Rejecting Christian Beliefs

[KayHarker]

Don't quite know how to say this, but I guess I need to write it down and maybe get some moral support from someone.

I'm walking away from my Christian faith after about 20 years. I tried extreme patriarchy, and then I tried the more liberal versions, but all they seemed to be were weak attempts to fit a highly patriarchal religion into a cosy harmless box which didn't fit. I still consider myself to be a spiritual person, but I really just have to reject Christian belief because it's so anti-women, and the more I read about feminism, the more I want something different for my daughters.

OK swallowed, I will not take it personally. :)

I question my faith all the time, and think it's healthy. I too become angered by hard line fundamentalist views and their toxicity.

Inclined to agree swallowed.

Was it something in particular that makes you hate the church swallowed, or a build up of stuff?

SwallowedAfly are you ok? I feel terrible, I almost wish I had never got involved in this thread and I'm not even advocating for the Christian church!

I'm off, I hope OP finds peace and happiness what ever she decides to do (although I have heard the Quakers are good for equality)

swallowfly i was just being honest. I don't have all the answers and yes i have walked away at times. I expect alot of christians feel like this and at times i have been bitter.

so what

Yep many years ago I was in a brethren church (not strict brethren) because it was local to me and I just thought it was a normal evangelical church. Took me a while to realise how ridiculous it was that while they had a policy of "free worship" in fact only men could speak. Or indeed teenage boys. But women just had to sit there in their hats (compulsory) and shut up.

I feel sad that you are so angry and hurt by the church SAF. I would say though that although as you say many women have been hurt badly by various forms of church, there are also the women who have been utterly changed and set free (not by the church but by Jesus, but through the church) and who find not only a safe haven but a thriving community. Guess I am trying to say that it is not all bad. Like any human institution there is the bad and the toxic and the downright misogynist, but there are good models of what church should be (which of course still get it wrong all the time.)

I would certainly be highly suspicious of any version of church which caused women to be 'miserable, isolated and downtrodden and looking 50 at 30.' How sad, and how wrong, that would be, and I am so sorry that that has been your experience, because it is not how it should be. I get just as angry when I think about how 'the church' has failed people and has so NOT represented it's founder.

And breathe..... :)

LOL SuchProspects Snorted out my tea at ""It just seems like a classic personality disorder."

If we're not careful here we are going to have to be so careful about our language in case someone else takes it the wrong way that nothing useful can ever be said in terms of exploring the point that Kay has set up.

Swallowed - not implying you are hysterical - very interested in your responses because I have rarely come across anyone else who shares my experience on this. I AM angry when I stop to think about it - my pavlovian reaction to certain church attitudes and language has been a prety long term fixture now but it rarely gets the chance to rear its head as I avoid those situations.

But every now and then someone decides we need need a "shake-up" of some sort at church (usually merely introducing a "worship song" rather than anytihng too fundamental, but which makes me come over all stroppy) and it floods back.

I think you have kind of lost control of the thread Kay, they can develop a life of their own but I don't think all the talk is directed at you. Hope you find your way and your dh is also accepting of what you choose. Could be difficult.

Interesting reading some of the discussion here, not managing to keep abreast of it all but dipping in and out