I used to be.
I had former church friends tell me that I’m a false teacher.
I had another professor warn me that my podcast is burning bridges that I’ll never be able to repair.
These are all people I was once incredibly close with, but now am not. In a way, I once had the key to their hearts and many of them hung on my every word when I preached a (very Evangelical) message that they had already signed onto believing.
When I flavored my preaching, my teaching, and my speech with Evangelical tones, these people hung on my every word. I’ll be honest with you - it was intoxicating, really, because it often felt like they couldn't get enough of what I taught and what I said.
Like, I remember the last time I preached.
It was about a year and a half before starting this podcast and I was a guest preacher at my old church back in NJ. I don’t even remember what I preached about, but I remember I literally had 3/4 of the church at the altar after the service - many of them on their knees and in tears, and the line to shake my hand after the service was 5 minutes long as people thanked me for my message and told me how gifted I was at teaching, preaching, etc.
It was intoxicating.
But then when I started to be honest with my doubts and voice my uncertainty and ask some really hard questions about the Bible and faith and Jesus and all the things that I used to believe with every fiber of my being … that’s when people started to turn.
“The Devil has a hold of your life.”
“You’re not who I thought you were.”
“You’re a false teacher.”
“You’re the kind of prophet the Bible warned us about.”
“You’re an a**hole.”
“You’re a c*nt.”
“You’re taking the easy road.”
Blocked.
Unfriended.
Unanswered Facebook messages.
Sadly, I haven’t spoken to any of the above people in over a year, some of them in as many as 2 or 3 years.
I tried to patch things up with a bunch of them.
I tried to explain where I’m at.
I tried to explain what I do.
I tried to explain why I do it.
… But they all insist that I’m headed down a slippery slope and that that, therefore, makes me unapproachable, no longer a “real Christian”, and justifies their cruel words, terrible treatment, and belligerence.
Sigh.
Honestly they can keep the key to their hearts, I don’t want it anymore.
That sounds like a really terrible and egotistical thing to say, I know, but what I wanted to tell you today is that there comes a time in your deconstruction journey when you need to stop trying to make people understand who you are and what you’re going through and just let them think and feel whatever they want about you.
Amen?
Every day I become more and more convinced that deconstruction is one of those things that you can’t really understand until it happens to you, until (like Mark says about John the Baptist) you wake up one day and just sort of “appear in the wilderness” with a whole bunch of …
Questions.
Doubts.
Uncertainties.
Fears.
Etc.
Looking back on it now, I wasted SO MUCH energy and SO MUCH time trying to explain myself to people who weren’t really listening anyways. The people who called me names and said the terrible things about me, the people who yanked the key to their hearts from my hands and locked it away for good - they were never really interested in understanding me, just shaming me and making me feel small, inferior, and stupid.
Nobody needs that - I don’t and you don’t.
And that’s one of the things that Amber taught me in this episode - when people take the keys to their hearts from you … it’s painful. There are no words for the feelings that erupt when relationships that you once valued get shattered into a million pieces before your eyes ... but there comes a time when you have to move on.
You grieve.
You get mad.
You feel your feelings.
You go to therapy.
You get depressed for a bit.
You talk to friends.
You vent.
… But then you gotta move on.
I find myself in that place today - trying to move on.
How about you?
✌🏻🤙🏻
Glenn || SUPPORT THE SHOW: PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
NEW BLOG POST ✍️
“About a year ago a friend from my former Evangelical Tribe messaged me on Facebook and told me that my time out in the wilderness has been cute, but that it's time for me to come back to the church and join God in what he's doing. My friend told me that my experience in the church doesn't represent the church very well and that the theology I was taught (although terrible) also doesn't represent the church very well.
"The Church", he said, "is bigger than your experience and you need to come back to it. You have enough education to know that the way you speak of the Church doesn't represent the larger Church very well." He then went on to tell me about all the positive experiences he's had in his church and the experiences he had growing up that were nothing like my experiences and made me feel like his experiences were the norm whereas my experiences were an exaggerated anomaly.”
NEW VLOG POST 📺
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In perhaps the boldest move I’ve ever made, I quit my job to pour more attention into the What If Project.
I.
Quit.
My.
Job.
I still can’t believe it, honestly. But my wife and I both believe in this thing and we want to make a dent in the universe and so … here we are.
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