It’s Okay to be Okay

Well, it has been a hard year to blog. I’ll say that upfront. I mean there have been literal firestorms, and pandemics and all sorts. They’ve all been external though. Then there has been the internal stuff. Late last year, my husband and I published his story of surviving gay conversion therapy (also known as Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Change Efforts). I had intended to follow that piece up with a lot of stuff on mixed-orientation marriage, but something didn’t feel right. I’m glad I listened to that gut feeling. Because only a couple of months later, he and I would separate. 

Fast forward to today: The ink is barely dry on the announcement of our separation. My best friend and her girlfriend came around to get the kids and take them out for a play because this covid19 lockdown has been hard on parents! Another newly single friend dropped around with coffee because we are allowed to now thank God! She and I sat on the couch with Patrick, who now comfortably inhabits the ‘best friend’ space, and we laughed. Like, belly-laughed. This is our life now: separated,  best friends, co-parents, in lockdown until the pandemic passes and then living together by choice afterwards.

I didn’t think this would be how my life went. But it is. And every day I spend a moment in gratitude that this separation didn’t go the way of animosity and loathing.

There has long been a message out there in the ether about mental illness, saying “It’s okay not to be okay,” and it is. It 100% is. But I’m also learning, here on the other side of chronic pain, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, repetitive pregnancy loss, losing family-relationships, losing a community of friends who were supposed to be “covenant” and “forever no matter what”,  having to leave a church that represented the only life I’d ever known, changing careers, deconstructing faith, reconstructing faith, having a whole town talk about my family’s dirty laundry, having my dad take to the newspaper to discredit us when it came out that we no longer go to his church, supporting my husband through a sexuality crisis and recovery from the horrendous damage of conversion therapy and a lifetime of internalised homophobia, separating from that husband because of his sexuality and reinventing our partnership – it’s okay to be okay, too.

It’s okay to be okay, too.

When I was diagnosed with PTSD nearly a decade ago, following a misdiagnosis of anxiety and depression, I wondered whether I would ever be normal again. I had been diagnosed with a mental illness that seemed to mean I had diminished coping skills. Counselling failed to dull the vivid flashbacks (thanks to an extraordinary ability to recall details in picture format). It seemed I would live a lifetime under the weight of past trauma. I felt the shame of that diagnosis, and within my social circle at the time where everyone knew everyone’s business, I had failed to find a feeling of safety. Instead, I felt exposed, ashamed and on-show every time I had an episode. I was finding it even more difficult to enjoy life. That was the unwanted gift my diagnosis gave me.

I was wearing the weight of stigma that often comes with mental illness. That made it hard to accept that for the most part, I was a strong, smart, worthy person with so much going for her. Sometimes I think we can have such a deep attachment to our trauma or to the diagnosis that explained our difficulty that it is difficult to lean into the beauty, strength and complexity of who we are.

Ironically, after my diagnosis, this made my condition worse: I would fear having a PTS episode, which would increase my ambient anxiety levels, which would mean my tolerance was lower and I was more likely to have an episode. Saturday nights became long, sleepless nights, which meant I would march into Sunday ill-prepared for the stressors I would face. Usually, this meant my body would burn through stress hormones and I’d crash on Monday’s with blinding migraines. My long-suffering (now ex) husband supported me through this beautifully. During this time, we also coped with the loss of four pregnancies before finally, our son was born. On the day I found out I was pregnant for the fifth time, Patrick knew it was time to leave the church. I would fight to stay for another few months before realising leaving was our only choice. We were about to plunge into an incredible time of upheaval. I was about to face more confrontation, stress, grief and loss than I had ever experienced before. But something unexpected happened: I stayed pregnant for the first time, and my PTSD episodes decreased to the point where the coping mechanisms I used to use daily are all but forgotten.

I went from having an episode once a week at least, to forgetting I even had the condition.

Despite all the heartache we faced, the years I spent married to Patrick were wonderful and beautiful too. We have truly walked through fire together, and we’ve laughed, lived, and created a beautiful family that remains and will remain the centre of our hearts and lives. But he is gay, and there’s just no way around that. I’m truly happy for him, and am happy that I reached a point of being whole-heartedly LGBTQIA+ affirming in my theology before our separation. That means I celebrate with him instead of feeling a whole lot of unhelpful, and in my opinion unbiblical, things.

After we made the call, I felt grief and sadness, of course. But the main thing I felt was “What on earth will people say? How will they judge us?” I felt this because I used to be the person who thought divorce was always the wrong thing. I had this naive idea that everything could be prayed away, or ignored away, and that which couldn’t be was a tragedy. Deconstructing my faith disabused me of that idea.

I don’t see divorce as a tragedy anymore. I see abuse as a tragedy, but if someone has walked away from an abusive marriage then the walking isn’t tragic! It is brave and wonderful.

I see mistreatment of a spouse as a tragedy. But I don’t see that spouse standing up for themselves and realising they are worth happiness as a tragic.

I don’t see dissolving a marriage because of sexuality as a tragedy. I see living a lifetime of repression as a tragedy.

I do see growing apart as sad. I do think marriage is to be fought for. I do see “til death do us part” as a beautiful ideal that I hope to experience. That I will experience (lets put that down as #goals here). But I am no longer naive enough to think that misery is noble and kids are better off with married parents even if those parents are miserable, depressed and at eachother’s throats.

Once I realised that this is what I really thought, I came to another realisation: its okay to be okay, even if you are divorced or divorcing, even if you have a mental illness (no matter if it is well-managed or not), even if life didn’t go the way you planned it would go, even if you’ve caught more curveballs than its really fair for life to offer up. You don’t have to feel miserable just because that’s what society expects of you. It is okay to separate and feel genuine love and happiness for your ex-partner, and geniuine optimism about what comes next for us as individuals.

Because I’m a woman and I can totally multitask, it is also okay to have moments of sadness, too. The existance of one doesn’t have to deny the existance of the other.

It’s like my friend Bridget told me: “Don’t let anyone shit in your peace bubble. You get to have the life you want.”

So here we are in the middle of a pandemic, locked down in our homes, feeling a little bit caged and realising the human spirit really isn’t made for captivity. This has been a time of upheaval globally, and mental illness has compounded this difficulty for many of us. I like to say that Patrick and I split “before it was cool” because you bet your butt there will be a spike in divorces post Covid19.

But I want to say this: if joy visits you, let it. If you wake up one day and you don’t feel depressed or anxious or caged or let down or beaten up by life, let yourself feel okay. Sometimes it’s hard to let ourselves be happy when we have been conditioned to another reality. Being happy, experiencing joy, doesn’t deny life’s hardships. It doesn’t mean you no longer have a mental illness, or that your life is suddenly easy. It certainly doesn’t mean you have to stay happy either. It just means that here, in this moment, you are okay. That is something you can lean into with a smile.

Why say all of this? I’ve been looking around at Christian messaging (and I still identify as Christian FYI), and I’ve noticed there is often a lot of emphasis on suffering. “When we suffer God is glorified.” “His strength is made perfect in our weakness.” “God disciplines those he loves.” “Let God heal you from your hurts and your wounds.” Also, pretty much everything about the Lutheran and Billy Grahamesque versions of Christianity. It all seems to tune us into our deficits and low points so that “God can be magnified”. That has been my experience, at least.

Here is my progressive Christian hot-take: we don’t have to hate ourselves, or focus on the bad things in us or around us. God doesn’t have to use every experience of our lives as a glory-grabbing moment, nor do I think miserable people bring all that much glory. You know? Happiness is okay too. Acceptance of ourselves in all our imperfect perfection is wonderful.

Over the last decade, I’ve spent a lot of time doing the hard yards when it comes to my wellbeing. I’m no longer the traumatised girl with the new PTSD diagnosis. Every now and then, once in a blue moon, I experience the taste of metal in my mouth and realise my pulse is racing and my cognition is a little scrambled. But now I know the sky isn’t falling; I’m just having a PTSD episode. I now know that PTSD isn’t shameful. Its a normal reaction to a set of really abnormal circumstances. Having spent a lot of time learning from experts and doing the work, I have built up some pretty amazing skills when it comes to resilience and wellness. I’m proud of that. And I’m going to say something pretty wild here – I’m not giving God the glory for it. He knows I did the work!

I’ve also learned something precious: I can’t control my life. I can live it. I can throw myself into it, make the best of it, and take responsibility for my own decisions and actions, but control is a myth because life is filled with other people and their choices and inner realities.

A couple of years ago, I got the first niggle that “til death do us part”might not happen for Patrick and I. So I did what I had learned to do – enjoyed every moment that I could, knowing I couldn’t change the inevitable but I could enjoy what we had. Those two years have been an absolute gift. We have loved to the best of our ability until we both knew it was time to love platonically instead. Now that time has come, our ability to accept the things we cannot change has meant we navigate our way forward as friends with a truly special bond. He cheers me on as a single woman in her prime. I cheer him on as the most fabulous Dad my kids could ask for, and I can’t wait to see how life unfolds for us in this unconventionally, wholly affirming post-separation family.

Sometimes resilience means fighting for what you know you must fight for. Sometimes it means knowing when something can’t be changed and accepting the outcome so that you can find your way forward.

I get that this is hard for some people to understand. I also get that this blog post is a little more rambly and a little less cerebral than my normal posts, but I just wanted to say: for my friends who caught a curveball and whose lives turned out differently to what they planned, for my friends who are struggling with lockdown, for my friends who have a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness – its okay to be okay.

If you feel good, that is a good thing. It doesn’t decrease your hardship. It magnifies your strength.

Be well, fam

Kit K

Can Christian’s Suffer From Depression?

It seems that my corner of the interwebs is all lit up with mental health awareness messages this week. It’s possibly because of ‘RUOK? Day’ that just passed in Australia, possibly because its Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States, and possibly because I follow a lot of people on Twitter who are grieving the death of Jarrid Wilson. He was a pastor and mental health advocate who tragically lost his battle with depression, even more tragically it was on the day he officiated the funeral of another Christian who lost her battle with depression. In amongst the outpouring of grief, the voice of ignorance seems to have raised itself in the form of people who assert that Christians can’t have mental illnesses, or that suffering from a mental illness disqualifies them from the ministry. This is a dangerous belief; one that is unbiblical and unhelpful at best, and flat out dangerous at worst. In a time when mental illness is thought to affect up to 25% of us, its not good enough to turn a deaf ear to such rubbish. So let’s talk about it.

First cab off the rank: Can Christians Suffer from Mental Illness? Short answer? Yes, they can. But of course, there is more to it than that. For some, this question stems from the NAR/Bethel-Esque belief that total healing from all conditions is guaranteed at the point of salvation. Thus, if someone is born again in Christ, they won’t suffer from mental illness, or indeed any other illness (!!! More on that later). For others, it comes from an antiquated and even subconscious belief that mental illness is demonic or spiritual in origin. Now, thankfully most Christian’s will at least acknowledge that some depression can have neurological or physiological origins. But others hold to the idea that depression is a spiritual, demonic or sin-related malady.

*sigh*

The latter is not helpful. And it’s not true.

Let me switch out my “Christian blogger” hat for my “Research blogger” hat for a second. Here’s what research tells us about depression: it is neurological. Every time. It is physiological. Every time. Why? Because thoughts, feelings, ruminations and such all take place in the brain which is a physical and neurological thing, and having stressors (whether they are physical, chemical or emotional) often factor into the etiology of depressive disorders. The research is a little fuzzy on why serotonin reuptake inhibitors help in a lot of cases, but it seems to have something to do with the neurotransmitters that help signals jump from one neuron to another (i.e. that lovely serotonin in your brain and gut that bathes your neurocircuitry).

There is also emerging research that indicates depression is an inflammation issue, and there are well-established links between mental health and gut health (with the gut being home to the enteric nervous system which houses billions of neurons and communicates to the brain via the vagus nerve and the gut-brain axis. I.e. Many depression sufferers have gut problems, too.

Depression is physical. Read that again. Depression is a physical issue. It’s time we stopped treating mental health as some ethereal, intangible thing. Its time we stopped saying “Oh its all in your head.” Guess what: your head is a tangible thing. Your brain is a tangible thing. If its all in your head, it exists. The thoughts of the mind (with the mind being the brain in action) can be seen on brain scans in the form of neuronal pathways lighting up on the screen. The activity of the limbic system (which governs our emotions) is something that can be measured. We can also measure sympathetic function (the sympathetic nervous system is the part of the nervous system that fires up under stress, and kicks our survival mechanisms into play). Thus, mental illness is tangible in many ways. (Research blogger hat now removed, FYI)

So when you ask yourself if a Christian can have depression, you are really asking whether a Christian can experience physical illness, inflammation, chronic or acute stress, or gut problems. If you can have diarrhea after you eat something you shouldn’t, your Christian brother or sister can have depression. One is no more demonic than the other. Yes, one is more short term than the other (hopefully!) but the point still stands.

Have you ever taken a panadol/Tylenol or aspirin for a headache? Have you ever put an icepack on a sprained ankle or knee? Have you ever gone to the doctor for an upset tummy or other condition? It might have been easy to say that it’s okay for you to suffer from those ailments because its just life, yet turn to depression and related illnesses and say “but that’s not.”

That, right there, is hypocritical. I’m coming out of the gate firing on this one because it matters. If we apply shame is to physical, neurological, chemical conditions that manifest as depression or other mental illnesses we may inadvertently create a situation in which someone may feel shame in getting help. This is the danger of bad theology. It can, quite literally, put a life at risk. People! Let’s not do this! Let’s make churches a safe place for someone to say “I think I’m depressed” and receive support in getting help – not shame or demotions.

It is my belief that depression should not be treated as a spiritual issue. It should be treated as a very real, very serious condition that requires a holistic approach for treatment. That approach should include professional (qualified) help such as counselling and medication. It should include diet and exercise (which is often prescribed as part of the action plan). The place where church should come into a Christian’s action plan is that it should provide community, pastoral support, an opportunity to connect in a positive environment, receive peace and encouragement through scripture (etc), and receive prayer for encouragement or healing if if IF the depression sufferer asks for it. *The latter should never be administered as the sole approach to recovery.* I say this as a person who has been ashamed to admit that attempts at faith healing had failed. In my case it was shoulder and elbow damage after an accident. It was obvious my conditions hadn’t been healed and I felt shame. The hidden shame when a mental illness isn’t healed by faith could be dangerous.

I do believe in prayer. I do believe that when we turn to God, He can perform miracles. I don’t believe that should be the only approach with mental illness. To limit “treatment” to faith healing could be deadly because it could cause a person to feel shame or failure if it doesn’t work. Worse still, it could cause them to feel pressure to act like all is well, or discontinue other treatment. I sweat at the thought.

A particularly concerning doctrine regarding and all healing is an increasingly prevalent belief in some NAR churches that healing from all maladies is guaranteed at the point of salvation. I mentioned it at the top of this piece and I’ll mention it again here: it’s not true and it’s not helpful. We can’t measure the quality of our salvation on whether or not our cancerous tumours disappeared when we said the prayer. Nor can we measure it on whether or not our depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, bipolar, (etc. etc. etc.) disappeared when we said the prayer. Some people may get healed when they invite Jesus into their hearts. GOOD for them. Some people may take years to heal. Good for them. Others may be healed in eternity. Good for them. The fact is every walk with God is different and none should be judged against another.

Paul had a “thorn in his side.” Jacob had a limp. No one would look at them and say “disqualified.” God certainly wouldn’t. We shouldn’t do this to people who suffer mental illness.

Now to the question of whether or not someone should be in the ministry if they suffer from depression or another mental illness. I’d like to turn your attention to King David. As the author of many of the Psalms, it has often been questioned whether his natural artistry and melancholy crossed the line into depression or bipolar disorder. It’s possible! Some of those Psalms are dark! But he was called ‘a man after God’s own heart,’ depression or not. Then there is Elijah the prophet: perhaps the clearest example of burnout or depression in ministry, when the burdens of the call proved too much to bear and he felt the need to hide in a cave for three years and not look after himself (thank God for sending the birds as a catering service). Jeremiah was called the weeping prophet. King Saul had moments of extreme darkness (not that he was a pillar of godliness, I know). All these illustrate the point that the personal struggles or mental illnesses of some of the greatest Bible heroes did not disqualify them from serving God.

Nor should it disqualify our modern ministers from serving God. What it should mean is better support around them, and medical help if required. It should mean that their occupational oversight makes sure they take their holidays every year to recharge the batteries and that stress or complexity is well-managed within the context of their role. It shouldn’t mean they feel shame over their condition or hide it from those around them while wondering why God hasn’t cured them yet.

In a secular workplace, you might feel the need to take extended leave if you were suffering to the point where it was affecting your job. A pastor may need that from time to time if his or her condition is serious or worrying, or that sharing other peoples burdens (as they so often do) is proving too much. That should be okay. I see it as the duty of care the denomination or oversight owes to their pastor. (If a church is independent, this would be difficult. Yet another reason I’m cautious of independent churches – but that’s another topic for another day).

So if you are a minister or a Christian feeling shame about mental illness – please don’t. We didn’t see God shaming Elijah, David, Noah, or many others for their walks with the black dog. You are loved as you are, valued as you are, and precious to God as you are – but don’t mess around with this illness. Please. You deserve care and the best chance at recovery.

“Now Kit, you’ve taken a very unspiritual look at this problem,” I hear you say. “Where does spiritual stuff fit in?” I know many people still believe there is potential spiritual involvement in illnesses including mental illnesses. I have heard of people doing prayer counselling to remove generational curses and such. I’m going to do another piece on this because it’s a loaded topic so come back next week for that one. But here’s the scoop: there are three forms of deliverance. The first happens at the point of salvation. The second happens more gradually, as we consume and internalise the word of God. The third is so rare and problematic I’d almost call it needless in a modern setting where the consent issue can push it over into spiritual abuse.

While it is obvious that Jesus cast out spirits in some extreme cases in the New Testament (the one with Legion and the herd of pigs in Mark 5/Luke 8 for example), He had the benefit of one thing: He was God and had perfect insight into the situation. He was yet to give His life for the redemption of humanity. He was yet to send the Holy Spirit as our helper, counsellor and guide. These are benefits that we now have. To invoke power-deliverance ministries and ignore the health-related fields dedicated to a more gentle and therapeutic approach to mental illness is, in my opinion, needless and dangerous. As Christians, as the living representation of Christ on earth, it is our duty to tread very carefully with the most vulnerable of people. But more on that next week.

I hope you’re intrigued. See you again soon

Peace
Kit K

Jesus: God, Man or Mascot?

A good many writers have considered the formula C.S. Lewis put forward: who was Jesus? Was he a liar who defrauded the public on purpose, a lunatic who believed he was God but wasn’t, or was actually he who he said he was – the son of God? That’s a paraphrase, obviously. But you get the gist. It’s a question many of us have asked ourselves. Once we’ve come to the answer on that, which inevitably tells us (in our heart of hearts if not in our rational minds) whether he is God or man, I believe there is another question we need to ask: have we reduced him from divine status to simply a mascot? Have we edited him and changed his appearance until he is acceptable to us, but merely a caricature of himself?

A little context for you: Some months back, I wrote a series on dominionism. (You can find that hereand follow the links through to the end of the series if you so desire). Dominionism is the belief that there are seven mountains in society and God has destined Christians to dominate in all of them. The irony is that it is, according to my interpretation of the Bible, a pseudo-Christian heresy at best and completely unbiblical at worst. But how seductive it is: to leave behind the idea that God might have called us to minister to the poor, lift the broken, sit with the outcasts, give voice to the voiceless, and love those whom society has left behind, and trade this for a “predestined” position occupying the seats of power in society and letting other people do the nitty-gritty work of Christianity.

While dominionism has been around for quite some time, it was recently made chillingly and abundantly clear in the form of a Netflix documentary based on the investigative journalism of Jeff Sharlett. He infiltrated an American dominionist pseudo-church movement (my best explanation of the bizarre yet eerily familiar scenes laid out in that doco) and wrote two books about them, thus exposing an organisation that had made every effort to stay as secretive as possible.

I can’t tell you how many times words were uttered in that document that made my skin crawl – because I had heard them before. Almost exactly. But the thing that made my stomach drop was this ponderance: it was abundantly clear how “The Family” reduced Jesus to a mascot. They used His name to appear righteous but their one-eyed pursuit of power, and the methods they used to infiltrate high places and secure powerful allies, would have the real Jesus doing a heck of a lot more than throwing some tables around in the temple. But in truth, it isn’t just pseudo-Christian cult groups that use Jesus as a mascot and then just do their own thing. If we look at it, if we study Him then look hard at the world around us, we just might see it everywhere.

Jesus isn’t a mascot we can use to influence the mood of the crowd before we just go ahead and do whatever we want. Nor is He a “get out of jail free” card people can wave around to cover up wrongdoing committed in the name of the cross. We can’t just choose our own gospel and call it Christianity when true Christianity is followership of one who embodied truth, compassion, self-sacrifice and more, one who seemed to shun self-interest all His earthly life. I think Jesus would be angered by people using partial truths to advance a cause so far from His nature yet trotted out with His name emblazoned upon it. It made me mad. Then it made me think.

People of colour have long been joking about how there are different Jesus’s. There is white Jesus who appears on white Christian’s artwork (for those who like that sort of thing). When we pray, an image pops up in our heads of a white guy with sandy blonde hair, a beard, and flowing white robes. Go on. Admit it. It’s true. Then there is Black Jesus and Mexican Jesus, who appear a lot closer to those cultures. Rinse and repeat around the globe. But hey, reality check, the real Jesus was Jewish. He was Middle Eastern. We need not airbrush him to fit our cultural ideals and yet it seems we have. Already, by virtue of his appearance, He is a mascot of sorts.

We’ve made him a caricature of himself by changing how he looks, altering the Bible to suit our need for power or influence, and we seem to have painted over the parts of Jesus we don’t like: we choose the prosperity gospel, or the gospel of the tidy middle class instead of the kind of gospel that takes us to the poor. We choose the purity gospel instead of the gospel that was shared with the woman at the well, who had had seven husbands and was living with a man who she wasn’t married to. We choose the shallow gospel that doesn’t confront us even though the Jesus who walked the earth stopped people in their tracks and made them want to change. We choose a gospel of aggressive conservatism, even though Jesus may have indicated his progressivism when he stood on the mountaintop and uttered the words”But…a new law I give to you.”

Christianity over the years has taken many forms. So very many. From dry, unengaging, obligatory attendance to immersive worship experiences that could take any secular song and swap the words “Baby” for “Jesus” and emerge with something like devotion.

But is this a caricature of Jesus too.

For once, I’m not blogging with the answer in mind, or a tidy list of references, or a neat ending waiting at the end of this paragraph. I’m asking us to think: the Jesus who walked the earth was a revolutionary not because of violence or stoic observation of the good old days. He was a revolutionary because of love. He did not defend himself when accusations came against him. He did not seek power. He took time for the unclean, the unpopular, the at-risk and those the world had cast aside. He was not controlling. He spoke in parables and allowed the listener to find the interpretation within their own heart. He was humble, seeking out another revolutionary with a camel-skin robe and an unkempt beard to baptize him.

That was Jesus. Who is it that we have created? How have we changed him so that he is fit for us to worship? That’s mascot Jesus. That’s not the real Jesus. As the church across the globe grapples with how to hold on to millennials (who seem to be seeking truth, not entertainment), we need to ask ourselves if we are failing to keep the interest of the next generation because we have disengaged mascot Jesus from social justice, equality and inclusion, and made him a vanilla, middle-class white dude who doesn’t ruffle feathers.

Just a thought. (I finish a lot of blogs with that sign-off, don’t I? I’m not even sorry about that. I guess I’m sort of inviting you to think with me.)

Peace
Kit K

What Made You Hold Onto Jesus?

If you know me, you know I love a reader question. Not only does it mean that someone’s reading my blog (and those stats aren’t lying to me after all!), but it means I don’t have to think of a blog topic for the week. That, right there, is a ‘double yay!’ This weeks reader question wasn’t necessarily a tricky one, but it did still make me delve into the archives of my brain and wrench up some details I’d sorta forgotten. The question was this: “In the enormous process of dismantling and re-establishing your faith, what made you sure that Jesus was still real and worth committing to?”

I’m not going to lie to you; my first answer was “fear.” It’s an answer shared by many a person with a similar background to me. Evangelical, a bit fundamentalist, raised in churches – we Christian kids learn to behave for Jesus before we fall in love with Him. I’d behaved for Him all my life. Of course, there was genuineness in my faith, but for the early part of my walk with God at least, fear was the big motivator. No, not the “awe-inspiring, fear of God” type. Just pure, unadulterated fear. Fear of judgment, hell, stuffing up, getting caught, getting embarrassed, missing out – you know the types.

But in the early process of deconstruction, I realized that the way I’d been viewing faith so far was incongruent with the message of the cross.

If love drove Jesus to the cross, why should fear be the thing that drives us to Jesus? Was it possible to discover a love-based faith rather than a fear-based religion? Was it possible to have Christianity without fear and self-loathing?

As a loving mother, as the wife of an incredible husband, there is nothing in me that wants to scare my husband or my children into devotion toward me. I don’t want to scare my husband into cuddling up on the couch and watching movies with me on a Friday night or whatever. I don’t want to scare my children into sitting on my knee and letting me cuddle them or read books to them. I don’t even want to scare them into behaving well. Rather, I want them to understand how to be safe in the world, and to grow up to be people who make it a better place.

If we stop and think about the reality of scaring our partner or children into loving us, we understand pretty quickly that it isn’t love. It’s abuse.

This equated to a bit of an “ah hah” moment for me. It was followed quickly by another “ah hah” moment: Jesus wasn’t a Christian. This means that this thing we call Christianity is simply mankind’s best attempt at building rituals, systems and understanding around a God too vast and infinite for words. It was always going to fall short. It was always going to be messed up by messed-up people and made better by the best efforts of the well-intentioned ones. It was always going to be a mish-mash of the good, the bad and the ugly. Because Christianity was only ever going to be an attempt at humankind housing the divine.

Expanding the search beyond the fear 

The realization that fear was my first motivator was a sobering one. Thankfully that lightbulb moment happened in a church while listening to a level-headed, and theologically strong pastor. He had dragged a scripture out of the archives that I’d only ever heard one way: it was the scripture about Mephibosheth, Jonathan’s son with the clubbed feet. I’d only ever heard it preached one way – that because when Jonathan gave his armor to David, he held back his shoes. The message was always that what you don’t give up in covenant becomes a curse on the next generation. The message below that: obey because of fear that God will curse your kids.

But that’s not what this pastor had said in his message. My husband mentioned it after the service, and the pastor’s words have stuck with me ever since. “To read it that way is to completely misunderstand the nature of God.” He went on to explain himself in more detail, but I wasn’t listening at that point. I was thinking “What else about God have I misunderstood?”

The truth is that Biblical scholarship is an art almost entirely lost. It used to be that people didn’t read the Bible because they couldn’t. They were illiterate, or the Bible was only in such short supply that the scribes were the only ones who could access it and read it.

Now, in an age where most of us can read, and all of us can get free Bible apps on our smartphones, we still seem Biblically illiterate. Thus, we trust the people standing behind the pulpit to explain what we need to know. But what if “what we need to know” is tainted by lost context, personal agendas, leadership challenges, or the colored lenses of the pain and loss life might have thrown them?

There are a million reasons why we can’t just do this. We don’t know what a preacher is thinking when they choose the message for the morning. We don’t know what lens they are viewing that scripture through or what motive is behind it. If we don’t have enough knowledge about God and the Bible to inform us and ring the bell when and if something is a bit skewiff, then we are at the mercy of bad doctrine that takes us further away from a relationship with God, not further into it. But the sad thing is that bad doctrine almost always drives us further into fear and condemnation than into the redemptive love of God.

That realization drove me into the thing I’d always had in my pocket but never had the power to use: the Bible. But I ditched the complexity of the whole thing for a while and just stuck with the Red Letters.

Red Letter Christianity

I blogged on this a while back, and I won’t rehash the whole thing (because you can read it here). But a personal challenge I took on back at the beginning of my deconstruction was to read just the Red Letters for a while. After all, these were the words spoken by Jesus who was one-third of the Trinity. What could get us closer to the nature of God than the words spoken by the Son of God?

They are a big challenge in and of themselves, so much so that the rest of the New Testament seems largely geared at helping us understand how we can live out followership of Christ. But the revelation that I got from my foray into Red Letter Christianity was that judgment was not the goal of God. Love was. Love had always been. Judgment was a thing that He hoped He could spare us from, so much so that He sent Jesus.

He wasn’t after a perfect people. He was after a devoted people. And if our hearts are turned to him, then despite our humanity and the inevitability of failure, our imperfections are all covered. This, essentially, is the nature of God – love. He is love. He does love. He gives love. Yes, he is holy. Yes, he can’t stand sin. But because he loves us, he found a way around that.

That took me back to the fear-abuse conundrum I spoke about in the beginning: If God loved me, then He wouldn’t want to use abuse to drive me into His embrace. And right there, in that sentence, was the great inconsistency I had witnessed over and over again – People professing to have been moved by the love of God, and the higher way of living He called them to, using the fear of Hell and judgment to drive people into salvation and keep them there. “Just do this one thing different and God will love and bless you. Just change this. Just repent of this. Just cease this…” Always one more thing when the truth of the matter is that His Grace is sufficient and His strength made perfect in our weakness.

Boy, it takes the pressure off. Just like that, a lifetime of striving and wrestling got swapped for the safety in knowing God loved me even in the midst of deconstruction. Even if I had difficulty trusting Him or understanding Him for a time, that was totally okay. Because God has big shoulders. He can deal. He could see the grapple, and he could see my struggle to get to the heart of true Christianity, and He wasn’t going to judge me for that. Because that’s not in His nature.

Other World Religions

During the heavier initial stages of my deconstruction, I read a lot and watched a lot of documentaries. I always did so with one thing in mind: my own life experience had taught me that there is a God. That was something that history and science both echoed and did nothing to refute. Even atheism seems consistent with the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, as written in Genesis. If we choose that tree, we eat of its fruit.

(Whole magazines are devoted to these topics, so I’m not going to talk about that in this blog post.)

But one documentary series stood out: Morgan Freeman’s “The Story of God.” In it, he looked at many different world religions including Christianity. It seems that, throughout the world and throughout history and even the post-modern age, we all seem to seek out the divine. And though our words for it differ, very similar themes echo through.

It seems to me that from the beginning of time, mankind has been aware of the divine. From the farthest stretches of the world to the modern centers of civilization, there exists an awareness that there is something out there – some greater power. We find different words to wrap around it. We find different lenses and structures to see it through. But its there.

What makes Christianity different? Well, I guess that’s a series for another day. But the place I arrived at is this: throughout my life, I had seen the hand of God. I had seen Him protect me from certain things, and seen him enable certain things that I’d always thought impossible. He had seen what I prayed in the silence of my room, or in the loneliness of my darkest times. He made these things happen in time. Other people might call this divine force something different. But I call Him Jesus. He calls Himself the way, the truth, and the life.

One day I’ll tell those stories, of the things he rescued me from and the things he bought me through. But for now, here is my truth:

Illness, personal upheaval, loss of church, loss of community, financial hardship, deconstruction of faith, a search through science and other world religions, a critical look through the Bible in its various translations and iterations, a critical look at the world around me – none of it has driven me away from God. Rather it has driven me towards an understanding that He is bigger than what I can possibly understand, and more loving than I ever thought. I don’t have to understand everything about him. But I can spend the rest of my life trying and that will be just beautiful.

Anyway! That’s kinda my thoughts on it. Its taken years to live through, so it’s going to take longer to unpack. But these are some of the things that made me realize, throughout the enormous process of dismantling and re-establishing my faith, that Jesus was still real and worth committing to.

Why Faith Post-Deconstruction is Pretty Great

When I look back through the backlog of topics I’ve written about on here, one thing is abundantly clear: I’ve written on a lot of heavy stuff! (#SorryNotSorry). While you could be forgiven for thinking I’m constantly sitting on a rock, looking at the stars and stroking my chin like some contemplative stone statue, in truth that’s not me at all. I just carve out a few hours a week to be a nerd. And. I. Love. It. But its time for something happy and simple. So today I’m popping out a bit of encouragement for you: if you are going through deconstruction right now, then fear not. Life and faith post deconstruction can be pretty great.

This week, I was talking to a beautiful friend who is just beginning on this journey. I guess I’m optimistic that for her, the deconstruction process won’t be so much like a rug brutally ripped out from under her feet,  toppling a well-ordered world. I hope it will be a little more gentle, a little more hopeful. Hey – I might be way off mark, but a girl can hope, right?

However you approach your deconstruction journey, I want to say there’s hope. Many people who find themselves undergoing this dramatic internal reinvention go on to find deep satisfaction in life and faith. My deconstruction was brutal. But my life now is so deeply satisfying. In the beginning, it felt like all ashes. My world felt burned to the ground. But now, to quote the cliché, beauty has come out of it.

The thing each of us must know is this: you don’t begin a deconstruction journey unless you knew that something wasn’t right and that you had to figure out what and why.

You might not tell yourself this explicitly. It might be something that happens on a subconscious level. It might be something kicked off by conflict or circumstance. But there is a reason for the search. There’s no avoiding that. So you best lean in and strap in, friend.

I’ve met people who are trying their hardest not to go on the deconstruction journey. Eventually, they all find this to be futile. If you find yourself avoiding that pull, its because there is something that needs looking at. There is some soul-sore festering in there and it wants your attention.

But no matter the hardship that lead you there, beauty can come out of it. You can stay a Christian if you want to. You don’t have to walk away from everything. But taking a microscope to your belief system in the service of finding deeper truth just is not a bad thing. If anything, it can lead you into deeper authenticity and happiness.

The Peace Barometer

I love how Marie Kondo’s decluttering method seems to have taken the world by storm. She asks “Does this item spark joy?” If it doesn’t, then we thank it and it goes. Regardless of how you feel about your clutter, or the little sprite who floats into people’s homes and helps clean them, its not a bad approach. I guess, spiritually, my deconstruction journey was a little bit Marie Kondo.

I started comparing things against Romans 14:17 – That the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. I started comparing everything against that. But even within this, we can tell ourselves that our actions are right in the sight of God, and that settles the righteousness conflict. We can even tell ourselves that we are happy and joyful (although if you are about to start deconstructing, then you know this isn’t true).

For me, the one thing I could never manufacture was peace. Therefore, peace became the thing I measured everything against. The other two, righteousness and  joy, factored in but I could convince myself I had both to a certain degree. But if peace was missing then I knew I had issues.

As Christians, we accept a lot of what we are told, because the people rocking our pulpits occupy such a place of respect and honour in our lives. Yet a persons walk with God is such a deeply personal experience. No one does it for you. Its you and God. From here to eternity. Over the years, I had become deeply uncomfortable with some of those things. I could believe them to amount to righteousness. But I did not feel peace and I did not feel joy.

So I had some questions to ask. For example, some of them looked like this:

• Does dominionism bring peace? Does it bring joy? Does it make the world better?

• Does the constant work of ministry bring peace and joy? Does it make me a better ambassador for Christ, or just a tired, cranky, legalistic one?

• Do I have to support “Christian” politicians and their anti-immigration policies just because I too am a Christian? Does it bring me peace? Does it bring me joy to support such suffering? (if so…WHYYYYYY?)

• And for a particularly touchy one – Do I have to be homophobic and transphobic just because I’m a Christian? Does this bring me peace? Does it bring me joy?

There were so many questions asked. These are just four examples. Everyone’s answers will likely be different. Mine were “no, no, no and no.”  So I looked to the Bible. I searched. I listened to podcasts. I read books. I talked to other deconstructors to normalise what I was going through (important step, this!). I leaned into the process. I’m so thankful my hubby was there with me, because I’m sure he’d have gotten CRAZY sick of me if he wasn’t.

I’ve learned that if peace cannot be found, then something needs to change. Just because something is preached at us doesn’t mean it is truth. (Take that with a grain of salt. There are so many wonderful, wise, theologically strong pastors and leaders out there. I’m so blessed to have some of them in my life and my life is better for it. But that does not erase the fact that authority figures can be prone to error and dogma, and when the two combine, we have bad theology that does great damage.)

Chase peace. Chase joy. Chase righteousness. The truth is that the human conscience is a gift from God. It points us to truth when the external stimuli can be so aggressively pointing us to error. If your conscience is telling you something is amiss, then lean in to that. It is never wrong. It can be muted, but never wrong.

Post-deconstruction: love-based faith not fear based religion.

I can’t even begin to explain the depth and breadth of my deconstruction journey. It was big. I can tell you this though: I have peace and I’m happy. I will always carry grief. But that is true for anyone who has faced loss. We don’t stop grieving. We just grow a bigger life around it, and we find joy in appreciating the things that grew into our lives  after loss seemed to prune us back.

I don’t feel anxious on Sunday mornings. I don’t feel anxious when I disagree with something said from the pulpit. I serve in a church and it brings me joy to do so. I grapple with how best to raise my children, but I have peace knowing we all do, and that if I keep faith and conscience at the centre of it then I can’t go too far wrong. I don’t feel that clench in  my chest when I look at the politics section of the news. I feel calm, knowing I’m right where I need to be and the rest is God’s problem.

Even when there is a challenge that comes my way, there is a peace there that I never had before and that’s a truly beautiful thing.

This past weekend, my husband and I dealt with two sick kids and a list of odd jobs as long as our arms. I was leading songs at church and I knew it was going to be a tough gig because I had skeleton staff on the band, was multitasking far more than is practical, and half the church was away at a wedding across the other side of the state. I knew it wasn’t going to be the most earth-moving worship service. But I didn’t feel anxious. I felt peace. The word brought at church had a gentle challenge in it, but I did not feel crushed or at odds. I felt empowered to look at it and let it sink in. In amongst the domestic madness, my husband found moments to look at each-other, look at our kids and feel truly blessed and in love with our little family.

That’s not something that I could have had while I was at odds with myself, my faith and my expression of Christianity. But oh its a blessing now that the deconstruction journey is less intense.

I hope to deconstruct and reconstruct my faith constantly over the years to follow, because I always want my faith to reflect Christ, to be a sweet fragrance to those my life may touch, and to be authentically, peacefully, and joyfully me. Don’t fear deconstruction, friend. Lean in to it. Good things can come out of it.

So that’s me! I hope it encourages you. If you are on a deconstruction journey, then I hope you find support here. Hit me up if you have any questions as I love helping deconstructors if I can in any way – even if that’s linking you with resources.

Anyway! I’ve got to go do some real work. You have a wonderful week.

Kit K. Over and Out

(Hey, before you go, go follow  my socials! Awesome. Thanks)

Instagram – @kitmkennedy

Twitter – @kitmkennedy

Facebook www.facebook.com/kitkennedyofficial

Faith, Identity, and the Deconstruction Journey

When I first read the terms “deconstruction” and “reconstruction”, I was in the thick of what one might call an existential crisis. Up until this point “deconstruction” was something referring to food in swanky restaurants (A deconstructed cheesecake, for example. Basically it means a messy, smashed cheesecake with a garnish on top.) Suddenly I was hearing this word applied to faith, belief and the way one looks at life. At that time, I felt like my neatly packaged way of looking at the world was suddenly flying about in a million pieces like ticker tape. It was its own messy, smashed cheesecake and I didn’t know how to put it back together. 

I don’t know how to write this series in a way that’s neat. Because deconstruction and reconstruction aren’t neat. But I sure hope its helpful. So here are my first four thoughts.

First thought: You’re going to be okay. Its scary as heck. But you’re going to be ok.

Deconstruction, in psychological terms, is a process of critical analysis. You could apply it to faith, relationships, identity, life, or even specific issues in news or media. You could even apply it to a prize fight. Where did it go right? Where did it go wrong? Etc. But the type I’m talking about here usually comes after a loss of some sort: loss of a friendship, a relationship, a faith, a community, etc. It causes you to look back on time and ask things like “What was I thinking? What do I think? Who am I now?” and in some cases, “How do I approach life?”

The process itself involves deconstructing your old ideas about who you are and what you believe (and reconstruction is the partner to this process: where you put those pieces all back together). Think about this like a thousand piece puzzle. Its lovely when the picture is all together and looking sharp, but when you are holding the pieces and you don’t know where to start – well gee. That’s daunting. And its messy as F. (F meaning foretold. You didn’t think I’d drop the F bomb, did you? Heh.)

For some people this process of deconstruction can be limited to one patch of their life. For others its all encompassing. I’ve read that for people leaving a controlling relationship or a high demand group, for example, it can involve high-anxiety and inability to think through things as simple as deciding where and how to open a bank account.

When I started this journey, I was happy with where my bank accounts where held, thank Heavens. But I was second guessing what the Bible really meant, who was God really, how should I raise my kids or approach faith, God, and contribution to society. I was wondering how I should redevelop a tribe for my husband, kids and I to live and thrive in. My experience of faith had informed everything: my friendships, how I interacted with family, career, finance, sleep, tv consumption, major life decisions – everything. All of a sudden it was blown to pieces. I felt like I my locus of control had been external. I didn’t know how to reach out, grab it and figure out how to possess it for myself. I didn’t even know whether I was allowed to. In some moments, I was rapt in the freedom of it all. At other times, I was almost crippled with fear.

Its been three years. And I want to say something to people who are just starting this journey – you are going to be ok. I’ll give you a spoiler here: I’m ok. In fact, I’m happier. My marriage is thriving, as are my friendships. I love my tribe, and my weekends are spent with people I just adore. We soak in the sunshine, watch our kids play, drink wine (on many if not all occasions) and we laugh a lot. I laugh a lot more than I used to. I still have struggles but they are well within the bounds of “normal.” How do you deal with 2 year olds? How do you squeeze in date night when you are so tired? Why do the weeds in my garden have to grow so freakin’ fast? That sort of thing.

If you’re just starting this journey, then it feels all-encompassing right now. It feels messy, and painful, and out of control. But it won’t feel that way forever. I’ve got friends who are 4, 5, 6 and even 15 years post-deconstruction. They are doing well. Life looks different but it looks good. You’re going to be okay. Just keep taking one step at a time.

Second thought: There’s grief, and no matter what you’ve heard about the five stages of grief – it isn’t linear. One moment you are in denial. The next you are angry. You think you’ve accepted it then you change your mind about that. That’s okay. Just roll with it.

Yes, you can grieve for faith, community, or relationships as deeply as you would grieve for a person.  Why? Because if you are grieving for the loss of identity or a relationship, then its almost like you are grieving for the person you were before. Its okay. My husband and I used to try to fix each-other. If one of us was having an off day, we would try to talk each-other up and out of that funk. One would compensate for the other persons sadness or rumination with confidence and cheeriness. It was noble. But we have learned something over the years: its better to acknowledge those feelings of sadness and rumination, hug it out, and simply be there in the sadness. You don’t have to feel “up” all the time. You can’t. That’s life. But if you have someone beside you to simply share it, then cherish that. I’m so blessed that hubby was on this journey with me. The way we worked through our deconstruction/reconstruction was different, as was the timeline, but we were in it together. I’m so thankful for that.

Not everyone will go through this process with a partner. If you can’t, then find a friend, a support group, or a therapist. Better still, find all of the above. This is hard stuff. You’re going to make it. But its hard stuff.

Third thought: You probably need to know about limbic lag.

Fun fact: Your prefrontal cortex (which makes sense of the world) sometimes works on a different timeline to your limbic system (which is thought to govern emotions). So when it comes to matters like re-evaluating and re-building your life, if you are feeling like crap, it doesn’t have to mean anything more than that you’re feeling like crap. Acknowledge it. Don’t fight it. But don’t think you need to rethink everything because you are feeling like rubbish in that moment. It could simply be limbic lag – thoughts and feelings working on different schedules. Eventually they’ll line up a bit better. But in the midst of the crisis, they might not. And that’s okay.

Tomorrow will be another day. You don’t have to feel sad tomorrow if you felt sad today. But if you do that’s okay too. (Disclaimer: one or two days is okay, but if your low mood lasts much longer than that, see a doctor. Sometimes when we face upheavals in life, it can wear on our mental health. If you are suffering from ongoing low mood then it could be depression, which is a medical condition. Don’t muck around with that. Your life means too much. Yes, even if you feel like you’ve lost your sense of purpose and place right now. You are worth help. And help helps, you know.)

Now, I know that limbic lag is a bit of a pop-psych terminology to describe this phenomenon but its a helpful one based on how the different sections of the brain work. If you’ve gone on a big process of deconstruction, then your whole life might be put under the microscope of critical thought, and you might be grieving a lot while also talking and thinking through it all. If you are used to “following your gut” to know whether you are right or wrong, then this limbic lag could be confusing. You might wonder if you are wrong on something just because you don’t get that happy, peaceful feeling about it.

In this moment, I encourage you to sit with the feelings and know that sometimes you just feel bad. I’m about to use another pop-psych term (eeek!) but in these moments, self-care matters. So run that bath. Have that chocolate. Go for that walk (get dressed first if you’ve just had that bath! You’re welcome). Phone that friend. See that movie. Deconstruction can feel all encompassing, but you can take a few hours off your existential crisis to see Jason Momoa, er I mean Aquaman or whatever. Your existential crisis will still be there tomorrow, so you can give yourself permission to take a day off making sense of the world.

Fourth Thought: Deconstruction and reconstruction don’t have to be separate. You can do one as you do the other. They can also be positive and freeing, even if the circumstances that lead you there weren’t.

Look, how you face your crisis is your business. No one can tell you how to do it (apart from a good therapist, which EVERYONE needs. I swear. Emphasis on the word good though. A good one will guide you through it, give you the skills to do it, but never demand you do it their way or according to their values). But I found I had to approach deconstruction and reconstruction together, and in an ongoing fashion.

In the beginning, something would pop up almost every day. Its amazing how pervading your belief system can be. During the heavy deconstruction phase after I left a church, lost a community and had to reinvent it all, I was amazed at how much I had to rethink. But deconstruction and reconstruction ran together. Something would pop up, and I’d realise “I used to think this about a particular thing. What do I think now?” I’d then study, think, talk it through with people in my circle and arrive at what I now think. It was a constant process of taking one belief out of my box of beliefs, turning it over, thinking about it and deciding whether it was to be kept, discarded or reinvented.

You see, you can’t just discard a belief. You have to replace it with what you now think. It’s not just a matter of realising Santa doesn’t exist. Its a matter of realising he doesn’t exist, and he’s actually your parents waiting until after you go to bed and putting the presents bought with their hard-earned cash under the tree. Santa didn’t eat the cookie. Ruddolph didn’t eat the carrot. Dad ate the cookie and Mum put the carrot back in the crisper so it could be chopped up and put in with the roasting vegetables.

It sounds terribly orderly, doesn’t it? I wish it were. It was actually a lot less organised. Because one day it was church attendance and tithing, the next it was social justice, predestination, the afterlife and fear of Hell. Then back to tithing or whatever. It was haphazard and emotionally draining, sometimes intellectual, and other times deeply emotive. Sometimes it was easy to arrive at a new conclusion or retain the old one, and sometimes it was too hard to sort through in a day, a week or a month.

Three years on, I hope I keep deconstructing and reconstructing for the rest of my life. Now that I’m through the existential crisis and into a more authentic, congruent and peaceful way of living and expressing faith, I think its an altogether healthy thing to keep asking yourself important questions. Its hard in the beginning if you’ve been living life one way and then it all gets thrown up in the air. But its not always a negative thing or something undertaken in reaction to loss or upheaval.

I realise this blog post lacks my usual references and intellectual geek-speak. I felt like it deserved a bit more of a personal look. I hope it helps. If it doesn’t, then I hope you just hold on to two things: find a good therapist, and you’re going to be okay.

Life can get sunnier if you do the work.

Three years into a deconstruction/reconstruction journey that may come and go for the rest of my life, here’s what I know: I’m still me. I just like me more. I am more able to grow and evolve than I thought I was. I am stronger and more capable than I thought I was. I am still a Christian. God hasn’t changed, but my understanding of Him has and so the way I express that and love people has changed. There will always be things I grieve. Because grief doesn’t necessarily go away. You just grow a bigger life around it.

And you can, you will, grow a bigger life around it.

Good luck. Stay tuned next week when I talk about…something relevant.

xo
Kit K

A Quick Thought on Reconstructing Identity

Morning! It’s a Wednesday. My kids are in care today so it gives me a few blessed hours to slam out literary brilliance. (Where is the sarcasm sign when you need it?) I’m about to start a series that will be geared around rediscovering yourself and your faith after your world has been turned upside down. I thought it would be easy to slam out, but I’m giving it some good thought first. Because when someone loses something that formed a big part of their identity – well gee, thats not trivial! It deserves a bit of homework on my part before I write it.

But before I start on that, I wanted to pop a quick thought out there – a challenge perhaps. So here’s todays microblog.

It’s easy to define ourselves on what we aren’t anymore, or what we don’t believe in. It’s easy to say I’m ex-this or ex-that. When I first began the process of deconstructing and reconstructing faith, I liked the term exvangelical (short for ex-evangelical). It resonated with me as it encapsulated some of the things I was no longer comfortable with. I still like it. I’m still probably exvangelical (even though technically my church is evangelical, I guess.)

Deconstructing your old faith and reconstructing your new one is tough, messy work. I’m also going to say its beautiful, because deep reflection and thought can lead to a more informed and authentic faith. It can lead you through some of the roadblocks that kept you and God apart, helping you to shed the unhelpful aspects of religion and dogma and discover new, more helpful aspects of a living, evolving faith. If you are on that journey, be it about faith or identity or whatever, perhaps you could try to think about defining yourself by what you are rather than by what you’re not anymore. I found that helpful.

I am most likely an exvangelical. But I’d rather think of myself as a post-modern Christian, a compassionate person, a deep thinker, a good friend, a person of faith, and a person of conscience. There’s no tidy, all-encompassing term for that. But its a positive identity based on what I’m moving towards, not an identity based on what I’m moving away from.

Just a thought.
Have a fab day and I’ll see you early next week with a piece on deconstruction and reconstruction of faith!

Kit K