I ran across this in one of the former-fundie Facebook support groups. This is a description for an actual book, called Pots, Pans, & Prophecies. Okay… Explain to me again how this is not dehumanizing, manipulative, and abusive? What if the pots and pans in your kitchen were alive, living beings, each with their own… Continue reading Pots, Pans, & Prophecies
Cult mind control begins with “unfreezing,” which involves confusing and disorienting the victim, breaking down their sense of reality. This leaves them open to reprogramming. One way of accomplishing this is to bombard them with confusing, conflicting ideas that they can’t readily process. Their mind will shut down, leaving them open to new ideas that… Continue reading The Evangelical Dump
Seen on social media: a meme quoting J. Mark Johns, pastor of Canvas Church (the one in Alachua, FL): “Don’t let a bad church experience stop you from going to church. We’ve never let a bad restaurant experience stop us from eating out. #tryagain” This is a hoary chestnut right out of the Evangelical gaslighting… Continue reading A Bad Church Experience
There’s a church near Worcester that I end up driving by frequently on the way to lunch. On the lawn outside sits a prominent sign in modern blues and greens: “Life Source.” The logo consists of a Latin cross, coupled with a symbol indicating three bars of Wifi available. Across the bottom is the church’s… Continue reading Spiritual Gaslighting on Display
When I was little, we went trick-or-treating. I remember doing that for a few years, way back in the day. Then everything changed. At some point, my parents became wise to the fact that Halloween is a pagan holiday, All Hallows Eve, dedicated to glorify Satan and demonic forces. Yeah, we were pretty ignorant, blissfully… Continue reading An Evangelical Halloween
It never ceases to amaze me how clueless and profoundly misguided are the comments of religious believers about their deeply held religious beliefs. I understand the forces at work and the processes that they go through in order to get to their desired conclusions. (That, in fact, is the core of the problem. They have… Continue reading Maintaining Contact with an Abusive God
A friend wrote to me (used with permission): “Evangelicals are so full of themselves. They think they’re the only people that are really happy.” Yes. This is exactly what I remember from my years as an evangelical. When they encounter others who are happy, this disconfirms their belief that you have to “have Jesus in… Continue reading How Fundies Isolate Themselves from Others
In the movie Good Will Hunting, there’s this one scene where Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) says to Will Hunting (Matt Damon), “It’s not your fault.” If you haven’t seen the film, Will was abused as a kid. As children, we internalized the bad things that happen to us at the hands of our caregivers. When… Continue reading It’s Not Your Fault
The lyrics of this song came to mind today. I wrote this in 1997, when I was a member of a Christian rock band. Even today, I think the music I wrote for this song is some of my best compositional work ever. It starts in 7/8 time, has a measure of 6/4, and switches… Continue reading Trapped in God’s Cage
Evangelicalism isn’t for everyone. We ex-vangelicals tried to have a relationship with Evangelicals’ god, and it didn’t work out. It was a bad relationship for us, and we’re done trying to make it work. Can’t Evangelicals just accept that and move on?