“This is what being raised in the southern Bible belt will do to you…If it is ok, I will share my head for the first time to anyone”

NOTE: If you come from an evangelical background and feel anguish you are not alone. Here’s proof! I get 20-30 emails and FB messages a day from readers of my new book expressing anguish over their religious backgrounds. I answer all of them. I learn more from my readers than they learn from me. Here’s one exchange I found very moving. (Printed here by permission, name changed.) Take hope. 

Sat, Aug 16, 2014 12:26 pm

Frank: It is such a relief to get to share my head with someone. I am not sure if it is my personality of trying to keep peace with everyone around me, or what, but I tend to hold my true feelings inside so as to not create a scene… This is what being raised in the southern Bible belt will do to you…

If it is ok, I will share my head for the first time to anyone. If this seems like I am dumping on you I am sorry. This is not my intention, but from the connection I got from you I feel like you are someone I can trust to at least read this. It seems a bit odd to me that I am doing this, but I am desperate to break out of this depression or repression or whatever the hell it is…maybe it is just that– hell.

I was raised in a Christian conservative home just outside of —, TX. I will assume that just being raised in this part of the country my parents unconsciously bought in to the fundamentalist Christian propaganda. I went to a Christian school all the way through high school. I attended a Baptist church on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and anytime there was anything happening at the church. These man made ideologies infiltrated my being and I was slowly growing “in the wisdom and stature” of a born again male chauvinistic American Christian patriot. I will break down my confusion and into a slow un-learning…

 Sex, Marriage, Guilt and Happiness

“Don’t have sex until you are married.” This half-assed statement did prevent me from promiscuity prior to being married, but it has caused a lot of confusion, depression, guilt, and anxiety. I was taught that sex is only good when you are married, that if you wait it will be the most amazing thing. But until then it is horrible.

Buying into that, I waited. However, they did not tell me to wait to get married. So I got married at 19. Why? because I was a teenager that was told I couldn’t have sex until I was married. It’s like 2+2. I got married.

My wife is a great woman. But we aren’t a great match. I crave affection, she craves isolation. We work through it.

To add to all of this we had 4 kids in the first 6 years of marriage. This part is amazing: kids. Our marriage is hard. What I can’t get past is the information I received on how I need to make it better. “Go to this conference, pray more, pray together, read your Bible, just trust Jesus to work it out.”

Damn. My mind is spinning with all this. I am not sure if it is crazy or I am crazy. It hasn’t worked. Yes, I can fake it. But I believe that faking it is the reason I am where I am. To be clear, I will never leave my wife. She is a great women, and a great mother, and for that I love her deeply.

I am told that depression is a sin. Unhappiness is not right. Well, fuck. I am a screw up. My anxiety is unnerving. Waiting on an “answer from God” is like that moment in the operating room waiting on the newly transplanted heart to make its first beat, except it is all in slow-mo. Cross your fingers.

 Hate

This was a bad word growing up. But I was taught to hate, I just couldn’t actually say the word. It is all so confusing, God is love, love your enemies, love your neighbors, pray for those who persecute you and so on. I would hear that followed by: “but don’t hang out with them,” they dress weird, or they are Mormon, or they are gay, or they are Democrats, or they drink, or smoke, or have sex.

Funny thing is, I was allowed to hang out with the kids of embezzlers, tax evaders, gluttons, liars, adulterers. God, it is so ironic. I love people. I have realized that people are human. And the most human people are the ones that aren’t trying to hide that they are human.

Church

This is hard for me. I am a “leader” in my church community. I don’t really know how to put this into words. It is so religious. I love your line in your book, “Religion is a neurological disorder for which faith is the only cure.”

I am told to ask people in my community if they miss a service, “why did you not show up?” It seems more beneficial to be human and ask whats going on in there life which is secondary to the fact that I should already know.

It’s like God is this corporation. I go and give my time and money, and maybe I’ll get promoted a few times. I just don’t want to be a part of religion. I strive for this in my small community, fail at it, but I guess faith keeps me trying…

I love the part in the your latest book when you are talking about prayer. The Jesus prayer is one of the only comforting prayers I pray these days. “Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” This is all I have time to spill right now. I need to feed the kids! I appreciate you letting me be human. It means a lot. Hopefully it wasn’t all confusing. Sometimes the gap between my brain and my fingers becomes a blender.

Thanks Frank,

XYZ