u/Nearby-Tension3515

Sometimes I wonder, what kind of Christianity is this?
They act as if they alone have the right interpretation of Scripture. They want to control how people think. They insist that the Bible gives instructions that are 100% applicable to every conceivable culture, in every time and place, with virtually no room for nuance. If you read the Bible differently than they do, you’re told you’re doing it wrong. The only acceptable interpretation is their 19th century way of reading it. If you disagree, you’re labeled a bad person, disobedient to God, a rebel, or someone who has let the culture consume them.
By the way, what does “letting the culture consume you” even mean? Many of these same people are deeply Republican, and those political values clearly influence how they see the world. Yet they act as though they are completely untouched by culture themselves.
They’re surprised when people push back against their behavior. They accuse everyone else of creating division and call it denominationalism. They say others are building walls between Christians and dividing the body of Christ. Yet they refuse to take communion with Christians who aren’t exactly like them. In some cases, they won’t even fellowship with other Churches of Christ that do things differently.
They’re controlling toward everyone, not just women. They place incredibly high expectations on people and then tell them they’re not following God correctly. They quote statistics to scare people into compliance. They misrepresent other people and their beliefs. They spread pseudoscience. I had a preacher repeat the old left brain, right brain myth as if it were fact. I heard revisionist history about instrumental music. I heard all kinds of bizarre claims presented as truth.
Their universities often feel more like propaganda mills than places that encourage honest inquiry.
Looking back, I think it’s remarkable that I ever saw this group the way I did. They’re one relatively small movement in a world filled with Christians from many different traditions, all of whom sincerely believe they are trying to follow Christ.
So why should I believe that the Church of Christ is uniquely what the world needs?

Hey everyone, this is a bit of a strange question, but I’m curious how much truth you think there is to the Church of Christ’s claim that our culture is uniquely bad or evil.
Recently my parents were talking about my younger sister and how they need to teach her to be “a good young lady,” make good choices, and be “ladylike” (whatever that means). During the conversation my dad said, “This culture is so bad.” They went on a long tirade about drinking, children seeing their parents drink, and the general moral decline of society.
I remember sitting there wondering: is American culture really that uniquely evil? Or is this mostly Church of Christ moral panic? Growing up, I heard constant warnings about “the culture” — the culture is corrupt, the culture is dangerous, the culture is pulling people away from God. It felt like almost every problem was blamed on “the culture.”
To be clear, I’m not saying modern culture is perfect. Every society has problems. But I’m genuinely curious whether the Church of Christ has a point here, or whether it tends to exaggerate the uniqueness of our moral decline. Are we actually living in an unusually evil culture compared with other times and places, or is this a recurring pattern where religious groups view the surrounding culture as especially dangerous?
I’d be interested to hear how others here think about this, especially people who grew up hearing constant sermons and warnings about “the culture.”

was going to hold off on making another post until I recently saw a video from a Baptist church’s Vacation Bible School. In the skit, people dressed as soldiers execute Satan while the kids in the audience are chanting, “Take him out! Take him out! Take him out!”
It got me thinking about my own upbringing in the Church of Christ. My first reaction was that my church never really glorified violence. But then I started asking myself, did it? In what ways, if any, did the Church of Christ glorify violence?
For those of you who also grew up in the Church of Christ, did you ever get the impression that violence against people was celebrated or encouraged? Looking back, I’m not sure. A lot of Christianity can seem to frame violence in positive ways, but I don’t remember my congregation doing that explicitly.
I know we sang “lords army ,” but I never took that as glorifying war or military violence. I do think comparing spiritual warfare to military conflict is a bit inappropriate, but that’s a separate discussion.
One thing I do remember is being taught violent Bible stories at a very young age. I specifically remember hearing about Joshua destroying Jericho, with everyone being killed except Rahab and her family. I remember asking about the children, and the teacher’s response was essentially, “God took those children to heaven.” That answer disturbed me when I was younger, although I eventually accepted it at the time.
So I’m curious: looking back, do you think the Church of Christ ever glorified violence, even indirectly? Or was your experience similar to mine, where it wasn’t really emphasized?

Did anyone else notice that the Church of Christ seemed to encourage constantly correcting other people’s understanding of the Bible?
I remember a preacher saying something like, “I don’t see how you can be right with God if you’re teaching or believing something incorrectly.” The message was that if you misunderstood a passage or taught it wrong, you couldn’t really be right with God. There wasn’t much room for honest mistakes or good intentions.
Looking back, I wonder if that mindset creates a culture where everyone is trying to catch everyone else’s errors. I remember people questioning teachers after class over small details, and it sometimes felt like they were always looking for something to correct.
I even found myself doing the same thing when I was in the Church of Christ. Instead of simply learning together, it often felt like we were expected to police one another’s interpretations.
Is this something others experienced too, or was it just the congregations I attended?

I’m curious if anyone else who grew up in a Christian household experienced this.
I remember my dad saying things like, “Women are some of the most dangerous things to men. You have to be very careful because they’ll ruin your life.” To be fair, he did eventually add that men can do the same thing, but the overall message still felt heavily directed at women.
Some other things I remember him saying were:
Women can make men look crazy, and they love doing it.
When women talk about having autonomy over their own bodies, don’t fall for it because it’s “a trick of Satan.”
Women today want to dress “like sluts,” and that women in his generation supposedly couldn’t get away with that.
Women who dress or act that way are “whores,” and that men wouldn’t want anything to do with them.
Women in the porn industry aren’t the kind of women most men would want to be with unless they’ve been forgiven by Christ.
Looking back, a lot of this strikes me as deeply misogynistic. It framed women as manipulative, dangerous, sexually immoral, and fundamentally something men needed to fear or control.
I’m wondering if this was just my experience, or if other people who grew up in conservative Christian homes heard similar kinds of messages.

I’m tired of pretending this is okay.
I’ve watched multiple preachers proudly brag about not sparing the rod and treating physical punishment like it’s some sacred duty. I’ve heard them mock parents who say “I don’t believe in hitting my kids” and call them weak or worldly.
They love to say they just follow the Bible but they completely ignore what actual studies show about corporal punishment. Those studies show increased aggression, anxiety, depression, and damaged relationships. When people bring that up, the response is always the same. Those studies are biased. God’s word is clear.
I’m sorry but spare the rod spoil the child does not mean you need to physically hit your children to raise them right. And it’s honestly disturbing how aggressive some of these preachers get about defending their right to hit kids.

They treat any suggestion that hitting your kids might be harmful as an attack on the Bible itself. Their preachers will straight-up say things like “the government has no right to tell me I can’t discipline my children” and act like child protection laws are some kind of demonic overreach

Hey everyone,
I was thinking about something today.
I remember sitting through a lesson at a Church of Christ where the preacher quoted the Church Fathers over and over, claiming they opposed the use of musical instruments in worship. Whether there is some historical truth to that isn’t really my main point.
What struck me was the inconsistency.
Why is it acceptable to appeal to the Church Fathers and church tradition when arguing that instruments are sinful, but then dismiss those very same sources when they support beliefs the Church of Christ rejects?
If these early Christian writers are considered reliable enough to settle the question of musical instruments, then why aren’t they given the same weight on issues like the real presence in the Eucharist, choirs, infant baptism, bishops, or other practices that are often dismissed as “traditions of men”?
Even figures like John Calvin or Thomas Aquinas, whose theology the Church of Christ would reject in many other areas, are suddenly treated as valuable authorities whenever they appear to support the anti instrument position.
That seems like a selective use of history rather than a consistent approach to scholarship.
I’ve often wondered if this is something that’s taught in preaching schools: find quotations that appear to support your position, present them without much context, and move on. But that’s not how historical scholarship is supposed to work. If we’re going to use historical sources, we should be willing to engage with what they actually believed as a whole, not just the parts that happen to agree with us.
What do you guys think?

I have a lot of issues with the Church of Christ, and I’m no longer really a member. There are plenty of teachings, attitudes, and experiences that led me away from it.
That said, I’ve been rethinking the doctrine of original sin lately, and I think the Church of Christ might actually be right about that one.
The more I read the Bible, the less convinced I am that it teaches that every person is born guilty of Adam’s sin. I can see the argument that humanity inherits a fallen world, a tendency toward sin, and the consequences of Adam’s rebellion. But I’m not sure Scripture clearly says that a newborn baby is already carrying personal guilt before God because of Adam.
Verses like Ezekiel 18, where each person is judged for their own sin, have become harder for me to ignore. Romans 5 is obviously the passage people point to for original sin, but I’m no longer convinced it means inherited guilt in the way many churches teach it.
It’s a strange place to be. I’ve spent a lot of time criticizing the Church of Christ for legalism, tribalism, and other issues, and I still have those criticisms. But I also think it’s important to admit when they may have gotten something right.
So this isn’t a defense of the Church of Christ as a whole. It’s just me acknowledging that on the specific question of original sin, I think their view may be closer to the biblical text than I once believed.
Has anyone else here gone through a similar reevaluation of original sin after leaving the Church of Christ?

Just had one of those moments that really shook me.
Went to a Church of Christ service for the first time in a long time because of a family thing. The Fourth of July sermon was basically a full-on American patriotism service with a thin layer of Bible verses on top.
The preacher took 1 Timothy 2 (which is literally about praying for rulers so they leave you alone) and somehow turned it into “we should be so thankful to live in the greatest nation on earth.” He even claimed “all men are created equal” was a biblical idea. I was sitting there thinking… that’s literally from the Declaration of Independence.
What got me the most wasn’t even how bad the exegesis was. It was how completely normal everyone acted about it. Like this was just regular preaching. Multiple people prayed about “restoring this nation to its Christian values.”
I’ve been out for a while now, but seeing it this clearly from the outside was honestly unnerving. The way American nationalism and Christianity are completely fused together in that culture is a lot more obvious when you’re not in it anymore.
Just needed to vent. Has anyone else had that “wow, I really don’t belong here anymore” moment when visiting?

Just had one of those moments that really shook me.
Went to a Church of Christ service for the first time in a long time because of a family thing. The Fourth of July sermon was basically a full-on American patriotism service with a thin layer of Bible verses on top.
The preacher took 1 Timothy 2 (which is literally about praying for rulers so they leave you alone) and somehow turned it into “we should be so thankful to live in the greatest nation on earth.” He even claimed “all men are created equal” was a biblical idea. I was sitting there thinking… that’s literally from the Declaration of Independence.
What got me the most wasn’t even how bad the exegesis was. It was how completely normal everyone acted about it. Like this was just regular preaching. Multiple people prayed about “restoring this nation to its Christian values.”
I’ve been out for a while now, but seeing it this clearly from the outside was honestly unnerving. The way American nationalism and Christianity are completely fused together in that culture is a lot more obvious when you’re not in it anymore.
Just needed to vent. Has anyone else had that “wow, I really don’t belong here anymore” moment when visiting?

Hey everyone,
I grew up in the Church of Christ and was always taught that miracles, tongues, and spiritual gifts all ceased once the Bible was completed, based on 1 Corinthians 13:10.
The older I get, the more this teaching feels forced and inconsistent. It basically says God used to work supernaturally but now He can only work through providence and natural means. It also requires you to believe demons and demonic activity basically retired after the apostles died.
Those of you who left the CoC, what are your thoughts on this? Do you still believe miracles and spiritual gifts stopped in the first century? Or do you think the Church of Christ’s position on this is wrong?
Would love to hear honest perspectives.

Hey everyone,
I’ve been out of the Church of Christ for a while now and the more I step back, the more something has been bothering me.
It feels like a huge part of American Christianity has basically fused itself with Republican politics. A lot of what gets preached as “biblical values” these days just sounds like conservative talking points with a Bible verse attached.
I’m starting to wonder how much of modern Christianity has been shaped more by Fox News and Republican ideology than by the actual teachings of Jesus. The emphasis on guns, low taxes, strong military, and defending wealth feels very American and very Republican, but not very much like the Jesus I read about in the gospels.
Has anyone else noticed this? How much do you think Christianity in America has been influenced or even hijacked by Republican politics?

Can we be honest for a second?
This is hypothetical
A huge part of Christianity teaches that if I don’t repent and change my sexuality, I’m going to burn in hell for eternity. And then they turn around and say “but we love you!”
I’m sorry, but that’s not love.
If you actually loved someone, the idea of them being tortured forever would destroy you. You wouldn’t be at peace with it. You wouldn’t be “agreeing to disagree” about it. You’d be desperate to find a way that they don’t end up in hell.
Instead, a lot of Christians seem completely fine with the idea. Some even seem to look forward to it. They’ll smile and say “love the sinner” while fully believing their sky daddy is going to throw me into a lake of fire one day.
That’s not love. That’s just them feeling morally superior while still getting to feel like good people.
Am I the only one who’s always seen right through this?

I was rereading 1 Corinthians 7 recently and got to verse 36 where Paul is talking about a man and his virgin. He basically says if she’s getting past her youth and people might start looking down on her for still being unmarried, the guy should go ahead and marry her so she doesn’t get shamed.
The whole logic just feels so gross to me. It’s not “if you love her, marry her.” It’s “she’s getting old and people are starting to talk, so you should probably marry her before her reputation is ruined.”
Am I the only one who finds this really disturbing? It feels like women’s worth was just tied to whether they were still young enough to be considered marriage material. The whole passage gives me the ick.
Anyone else get weird vibes from this chapter or am I overthinking it?

grew up Church of Christ and my dad was very firm that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old. Every time science class talked about dinosaurs, geology, or the age of the Earth, I’d come home and get the “that’s just what the world wants you to believe” talk.
It created this weird double life where part of me knew the school stuff made more sense, but I still felt guilty for even questioning it.
Did anyone else deal with this split-brain situation growing up? How did you eventually reconcile (or not reconcile) the two? Was young Earth creationism a big deal in your congregation too, or was it more of a family thing?

I’ve been thinking about this lately.
It feels like almost everything they focus on comes from Paul’s letters — their church structure, the “pattern,” their whole approach to doctrine. They’ll build entire sermons around a couple of verses from Paul.
Meanwhile, a lot of Jesus’ actual teachings get turned into vague spiritual ideas or barely get mentioned at all. It sometimes feels like Paul is the real authority, and Jesus is more of a mascot.
Anyone else notice this when you were in?

This is a repost because my last one got removed I apologize if my wording came across poorly or was misunderstood the first time.
I’ve been deconstructing for a while, but after listening to this past weekend’s Christian men’s conference, I’m genuinely unsettled.
The language used was extremely militant. Speakers were telling men to “pick up their swords,” “stop apologizing,” and to go point at people and aggressively demand they “repent right now.” One speaker specifically said we’re lacking “heterosexual Christian men with courage” who will confront people on the spot.
It was all very aggressive, militaristic talk about “fighting” and “taking back” things. I kept waiting for something that actually sounded like Jesus — love your enemies, turn the other cheek, blessed are the meek but that’s not what I heard.
I’m not saying all religion is bad. I’m just genuinely disturbed by what I heard and how easily this kind of aggressive, us-versus-them mentality seems to show up in these spaces.
Has anyone else had a similar reaction to stuff like this?

I’ve been deconstructing for a while, but this weekend I listened to a Christian men’s conference and it genuinely disturbed me.
They had speakers openly telling men to “pick up their swords,” “stop apologizing,” and basically go confront people and demand they repent on the spot. One guy literally said what we’re lacking today is “heterosexual Christian men with courage” who will point at people and say “Repent right now.”
They kept using violent, militaristic language — talking about “fighting,” “liberating the state,” and “taking up swords and shields for Christ.” All of this while claiming to follow the same Jesus who told people to turn the other cheek and love their enemies.
It wasn’t just one speaker either. This was the overall tone of the conference.
I’m genuinely starting to wonder if religion itself is the problem. Not just bad churches or bad theology — but the whole framework. Because this kind of militant, us-vs-them, “we’re at war” mindset seems to come out of religious thinking so easily.
Has anyone else reached this point? Where you start wondering if the entire concept of religion is inherently dangerous?

One of the strangest things about the Church of Christ is how theologically inconsistent they are.
They take:
• The Catholic view that baptism and works are necessary for salvation
• The Protestant idea of local congregational autonomy with no higher church authority
• A hardcore anti-creedal stance like non-denominational churches
• And a Restorationist obsession with “just following the New Testament”
Then they slam everyone else for being wrong.
They’re not Catholic. They’re not Protestant. They’re not Orthodox. They’re just this weird, unique American religious hybrid that doesn’t actually fit anywhere — while claiming to be the only ones who got Christianity right.
It’s genuinely one of the strangest theological combinations in modern Christianity.

They’ll mock Catholics for venerating saints, but then turn around and talk about certain preachers like they’re living legends. You’ll hear things like:
“I sat at his feet at Freed-Hardeman.”
“He was one of the greatest preachers of our generation.”
“He did more for the church than anyone I’ve ever known.”
They don’t light candles or pray to them, but they speak about these men with this strange reverence — almost like they’re saints in their own weird way. They name lectureships after them, quote them constantly, and treat their opinions like they’re almost infallible.
It’s wild how blind they are to it. They criticize other groups for having “heroes,” while doing the exact same thing with their favorite gospel preachers.