Have been a ‘committed Christian’ but suddenly so disillusioned with it all. Happened to anyone else?

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Perhaps it’s not that sudden, I don’t know
But having had a very holy-spirity conversion as a teenager in the 90s (think falling over in the spirit type thing) these days I just feel my hearts not in it and j feel very disillusioned and cynical.

I suppose it’s more about the whole popular ‘culture’ of evangelical Christianity than God himself but if I’m truthful I don’t know if He’s real.

I was so into it as a younger person but now looking back am seeing it so differently.

I think part of it is realising how churches I was part of in the past are aligned with the evangelical Right in America and Trump etc.

And I’m so over what feels like manipulation of emotions at big events like new wine.
I’m a musician and music touches people deeply but it’s almost like I can see through it - like they say ‘oh the Holy Spirits moving’ and I’m thinking ‘no you just did a roll on the cymbal’
Sorry I don’t know if I’m making any sense 😆

I’m at a lovely little C of E church now which is a mixed bag but with some evangelical touches and am in a home group with evangelical people. I’m just finding it hard as a lot of things they say I’m rolling my eyes at.

Also stuff like sharing on Facebook things about Ukraine and how God is blessing them and protecting them and on their side.
And just thinking - like God was on our side when we supported the US invasion of Iraq?
How does that work then?

And we were praying for a young man who was very ill after an accident, he improved so there was lots of talk of God answering our prayers and thanking God, and then he deteriorated and died.

Grr I feel awful but it suddenly all just seems so cheesy and contrived to me.

I’d like to take a break from church realty or go to a more traditional service. But here’s the problem - it’s a small church and they rely on me for the music some of the time. There are others but I’m a key part. But I feel fake being up there leading worship songs.
We sing songs by Hillsong, Bethel etc but I’ve been reading about them lately and stuff around money and it’s affected how I feel about the songs.

Sorry for the ramble! Can anyone else relate? I feel like the scales have fallen from my eyes but it’s scary 😟

A very useful thread x

I agree with others that this is generally part of our faith journey.

I have gone through periods where I’ve struggled.

However, with my own personal experiences with God, I’ve drawn closer to Him and know deep down that He is real.

I’ve struggled to find a church that fits well for me.

We’ve recently started attending a lovely Baptist church but I’m struggling with the belief of communion being only for baptised/adults. zoom just need to pray and read about it and decide. They seem to have a lot of lovely things for children, so that’s a big plus!

I agree with whoever said God isn't religious. When you look at the things that are sitting uneasy with you a lot of it is coming from man and not from Jesus' teachings.

I focus on Jesus and have found a church that does too. To me christian is a follower of christ, there is no need to do anything more than that. I really struggle with religious ceremony and all the "extra" people add on.

When worshipping I try to focus on God, on Jesus and what he has done for me. If someone feels the Holy Spirit move (or is thrilled by the cymbals or whatever ) that is grand for them. Leave them up to their experience. I am just praising my God.

Bethel and Hillsong are dodgy and I try to avoid them. You do get shady churches/organisations/preachers but I try not to tar everyone with the same brush.

I have a deep, personal relationship with God but I am cynical of a lot of the other stuff.
For me it's about my relationship with Him, and then that love he has shown me flowing out of me into those around me. The first most important commandment is to love God and the second is to love others. I think we can over complicate things.

Another one here who would really highly recommend Sarah Bessy's book "Out of Sorts". It is a brilliant book that describes her journey of struggles with the church and aspects of faith but also inspires you to address your own issues and concerns. It is also positive, joyful and inspirational!

Thanks @PurBal for mentioing the Fowlers stages of faith concept - I hadn't come across this before & it's a very interesting read.

@picklemewalnuts your approach resonates with me, be open to not having all the answers but keep to the basics we know of love underpinning all. Even if ppl disagree on the details of what that means it's not complicated at heart. Many ppl get conflicted when adhering to a defined set of doctrines is pushed as more important than following where God is taking you. I think you have to be honest within your own spiritual path & have integrity & courage to risk stepping outside the box to follow the leading of the Divine Spirit (whether the box is church teaching or the bible as literal final authority). This approach is very much frowned on by authoritarian convention but I've come to realise I'm free to follow God now without fear, and that's wonderful.

@ThoseTallTrees thanks for the podcast recommendation, it's good to hear about others' experiences to broaden & deepen our understanding of different ways people grow & learn.

Similar upbringing to @Cottoneyejoeswifestampon & also in NI. I'm totally the black sheep of my family, everyone else staunch Presbyterians. Although I am very spiritual & believe in God, just don't think I can believe completely in the bible, there's a lot of dodgy stuff in there & it's man made, although there are some great bits, I'm sceptical on fundamentalists. Most committed Christians pick & choose what they want from it anyway which makes me wonder what is the point.

I was at a Christian camp as a young teen & totally railroaded into 'getting saved'. The leader asked for a show of hands who had been saved & I was the only one who didn't raise my hand. We'd been having a great time & she said 'you're the only one buckeejit, do you want to get saved now & I can pray with you etc'. I knew at the time I was really uncomfortable with it & in hindsight, felt quite violated.

I was at church on Sunday for my sons scout centenary service, had a nice mini interrogation from one of the congregation& minister about coming regularly. It's only now in my 40s I'm more comfortable saying 'my beliefs are a lot more liberal & I wouldn't feel too comfortable here'. I absolutely love singing hymns & miss the ready community of church, but I can't sit & listen to mostly old men preaching the same old stuff. I haven't heard a useful sermon probably ever. Ye must be born again to a room of people who mostly have been is a bit pointless surely?

@vdbfamily your point about emulating Jesus also frustrates me. It seems as though some Christians think that most people who aren't church goers, are not good people who are trying to improve the planet, which is obviously nonsense.

@Auger a lot of what you say resonates & some of those book recs sound good - thank you. I like the idea of Quakers but it's far from me & sadly feel like there's unlikely to be a church to suit me in my Bible Belt area.

This has turned into such a helpful thread. I now have a booklist as long as my arm- I just need to set the time aside to read them now!

Agreed pickle, I've been listening to that teenage fundamentalist podcast all day & it's got some cracking interviews on it.

I can't deal with the type of churches you describe.

I used to be a sound engineer and completely lost and respect for them when I'd spend hours setting up the most ridiculous stuff, only to be bollocked for it not being loud enough and their demanding it was made louder and louder.

How I held back comments like

'You do know you're not Motorhead, don't you?'

'If God can see a sparrow, I'm pretty sure he'll notice you without a set of 8x10s'

'Did you know that a huge part of cathedral design for the last millennium was acoustic engineering? This building was quite literally designed to carry people's voice up to Heaven by themselves. And you're messing with that sacred design'

'Is there an apocryphal text that requires the deafening of a sound bod as an Old Testament style offering each Sunday?'

'Organ music moved, inspired, terrified and consoled people. It never deafened them. There are reasons why the pipes point up, not straight into the pews, so why exactly do I have to set up a rig equal to Sisters of Mercy on the Pyramid stage for 2 blokes with electroacoustic guitars and their mate who got grade 3 drums about 20 years ago but thinks he's Keith Moon?'

• only something greater than me knows.

I consoled myself by coating off the music itself. The Lord is My Shepherd is a direct rip of When a Child is Born by Johnny Matthis, Jubilate is essentially a cultural appropriation of Klezmer (exacerbated by the bitching about other people with fake Gods in the 3rd verse) and I EVER hear My wretched Lighthouse bellowed by over excited and tonedeaf worshippers again, it'll be too soon.

On the bright side, it did spur me to rediscover plainsong and polyphony. Try comparing the HS stuff to Magnum Mysterium by Luis de Vittoria and tell me which is both more musically valuable and spiritually moving in words, tonality and physically/emotionally (when the different parts come in, for example).

I doubt it's going to be the 127dB MYYYYYY LIGHTHOUSE!!!!! MYYYYYYYYYY LIGHTHOUSE!!!!!!!

Yup. All of that!

Yes - was very committed until my late 30s - then had a change of vicar who was an absolute cow - lied through her teeth about stuff and a load of the PCC holies followed suit. The went to the local cathedral and found the clergy there a bunch of back stabbing self publicists - gave up at that point.

@NeverDropYourMooncup yes somehow I don’t think My Lighthouse will still be sung in 700 years (probably not even 20)

am also loving the Teenage Fundamentalist podcast. I relate like how they are not saying be atheist, or be more Christian, are open that they’re not sure where they are with it now, but just having a discussion about their experiences and looking back on them with fresh eyes now they’re older. Which is how I’m feeling.

@NeverDropYourMooncup we have ruined previously enjoyed worship songs when we've spotted the similarity! There's a 'birdhouse in my soul' sound alike and 'Go West/Give thanks, with a grateful heart' is hard to unhear once you've noticed!

@NeverDropYourMooncup

"Organ music moved, inspired, terrified and consoled people. It never deafened them. There are reasons why the pipes point up, not straight into the pews, so why exactly do I have to set up a rig equal to Sisters of Mercy on the Pyramid stage for 2 blokes with electroacoustic guitars and their mate who got grade 3 drums about 20 years ago but thinks he's Keith Moon?"

🤣🤣🤣🤣 I actually laughed out load at this 👏🏼

It's OK to change your mind. In my opinion the church keeps people coming back with fear. Fear of being a bad person, fear of going to he'll, fear of being judged. I do not believe in God or organised religion, although I was raised in a very religious country. So I do understand the conflict you feel.

If you don't feel comfortable - you do not have to go. You do not need to explain your decision. Perhaps 6 months of not attending any sort of service will give you the room you need to examine your misgivings.

Hi. So much to relate with here and I’ll try to keep my initial comment as brief as I can.

I was part of a Pentecostal church for about 20 years. There was a lot I really liked about it and I’ll come onto that in a minute.

I was initially a youth leader and musician before getting involved in the church band, becoming a worship leader and then being on the leadership team for the music ministry.

I’m blind so, you can imagine I had a bit of a target on my back as a candidate for bold members of the congregation who thought it was their job to get me healed of my blindness, never mind the fact that the healing which was most important was around the physical and emotional scars of the abuse I received at the hands of my natural parents which caused my vision impairment to begin with. I stopped them doing that in the end as I do believe god has healed me of those scars.

There is definitely a consistent pressure to see God move in some tangible way in Pentecostal churches as that is what their central thing is of course. That pressure was put on the musicians and anyone on stage. Didn’t matter how you were feeling yourself, you were meant to bring your best smile and battle through whatever was going on for yu. In my case in the latter part of my service, a really bad marriage which bordered on me being in an abusive relationship.

I also get the whole thing about seeing how your music and what you played could affect the mood of the room. I didn’t really blame anyone for that if I’m being honest and was just very aware of the importance to me of not seeking to manipulate anything, even though, as said, the pressure was sometimes there to see that ove of God I mentioned. My integrity won out in the end.

I left the church in the end as I left my marriage and wanted my x to get the support from them she needed. I’ve been in a relationship with someone else now for the past 9 years. She doesn’t believe, I do and we are incredibly compatible. We’ve been thogh a lot together and I’ve become a more balanced version of what I already was which is: more accepting of others difference; More realistic about how God moves in the lives of others; More broad in my assertion that God is far more than the limits many Christians put on him/her.
I’m trying to think about my journey to offer the best observation/advice I can. I think its something along the lines of separating out your experience past and where you would like to go next. From what I can see from your initial post, you still have a heartfelt sense of God and I’d stick with that if you can. God has seen all the doubt and frustration before and I think he’s probably as frustrated as we are as to how people say and do things in his name. If he’s alive and well as we are taught and he’s all knowing then she will know what you are struggling with and be at the centre of your being.

There is a lot going on outside of all that which is sometimes confusing but, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if you ended up being closer to God and and more able to see that God is as much with the Russians who pray as with the Ukrainians. The east as with the west and so on.

I hope you do find a place where your soul can rest for a while. Maybe get involved in something totally unrelated to your music ministry for a while. E.g. I was one part of our homeless outreach and it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. Not because it was about me but, because I realised that I had more than one talent to offer. Essentially, I was willing to give somehting else a go.

Anyway, I said this would be as brief as possible so, I’ll leave it there for now. And hope you find your peace and your place in what seems to be a new chapter for your life.

For the most part, I was OK with playing under prayers, scripture readings and so on.

I recall one incident though when our church was going through one of those Toronto blessings where there was plenty of shouting/screaming; people falling over in the spirit and all the associated stuff.

I remember playing so much that my fingers were aching.

I just felt terrible as I wasn’t feeling it and the whole thing was going on far longer than I thought it needed to.

While I was thinking about all this, I was suddenly aware of a barking sound. I and many others started looking around to see which member of the congregation it was coming from and those who were praying for people were running around trying to find the source of the manifestation.

It turned out to be a puppy dog underneath someones chair. It was my mate who was puppy walking a dog for guide dogs at the time.

Needless to say, we musicians were all laughing our heads off and a bit of normality was restored.

I felt like God was saying: Yeah, I see some of this as you do but, there are some genuine situations where peole need to hear from me so, try to continue to be aware of taht… Funny about the dog though eh? Was God’s parting question. :)

I can relate to this. I became a Christian in my teens, went to Hillsong style churches and now don't attend regularly. My dad killed himself last year, which has been the main cause of my struggle in my faith. My dad was an atheist, and I'm uncomfortable thinking about where he/his soul is now. I'm angry that God didn't intercept his suicide, or prompt me to phone him the night before so at least I would have had a chance to speak to him before he died. I struggle to go to church and listen to sermons about this all powerful and all loving God, because where the hell was he when my dad died alone hanging off his bannisters, staring at a wall as he took his last breath.

I'm so, so sorry @absolutenightmare

As an atheist I don't know what to say to help but I'm just so sorry about your dad

@absolutenightmare I'm so sorry for your loss. My mum died 4 months ago & it's tough. Suicide add extra heartache onto grief & I hope you have some support IRL 💐

I understand you completely. As a teenager (many years ago) I got sucked into going to a Billy Graham meeting and ended up signing something. To be fair, I was only about 13 at the time.

Soon afterwards, the requests for money kept arriving, it was a huge disillusionment.

As others have said, I would stop playing the music and gradually distance yourself.

I have grown to mistrust religious people, largely they think it's enough to have faith, as if that somehow makes up for no proof.

I do think there is more in the world / universe than we know about, but I still see religion as being a medieval way of exerting control over a population.

I'm mostly here to add my voice to the people who totally get where you're coming from, OP, and to add to the book list.

Pete Enns is an author to look out for, and his book The Sin of Certainty might be interesting for you just now. It's also fun as a title to mention if your evangelical house group ask you what you're reading.

You might also enjoy Nadia Bolz-Weber, Richard Rohr and Brian McClaren.

Would second the recommendations of Rachel Held Evan's and Sarah Bessey.

Nick Page has written loads of books but you might find The Dark Night of the Shed. He also has a podcast called the Mid-Faith Crisis which I love. It's pretty much him and another bloke talking about these issues, with occasional guests. Much of what they talk about sparks off emails from listeners so the whole thing feels very conversational. One of the very positive things about it is that they are not always on the same page but they are good mates and clearly love each other so not only is it interesting, but they show how to respectfully disagree. I think that's really important for people to hear when they might be in a church where it's scary to be the dissenting voice as you don't know where it will lead.

Another Stoneleigh teenager here! 👋

Been mostly happy in evangelical churches since the 90s.

Frustrated with the way worship songs have become more focussed on us rather than on God.

Also seeing more now than I ever did how manipulative preaching can be. I know it's not intentional, as these preachers are my friends, but it's the way it's always been, so they do it.

My doubts have recently started post divorce/returning after Covid. I'm seeing so many things which I never saw before. The subtle "God is full of grace, but don't do x,y,z"

XH is so glad to be free of church and feels he was manipulated for 25 years to do what people wanted of him. He's gone so far the other way it's frightening.

I feel I should keep going as these people supported me so very well during the divorce, but each week I see more and more hypocrisy. Which scares me, to be frank.

I wish you all the best on your journey OP

People believe doubt is part of your faith journey. I think it’s just what Christians say to try and make you stay in the faith. I think doubt is common sense kicking in, listen to your instincts and don’t be manipulated.

Another good book on this issue is Faith and Doubt by John Ortberg.
Faith and Doubt: Embracing Uncertainty in Your Faith www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001ANYCSC/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_9D5DX6KK98XKM7JV2KD5