Try the Unitarian Universalist church. Don’t know if you have one near you. I’m an atheist and that’s the church I go to with my husband. Everyone is welcome there, whatever you may believe.
Jess you are singing to the choir. We also were (are) members of a southern Baptist church, haven’t gone in over ten years. Hard to sit and listen to them spout love thy neighbor out of one side of their mouths, and hate thy neighbor because they believe different or live different out of the other side of their mouths. It’s probably not that Dolly is immoral, probably more their husbands gawk at Dolly’s figure!
Jess, I grew up Southern Baptist in the 1960s in rural Oklahoma, and hung out with Evangelical friends who were Free Methodists in high school. I hear you. But when I left for college, I stopped attending church — as I could in no way be a fundamentalist about the Bible — and at 25 I found the Episcopal Church. I was astounded to find a church that ordained women (this was in 1985, so pretty unheard of), and that instead of asking me to give up my questions and my intellect as the cost of belonging, welcomed them as part of a deeply committed spirituality. Sure I miss the Southern Baptist hymns of my childhood -- I do miss those hymns. And I appreciate the kindness and belonging that community showed me as a child. But I do not miss being part of a patriarchal, fundamentalist, racist, hierarchical organization that insists that if I don't believe every word is literally true then I'm damned for hell. I encourage you to read the late Marcus Borg's transformative, "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time," one of the most powerful visions of Christianity in our time I have ever encountered. To long for God is to journey toward God, so I offer a prayer that you will find your place of belonging.
i’d like to put a plug-in for a Methodist Church. I’m not a Methodist but the ones around here are the ones running the soup kitchen and trying to find a homes for the homeless in the cold weather. Personally, I joined a Buddhist Sanga and find a lot of solace there .
Is there an Episcopal church near you? A few decades ago I finally stopped calling myself a “lapsed Catholic” and found inspiration and solace—and open-minded community—in an Episcopal church.
Jess, I've just recently joined your tribe. I may have seen the link from someone in a post on Letters From an American, by Heather Cox Richardson. In any case, your story speaks to me. I was also raised in rural Missouri, poor but my family was intact. Both parents were always there. Daddy just moved us a lot because he was always chasing dreams. Honestly, I don't know how Mom put up with it. Anyway, we were raised in the Pentecostal church, and then Southern Baptist when we chased a dream to Colorado for 6 years. You can imagine the horror when I came out as a lesbian at 16. I was disowned, kicked out, and not spoken to for 2 years. Thankfully, we healed all of that prior to my mom's death at 45 from cancer. Oddly enough, it seemed to be when an Assembly of God pastor moved in next door to them. When she shared her story of the prodigal daughter who would go to hell, that blessed man told her he didn't believe God would condemn me to a life of hell. It was a turning point for my mom and she reached out to me. He was obviously a very unique pastor in that religion. I have found a home in the United Church of Christ, not to be confused with the fundamentalist Church of Christ. Some are First Congregational UCC. the faiths merged around 100 years ago maybe? I could be wrong. They have the social justice aspect, the community service, and they allow questioning. It is the community I was missing. I highly recommend them. I also recommend the writings of John Pavlovitz. Thank you for your writing. I really do enjoy it.
I was raised in the Church of Christ, but was sexually abused by a great uncle, who was a deacon I. The Church. My love for god and religion immediately went out the door. I tried Methodism when that was the church my ex-husband was a member of and my great aunt-the wife of the abuser- told me I was going to hell for switching denominations.😳 I divorced my ex and came out as gay. I married the woman of my dreams. My ex-sister-in-law was at my daughter’s wedding when she confronted me and my wife and told me that two “girls” shouldn’t be married. She was Southern Baptist.
I too miss the community of women and friends, but like you I refuse to pay the price that most organised religion, at least that I’ve experienced, requires. I would love to find some alternative.
"I was reminded of what church meant for some of us…it meant that we played nice while nasty words poured from our mouths. It was fundie baby voice honey while spewing hateful rhetoric. It was twisting ourselves into pretzels and performing mental gymnastics to support politicians and conmen while pushing back on folks as “immoral” who do the work Jesus would approve of." --such a divisive institution. Thank you for sharing.
Oh, Jess, we’re out here for you. I was not raised with any religion but married into the Southern Baptist cult without knowing it. My then-husband had distanced himself from religion and I think I was part of his rebellion. I was a busy career woman so had little contact with the fundie women. I’m sure you have found your tribe by now, with Dolly as our leader.
I grew up in a fundamentalist cult too. It's a horrible experience that warps your mind for life. It's why I started my own Substack, to do exactly what you are doing. Helping people entrapped in religion to know they aren't alone and to give them encouragement to make difficult choices.
My church was a cult that believed a man named William Branham was "the prophet" to "the Laodocean church age." Whatever he said was considered equal to scripture. Our local pastor had been a pastor of an Independent Fundamental Baptist (read: Southern Baptist extremists) church for 40 years before he started following Branham. But he didn't leave the IFB behind. Oh, no sirree bob. He brought all the laws, rules, and insanity from the IFB and rolled it into Branhamism and I got two cults for the price of one. Fun times!
One thing we were taught is that women had one more rib than men, because God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. I never questioned that until I was in my early 50s. I would see NCIS or one of those forensic crime shows where they found a skeleton from yesteryear and they didn't know yet whether it was male or female. I was like, count the ribs, you dummies! And you claim to be scientists? Oy vey!
More fun: women couldn't wear pants, cut their hair, pluck their eyebrows, shave their legs or moustache or chin, couldn't have jewelry, and were basically supposed to function as brood mares to produce more believers for the cult. Men were supposed to provide monetarily for the wife and all the kids with no help from outside. Education was discouraged because "the more educated you get, the farther you get from God."
Branham predicted Jesus would return by 1977. I turned 16 in 1975 and my stepfather tried to get me to quit school. "What do you need with an education? Jesus will be back before you graduate anyway!"
The preacher told us that the reason Elvis had to die was so the spirit of the antichrist would be available to go into the new pope who was elected the following year. That's right, Saint John Paul I of blessed memory. Also, Elvis meant cat and Ricky meant rat. Elvis was just evils with the letters scrambled. Ditto for Santa and Satan.
I could go on for days about all the craziness I escaped. But let me just leave this one final thought. If you hear something that sounds like truth, you don't have to have it beaten into your head to believe it. But if you're having to attend church 3 or 4 times a week, maybe question what you're being taught. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." --Joseph Goebbels
I grew up in Texas (but moved to “unchurched” Maine when I was 29. Still here and love it even more than ever.) and regularly attended the Methodist Church with my folks. It was actually pretty bland and benign although I do remember having this feeling that I was better than people who didn’t attend church. After marrying my non religious husband, we agreed to go to “ sunday school”and church one Sunday with my folks, mostly because we were going out to dinner afterwards and they were paying. I remember when people our age in the “young marrieds” class started seriously discussing Methusaleh being 900 years old because the Bible said he was. We had eye contact and never went back, meal or no meal. We did briefly attend the Unitarian church in our small Maine town, but most of the sermons were about trying to figure out what it means to be a Unitarian. Suffice it to say that we are “backslid Unitarians.” Redundant I suppose,
I very much appreciate and relate to your recollections, Jess, and was triggered into a rant as I recalled negative church experiences to my lapsed Episcopalian husband. I too, lived in poverty, along with extreme neglect and abuse at home and Church was the only way to get freedom from being locked in the basement. Catholic Sunday school shamed me because I didn't have money to tithe, and so never got a red star next to my name on the wall chart of Sunday school kids. Presbyterians, and Lutheran churches were the most impersonal and my poorly clothed appearance made feel shunned. But the baptist church was insane, with the preacher screaming and weeping and crying melodramatically, demanding that everyone close their eyes, pointed those out who didn't as this skinny white guy shriek-prayed at us. My comfort came as my Black girl friend Sheila took me to her church, a tiny, broken down, wooden house converted into a church in early 1960's SE DC. I was the only white person, but my nervousness quickly dissipated with the incredible music, singing, and bodies gorgeously moving to the music (also informing me that I never thought to or could move my scrawny, clenched white body the way these wonderful folks could) and to this day, I love gospel music, but have become a devout Atheist. We can be good, loving, kind, purposeful, human beings without being subjugated by religions created by men to subjugate all of us.
They condemn Dolly but vote for Trump? Even a staunch Conservative and Christian like Cal Thomas can’t explain it. “When Trump mentioned Pence and the evangelical audience booed their brother in Christ, I said to myself, this is the final compromise,” Cal Thomas told me. “Here is your brother. Here is a man who worships the Lord that you claim to worship. Here is a man who goes to church every Sunday. Here is a man who has had only one wife and never been accused of being unfaithful. And you’re booing him? As opposed to a serial adulterer? A man who uses the worst language you can think of and does every other thing you oppose? Explain that to me from a biblical perspective. Please.” Tim Alberta interview
Try the Unitarian Universalist church. Don’t know if you have one near you. I’m an atheist and that’s the church I go to with my husband. Everyone is welcome there, whatever you may believe.
Jess you are singing to the choir. We also were (are) members of a southern Baptist church, haven’t gone in over ten years. Hard to sit and listen to them spout love thy neighbor out of one side of their mouths, and hate thy neighbor because they believe different or live different out of the other side of their mouths. It’s probably not that Dolly is immoral, probably more their husbands gawk at Dolly’s figure!
Jess, I grew up Southern Baptist in the 1960s in rural Oklahoma, and hung out with Evangelical friends who were Free Methodists in high school. I hear you. But when I left for college, I stopped attending church — as I could in no way be a fundamentalist about the Bible — and at 25 I found the Episcopal Church. I was astounded to find a church that ordained women (this was in 1985, so pretty unheard of), and that instead of asking me to give up my questions and my intellect as the cost of belonging, welcomed them as part of a deeply committed spirituality. Sure I miss the Southern Baptist hymns of my childhood -- I do miss those hymns. And I appreciate the kindness and belonging that community showed me as a child. But I do not miss being part of a patriarchal, fundamentalist, racist, hierarchical organization that insists that if I don't believe every word is literally true then I'm damned for hell. I encourage you to read the late Marcus Borg's transformative, "Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time," one of the most powerful visions of Christianity in our time I have ever encountered. To long for God is to journey toward God, so I offer a prayer that you will find your place of belonging.
i’d like to put a plug-in for a Methodist Church. I’m not a Methodist but the ones around here are the ones running the soup kitchen and trying to find a homes for the homeless in the cold weather. Personally, I joined a Buddhist Sanga and find a lot of solace there .
There is one place where you can truly be an atheist. That place is church, because you will never find god in church.
Is there an Episcopal church near you? A few decades ago I finally stopped calling myself a “lapsed Catholic” and found inspiration and solace—and open-minded community—in an Episcopal church.
Jess, I've just recently joined your tribe. I may have seen the link from someone in a post on Letters From an American, by Heather Cox Richardson. In any case, your story speaks to me. I was also raised in rural Missouri, poor but my family was intact. Both parents were always there. Daddy just moved us a lot because he was always chasing dreams. Honestly, I don't know how Mom put up with it. Anyway, we were raised in the Pentecostal church, and then Southern Baptist when we chased a dream to Colorado for 6 years. You can imagine the horror when I came out as a lesbian at 16. I was disowned, kicked out, and not spoken to for 2 years. Thankfully, we healed all of that prior to my mom's death at 45 from cancer. Oddly enough, it seemed to be when an Assembly of God pastor moved in next door to them. When she shared her story of the prodigal daughter who would go to hell, that blessed man told her he didn't believe God would condemn me to a life of hell. It was a turning point for my mom and she reached out to me. He was obviously a very unique pastor in that religion. I have found a home in the United Church of Christ, not to be confused with the fundamentalist Church of Christ. Some are First Congregational UCC. the faiths merged around 100 years ago maybe? I could be wrong. They have the social justice aspect, the community service, and they allow questioning. It is the community I was missing. I highly recommend them. I also recommend the writings of John Pavlovitz. Thank you for your writing. I really do enjoy it.
I was raised in the Church of Christ, but was sexually abused by a great uncle, who was a deacon I. The Church. My love for god and religion immediately went out the door. I tried Methodism when that was the church my ex-husband was a member of and my great aunt-the wife of the abuser- told me I was going to hell for switching denominations.😳 I divorced my ex and came out as gay. I married the woman of my dreams. My ex-sister-in-law was at my daughter’s wedding when she confronted me and my wife and told me that two “girls” shouldn’t be married. She was Southern Baptist.
I too miss the community of women and friends, but like you I refuse to pay the price that most organised religion, at least that I’ve experienced, requires. I would love to find some alternative.
"I love mythology. I'm just not religious about it."
Gilgamesh is a a great book to read. Wonderful story of friendship, and going on a quest.
"I was reminded of what church meant for some of us…it meant that we played nice while nasty words poured from our mouths. It was fundie baby voice honey while spewing hateful rhetoric. It was twisting ourselves into pretzels and performing mental gymnastics to support politicians and conmen while pushing back on folks as “immoral” who do the work Jesus would approve of." --such a divisive institution. Thank you for sharing.
Oh, Jess, we’re out here for you. I was not raised with any religion but married into the Southern Baptist cult without knowing it. My then-husband had distanced himself from religion and I think I was part of his rebellion. I was a busy career woman so had little contact with the fundie women. I’m sure you have found your tribe by now, with Dolly as our leader.
I grew up in a fundamentalist cult too. It's a horrible experience that warps your mind for life. It's why I started my own Substack, to do exactly what you are doing. Helping people entrapped in religion to know they aren't alone and to give them encouragement to make difficult choices.
My church was a cult that believed a man named William Branham was "the prophet" to "the Laodocean church age." Whatever he said was considered equal to scripture. Our local pastor had been a pastor of an Independent Fundamental Baptist (read: Southern Baptist extremists) church for 40 years before he started following Branham. But he didn't leave the IFB behind. Oh, no sirree bob. He brought all the laws, rules, and insanity from the IFB and rolled it into Branhamism and I got two cults for the price of one. Fun times!
One thing we were taught is that women had one more rib than men, because God took a rib from Adam and made Eve. I never questioned that until I was in my early 50s. I would see NCIS or one of those forensic crime shows where they found a skeleton from yesteryear and they didn't know yet whether it was male or female. I was like, count the ribs, you dummies! And you claim to be scientists? Oy vey!
More fun: women couldn't wear pants, cut their hair, pluck their eyebrows, shave their legs or moustache or chin, couldn't have jewelry, and were basically supposed to function as brood mares to produce more believers for the cult. Men were supposed to provide monetarily for the wife and all the kids with no help from outside. Education was discouraged because "the more educated you get, the farther you get from God."
Branham predicted Jesus would return by 1977. I turned 16 in 1975 and my stepfather tried to get me to quit school. "What do you need with an education? Jesus will be back before you graduate anyway!"
The preacher told us that the reason Elvis had to die was so the spirit of the antichrist would be available to go into the new pope who was elected the following year. That's right, Saint John Paul I of blessed memory. Also, Elvis meant cat and Ricky meant rat. Elvis was just evils with the letters scrambled. Ditto for Santa and Satan.
I could go on for days about all the craziness I escaped. But let me just leave this one final thought. If you hear something that sounds like truth, you don't have to have it beaten into your head to believe it. But if you're having to attend church 3 or 4 times a week, maybe question what you're being taught. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." --Joseph Goebbels
I grew up in Texas (but moved to “unchurched” Maine when I was 29. Still here and love it even more than ever.) and regularly attended the Methodist Church with my folks. It was actually pretty bland and benign although I do remember having this feeling that I was better than people who didn’t attend church. After marrying my non religious husband, we agreed to go to “ sunday school”and church one Sunday with my folks, mostly because we were going out to dinner afterwards and they were paying. I remember when people our age in the “young marrieds” class started seriously discussing Methusaleh being 900 years old because the Bible said he was. We had eye contact and never went back, meal or no meal. We did briefly attend the Unitarian church in our small Maine town, but most of the sermons were about trying to figure out what it means to be a Unitarian. Suffice it to say that we are “backslid Unitarians.” Redundant I suppose,
I very much appreciate and relate to your recollections, Jess, and was triggered into a rant as I recalled negative church experiences to my lapsed Episcopalian husband. I too, lived in poverty, along with extreme neglect and abuse at home and Church was the only way to get freedom from being locked in the basement. Catholic Sunday school shamed me because I didn't have money to tithe, and so never got a red star next to my name on the wall chart of Sunday school kids. Presbyterians, and Lutheran churches were the most impersonal and my poorly clothed appearance made feel shunned. But the baptist church was insane, with the preacher screaming and weeping and crying melodramatically, demanding that everyone close their eyes, pointed those out who didn't as this skinny white guy shriek-prayed at us. My comfort came as my Black girl friend Sheila took me to her church, a tiny, broken down, wooden house converted into a church in early 1960's SE DC. I was the only white person, but my nervousness quickly dissipated with the incredible music, singing, and bodies gorgeously moving to the music (also informing me that I never thought to or could move my scrawny, clenched white body the way these wonderful folks could) and to this day, I love gospel music, but have become a devout Atheist. We can be good, loving, kind, purposeful, human beings without being subjugated by religions created by men to subjugate all of us.
They condemn Dolly but vote for Trump? Even a staunch Conservative and Christian like Cal Thomas can’t explain it. “When Trump mentioned Pence and the evangelical audience booed their brother in Christ, I said to myself, this is the final compromise,” Cal Thomas told me. “Here is your brother. Here is a man who worships the Lord that you claim to worship. Here is a man who goes to church every Sunday. Here is a man who has had only one wife and never been accused of being unfaithful. And you’re booing him? As opposed to a serial adulterer? A man who uses the worst language you can think of and does every other thing you oppose? Explain that to me from a biblical perspective. Please.” Tim Alberta interview
Change the word immoral to powerful. Dolly Parton is a powerful woman. That explains the need to cut her down.