r/Exvangelical

I (28F) grew up with a lot of sexual shame given the Christian beliefs I was raised in and i think my own good girl tendencies fell with this harder.

In my early 20s, my thoughts on purity culture and I wanted to become more sexually confident

However, I hadn't been able to explore this with a partner having recently broken up with my first boyfriend. I basically stayed single for 6 years because of an intense career situation and knowing that I was going to move away from home (South FL)

In January, I moved away to London for a career break/change/masters and decided I was finally going to date and explore my sexuality. I shortly after met my now British boyfriend and lost my virginity to him in early May.

The relationship with someone more experienced than I has been nice, but we've had issues in getting me to orgasm. I've never orgasmed on my own nor with him and we're both frustrated about it. I've tried to pleasure myself but it's pretty bleak and never feels as good as when Im with him. I feel like I set such a high wall of sexual repression that I get in my own way in just enjoying the pleasure. He wants to try with toys and maybe even medical advice. It's not like I don't feel pleasure, I just feel like I block myself psychologically in allowing myself to just let the orgasm happen??

I wanted to ask if any women here have gone through something similar and how do you go about finally orgasming. I have PCOS and have been taking oral contraceptives since I was 14 if that helps with context.

My AoG parents trigger me just by existing. My mom is the “Jesus is the answer to any question’ poster child and makes sure to sprinkle Jesus into literally every conversation.

My daughter just celebrated her birthday and we had my parents come by to join us for dinner. They brought gifts, of course all religious themed (charm bracelet with Christian symbols, the case for Christ kids book series, science according to the Bible workbook etc). I kept my mouth shut, smiled politely and let it go.

We have an upcoming trip to London planned and my daughter shared that she’s excited to see the Harry Potter experience. 10 guesses on my mom’s opinion of Harry Potter. We made it through the topic unscathed, and I moved the conversation to the next topic to avoid conflict.

On the drive home from dinner conversation turned to math (we are a fun bunch I promise). Something about the infinite number of possibilities of shuffling cards in a deck and how big the number is. I then decided to bring up a book I just read that also explored the concept of infinite and vastness …except the book is called… a short stay in hell.

I explained briefly the character arrives in hell to find that the beliefs he held in life were wrong and he is sent to a version of hell specific to his interests (because what kind of religion teaches that you will be tortured by fire for eternity). He was sent to a library with infinite books with the task of finding the book that is the story of his life. The math on actually finding it and the visual imagery of the book communicates this vastness in a unique and memorable way. Nice story, or so I thought.

My mom was muttering prayers under her breath while I was talking about the book. Because reading books like that is evil apparently. I again didn’t say anything and the next day brought up how I’m frustrated about this to my husband. He seems to think I brought it on myself by introducing the topic and should know better than to talk about something like that.

I’m angry because why should I have to hide everything about myself including what books I read ? Of course that triggered me because my upbringing was all about conforming to their beliefs and denying my own thoughts, opinions and emotions because they were deemed evil or wrong. And now I’m grown and I can’t talk about a book I enjoyed because it’s inviting my mom’s judgement? And my husband thinks it’s a me problem and I should practice accommodations for them and that makes it worse because that means it’s something in me that needs fixing. I think it’s a them problem and want to tell them off or set boundaries that they aren’t welcome if they can’t keep their judgement to themselves.

Really don’t know what to do about them anymore. I hate having them over I feel like a mess afterwards for days.

so I guess last night I had all the memories of me being SAed by a parent come rushing back to me. that kind of sucked but honestly could’ve been worse. I’d kind of saw it coming for a while.

but recently I’ve started to go from a sort of vague theist to an atheist. I was suddenly very thankful for that because my immediate response was “where was God in all of that?”

where was that god when I, a poor defenseless child was crying and screaming for help huh?

o digress though, that led me to what people used to always tell me when I doubted the existence of said god. “well you just have to believe” or whatever.

so you want me to “just believe“ in a loving god? in this economy?

but that then led to me think “huh, maybe blindly following an authority figure, and thinking that’s the way to go is how so many kids evens up being cictims of abuse.”

they don’t question it because they were told to ignore their feelings.

im probably not the first person who has said this but honestly im PISSED about it.

It's happening in our family. A relative I am close to has fallen down the rabbit hole. And my parents are gobsmacked. We taught them better! So it got me thinking, and I made a list of who gets targeted. Feel free to add more in the comments:

1. The Lonely: I suspect this is why our relatives got sucked in. They are selling out everything about themselves just to have a social group. Just so they're children can have friends. They are trying to fit in. If there's one thing churches can do well, it's community. They target those who have moved to a new city, or away from home for the first time (ie: college). They love bomb them and give them a place to belong. It doesn't help that they bait and switch and can co-opt regular culture (Disney, musical theater) to suck people in.

2. The Traumatized: These people have experienced terrible events (drugs, alcoholism, death in the family). They turn to evangelism because it gives them an easy answer to why The Bad Thing happened. I didn't pray hard enough, lack of faith, the devil, etc.

3. The Uneducated/Naive: They get targeted because they haven't had a whole lot of life experience. Or, they haven't been taught critical thinking. That makes them ripe for the picking. They can be convinced to give half of their paycheck and not question why. And they're also wanting Easy Answers to all the problems.

4. The Already Psychopaths: They get into it because they see it as another way to grift. And because evangelism has little accountability, they can engage in all their shenanigans and not get caught. They don't genuinely believe in it. They just want to grift and abuse.

I’m just so pissed. They have always chosen their crazy beliefs over family in every way imaginable and called it holy, but this just pushed me over the edge. Thankfully, we don’t live close.

They only even told my husband about it because he asked if they’d contribute to a playset for the kids. Apparently they can’t afford anything but this fucked up trip and the new rental house on their property and their yearly cruise and all the conferences my step FIL has to go to as a pastor and nothing else. I know they don’t owe us anything but we don’t owe Zionists doomsday crazies access to our children or us.

Sometimes it feels like a fever dream, but growing up we had Sky Angel TV which was supposed to be a “safe, family friendly” option to watch TV. Channels like PAX, TVU, 3ABN, CBN, KTV, etc.

Did anyone else have or remember this? I remember TVU so well because they played Christian music videos and introduced me to rock music. Definitely served as a gateway into the music I love today. I can’t find half of these things when I Google it so sometimes I think I’m making all of this up lol. Please tell me someone else remember.

It’s been years and years since I’ve consumed any sort of Christian media outside of music, but I find a certain nostalgia listening to and remembering those bands from time to time. I remember being banned from listening to it because it wasn’t Christian enough.

Anyway, just wondering if anyone else remembers Sky Angel, and specifically TVU.

I feel like my whole life and identity was built around being a believer. I went to a private christian school during my elementary school years where I was trained to be a martyr for Christ. After graduating high school, I went to 3 years of Bethel (Atlanta) School of Supernatural Ministry and became one of the outreach leaders. I've "ministered" to thousands of people at this point. I started my deconstruction in 2012.

Since that time, I have become a recluse. I don't really talk to any old friends or even my family for the most part. Letting go of god has been such an alienating process, but it has made me closer to myself and understanding my own emotions and desires. In a way, it has made me more human. Letting go of Christianity has made me feel more accountable for my own failures and successes.

Lately, I've been struggling with making a post on Facebook telling everyone who and why I am currently. I've lost everyone from my prior life, but I feel the need to be equally outspoken with my non-belief as I was when I was a believer.

Has anyone dealt with this feeling, and how did you handle it? Did you feel better after "coming out"?

Let me preface by saying I'm a christian. Is that fine? hopefully. Pls don't make me go somewhere else hehe.

I'm in South Africa and it's weird seeing how the (very American) evangelical world has such a hold here. My mom is obsessed with some self proclaimed prophets (online) . I love my mom and we actually have a pretty good relationship. It took a lot to get where we are.

Basically: What are your best tips for speaking to someone you care about and want to have a relationship with, who's caught up in the evangelical world (especially digitally).

Note: a very serious convo was had after the world didn't end last year September. I thought we got through, but it hasn't changed much. These people know what to say. I want to know what the best 'in the moment' responses are.

Another note: doccie opportunity? someone want to investigate these "prophets" with me?

I’m talking about people who swear they are not racist, but support ice and blame our economic problems on “mass immigration”. Like just admit you want to make America white and that you will be unsatisfied until that happens. It’s like they know how evil their views are, so they have to sugarcoat it with ideology/conspiracy theories in order to feel justified in their racism.
For context my whole family is made up of these Christian conservative assholes. I’m 26 and have been fully out of the cult for about 4 years now but I still think about how long I held those same views. I think about how they used to say “well if these immigrants would just do things the right(white) way then they wouldn’t have to worry about their families being torn apart”. Like do you not hear how incredibly privileged you sound? I think about how I used to blame my lack of employment on immigrants, rather than confronting the fact that I was incredibly depressed and was therefore incapable of holding a steady job.
Sorry for the rant. Just needed to get this off my chest. I love all you beautiful people. Please stay safe, the world is fucking crazy right now.

For context I am in therapy for childhood trauma, using EMDR. I am aware that this is part of the solution.

I could give an extremely detailed account of my painful deconstruction from traditional Roman Catholicism to existential philosophy and psychology, but it's not really the point. I just want to make clear that I have an agnostic worldview and am trying to find contentment in uncertainty.

Before converting to Catholicism, and becoming a
"Trad" I was raised southern Pentecostal with a severely traumatized and abusive mother who was desperate to make sense of the world through angels, demons, and the Holy Spirit. Speaking in tongues, spiritual wartare, etc.

Naturally, I developed a similar hypervigilance toward strange coincidences, which often produced feelings of powerlessness if bad and euphoria if good.

Now, all coincidences (good and bad) produce fresh existential crises, a year into therapy and religious deconstruction.

Recently, after moving into a new home, my wife heard rhythmic tapping noises while putting our son to sleep and texted me asking me to be quiet (it wasn't me). Then, I woke up smelling rotten eggs the next night for a few seconds (my upper bedroom nowhere near gas) And the next day (today) we had to call 911 because all of our fire alarms went off. The firemen could detect no gas or carbon monoxide anywhere. All the detectors are high end, brand new, and hard wired. They were all confused.

Now I am getting closer to a full break down of despair and powerlessness, fearing there are invisible creatures laughing at me and taunting me and there's nothing I can do, especially since I'm not religious anymore. I am even more powerless.

I always felt like sloppy wet disallowed for consent.

I am 20F and live at home with my parents in a small, heavily evangelical Christian town. Almost the entirety of my extended family also lives here.
I actually really like my hometown for the most part, and I love my family devotedly.

However, I have always struggled to have “faith” like they do. I was raised going to church three times a week, went to all the camps, joined Bible studies, and even acted as the youth worship leader from 13-16. In other words, I was IN IT. I tried. I believed. I begged. I even “felt the Holy Spirit” and “spoke in tongues” and was told my “voice is anointed”.
But I’ve always suspected it was less about God and more about the thrill of belonging, of everyone singing and crying together, of knowing how to perform to get a certain reaction, of doing everything I could to be SURE I wouldn’t go to Hell even if I had to pretend.
I just don’t know if I can pretend anymore. I’m tired of the act, and I’m tired of trying to believe in a God I’m not even sure I’d like if He truly was real.

But I feel like I’m stuck. My family is still very religious and conservative, and my grandma (my favorite person in the world) regularly cries tears of joy about how lucky she is that our whole family is saved and hasn’t strayed from God… and I just sit there feeling enough shame and guilt to choke me.
I don’t want to hurt them. I don’t want them to treat me differently or be in a constant state of worry over my salvation.
They are honest, good people. They love me and truly want what’s best for me, and, to them, that is God. I almost feel like I’d be a monster for breaking their hearts like this.

Another HUGE factor is my boyfriend. We’ve been together for two years, and I love him with all my heart. We have such a healthy and loving relationship, and I feel safe and accepted with him. We have talked about life together and marriage (though that would not happen for several years) and truly think we are it for each other.
However, he is Catholic (not very devout, though) and wants his family to be Catholic as well.
I have talked to him about my struggles with belief ever since we started dating, and he has always been very understanding and supportive. But I can’t help but worry that he has been expecting me to just… end up believing the same thing as him? I don’t know.
We talked about it recently, and he said he doesn’t believe everything in the Bible is true, doesn’t believe in Hell, doesn’t believe humans are inherently evil, and doesn’t believe humans are sinners unworthy of God’s love. So he wouldn’t be teaching his children those things either. BUT he still wants his children to be labeled as Catholic and to go through all the sacraments. How does that work??
It seems to me he doesn’t really believe in most of it, but he wants the little things that come with believing.

I’m just so confused. I don’t know what to do.
I don’t know whether to talk to my parents about it or just keep the act up until I can move out of the house.
But I’ll still have to go to church because my dad will throw a fit if I don’t.
I don’t know whether or not I should break up with my boyfriend or just stay and see what we can figure out.
He is so supportive and kind, but I’m just not sure if I can reconcile with raising my kids “Catholic” while teaching them to not even believe in most of it except for Jesus and God, I guess (which I don’t even know if I believe in).

Am I overthinking this? Does anyone have any advice or suggestions? Or even any books I could read to know more about deconstruction?

I’m so lost and filled with guilt and fear, and I feel like a child. I wish I would have been born into something else or that I could have been the kind of person who is content with blindly believing.

Thanks for reading this. Sorry it was so long.

This might be a weird place to post this, but I don’t want to post in the evangelical group because I hope to not be attacked in there. I didn’t grow up evangelical. I grew up/am LDS (Mormon). I know a lot of people have their own thoughts on my religion and that’s ok. Last night, my son asked me if our church is true (8 almost 9). I told him that I personally believe it is true (I really try to word things that this is what I believe, not what YOU believe if that makes sense.) Because even though yes he is baptized, I still want him to grow his own testimony (or not) and never want to force my beliefs on him. I asked him why he asked me this kind of randomly, and he said his friend, let’s call him “Mark”, same age, told him “Your church is fake, your scriptures are fake by a fake person, your church believes in the enemy of God” and said his parents told him that. My son said this came up last time he saw him which would’ve been roughly 3 weeks ago, so he has internalized this conversation and he said it hurt his feelings.

I explained to him that there are so many beliefs in the world. I explained to him that some people believe in our church, some people people in other Christian religions (and explained the trinity vs LDS beliefs don’t believe in the trinity), I told him there are religions out there that don’t believe that Jesus is the savior, and that there are people who flat out don’t believe in God at all. I told him that’s ok that everyone believes differently and that we can be kind about everyone’s beliefs and not put anyone down for what they believe. I also told him that different beliefs go beyond religion, that people have opinions on everything.

It made me think of a time I had picked “Mark” up and we passed a house in their neighborhood who has a Jewish family that lives there. He said “oh look there’s the Jews” as this family was outside hanging out together. That bothered me because it sounded so judgmental.

Another instance with this family, is I have another friend who can be a little strange about my religion, that we invited to my son’s baptism. She said her son, who is my son’s ultimate best friend, would be confused to go to the baptism. I vented to “Marks” mom and she said that she thinks it’s more so that she thinks they don’t want to support something that they don’t believe. And gave the example that she wouldn’t attend a gay wedding because she’d be clapping and congratulating something she didn’t agree on. I took that as she wasn’t coming, but the night before the baptism she told me that she forgot she had a sourdough class booked. Just a week before that “Marks” bday party was almost canceled due to weather and I offered to use our church gym and she was so grateful for that, so it feels she’s ok to use our church amenities when it helps her but can’t support a friend.

I guess I’m trying to understand why this particular family, they’re Baptist by the way, treats other beliefs like it’s a horrible thing. Is this a rooted belief because of things they are taught either by pastors or generationally passed down?

Thank you to those who took the time to read this.

Sometimes we need some laughter in all of this. I'm looking for comedy movies that examine evangelical Christianity in different ways.

Whether "escape" was while you were still in an evangelical church, or a good laughter release after you left. What are your favorite movies about this? (Or the extension of evangelical beliefs?)

Im 47, so my two are very of my Xennial era.

1. Saved (2004 indie comedy)

2. But I'm a Cheerleader (1999 comedy about a high school girl sent to a conversion camp)

I'd love to hear yours!

Hi, I'm 15 years old, I would appreciate if anyone has the same story / trauma and managed to rescue their own mind from this terrifying religious conditioning. please read!

My extremist religious mom pulled me out of public school and homeschool me to "protect" me from this world and "Woke schools brainwashing kids into becoming nonbinary cats" (she repeated it for years and years) When I was like 8 years old mom would yell and get furious for me listening or watching anything secular (pop, kpop, my little pony, Star Wars) and it's "corrupting" my soul which is why I have panic attacks. I believed it for years that it caused my crippling anxiety (when in reality it was because I was getting abused). Now, when I listen to any music, I get scared because of her lessons that music is evil and has subliminal satanic messaging in it.

She threw out my favorite Harry Potter books when I was 9 (her “research” showed witchcraft invites satanic spirits), claimed to see spirits and ghosts, watches channels that claim the LEGO MOVIE!!!! is "satanic Christian persecution propaganda” and complete qanon maga conspiracies etc. She claimed my dad’s abuse was ”just Satan controlling him“ denies the existence of mental health and tried to do “Christian cbt” on me, taught me for years that I need to kill myself instead of denying Christ + said she would sacrifice and kill me if God asked. It really messed with me. (She sadly isn’t mentally well btw)

whenever I have anxiety she berates me, says it's my fault because I'm not a "good Christian." When I use past tense in this post I actually mean present tense, she still does all this sh-t. She claims I’m chronically ill because I’m not seeking God. whenever I have any single negative thought or anxiety I think "oh it must be because I listened to too much music today and didn't pray and it's influencing me satanically as mom said! That must be why" and I don't know if it's true or not. I don't trust any of my thoughts and I'm not a person anymore. She always says the rapture is happening very soon, Christians will be murdered and persecuted in America soon, and that I need to be focused on church (which I don’t care about) and I’m scared of going to hell and I don’t know what’s wrong or right anymore or what I beleive, my mind feels so fractured and I don’t know what the point of life is, since she always says there’s none and all that matters is being a servant of god. Help.

I revisited a radio show I had listened to growing up sometime when I was 17/18 and I noticed sort of a weird thing about it. they were what I can only describe as “unhinged.”

I mean yeah we know this. if you listen to Klove these days in the midday it’s likely they’ll be broadcasting some girl crying over how much she loves the “word of God” or whatever. just going off about how amazing the station is to try and fill time.

but I’m not talking about the “oh we’re so Christian” ones. I mean the ones that were considered “good.@ by what standard I have no idea. but I guess just compared to the competition.

anyway what I noticed is that the guy in the show was honestly kind o narcissistic. and the other person in the show was also fairly self absorbed but also just seemed very emotionally unwell.

I’ve done radio shows myself, given unprofessionally but I feel like there is a level of etiquette like there would be in any workplace.

i get that she was going through it but like she started sobbing on air because her dog died or because she was happy her husband and her were still together despite “infidelity.”which… seems like a very personal thing to be talking about on a show that is broadcasted to probably hundreds of thousands of people AT LEAST. but yeah it would go from a fun quirky conversation to the other host trying to be consoling and smoothly transition to the next song or something. which I gotta respect him for cause I think I’d quit on the spot if my cohost atarted uncontrollably bawling on air more than a few times within shows that were maybe over the course of a few weeks.

so yeah, I’ve not listened to much “secular“ radio to be fair. but it just randomly popped into my mind after having a convo with someone about controversial Christian music stuff. it was actually shortly after I noticed these things happening that my local radio station took them off air and then the station they were working for got bought by another company. but I think they are still going today.

edit: I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m hating on someone for having an emotional breakdown. I just think she needs therapy not to be… on air where everyone can see it too… I feel like that should’ve been addressed by the station.

also I think she might’ve actually stopped and hes just still doing a show? I have no idea…

edit 2: other weird thing the guy on this show, o say is narcissistic. I don’t really know if that’s the right word but he definitely puts on a kind of like “oh yes I’m a Christian“ act when he’s on air. I followed him on social media and he acted like a normal human there for the most part. Like never talked about his faith or Christian music it was kind of weird. I mean it was nice but also just so odd