#127 – Rachel’s spiritual journey

A traumatic experience while serving in a church led to a complete deconstruction of her Christian faith: she’s still “a hopeful Christian agnostic” who finds Jesus’ message “beautiful and life-giving”

Another one of our listeners tells her story. Rachel Sanders also grew up in a conservative Evangelical home, and went to a Southern Baptist church, but it was her years in Christian elementary, middle and high schools, and then a Christian college which really instilled in her a Fundamentalist Christian worldview. For a couple decades, she was quite comfortable in that faith system; doubts and questions rumbled in the distance, but she was able to keep the cognitive dissonance suppressed. Until she and her partner began ministry work in a church out of state. An escalating series of clashes and confrontations with members of the congregation and the pastor led them to not only leave that church, but then triggered a full theological deconstruction. That storm shipwrecked her faith! She now calls herself a “hopeful Christian agnostic,” because she still finds the message of Christ to be beautiful and life-giving. But for now, returning to a church, even as just a pew-warmer, is out of the question.

Some of the points we talked about with Rachel include:

• parents were divorced from her earliest memory
• step father had been a Baptist minister, but his ordination was removed because he married a divorcee
• grew up in a large Southern Baptist church; very conservative;
• attended a Fundamentalist Christian elementary school, and then private Christian high school; Bible classes taught them Young Earth Creationism, Purity Culture; evolution is a “theory without much evidence”;
• “accepted Jesus into her life” at age of five …. “did I understand what Jesus was saving me from, I don’t know”; fully embraced her early Christian Faith; happy to have a guidebook for her life
• her faith was purely intellectual during elementary school years, but more on an emotional level when in her teens; the lack of emotional investment prompted a crisis-of-faith
• huge personal impact of a missions trip to Haiti
• went to Asbury College (recently in the news for its “revival”), where she developed a Wesleyan tradition
• the “slippery slope” … “well, if this part of the Bible isn’t “true”, then what about that part?”
• was not taught about a literal/historical Adam and Eve, but isn’t sure what they did with Original Sin
• has long been conflicted with their teaching about hell; wondered “what’s the point of Christianity if there is no hell?”
• “the sermon-cycle of shame and regret” and “thought-terminating cliches”
• her deconstruction process was catalyzed/accelerated by the political unrest of the past few years
• for years, got comfortable with cognitive dissonance over theological problems; but abuse and betrayal by her church community tipped her over the edge
• a traumatic experience with a senior church ministry leader crystallized the ending of her faith; she and her partner left church behind them
• connected on-line with other people who had been hurt by the church, and that fueled the deconstruction of her theology
• still looking for a church that hasn’t weaponized the Bible
• still holds a faith in a creative Life Force … calls herself “a hopeful agnostic Christian”; still attracted to Christ, and his message
• Scott asks if nihilism is the next step
• the label “Evangelical” has been hijacked, and we need to recover its original meaning
• Christianity is so much more broadly based than just “Evangelical” Christianity; need to explore its full dimensions before rejecting the whole theology
• it’s OK to not know … there’s freedom in mystery

As always, tell us your thoughts on this topic …

If you’re interested in other personal life stories of people we’ve interviewed, check out this thematic collection.

Episode image by Tim Hill from Pixabay.

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