The Rest was Hard to Explain...

Tell me a story about what you’ve lost It will help to pass the time I would commiserate but a saint I am not See in my eyes if I’d lie? --Seneca, “No Angel” It may come as a surprise to some of the people who regularly show up here at my tiny little corner of the interweb, but I really don’t like it when I do or say things that piss people off. I’m not afraid to do it if I feel it’s warranted, but I’m pretty sure that most of the time it hurts me more than it hurts anyone else. I also worry about fallout, that something I say in anger to one person will hurt another. That also means it’s all the more confusing that I take such childlike delight in what I call “poking the bear.” Sometimes I just like pushing buttons to see what will happen. Then I feel bad, especially when I get exactly the result I was expecting and the result I was expecting was on the low end of the human nature scale. When I started writing explicitly about my split with religion last April (I tend to put that stuff under the “Loco to Stay Sane” tag, should anyone feel the need to review) it was because I really didn’t have an outlet. I couldn’t talk about it with most of the people I knew. It seemed jerky to monopolize the time of the few people I could talk to about it with endless repetition. Besides, I’m a writer. I’ve always been a writer. I’d been talking about my times in and out of fundagelical Christianity over at Slacktivist for a while and everyone seemed to enjoy that, so I guess it just made sense to bring it over here. I’d also started to have this idea about creating a place where people who had also left an abusive religion behind could share. I was never entirely sure how to do that, though, so it remained permanently on the back burner. I learned something interesting. I wasn’t angry or bitter about my experiences. At least, not often. Some days I was mad at specific people or things who I realized were dangerous. Some days I wrote The Field Guide to North American Evangelists. Some days I was wistful. Some days I was even mournful. Mostly I learned that my problems weren’t god's fault at all. Either way, it was my space. It was where I felt I could share, but I also felt I was safe. It’s my internet home, I guess. Every once in a while someone came along and said, “Hey, I hear you. I’ve been there, too.” That made me feel better. Last summer I got visited by James. It was the first time I felt my internet home was invaded. I wasn’t in a good place at the time to begin with and extenuating circumstances meant I couldn’t just tell him to fuck off and die, which would have been my preferred response. Although his visit did lead directly to the Field Guide to North American Evangelists, so maybe it’s not all bad. And it’s certainly ironic. I mean, I’d been afraid of being challenged, but then the first time it truly happened all I saw was sophistry and arrogance. Someone who’d invaded my house had the audacity to call me his enemy just so he could make the point that Jesus said to love your enemies. Then he called me names and said I was childish for resenting his intrusion. All of this, of course, came in the service of presenting the love of Christ. It’s little wonder that when I wrote the Asshole for Jesus entry in the Field Guide I wanted to just call the category “James.” The events of last summer led directly to the unpleasantness of the last couple days. Truth be told, I don’t mind the occasional post by a Christian attempting to share god’s love. I get these occasionally and collectively refer to them as “evangiposters.” They show up, speak their piece*, and then wander off to do whatever it is that people do on the internet when they aren’t here and aren’t allowed to run Google searches for hard core lesbian fisting action (by the way, resist any and all urges to go and do that right now. Absolutely nothing good can come of it. Unless, I suppose, you’re in to that sort of thing). I don’t even delete them, which is my policy for adbots. I do, however, actively object to being directly and forcefully evangelized. Even if it’s ironic in that the evangelism comes in the comments of a post in which I’ve done everything short of saying, “Don’t bother, I’ve heard every argument you could possibly make already.” I honestly don’t know what the evangelizer expects to accomplish in a situation like that. It’s like wearing a Cubs hat in to a bar on the South Side, then acting offended when people make fun of you. Anyway, I have no real problems laying in to a would-be evangelist of the sort who would make it in to the Field Guide. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I like doing it, though. Especially here. It’s hard not to feel like I’m coming across as an asshole and ungracious host, even in situations where I’d genuinely prefer it if certain parties left my house and simply aren’t taking the hint that they’re being rude. I also know there are folks like hapax who I could well offend in the process. I am aware, too, that what’s going on might be opening fresh wounds for Woeful Budgie, jessa, Fiat Lex, and others. I mean, yeah, if you’re reading one of my more sarcastic posts I’m sure you know in general what you’re in for. But I’m also extremely aware of the fact that there’s a difference between the abstract and the concrete. And I know there’s a difference between an intentionally sarcastic, planned post and something said in the heat of the moment. Last summer when James decided to show up and then his wife started posting as an anonymous participant (I didn’t figure out until we were well in who I was dealing with there), I felt extremely alone and vulnerable. I actually had to turn off the email updates for a while because I just didn’t want to know when a new comment had been made. I was extremely angry, but I was also worried that James just wouldn’t go away. It was an unwelcome invasion of my space. And, yes, it is a public blog. But I have no idea what it is about the internet that creates this sense in people that they needn’t have any respect for the wishes of another. Especially in the case of someone who claims to follow Jesus. Not only would Jesus not be in favor of such shabby treatment of anyone, when he sent out the 12 and then the 72 to preach, he told them to go only where they were welcome. The command was to shake the dust off of their sandals at the edge of town if they weren’t welcomed. Nowhere did Jesus say, “If no one offers you shelter barge in, sit down on their couch, and accuse them of being rude.” I think that actual human decency is kind of a lost art amongst the types of Christian I used to call my brothers and sisters. We had a family emergency a month and a half ago (of which I’d rather not discuss the details, thanks). My parents’ church, which they’ve only been attending for a couple years, could not have been more wonderful. It seemed that every time we turned around someone from the church was checking in. I was talking to my parents’ deacon one day. He’d chosen them specifically because he used to go to the church I grew up in, so when he saw their name on the new member list he asked that they be put on whatever deacon list the church uses. I was talking to him at one point and he told me the reason he’d left the old church was because absolutely no one had lifted a finger or said a thing to help when he’d experienced a tragedy of his own. He told me he’d been bitter about that for a long time. That idea was a continuing theme of the entire time. That difference between the old church and the current church was that pronounced. And it was all the more noticeable since the old church would probably say the new church wasn’t attended by real, true Christians. They’re too liberal. They’re too focused on community service instead of evangelism and sending missionaries to Africa. I adopted a silly little phrase in the middle of everything. “I may not believe in god, but I sure as hell believe in Presbyterians.” They’re good people. I suspect that there’s a lot of selection bias in such things. Churches take on a specific character. If you want liturgy you go Episcopalian or Catholic. If you want dogma and damnation you go Baptist or Bible. I suspect that people who are interested in community service without forcing conversion down anyone’s throat, preaching about what they could be and not why they’re so horrible, and a sense that if they fall down someone will actually be there to pick them up gradually settle in to an orbit around a church like my parents’ like the chunks of ice and rock that form the rings of Saturn. And, honestly, it’s a beautiful thing to see. Jesus might be their common purpose, but I’m pretty sure that if they were a book discussion group with no concept of religion they’d do the same thing. Meanwhile, I still have nothing good to say about the church that I (and jessa, for that matter) used to attend (and which I’m pretty sure that another recent commenter who shall remain nameless currently attends). That type of religion has absolutely nothing to offer me anymore. I doubt it ever did, unless you consider pain a perk. I digress, however. The point of this all was to say, “Thank you,” to everyone. It was nice not feeling alone in my little internet home the last couple days. And it was good to hear that in spite of claims to the contrary, I wasn’t the one who was being out of line. And if I may presume to offer some encouragement to Fiat Lex, Temaskian (hi, by the way. Thanks for joining us), Woeful Budgie, jessa, and anyone else who finds themselves in need of such things: don’t give up the ship. To quote the Lovehammers, “Once you’ve got the taste, just a little taste of freedom, you can’t go back to living in your head.” It might seem easier to just drink the Kool-Aid, go back, suck it up and gut it out. But you’ll only drive yourself insane. I mean, think of how hard it was to deal with the doublethink and turn off the doubts before. I imagine it’d be impossible once you’ve hit the point where you realize, “Hey, I don’t have to buy in to this anymore.” Believe me, I’ve considered it. I know I can’t do it. At the very least, I’m sure there’s more than one church like my parents’ out there. I know that if I ever intentionally darken the door of another church in the future it will be one like that. --------------------------------------- *I have run in to people who write, “Speak my peace,” lately. I actually wrote that, then changed it. I can’t “speak my peace.” That’s nonsensical and bad English.