Surviving as an ExVangelical: Deconstructing a Lifetime of Toxic Faith

I debated doing this blog because it’s a touchy subject. But what kind of writer would I be without touchy subjects? I won't go into too many gory details of the crappy things I went through growing up. I figure a lot of people reading this have similar experiences, but I want to share a few things.

First, I use the term "Exvangelical" because it is exactly that. An Ex-Evangelical, so we made a fancy word out of it. Growing up in a Baptist home and church was rough, especially if you are a sincere person like me. One thing I'll note that was odd about Baptists, is they believed in God and the Devil. They REALLY believe in demons, but not miracles or supernatural happenings. I never fully understood it myself. Why believe or follow it at all if you don't believe God can actually do things.

So, there is that. Let's talk about demons since that's fun. I am Gen X which means I grew up in the 80's right around the time of Satanic Panic. We all know what that is. There were nationwide fears of ritualistic Satanic cults eating babies and torturing Children. Now, thanks to the Epstein files, we know that was all the politicians and celebrities doing it and blaming it on everyday people saying they were Satanists. Yes, I'm embellishing a bit, but I don't think I'm too far off.

Rock music was our church's boogeyman of the time. They would have these experts come in and play things like Led Zepplin backwards and it would be a bunch of distorted gobbledygook but if you listen closely you may hear "Hello Satan, be my friend". I could never make all that out but they said it was there. If you questioned hearing it, its because Satan was closing your ears.

Our church also passed out a book called "Turmoil in the Toybox" about toys like He-Man and Smurfs plushies that had Satanic influence. Satan was literally in everything. Being I was around 10 years old at this time, I was pretty scared. They would play videos of exorcisms in places like Africa conducted by white missionaries that were scary for a sheltered kid like me.

That brings me to another thing. They had a lot of hangups with "African religions" and often talked about "Black magic" Black magic isn't magic that is bad. It is magic conducted in predominately black countries, like Voodoo (if you look into it for real, not bad or scary). And other African religions.

We had a youth pastor who got in trouble for taking us to a Petra concert. Petra was a popular Christian Rock band at the time. See, our head pastor said in Africa they summon demons by various patterns of different drum beats. So with Christian rock, you could be singing lyrics praising God, but accidentally summoning a demon. I'm literally not making any of this up.

I joined the Marines right out of high school and loosely kept on to my faith during that time, though I did go through things like reading the Satanic bible and studying witchcraft which I found fascinating. When I got out of the Marines, I mostly went back to my faith. A few years later, I enrolled in college to become a pastor.

It was during that time, I learned a ton, I learned how to objectively study scripture, break it down and see who actually wrote what and what they actually meant. It was through this process I lost my faith. I graduated with an associates degree, and planned on finishing my bachelors. By the time graduation rolled around though is when I went through my faith crisis and left the church.

It should be noted by this time I was attending a charismatic church with speaking in tongues, healing and deliverance ministries and even prophets. It was fascinating and for a long time felt far more spiritually alive than any Baptist church I ever attended. This was around the time I was finishing my associates when a man named Barak Hussein Obama came along.

Our little church had never talked about politics until the election of 2008. Suddenly it was all they talked about. Obama was the Anti-Christ and McCain/Palin were sent by the Lord to deliver us to the Kingdom of God. At the time I wasn't a big fan of either candidate. I didn't dislike Obama so much as he just really felt like a politician to me. McCain felt too bumbling and in the end, because of my work schedule I missed the chance to vote anyway.

That is neither here nor there. When Obama won, our church that Sunday was so pathetic. They even went around and asked people how they were feeling and people talked about how our country was being plunged into years of liberal darkness. It was around this time, I left. Whether I agreed with political positions or not, I didn't go to church to be told how to vote. My view, and I believe this was Jesus' teaching, was that the church was supposed to transcend earthly politics. Our job was to feed the poor and heal the sick, not lash out against gays.

Also at this time, I owned a cell phone store, and my best employee was a gay man. My views on homosexuality changed a lot because of him. Growing up we heard all about how being gay was a sin and the "gay agenda" to convert everyone to chronic gayness. When I met Tony, his only agenda was to live his life without being harassed.

A few other people I'd known for years came out as gay as well and all this had me rethinking things. So 2008 was a pivotal year for me in many ways. Its scary going through some time of spiritual awakening and having a lifetime of belief challenged and blown up, but its also very liberating.

Over the years, I was an atheist, an angry one for a long time. I had even joined The Satanic Temple for a few years as a way to lash out at the church. It was all kind of silly, but I felt I needed to go through that outward rebellion to reach where I am now. It should be noted here that The Satanic Temple is all atheists. They use Satan as an archetype to represent self-empowerment and rebellion. Its ok, but there is a LOT of drama in Satanic circles between theistic Satanism, atheistic Satanism and how to do atheistic Satanism between the Church of Satan and The Satanic Temple. Not too different than any other religion in the end.

Over the years I went through some issues with my mental health and a bad crash out around 2020. As I got through that, I began meditating and having visions. I started learning Tarot and other things, and I slowly moved into witchcraft. I was in various online witch communities which all had the same fighting as the Satanists and Christians had among each other.

So now, I'm a solo witchcraft practitioner. Contrary to popular belief, male witches are just witches. We aren’t' called Warlocks. A warlock is someone who betrayed their coven if I read correctly. Though it’s a cool name, so is Wizard, but I'm just a witch. One thing I learned in my practice is it’s great to have witchy friends and some community, but any faith practice isn't really a team sport.

So here we are today. My art and writing reflect a lot from my spiritual journey. It was a lot to get here, and I blame my Baptist upbringing for a lot of my issues with self-esteem and never thinking I'm good enough. I'm in therapy still working my way through, but I feel I've made a lot of progress. What's been crazy is seeing the direction the Christian church in this country has gone.

When I left in 2008, I could see it was all moving more toward politics and political activism. I never thought in a million years they would be this successful in turning the country into a right-wing hellscape. I think that was the problem. No one took them seriously for so long while they were taking over school boards and state legislatures.

I'm not Catholic and the Catholic has had plenty of its own horrific issues over the centuries. But Pope Leo seems like a breath of fresh air among the Christian faith and seems to be trying to undo a lot of this awfulness, at least being a voice of healing and inspiration against the loud hate.

Ultimately these people will lose, because they all hate each other and themselves and the U.S. is becoming more and more secular as kids age out of church and leave for many of the reasons I mentioned earlier. I don't even believe in Jesus anymore, but I can tell you what is happening in the world now is NOT what Jesus' teaching says.

I forgot to mention earlier, in Bible college, I wrote a book breaking down the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus told us to love each other, feed and care for each other and the Kingdom of Heaven will be at hand. I explained that he was referring to today and now. That we can bring heaven on earth by living this way. I instead was called a false prophet. I think that may have been my final straw with the church.

Now I write blogs, do dark art and help people when I can as part of my witchcraft practice. I still meditate when I can and work on learning proper manifesting. One funny thing in witchy groups are ex-evangelicals who come into witchcraft but bring all the worst rules and baggage from Christianity with them. That's a whole blog for another day. I call those folks Chrystal Christians.

So, it's been a long and wild journey, but I suppose had I not gone through all this, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I'm not perfect, but I think I'm a pretty decent and caring person. I strive each day to leave the world and others in better places than when I found them. That's all any of us can truly strive for that will enrich our lives and make the world a better place.

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