February 28, 2022
Quite a bit of time has passed since I’ve considered the heaviest part of my religious deconstruction to be complete. I say the “heaviest part” because of course I’m still analyzing my past in religion and writing about it here to share with y’all. My time in religion was a significant part of my life and played a huge role in who I am today, so it would never do for me to suppress it or ignore it completely. In a way, by writing this blog and my book, I embrace it and integrate it and make it a part of my story. And as I always say, I’ll never be done deconstructing the wider world around me—even those parts that have nothing to do with religion.
In a way, I have fond memories of the period of my life after moving on from the anger and pain phases of my deconstruction. That was the period of time when I realized God truly did not exist and that it was up to me to build the life I wanted. Only then did I get up, grab life by the balls, and make things happen. I recount most of what I learned during this period in my book and give you the step-by-step techniques that helped me in hopes that at least some of it will be valuable to you as well.
Looking at where I am now and comparing it to the trajectory I was on back when I was a Christian is truly a harrowing experience. Why? Because back then, I was all about “waiting on God.” And I now realize, had I continued waiting on God, how disastrous things would’ve ended up for me.
Back in my Christian days, I was told the same things as everyone else in the church. I was to “wait on God” and “be faithful” and all that crap. That meant that whatever life God had planned for me to have, he’d give me, or lead me to it. It was implied that all of this would happen with very little or no effort on my part because everything that came my way was a “blessing.”
Admittedly, there were a few church leaders who had a more nuanced view of this and stressed the importance of “meeting God halfway.” That essentially meant that if I put in a little bit of work toward my goals and desires, then if God wanted me to achieve them, then he’d “meet me halfway” and give them to me. This teaching might be even more damaging than the one to passively sit and wait. Why? Because it teaches that as soon as any kind of obstacle or conflict is encountered, then that means “this isn’t God’s will” and it’s time to “surrender to him” and “be at peace with that.” Fuck no! Any goal or Mission worth achieving is going to have some obstacles and conflict. To believe that the first instance of resistance is “God blocking the path for your own good” is a horrific way to view life.
Since I was a good little Christian boy back then, I would still be waiting on God till this very day. I’d be completely passive and guilty of letting life happen to me rather than building my own. And whatever came my way—whether good, bad, acceptable, or mildly tolerable—I’d just accept and pray about how thankful I was for God knowing “what was best for me” and just giving me that. Even if secretly deep down I wanted something different.
Sometimes, I see shadows of this path not taken written in the eyes of people I used to know back in the church. Whenever I get the random urge to look them up on Facebook I see their highly curated social media pictures. Sure, they’re smiling, but that smile isn’t in their eyes. More often than not, these people still attend the same church, in the same town, married to the same girl they dated when they were in college (and of course, according to their posts, their relationship as gone through some “tough seasons”).
I’m in no way insinuating that this kind of life is bad. It isn’t. Because at the same time I can see the photographs of the people who never wanted anything more than that. Their pictures are completely different. They’re clearly filled with joy. The others… you can see the longing on their faces. The wondering where it all went wrong. The questions of why, since they perfectly followed the blueprint laid out for them, does it feel so incomplete?
As a Christian, I was taught that believing in Jesus would automatically bring me joy. It did not. And I struggled with this and wondered why. I even wrote a long section about this in my book.
I was taught that if I remained faithful, then God would give me enough income to live, he would bless me with a Godly wife, he would decide how many kids I would have, and he would give me ample opportunity to further his kingdom in a way that he’d specifically chosen for me.
And the truth is that even if all of those things happened to me, it wasn’t by any choice of my own. It all would’ve just stumbled their way into my life and I would’ve passively accepted it without question because I considered it all to be “blessings from God.”
I never would’ve considered if maybe there was another career that suited me better. I never would’ve considered if maybe there was a different partner or relationship model that would’ve been a better complement to my life. I never would’ve considered if there was a different city or country that I would’ve enjoyed more.
All of those things above are attachments, as I’ve written about before. and just as quickly as they attach, they can detach and float away. That means anything that I felt God had “attached” to my life I did not have the power to detach. Untrue. Part of growing into your authentic self and knowing yourself is understanding that you have the power to detach literally anything from your life that doesn’t serve you anymore, including your entire religion.
It was only after realizing that there was no God who would give me all of these things was when I really got off my ass to get to work building my life. Now that I’m on the other side, I shudder to think of what I would’ve settled for had I never left Christianity.