Episode Details

Her spiritual journey was going perfectly well, until life circumstances blind-sided her and the “body of Christ” failed her, putting an end to her journey.

This week, another long-standing member of the podcast discussion group drops into our “studio” and shares her spiritual journey. She was perfectly comfortable for the first few decades with her very Conservative Fundamentalist Evangelical upbringing, fully accepting all of that theology without question. But when tragic life circumstances led the people closest to her — “the body of Christ” — to betray and abandon her, that’s when the deconstructive questions really began. Not only did those relationships unravel, but so did one theological tenet after another. A few decades later, she’s really not sure what she can believe or trust anymore. And yet she’s still “scratching the itch”.

Our discussion covered the following points:

• grew up Plymouth Brethren … very conservative
• “came to faith” as a five year old, purely out of the fear instilled by a Bible class teacher giving a graphic presentation of hell
• as a child, only hung around church kids
• was not allowed to go to movie theater because “you might miss the Rapture!”
• found at 15 that she was adopted, which sparked an identity crisis
• while at a church youth campfire event, she witnessed other people who seemed to have a much more emotional and expressive spirituality, which started her doubting about her salvation/spirituality
• looking back at her church environment: it felt safe because it was all she’d ever known … it was her social life
• one sermon heavy with “worm-theology” [you are good for nothing] had long-lasting impact
• up to her late teen years, she was completely comfortable with her spirituality and her religious worldview; that began to change, though
• cracks started to form in her belief system around:
  • prayer didn’t seem to work; bounced back off the ceiling
  • how the church — “the body of Christ” — mishandled a very difficult event in her personal life, resorting to judgment and ostracization, rather than love and support; this was a deeply felt betrayal<