Are You a Heretic? Start Here!

come find your version of the hereafter

Photo by Daniel John on Unsplash

This summer my family visited friends in Spain whom we hadn’t seen since before the pandemic. We rendezvoused at a little tapas place and spent the evening catching up and planning the next few days’ sightseeing. When my friend started talking about the town’s cathedral, my seven-year-old son, T, started protesting he would not be visiting ANY churches so loudly that the folks at the next table turned to stare.

We adults tried to explain that these old stone cathedrals, apart from being beautiful, were one of the few places to cool off midday, but he wasn’t having it.

I joked, “T is a staunch atheist.”

Knowing my history, my friend turned to me and asked, “And where are you at these days?”

He was the latest in a long line of friends and family to ask me this question. Christian and non-Christian friends alike have wondered aloud at the dramatic change in my spiritual life. How did I, someone who spent every Sunday from birth until my early 30s in church, who graduated from a Christian college, who has been a youth deacon, who was selected to represent my congregation at regional and national conferences, who spent her adolescence as a Christian puppeteer for Christ’s sake (Literally, oh ho!) how had someone like me just quit?

That’s been hard to explain. I wasn’t excommunicated for speaking out about my beliefs, nor did a handsy youth pastor swear me to secrecy (#churchtoo.) What happened was slower but no less dramatic—it was the dissolution of the ground beneath my feet, the realization that church has, for much of my life, felt like a fracturing of myself. I had to shrink and shame myself to fit into rigid theologies about sex and gender (purity culture, complementarianism), I had to divorce myself from my empathy (condemning LGBT people, ignoring racism, praying for change rather than enacting it). Even when I left the conservative beliefs of my upbringing in favor of a nice, liberal church, I still felt I couldn’t show up as my full, authentic self: I have doubts, I have grief, I have a mountain of anger, and church seems more like the place for polite agreement, coffee chitchat, and children’s choirs.

I’d always imagined my break from church would be temporary. Christianity has been central to my identity—something I’m reminded of every time I catch a glimpse of the ill-advised “Star of Bethlehem” tattoo in the middle of my back. (Imagine a tramp stamp without the courage of its convictions.) But it’s been about four years since I stopped regularly attending church, and I feel no closer to figuring out what it is I believe and where I belong.  

In that time, I’ve been through major personal upheaval. I’ve had to come to terms with some hard truths about my family of origin and face up to trauma I’d spent decades avoiding. I’ve been through almost every modality of therapy in existence, and the good news is that my mental health is (finally!) in a good place. Getting here has been the fight of my life—I’ve had to set a lot of hard boundaries with people I’m close to. As a result of setting these boundaries, I’ve become estranged from my mother. It’s been almost two years since we’ve spoken.

Mom was the first person to teach me about God; her beliefs are deeply imprinted on me. I know she tried her best, reminding me that God loved me and even buying me a cringey self-help book written by a former Victoria’s Secret model called God Thinks You’re Positively Awesome! during my awkward sixth grade year. But despite these words, her god always seemed distant and perfect, perpetually disappointed with our human failings, always on the verge of smiting us. That is a god I don’t want to believe in anymore. I want a spirituality that affirms who I am—but when love and shame are so tightly intertwined, separating the good from the bad feels nearly impossible.

Since four years of avoiding my spiritual issues hasn’t worked, I’m going to do the scary thing and face them head-on. This little Substack, which I’m calling Heretic Hereafter, is going to be a weekly time and space for processing the religious experiences we want to leave behind and to figure out what’s next, spiritually. I want to invite you to join me on this pilgrimage towards a theology of wholeness. I don’t know where we will end up, but I’m trying to have faith for the journey.

I’ve spent time talking about this project with Darla, a friend who pastors a small church in the neighborhood. She paraphrased a famous quote (whose author neither of us can find): a pilgrimage is just taking the first step and trusting that God will meet you there. I don’t know that I 100% believe that, but I’m willing to try. I invite you to come along. I will do my best to be a good travel companion—I promise to keep an open mind and strive for authenticity when I speak with you. I will try to be fair to people and ideas, even when I disagree with them.

Here are some of the big questions I want to look at:

·        What does it mean to live a moral life?

·        Who/what/how is God?

·        What the heck do I teach my kids?

And here’s the roadmap:

·        weekly Substack newsletter

·        talking about books, podcasts, art, Tiktoks, both Christian and non-Christian (drop those recommendations in the comments)

·        probably won’t quote the Bible much, if at all

·        journal and discussion prompts at the end of most posts. Journaling has been a huge tool for my mental health recovery, and I’d love to hear from you on what you’re discovering on this post-deconstruction journey

My intention is to keep Heretic Hereafter on the NPR model, payment-wise. That means I’d love if you contributed to help keep this work going, but so far I’m not paywalling anything.

Sound good? Then here are your first journal/discussion thread prompts:

·        What beliefs have you “deconstructed” so far?

·        What are you scared of losing as you leave certain beliefs behind?

·        What’s more embarrassing: Christian puppetry or Christian clowning?

If you’re discussing these questions in the comment section, please use respectful language and “I” statements.

Next week’s topic: “When Grief Comes to Church.” Leave your questions, conspiracy theories, and midnight wonderings in the comments.