My sister and I became evangelical Christians just a few months apart. I was a freshman in college, she was still in high school. Assembly of God holy rollers. Lots of noisy church services. We knew some really good people from those days.
But the pastor and the youth director had a falling out, which forced folks
to take sides. The pastor also decided to take aim at me and accused me of
trying to solicit contributions from the congregation for a youth ministry. Say
what? Dude, what have you been smoking... But it wasn’t those two shocks that
finally made me leave. Or even the fact that my girlfriend’s mother, the new
youth group leader, threatened to hit me over the head with a golf trophy…
I just couldn’t figure out how to make the choices I needed in my life from
listening to his sermons. He had a very emotional delivery, and there were lots
of “praise Gods!”, “halleluiahs!”, and “amens!” But nobody was really listening
to what he said. They were only listening to the intensity and emotion of his
voice, and his sincerity. I don’t think he was evil, he was just feeding them
milk.
He’d say things like, “you have to live by faith, you can’t buy grace”.
Amen! Halleluiah! Then 3 minutes later, “If you want God to bless you, you need
to show some faith and put a little more tithes in that offering, do something
for God”. Amen! Praise God! No one seemed to hear any contradictions in things
like that, but it confused the crap out of me.
“Name it claim it” was big in those days (maybe it still is, I’ve been out
of touch for a while). Prosperity gospel. Jimmy. Kenneth. Appliance faith
healers… I tried it. Didn’t work. And that’s when I left.
My sister left the same church not long after I did. She felt lost for quite
some time, unmoored in her beliefs. But she eventually found her way back to
church again, a little wiser, more reserved, but still fully committed to
evangelical Christianity.
I found a great friend, and a non-denominational church. But I always had an
arms-length relationship with Christianity and preachers after that. I had been
sucked into a useless theology once, and wasn’t keen on doing it again. By the
time I left graduate school, I was done with traditional church-going.
For a very long time, religion wasn’t something my sister and I could talk
about. We disagreed, and the gulf between us on that subject was wide and
painful. But we were still very close. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the
Church’s stance on so many things, the main one being abortion. There were
others, like gay marriage. My sister’s views were opposite from mine. I guess
we both hoped the other would one day “see the light”, and we held to those
hopes for a long time. Decades, actually.
But I watched in angst as conservative Christians became a polarizing
political force, driven by the goal of ending abortion rights. Used and
manipulated by wretched politicians lusting for power. It reminded me too much
of the confused Prohibitionists in the 1920’s, whose only lasting
accomplishment was to give us organized crime.
By the early ‘90’s, though not a fan of Democrats’ fiscal policies, I
stopped voting for Republicans at all (ok, I voted for Arnold) because of the
evangelical conservative influence on the Republican party. My sister went the
opposite direction. We both thought the other wasn’t listening to the truth.
We managed to hold it together, despite our political differences, until the
Covid‑19 pandemic. When she refused to get the vaccine because of its link to
abortion, I just couldn’t take it anymore.
Trump and his lies, the assault on democracy, the loss of common sense and
reason, the loss of civility, the disrespect for diversity, the disregard for
social responsibility, the suppression of individual choice (they can’t see the
irony in opposing mask/vaccine mandates and opposing abortion rights), the
trend towards fanatical nationalism, putting more trust in Facebook than in
science and responsible journalism, Q …
Without the evangelical vote, none of this churn happens. I can’t get over
the feeling that evangelicals have made a deal with the devil, and have lost
the ability “to distinguish between good and evil”.
And I’m sure my sister feels the same way about me. “He reads liberal news
outlets, supports abortion rights and gay rights. He’s lost his way…”
So here we are. The breach has been overwhelming at times, and I
suppose it’s mostly on my side. She wants things to be like they were. I want
to be close again, but I’m unwilling to overlook the differences.
It’s just as possible that she’s right and I’m wrong. But I’ve held all
these thoughts inside me so long, I just don’t want to fight them anymore.
So, here they are.