Why I stopped identifying as a Christian (and no, I’m not an atheist)
I was raised in the South — in Georgia, to be specific. Smack dab in the thick of the bible belt. Growing up, my friends’ families went to church every Sunday but my family didn’t. I remember being embarrassed when I didn’t have an answer to the question: “Where do you guys go to church?”. I remember explaining that I absolutely was a Christian, but my family just traveled too much to commit to regular services.
Though we didn’t go to church on Sundays, my sister and I were shipped up to our devoutly Baptist aunt every summer to attend bible school at her Memphis-based mega-church. I also played church-based basketball with my best friend at her family’s church for years. But those things were more about experiences and less about the faith.
At bible school, when I was in the third grade, I remember the pastor asking for kids to come forward who wanted to be saved. We were supposed to feel something. The holy spirit was supposed to fill our hearts and we were supposed to be compelled to walk forward to the massive front end of the chapel, so overwhelmed with love and desire to know Jesus that I imagined we would float forward.
I didn’t feel anything, but, oh, how I wanted to. How I was desperate to.
So, despite feeling nothing, I walked to the front, simultaneously embarrassed to feel so naked in front of so many people and proud to be doing what felt like the brave thing — the right thing — in my 8 year-old mind. I was escorted to a room where I declared my love for and belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God and I was saved. I was a real Christian! I was going to heaven!
(I feel like it’s important to note here that my 8-year-old self walked to the front of that giant room not because I felt some deep belief, but because it felt like I was supposed to. I also wanted to make sure I was going to heaven.)
I hated sitting in church, but I remember loving the social perks that came with anything I did with a church. I remember being excited that I could tell the other kids that I was affiliated with a church through basketball. I remember bragging about getting to travel for bible school.
In high school, I fell in with a group of wonderful and very Christian friends. They were fun and kind and social and exciting and good, and I was overjoyed to have met them. My senior year, I attended the Passion conference with them in Atlanta — a massive non-denominational Christian conference — and felt for the first time like a group of Christian kids wanted to be friends with me despite my non-religious history. They wanted to teach me to love Jesus as they loved Jesus and it came from a truly pure place. I talked the talk for a while, raising my arms up and worshipping, singing along to the Christian music. I looked like I belonged. I felt like I belonged. I enjoyed it. And in those moments, I did sometimes feel a beautiful energy — what I think people describe as the holy spirit. But I still hadn’t had that “aha!” moment, and I still knew I was faking it.
I desperately wanted that moment. I thought that if I tried hard enough, at some point that moment would come. Despite my resistance to Christianity, I knew deep down that I did believe in God; I just didn’t believe in God the way that Christians did.
My family instilled in me values that many would describe as Christian (though I just think of them as morally good). I learned the bible. I celebrated Easter and Christmas. I prayed. I loved bible school and I loved church basketball. There was a lot to love.
But for all the fond memories, I found over time that there were more negative ones.
In elementary school, I remember defending my little sister on the playground when another girl pushed her onto the ground at recess one day. “You’re not a Christian; you wouldn’t understand.” was the girl’s response when I confronted her, which promptly made me cry. So, there, my sister and I sat, together, crying, because we weren’t Christian enough to understand why that girl would shove her down onto the ground. I cursed my parents for not taking us to church. All the cool kids went to church. All the cool kids would have understood.
In middle school, I remember being excluded from nearly all of the social activities outside of school just because I wasn’t a member of the church and small group where all of my friends went. I remember not understanding why my parents’ decision not to take us to church meant that I wouldn’t be invited to the fun things.
Then in college, my first boyfriend’s family was very religious and they desperately wanted Ben* and I to be too. We went with his parents and their Wesleyan church to Costa Rica on a mission trip. Ben’s mom and I stayed with the pastor of the church they partnered with. It was a wonderful experience until religion got involved.
The first red flag I felt was when the pastor and his wife and Ben’s mom sat up one evening trash-talking all of the other local Costa Rican protestant churches (any non-Wesleyan churches). They talked about the people and the pastor and the politics and a whole bunch of shit and I was floored that the PASTOR of this church would be engaged in this conversation. I was surprised too that Ben’s mom was a part of that conversation. She was a lovely woman and I adored her. I didn’t understand how she, in all of her goodness and godly wisdom and devout faith, could speak so negatively about other believers.
We happened to be in Costa Rica during the time of Virgen de los Angeles day — one of the largest national religious (Catholic) holidays in Costa Rica. This celebration sees millions of people make a pilgrimage from their homes to the Basilica Virgen de los Angeles in Cartago to thank the patron saint of Costa Rica (the Virgin) for favors or good health. This holiday speaks as much to the culture of the country as it does to its religion. It’s unique and beautiful.
Many people walk to Cartago and in the days leading up the actual holiday, there are throngs of people packing many of the main roadways in that direction. Others set up water stands and coffee or snacks on the side of the road to provide sustenance to those making the trip.
The church that I was with was one of the groups to set up a free coffee/water/snack stand. I loved this. It just felt good. But the day came and we set up our stand and our booth blared Christian music and each of us was handed a stack of flyers explaining why Catholics would go to hell if they didn’t convert to Protestantism. It felt like:
“Here, have a coffee on us! But by the way, if you don’t convert to our religion, you’re going to burn for all of eternity. Best of luck on the rest of your trek!”
I was mortified and wildly confused. Catholics and Protestants are both Christians! WHY did we need to, on this sacred HOLY DAY for Costa Ricans, shit on their (still Christian) religion?!
I immediately sat the pamphlets down and resolved that I would just hand out refreshments. The others seemed perturbed at this and over the course of the day, they continually tried to get to me to dole out flyers. I watched as another one from our group attempted to and a woman slapped it out of his hand and shouted at him about how disrespectful it was, and I absolutely agreed.
“Is this what mission trips are?” I thought to myself, “An opportunity to force others who don’t believe like you to believe that something is wrong enough with what they believe that they will abandon their long-held beliefs for yours?” I felt dirty and disgusted and I wanted to leave.
This wasn’t what the God I believed in wanted. The God I believed in didn’t decide one way to believe in him was bad and another was good. The God I believed in created a world that housed hundreds of different religions knowing that that would be the case, and loved all of the ways people saw him/her. Because in my mind, however one sees God is how they need to see God, be it through nature or a man in the sky or a pantheon of gods or anything else. And the point is to find faith in something greater, not for that to be something specific. And further, isn’t religion supposed to be about love and connection? Everything I had seen on that trip felt like the opposite of that.
This led me to the beginning of my understanding that Christianity isn’t about love and God. Not really, anyway. It’s about power and money and control. (There is so much to unpack here but I’ll save that for another article.)
There is much goodness in Christianity and so many beautiful lessons in the stories of the bible. And most Christians I know personally are absolutely lovely people. But in my time, I learned that church attendance was about appearances for far too many people, and that the general message conveyed is that if someone doesn’t believe just like you, then they’re wrong (and as such, they’re going to hell).
The reality is that we really don’t know who’s wrong and who’s right, but the name of a religion provides an opportunity for the ugliness in humanity to rear its head and I hate that.
I can believe in God the way that I believe in God (which isn’t, at this point, as a man in the sky) and I can have my “relationship” with God and my beliefs and live just as happily and fulfilled as those who believe a specific way and attend church services regularly. (They likely wouldn’t agree with that, but to each their own.)
I eventually told my mother that I was no longer a Christian. Her response was, “Yes you are.”. In the cultural way, I suppose I am. But in this country (that was supposedly founded on the idea of religious freedom), cultural Christianity is the status quo. Religiously, I am not. I cannot and will not subscribe to a system of beliefs that situates its followers above the followers of another system as a principle inherent to the teachings of the religion.
It took me a long time to be okay with saying I wasn’t a Christian. Our society (especially in the south) confuses religiosity with morality and goodness. I had to parse that out for myself and realize I was still who I am and who I am is still good despite not associating with a religion.
I have my own system of beliefs and they fill up my cup and they have connected me other spiritual humans who see things much how I do and I am grateful. For me, leaning into Christianity stopped feeling good a long time ago, and I’ve come to learn that whatever fills up your soul is what you should do. What is life if not to experience goodness and connection and love?
*As a footnote, I would like to say that to those who still practice Christianity and find love and goodness in it, good for you! Truly. That’s wonderful and I’m so happy for you that you have that. This is merely a sharing of my experiences that brought me away from that faith and toward something different.
