I found that my memories were accurate and that there was not a whole lot that I read that I had forgotten. That wasn’t the problem. The issue was that my understanding of the nature of those events was warped. As I began talking about my childhood and teenage experiences with Dan and a few close friends, they responded with shock and sympathy.
A few months ago, an old college friend asked me if I would be interested in being a guest on a new podcast that a colleague of hers was starting on Religious Trauma. I agreed, and sat down to a chat with Anna (a therapist) about what it’s like to go through religious trauma/spiritual abuse as a missionary. Being a victim of RT/SA is awful for everyone, but going through it as a missionary is particularly isolating and scary because…
It’s alarming how often I have read or heard ridiculous misunderstandings about the process of faith deconstruction from those who have never gone through it. Some of it is fear mongering, and some is honest misconceptions by caring people struggling to understand
Rage has been my friend for a very long time. We have had a complicated relationship full of betrayals and misunderstandings, and truthfully, I’ve been the hurtful one. Rage has stuck by me even when I didn’t love her like she deserved to be loved. When I was around 6 or 7 years old, my pastor’s college-aged son came out as gay. The church was in uproar. I didn’t even know what “gay” meant, but I was heartbroken that the…
I was delighted to be invited to be a guest on the Faith and Feminism Podcast. Meghan and I had a wonderful conversation exploring the reality of Patriarchy and Colonialism in Western missions work. I deeply believe that things can be done better and offered my perspective on how that is possible. You can listen to our conversation here.
As long as I am a deconstructing Christian, my old community can feel sorry for me and pray for me and my doubts and questions. But if I reconstruct rather than return, it is time to abandon me, warn others about me, and pray against me for the spiritual harm that I am capable of inflicting on others
I was told that being a woman meant that I was supposed to know my place and allow a man to protect me. I was to go second, a step behind him, into the adventure God was calling him to. My role was to submit, to support, and to follow. That didn’t work out so well.
I have my own #MeToo stories and #ChurchToo stories. Yet, I also have #MissionsToo stories and they have yet to be given space in these movements.
In the strangest twist of grace that is so laughably just like God, it is the very person that I am which was so detested my former conservative missions community that allows me to forgive them.
my counselor casually mentioned how my family had been scapegoated in the missions community. After she said that I spent several weeks reading about scapegoating and trying to decide if she was right. I think she was,