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 Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:47 pm
About two years ago I was a member of a fundamentalist Christian church. I had been there for about 4 years, had a group of very close friends, was a part of the youth leadership team, everything was peachy keen. I was a "perfect" Christian. Then something horrible happened to me. I was blamed, even though there was nothing I could have done about it. The entire church turned it's back on me, including my "friends." The church continued to destroy my life by "warning" ALL the other churches in the area about me. They said I would destroy the lives of their children and everything they held as holy. I finally went to my grandfather's church, but some of the leadership there knew, and treated me...weird. I was very well known. People avoided me in public places (no, I am not being paranoid or exaggerating). I holed myself up and didn't venture out of the house much, sticking with the few friends I had outside of church. I went to therapy, and the therapist told me to invision what happened to me, but this time to imagine that Jesus was there. Well, needless to say, I no longer believe in Jesus. I would have prefered to have been forsaken, thank you. Not knowing where to go, I turned to the pagan community, and they took me in, even though I had no bloody clue what I believed. I still don't. The church kept hounding us, and eventually my mum and I had to move out of the state.
No, this isn't a sob story. I just want to know if anyone else has been here. If anyone else has gone through hell because of a fundamentalist religious group. It helps to know you aren't the only one, I guess.
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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 9:34 pm
That sucks. I've never had that happen to me, but I have had some fundamentalist people frown upon and damn me to hell.
I stopped recieving communion at my church, for one I didn't believe, and two to show my mom that I DIDN'T have to follow HER religion. But yeah, after that, people there avoid me. I don't mind. I never much liked the people that go there. They can take their judgemental attitudes and shove them up their asses for all I care. But then..I've always been somewhat anti-social, so people shunning me never had a big effect on me.
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Posted: Sun Dec 12, 2004 9:44 pm
xdarktigress That sucks. I've never had that happen to me, but I have had some fundamentalist people frown upon and damn me to hell. I stopped recieving communion at my church, for one I didn't believe, and two to show my mom that I DIDN'T have to follow HER religion. But yeah, after that, people there avoid me. I don't mind. I never much liked the people that go there. They can take their judgemental attitudes and shove them up their asses for all I care. But then..I've always been somewhat anti-social, so people shunning me never had a big effect on me. I agree with the a**-shoving. I can handle a few people shunning me....just not thousands. Cause that is just creepy. Seems like they would have something better to do... stare And go you with the whole individualism thing. I don't go to churches anymore. It has a vampire-ish effect on me. Thats right, I combust.
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 1:00 am
Yeah, that's why I like the city, no one gives two shits about what you do. That's why I have small towns out east. People have nothing better to do than gossip. Its creepy how much they know about you when you've only been there...5 hours. eek
I avoid churches when I can. Some of my mom's friends still talk to me, but most are like "Oop! trouble child!" Which makes me all the happier, since my mom prides herself on having a "perfect" family. ^___^
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Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2004 8:25 pm
That is, to make an understatement, INSANE. I mean, INSANE. Seriously. I'm not kidding. I don't care what happened to you, THAT'S INSANE. Your church should, by definition, be supportive in times of trouble. BY DEFINITION. I'll be back to finish my rant in a minuite.
EDIT: Continuation=And besides, doesn't the bible say "Judge not lest ye be judged?" And what about showing compassion and being role models? Did not Jesus teach caring, understanding, and forgiveness? HE-LLO! Gah! Their morons. Forget them.[/mindless ranting]
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:07 am
I've never really had a problem with that until recently, but I suppose that's because until recently I lived in California. Now, I can't go anywhere without horrifying at least 3 little old women. It troubles me somewhat... But their faces can be so amusing at times.
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Posted: Tue Dec 14, 2004 8:28 pm
Rael Ardhan I've never really had a problem with that until recently, but I suppose that's because until recently I lived in California. Now, I can't go anywhere without horrifying at least 3 little old women. It troubles me somewhat... But their faces can be so amusing at times. Little old ladies are easy to freak out. Hehehe..... whee twisted
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Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2004 3:23 pm
rolleyes how very stupid. My church did that to me when I came out as a bisexual - I hadn't - still haven't - told my mother yet, and had hoped for some support for when I did. Up till that point, I'd found the church very accepting, seeming to understand a bit more than, say, a traditional catholic church*. I was very wrong - they weren't accepting of me at all. As soon as I did, they began telling me how wrong I was. The little kids from sunday school began calling me a freak, devil spawn, disgusting slut. LITTLE KIDS FROM SUNDAY SCHOOL! I was being physically threatened by the kids my age, and the pastor kept asking me to "repent, and reject the devil's sinning ways".
...I don't go to that church anymore. Of course, me being me, *had* to go one last time - with a girl, and with a book by Ravenwolf ^^. That was just FUN.
*Nothing against Catholics, just saying they're generally pretty strict about these things.
...I can't believe I forgot to put that in...
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Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:11 pm
Captain Jack Sporky That is, to make an understatement, INSANE. I mean, INSANE. Seriously. I'm not kidding. I don't care what happened to you, THAT'S INSANE. Your church should, by definition, be supportive in times of trouble. BY DEFINITION. I'll be back to finish my rant in a minuite. EDIT: Continuation=And besides, doesn't the bible say "Judge not lest ye be judged?" And what about showing compassion and being role models? Did not Jesus teach caring, understanding, and forgiveness? HE-LLO! Gah! Their morons. Forget them.[/mindless ranting] while that is true, it doesn't say anything outright against all judgement, it also says that there should be judgement, I will try to find those verses, later. about being outcasted: that never happened to me at my church, though I never "came out" about my paganness, nor my bi-ness, but, it was very evident that I was falling away, no one really did anything, they never offered to help me find jesus, they never made fun of me, they never really even shunned me. I just kind of ended up avoiding them, even if they would have offered their help I would have been a d**k about it. I guess to them I was really invisible, and I liked that. Besides these people lived nowhere near me, nor were they, in any way shape or form, my friends, they were just people that I saw regularly on sundays. So, in the end, it was more like I had shunned them. My last note, here's how you can tell that catholics and other christians are hypocrites, they allow excommunication, which is the banishing of a person from all catholic/christian things. (If you took offense to that, Im sorry, but sometimes the truth hurts).
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Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2004 10:48 pm
Naeryn ...I don't go to that church anymore. Of course, me being me, *had* to go one last time - with a girl, and with a book by Ravenwolf ^^. That was just FUN. why ravenwolf? gonk
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Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 3:24 pm
chaoticpuppet Naeryn ...I don't go to that church anymore. Of course, me being me, *had* to go one last time - with a girl, and with a book by Ravenwolf ^^. That was just FUN. why ravenwolf? gonk Because, contrary to common belief, she IS a good place to start. You just have to temper it with another author, and take some of the things she says with a grain of salt.
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Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2004 8:28 pm
Naeryn chaoticpuppet Naeryn ...I don't go to that church anymore. Of course, me being me, *had* to go one last time - with a girl, and with a book by Ravenwolf ^^. That was just FUN. why ravenwolf? gonk Because, contrary to common belief, she IS a good place to start. You just have to temper it with another author, and take some of the things she says with a grain of salt. I'll give you that.
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Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 2:12 am
chaoticpuppet Naeryn chaoticpuppet Naeryn ...I don't go to that church anymore. Of course, me being me, *had* to go one last time - with a girl, and with a book by Ravenwolf ^^. That was just FUN. why ravenwolf? gonk Because, contrary to common belief, she IS a good place to start. You just have to temper it with another author, and take some of the things she says with a grain of salt. I'll give you that. Ravenwolf is especially the best place to start if you know older people who are pagan. I'm not talking about teen goth "look at me, I'm Paygin" dorkwads. I mean to say that my dad and my stepmother are both Wiccan and have a circle where they live. Their high preistess is this really great woman named Trisha, and she's old enough to be my grandmother, but acts much younger. She's very cool. I think she raises goats now xp Anway... yeeah... if you have a good mentor to go through it with and ask questions, and you have other source material and know how to make your own judgement, then she's a great place to start. That's where I started, although I'm not really anything anymore.
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Posted: Sun Jan 23, 2005 2:20 am
What could you possibly have done to make them react like that? It's totally crazy.
Once, I went to this church of god with my neighbor so I could sing with the church band. I knew I was agnostic, but I figured I didn't have to take anything they said to heart, and music is practically my life, and when it's time to hear bible stories, well, the bible is a good thing to listen to and teaches a lot of really great lessons and interesting stories.
So they're doing this community prayer or whatever thing, and the preacher or whatever comes up to me and asks me if I "have the holy spirit." And I'm like, "umm... how bout not," because out of respect for their religion, I wasn't about to commit one of their sins in one of their churches. I mean, I would hate it if someone did that in my church if I went to one, right?
So then he wanted to convert me, and I wasn't having it, and he wouldn't stop pushing it, so I finally looked him in the eye and said, "Look, I believe Jesus existed and that he was a wise man. I believe he was a visionary who thought he knew the best way to change the world for the better. But I do not believe he was the son of god, nor do I believe he died to atone for my sins." And then I left.
I didn't want to tell my mom that happened, for some reason, so I just sat outside the church until she came to pick me up. When everyone was coming out, they kept looking at me, and alot of them asked me if I was okay, was I going to come back, etc., and one of the band members came to me and started this speech about miracles. I don't know why. I think perhaps the preacher or pastor or whatever you wanna call him told them what happened in our conversation or referred to me somehow. I wasn't happy. I didn't come back again. I didn't even call the band members to let them know I wasn't coming back.
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Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:49 am
we mennonites practice shunning which seems very harsh. however it never has to do with anyone's status that they can't change or anything like that. it has to do with behavior, and if they are constantly, say, driving drunk (which happens), somebody talks to them about it and if nothing happens three people go talk to them and then if nothing happens all the people involved refuse communion whenever it is offered because they cannot partake while they are not reconciled to their brother. finally then the congregation decides whether to expel the person. it's like catholic excommunication only it's just done in one local church.
which means the person involved can go be part of another congregation if they want to.
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