Walking away from organized religion does NOT mean walking away from God!

Any time I see a meme like this pop up on social media, my blood boils. Being hurt by the church has NOT caused me to lose my faith in God because I know He is not the problem. People who have been hurt by the church and walk away from it may do so for reasons that have nothing to do with God. I will admit the first time I walked away from organized religion was because I believed the God of the Bible thought less of me because I’m a female. I was only 18 and recently saved in a charismatic church. Hearing verses about women having to be submissive and obedient to their husbands made me wonder if God really thought women were less and should be treated as less than men. I did not grow up with that teaching and believed it to be outdated. Didn’t people at church know that women already had the right to vote and they could work outside the home? There was no “head” of the house in my home because both my parents made decisions together. Neither one of them claimed to be in charge over the other and when I told people from church about that, they thought my parents were in sin. So, I walked away from church, but I could never stop believing in God. I still talked to God all the time. I believed He loved me for me, so I could not relate to the God of the Bible who sounded like a mean God and wanted everyone to be as close to perfect as possible. I also thought the God of the Bible was a male chauvinist and a misogynist (I never heard that word until over a year ago).

Eventually, I returned to church in my early 20s and rededicated my life to the Lord at 26. Since then, I had been active in whatever church I attended, went to many women’s Bible studies, and gained a lot of friends through church. Things changed in 2020 due to the pandemic. I watched church online because I felt it was safer for me to avoid being in large groups due to my mother’s health.

Being away from the church has caused me to reflect on the things I believed in, and I wondered if I truly believed in these things because they were biblical or Christlike or because of the influences of other Christians. Some of these things are the blurred lines between American politics and American Christianity, the way a lot of Christians handled COVID and believed it was a hoax or just blown out of proportion (I confess that at the beginning of the pandemic, I felt that way), obsession with end times prophecies, treatment toward the LGBTQ+ community, still believing that women should not be in church leadership and must be under the authority of their husbands or other men (thankfully, it’s not as bad as it used to be, but it’s horrible in a lot of countries), lots of fearmongering, judgmental behavior, etc.

I realized I had to walk away from organized religion to get closer to God. The fear-mongering voices claiming to be biblical, Godly, or Christlike overpowered me. I did a lot of research by listening to different viewpoints instead of just one, reading various books on topics of interest such as women in the church, differing views about the end times, some Biblical Greek, etc. I’m still searching and reading the Bible. I feel that many people have used the Bible as a weapon to harm others, especially marginal groups and those who believe differently. During these last two years, God kept reminding me to “love my neighbor as myself” (Matthew 22:35-40; Mark 12:31). This neighbor is not limited to another Christian, a family member, or someone I live with. This neighbor is someone of a different belief system, someone of a different race or culture, someone you may not get along well with, etc. I also realize that I must love the judgmental Christian neighbor who may think I’m going to hell because I’m not attending church and I do not believe in certain theologies that have always been touted to be of God. If it harms someone, then I do not think it’s from God, because Jesus said, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit” (Matthew 7:18).

However, Celebrate Recovery has been the greatest ministry I’ve ever been involved in and I have decided to return in the last month. I have been part of this ministry for five years. I have learned that it is okay to not always be okay and God loves me in spite of my imperfections. I don’t have to perform for Him and act like a cookie-cutter Christian. I can be real with God even if there are other Christians who disagree. I have learned that Christianity is all about my personal relationship with Jesus more than what doctrines I believe, what rules I’m told to follow, what political party I choose to support or not support, etc. I want to keep that authentic relationship with God and those fear-mongering, judgmental voices out of my mind.