r/Exvangelical

This is an interesting one. The seeds of my deconstruction were planted during the 2016 election, which bloomed a few years ago. Yet in retrospect the fields were plowed and cordoned long before that.

I watched James Cameron's Avatar with my grandparents in theaters and was blown away by the visuals, ingenuity, and attention to detail with the flora and fauna, as was the whole world.

My grandfather, surprise surprise, was not impressed. You see, he has this paranoia about films in which he thinks the movie is out to get him. It made watching movies with him annoying, as we'd have a 5 minute debrief (rant) in the car ride home about how these movies elevate women, attack rich people, anti-military, anti-cop, the father's always abusive, bumbly weak men etc etc.

So with Avatar, it was too political, and anti military. Laughable, since the protagonist is a cishet white disabled marine. Also, the story has been done before. Dances with Wolves, The Last of the Mohicans, Braveheart, The Patriot, Pocahontas, etc. Indigenous people and/or other residents rally against a tyrannical force. Are those anti-military lefist agendas?

So I think at an early age it clicked for me that conservatism is plagued with a lack of media literacy and nuance, as well as cognitive dissonance. These people can be insanely smart and insane obtuse simultaneously.

So a good morality test I have found is Avatar indeed. If you think of it that way, you're probably not a good person. And it checks out usually, just look at their beliefs about Palestinians, undocumented immigrants, queer people, POCs, etc.

Grew up as an evangelical pastor’s kid - my dad continued to be a pastor well into my adulthood. I started to deconstruct 20+ years ago in college, and haven’t ever wavered or looked back.

My parents certainty have an idea of where I’m at now - I’ve had a few tearful confrontations from them - but we’ve never had a frank conversation about it, mostly because it’s easier not to. If they don’t know for sure how far gone I am, I don’t have to deal with more tears and pleading. So much of my life was spent having to unpack and justify my beliefs…I’m all the way done with that.

For my own sanity, I operate as though (and really believe) my parents have been tricked - they genuinely believe that Jesus is the way, genuinely believe that me not believing it will lead to my death, therefore genuinely believe their duty is to help save me. They’re never loud or mean - it’s very earnest and tearful. I haven’t ever felt the need to go no contact or confront them - I just hold them at arm’s length and treat them as people who believe differently than me.

Understandably, we aren’t close. They live a ways away, see my family and me twice a year at most, and don’t call often.

I have a seven year old, and we haven’t raised her in the church or faith in any way. We haven’t demonized any set of beliefs - we just talk about how different people believe different things. She’s been to church maybe five times in her life - all around visiting family for holidays.

It’s come up with her grandparents a few times, mostly around Christmas - “grandma and grandpa believe that this holiday is about Jesus being born”, “grandma and grandpa believe Jesus is…” etc. She’s only spent a little one on one time with them, and I know they’ve had some “Jesus loves you” and “god made you” convos because my daughter has asked me about it later - again, I just talk about it in the sense that everyone has their own beliefs.

Earlier this summer, my last grandparent passed away. We traveled for the funeral, and my dad led the services. Instead of honoring my grandparent, the service was a sermon about how thankful he was that my grandparent was a Christian and how we all have to believe Jesus is the way or we’ll perish.

In our few church visits with our daughter, we have managed to miss this message so far, but she definitely heard it this time. She whispered to me in panicky tears saying she doesn’t want to perish and that she’s sorry she never believed in god. I was already pretty emotional about the funeral, so I just told her “we don’t believe that” and said we would talk more afterward.

I almost thought she’d forgotten about it, but she brought it up again a few days later to ask me what “perish” meant. That really got me - she didn’t even know what the word meant, but the fear-mongering was so prevalent just in the way it was said that she knew to be scared.

I had a very similar “salvation” story - I was very young and prayed the sinner’s prayer because I was terrified by an Easter church musical - so this hit me extra hard. It’s come up a few times since then - I always try to reassure her that we don’t believe it, and if the god grandpa claimed to love was real, he wouldn’t kill people for believing something different. She kind of gets it, but the scare tactic worked. She said she does believe in god now, just so she won’t “perish.”

Thanks for letting me vent, if you’ve made it this far. I know I now need to have a convo with my parents about this boundary, which i hate, but I’m mostly just sad that I didn’t see this coming at a funeral, and that my daughter, despite my best efforts, was also a victim of the eternal damnation scare tactic.

im still deconstrcting, and im fighting very often whit my parents, but we are tryng our best to not destroy our relationship. i dont want to lose them, and they dont want to lose me. but obvisly theyre best desire is that i bacame christian again. i love them a lot, i whish only that they are a bit more flexible and open minded (but i need to say: that they are really tryng to understand me, and they did change in some topics theyre opinion)

i know every situation at home is different. i just want to know if its possibile to have a good relationship whit youre parents in a contex like decontructing

I’ve been looking at threads about growing up religious from the perspective of pastors’ kids and have come across a common theme. Many spent their childhoods moving from church to church, whether, from inner-church controversy or the pastors “religious calling” to relocate. I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how their father, the pastor, had narcissistic tendencies. I’ve also seen many say things about the pastor’s wife suffering from severe depression, BPD, or something similar. This resonates with me, as I was a pastor’s kid all of my childhood and saw these characteristics in both of my parents. I also spent most of my childhood moving from state to state across the Bible Belt because of religious and personal differences with my dad and the church we were currently at. I’m wondering if this really is as common of a theme as it would seem from the threads I’ve looked at so far. And if so, why? Is it these type of people who are attracted to each other, and then this lifestyle? Or does the psychological toll of this situation create these kinds of issues?

For the sake of the discussion, assume for a second that you go to church (even if you don't go). Also assume that you have only two choices: feeling debilitatingly alone when coming home after church or hanging out with fake friends after church who don't acknowledge or think about you otherwise.

I find the second option detestable, but I suffer from (triggering spoiler underneath the black) >!a certain kind of ideation!< at the thought of going home alone and eating alone and having no one to talk to at dinnertime/nighttime.

Shouldn't it be an easier choice to be alone than to be around phonies?

Edited to add: I don't go to an Evangelical church, but it doesn't mean that every other church is OK just because it's not Evangelical (I think we know that).

I’m going to my church’s family camp next week with my daughter, and I’m excited. She’s going to be with the junior high girls most of the week, and I’ll be in the men’s dorms and adult sessions.

The part I’m nervous about isn’t the camp itself. It’s the relationships.

I grew up in church camps, so I know how these weeks often go. People bond quickly. The men’s sessions often become very vulnerable. Confessing sin, talking about sexual temptation, accountability, prayer circles, and late-night conversations are all common.

Here’s my dilemma.

I’m a Christian man who is quietly gay. I don’t advertise it, and almost no one at church knows. I also know this isn’t the place to unpack all of that. I’m not posting to debate theology, and I’m not looking for arguments about whether my life is sinful or not. I already know the traditional Christian position, and that’s not what I’m asking about.

What I’m asking is this:
How do you pursue genuine Christian friendships when there’s a significant part of your life that you don’t feel free to share?

I’m afraid of several things at once.

I’m afraid someone will ask me a direct question that puts me on the spot.

I’m afraid of accidentally saying too much. (Vulnerability is currency in these circles - iykyk)

I’m afraid that everyone else will be confessing struggles while I feel like I have to carefully edit myself.

Most of all, I’m afraid of leaving camp with friendships that feel genuine to everyone else, but secretly wondering whether they actually know me, and how they would see me if they did.

I don’t want to isolate myself or stay superficial. I genuinely want Christian brothers. I want to laugh with them, pray with them, serve alongside them, and build lasting friendships.

I just don’t know how to navigate environments where vulnerability is encouraged when I feel like one of the biggest areas of my life can’t safely be part of that vulnerability.

Has anyone else experienced something similar, whether because of sexuality or some other deeply personal part of your life?

How did you balance authenticity with healthy boundaries? Were you able to build real friendships, or did you always feel like you were living behind a wall?

I’m especially interested in hearing from Christians who have wrestled with this tension themselves. If you’ve been in a situation where you loved your church and wanted deep friendships, but also carried something you didn’t feel free to share, I’d really value hearing how you navigated it.

Even though anyone can have authentic friendships, I realized it's quite difficult for Evangelicals because of the importance of converting people to the same theology and additionally, how this type of thinking bleeds over into relationships in general.

I say this as I've kept "friendships" with Evangelicals from my time as a Christian, but they have ended up ghosting because I wasn't agreeing enough with their views when prodded over time, or I ended the friendship because they kept trying to invite me to their church services or prayer sessions after saying "no I am not interested in that".

Now these have all been quite friendly and supportive people in my life in other ways, and of course moreso when I was still a Christian. But I've finally started thinking that maybe their friendliness after leaving the church was more "instrumental" as well, like I still had to fulfill a certain hopeful checkbox in their life that could be nudged with being nice instead being authentically kind people.

Hello All!

I'm a 35 year old woman who was raised in the height of purity culture and other high anxiety situations, and additionally have spent my entire adult life working in high stress/crisis work.

Growing up, no one talked to me in depth about my body or guided me through puberty, and I was scared to explore my own body because of PC. I attempted to use a tampon a few times as a teen and even in my early 20s, but always felt like I was physically hitting a wall when trying to insert one and it was painful when I tried to push through that "wall". I never had a pap smear and never had anyone I could safely talk to about these things.

I left the church and, for the most part, the religion, around 2016 (Trump, among several other things, pushed me right out the door).

About a year and a half ago, I started dating a man who was never raised in the church or in purity culture. I knew that if I continued the relationship, I wanted to be able to successfully have sex. I shared with him my struggles- how I was raised, that I had never been sexually intimate, and that I had never successfully been able to insert anything into my vagina. He was nothing short of kind, gentle, supportive, and loving.

In trying to figure out what to do and how to address the situation, I thankfully stumbled upon a new practice in my small rural town that addressed pelvic health specifically. They noted that one of the things they addressed was painful sex. I have been attending pelvic floor physical therapy for almost a year and to say it has been life-changing is an understatement. I am so incredibly grateful for the PT's that have worked with me and I am so proud of myself for how far I have come. They helped me learn and understand my body better, as well as how much stress/tension/anxiety I hold in my vagina. They helped me understand that the fear that had been instilled in me growing up, in addition to my daily stress and anxiety, had essentially left me clenching my vaginal muscles 24/7 - shortening my muscles and leaving my body unsure how to loosen and relax. We worked on different types of breath work, external and internal stretches, and relaxation techniques. I practiced with dilator sets and was amazed to really make the connection between my stress/anxiety level and my pelvic floor - I could use one size dilator one day and be fine, but if two days later I was having an extremely stressful day and tried to use that same dilator, I would not be able to fit it in my vagina because I could not fully relax myself.

When I started PT about a year ago, a single finger sitting at the entrance of my vagina immediately led to panic for me and a sensation of pain. Roughly a month ago my partner and I had successful and pain-free penis-in-vagina sex for the first time, and today I used a tampon successfully and pain-free for the first time!

I just want to share because not only am I incredibly proud of myself and my progress, but I also want to give hope/encouragement to those who are in my position. I certainly wish that I knew about pelvic floor therapy many years before, but I had never heard of it, and no one had ever shared their experiences with me.

And finally, FUCK PURITY CULTURE.

I was raised in the very early Evangelical church in the 1970s and 1980s. That's when the term Evangelical didn't exist yet. They called themselves "born-again". Doesn't have the same ring does it. The power that be back then were just figuring themselves out. Fire and brimstone was fairly new. The Assembly of God denomination was fairly young. The Satanic crazy was rolling hard.

My parents got sucked in. They didn't just dabble. They dove of the board into the deep side. Everything was Satanic. New things were added all the time by the pastors testing the waters to see how far they could go without losing money. Turns out they could go very far and haven't stopped since.

I was never completely down for all of it. I had my moments but my brain would ask questions that my parents couldn't answer. I lost everything I enjoyed as a child. My parents and brother shunned me in my own home if I stepped out of line. Mom and Dad would make me sit in the living room with them while they watched channel 40 and refused to talk to me. They went through my stuff constantly because they knew I wasn't as devout as they were.

I started to exert some of my own individuality eventually. That was a huge problem. I would question the pastor's sermons because what he claimed Jesus said wasn't what was in my Bible.

I shared a love of fantasy and sci-fi books with my grandmother. My parents would tolerate the sci-fi to a point. It had to be based in actual science. Most books of fiction are not that specific. My true love was fantasy stories. I loved the hero fighting evil and winning. Sword and Sorcery caught my imagination. Magic and everything affiliated with it was Satanic. My grandmother helped me find fantasy books that had the hero, the monster, the thrill of the good person winning, but without the magic.

But I still had to be careful. My stuff would disappear occasionally no matter how well I hid it. And what was allowed varied day to day. I have spent over 30 years thinking about one young adult book I had been reading that disappeared. I didn't remember the title, the author, and it was mass market at the time. Books go out of print fast. I only remembered a few parts of the plot. But I never got to finish it when it went "missing".

Last week, I broke down and used AI to help find it. It took an hour because I remembered so little about the story. But I found it. "The Hero and The Crown". Located it at a online used book store and it just arrived this week. My husband is working this weekend. I am going to read my book and reclaim just a little bit of my childhood back.

I feel so rebellious and as if I am a kid again sneaking around my parents. I'm 53 and this one little thing makes me feel like I'm a kid again.

I just wanted to share something with y'all because you will understand what an important moment this is. F' you mom, dad, and your hate filled version of god. I'm free.

im just curios. did you became atheist, or agnostic or anything else? after my deconstruction, i stopped being christian but i still belive sometimes in a higher power, in nature or in silence

To anyone who grew up in purity culture, I hope this gives you a smile today:

I grew up catholic initially, and then my mom became Pentecostal and dragged my sister and I into it at the height of Bush era purity culture. I got indoctrinated with all the "Don't be a half eaten chocolate box" nonsense. Naturally, I got married at 19 years old. Despite doing what I was taught, I ended up in an emotionally abusive marriage with someone who would threaten to hurt themselves if I tried to leave, and eventually escalated that to threatening to hurt others.

Eventually, I did leave, and surprise surprise, he didn't follow through on the threats, and I was set free, but also fired from the worship team (it was volunteer, but still it's like getting fired). That entire experience was so traumatizing that I didn't really have a real boyfriend again for 5+ years. Purity culture left me feeling like crap because I wasn't a virgin anymore.

Fast forward two years from the divorce, I started doing stand up comedy and I'd talk about the experience on stage. Fast forward 13 years from that to today: I'm about to film my first comedy special in Portland. It's about purity culture and I'm using stand up to tell the story and heal people with the message. I've been touring it everywhere from LA to Pittsburgh to Sydney, Australia. I hope this doesn't sound like a brag because it's not meant to be.

Our trauma and healing journeys leave us so much stronger on the other side. It's like climbing up a mountain, and then we can turn around and help the next person up those last few steps up that mountain. Don't give up. Keep healing. Keep doing the things that bring you joy and know that you are worthy no matter what the 40 year old youth pastor wearing a puka shell necklace told us at winter camp.

I don’t know why a lot of evangelicals want to believe that God is a hateful being who likes “sinners” to die by an earthquake, flood or other natural disaster, i really do not, can someone explain me what’s the logic behind that if Jesus Christ saved us?

How did your Evangelical parents handle (or fail to handle) sex education and all the awkward conversations at the time of puberty? My parents made a big fuss about “parental rights” and sex education in public school, so I was opted out of sex ed class and sent to the library. The irony is that, after all their hot air about giving their children sex education at home, my parents just popped in a VHS tape of some PBS documentary, asked me if I had any questions, and that was the end of my “Christian” sex education. Ridiculous.

Update: thank you all for sharing your stories, your pain, your anger, and your strength. Sex education is awkward in the best of circumstances, but what most of us experienced was neglectful and abusive. We were all damaged to some extent, but we escaped. Whether you are raising children or have the opportunity to make an impact in other ways, we are doing better than our parents did. They failed.

The Nature of the Religious Right: The Struggle between Conservative Evangelicals and the Environmental Movement

by Neall W. Pogue

I found this book to be quite interesting in explaining the history and reasons why this mindset exists. There were many of the same people and organizations that were talked about in Jesus and John Wayne.

DAE remember this call and response chant from Aquire the Fire? Thought of it last night and laughed out loud.

Please please read everything before commenting. I'm not homophobic. I'm a gay man. I'm so sorry if this isn't the right place to post this, I'm just hurting so bad right now.

I'm 19 and I've been deconstructing from a really strict Calvinist background. I've been attracted to men since I was little, and I used to think I was the only guy who ever felt this way until I found out that's not true. It made me question everything and I don't even know if I can call myself Christian now. I wish Christianity could accept me, but I look at the history of the gospels and things just don't line up with anything. But it was nice to have a community, and I miss that.

Leaving that aside, I started getting into dating this year because it's my first year in college and I'm meeting all kinds of people, which is great. I've never been physical with anyone before. I've never even held hands with a guy. I've been mostly chatting with guys that are also attracted to men, and I've talked to three guys so far. Just talking stages.

There was this guy I met and he was flirting with me a lot. I've never had any experience like this but he was cute and it lasted pretty much 2 months where we would flirt and sometimes go out. But he would often talk about sexual things and ask me sexual questions out of nowhere and it made me a bit upset, but I was just happy a man I found attractive was interested in me and I just went on with it. He ultimately said something hurtful to me about being a Jew (I'm half Ashkenazi) about a medieval blood libel conspiracy saying that he genuinely questions it and that "he believes it a bit". I stopped texting him as much because I wasn't sure about things anymore. And we literally didn't talk after that

Then another guy I talked to was pretty much the same with the sexual comments out of nowhere. He would also ask me if I'd ever be open to an open relationship because in his last relationship the reason why he broke up with his boyfriend is because he kept having lustful thoughts towards other guys, and his boyfriend didn't like that nor did he want an open relationship. He would also randomly send me pictures of his boxers as we were just having a random unrelated conversation and I stepped up and distanced myself. When I told him that I'd like to get married and maybe adopt kids someday, and that I really dislike casual sex, he laughed at me and said "well what do you want us to do? Go to church?"..

But the guy I stayed with a bit longer (from March to mid-June) actually made me really happy for a while. We talked a lot, we would go out or watch movies, I'd go to his place, kiss, etc. He wasn't as pushy as the others. But last time I went to his place we were watching something in bed and he started touching me, he knew I hadn't done anything before. I told him I was scared, and when he entered me it hurt so bad that I panicked and told him to stop and take it out.

He instantly flipped and got incredibly angry. He told me I'm wasting his time, that he's a busy guy, and when he wants sex he wants it without all the "intimacy baggage". He literally said he hates having to talk to a guy before or after sex because it's awkward, that he gets bored the second he's done and just wants to get back on his phone or do whatever he was doing before he got horny.

And I genuinely felt my chest hurting because man what? I am crying so fucking bad right now because I feel like an absolute fool. My entire childhood, the church hammered it into my head that gay relationships are inherently shallow and driven purely by lust, and that only straight couples have a real balance. Now all those sermons are echoing in my head and I'm having thoughts that they might actually be right and that I should stop before I go to hell.

I logically know that an entire group of people cannot all be like this, and I know there are married, loving same-sex relationships out there. But why is it so fucking hard? I feel like there is something wrong with me because I am attracted to men, physically and sexually but I'm just not like this, nor do I think it's okay. But it seems like every single guy I meet has a huge body count and they view sex as a transaction and I don't see it like that, to me it's one of the most meaningful and vulnerable ways to connect with someone and I'm sitting here like wtf I just had my first kiss a few months ago.

I feel like giving up and I know this is such a stupid rant so please forgive me. I just wish I could be in a long term, happy same sex relationship without all the hookup culture embedded into absolutely everything. I feel like they all viewed me as an object or toy to them and nothing else. The church told me I don't belong but the guys I meet make me feel the same. Are there any people on this sub who are actually in happy, long-term same-sex relationships after leaving the church? It would just be nice to hear from people who are doing well. Also if anyone has any thoughts on how to dismantle those church arguments that would be great, thank you so much. :(

Hi everyone,

I’m a postgraduate researcher at Bath Spa University (UK) doing a small qualitative study exploring how young people make sense of growing up in Christian environments.

I’m especially interested in how people understand things like belonging, identity, authority, morality, guilt/shame, and personal change in those contexts - whether that experience was positive, difficult, complicated, or somewhere in between. I’m interested in how people themselves interpret their experiences over time.

You can take part if you:

Are aged 16-18
Were raised in a Christian context (any denomination or background)
Are currently in the UK (or recently lived here)

It doesn’t matter if you’re still practising, no longer practising, questioning, or somewhere in-between.

What taking part involves
One online interview (45-60 minutes, Microsoft Teams)
A relaxed conversation about your experiences growing up in a Christian setting
You choose what you want to talk about
You can skip questions or stop at any time

Ethics & safety
This study has full ethical approval from Bath Spa University’s Research Ethics Committee, following BERA (British Educational Research Association) guidelines.

A quick note because this sometimes comes up:

UK universities don’t use “IRB numbers” like US institutions
This study has been formally approved through university ethics procedures
Everything is confidential and anonymised
Data is stored securely under UK GDPR rules
Safeguarding procedures are in place if needed

If you’d like more info or want to take part, you can contact me here:

Ruth Lloyd
ruth.lloyd24@bathspa.ac.uk

I’ll send an information sheet first, and you can decide after reading it whether you want to take part.
University: Bath Spa University
Ethics approval: Granted via institutional research ethics process ( in adherence to BERA (2018/2024)
Participants: Ages 16–18 (Gillick competent)
Safeguarding: Protocol in place
Data: Anonymous, GDPR compliant
Supervisor oversight: Yes

I noticed that even among those of us who are deconstructing, there are some of us who get offended by absolutes and “lumping “ especially when certain issues of bigotry and just backwards beliefs are specifically tied to Christian and evangelicals and yet you get some people defending them with the “not all Christian’s” and want to shut you down and not here your experiences as to why you are asking such an absolutist question.