My Name is Shane. I’m a Recovering Conservative Christian

THE TWELVE STEPS FOR RECOVERING CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIANS

ONE

We admitted we were powerless over the political indoctrination supplied by our conservative churches and news sources in which we immersed ourselves —that our critical thinking had become unmanageable and our capacity for empathy severely weakened.

TWO

We came to believe that being followers of Christ’s teachings, focusing on loving our neighbors–all of them–and finding     empathy for the least of these our brothers and sisters could restore us to sanity.

THREE

We made a decision to turn loose of our formerly narrow world view, to reprogram the faulty thinking that to offer equal rights to others is to give up rights of our own, and attempt to reflect the love God has for all of us.

FOUR

We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and stopped worrying about searching others for their sins.

FIVE

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to other human beings the exact nature of the wrong way we once approached our faith.

SIX

We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects in our characters.

SEVEN

We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings and we leave it to Him to navigate the shortcomings of others.

EIGHT

We made a list of all people and groups we once took part in ostracizing, marginalizing, and discriminating against and became willing to make amends to them all when we entered the voting booth.

NINE

We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, by speaking out, standing up, listening to their concerns, and looking for opportunities to participate in progressive efforts to improve our nation for all.

TEN

We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it, even when it was conservative Christians we might have wronged.

ELEVEN

We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying for others to realize that the path they are on is righteous only to the extent that it doesn’t involve voting in ways that further hurt the hurting or limit the rights of people not like us.

TWELVE

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to the conservative Christian community, and to fervently practice these values throughout our day to day lives.