Letting go of destructive theology is super hard. I commend those who stuck with Christ, through spiritual abuse, scandals, and confusion. For me the matrix begin to really break with the suicide of Pastor Jarrid Wilson in 2019. Here was a Christian who didn’t deny mental illness and in fact had a whole ministry. He had a beautiful family with two boys. Pastor Wilson called one of his friends for help after ironically doing a funeral for a church member who committed suicide.
Before I proceed I want to be clear I am no one’s pastor nor am I a highly trained theologian, I am just a follower of Christ searching for the truth about life. Even the uncomfortable truths. The fact is we all come up with our own narratives to keep us waking up everyday. I suffered with depression since I was 13. All a therapist will do is help you come up with a narrative and safety plan to help you not off yourself. Psychiatrists and Neurologists are constantly trying to figure out how to fix the physiology and pyschological reasons behind mental illness. It is scary to realize most people really don’t know if suicide could be prevented by a better diet,
a few hits of medical cannabis, fasting, praying or simply believing you could go to hell.
One thing about my faith I am deconstructing is the works for love and acceptance model. As I struggle with recovering from heart surgery, I have had a hard time accepting my limitations. So many sermons are about if you can do XYZ
then God will do ABC. This sort of formula and transactional kind of religion, creates an all or nothing mentality. I used to think if my husband wasn’t the priest of the house or if we got divorced then my kids and everything we did would be cursed. I never considered grace, it wasn’t taught to me. However, when I think of the margin error for getting something like AIDS or harmed by a lover was very high in the 90s, scare tactics kept some of us out of trouble.
Nevertheless, when I fall short or when someone falls short, I get anxiety about pending doom. Then there is a laundry list of things that Christian dating books tell us to look for a in spouse. So here I am unable to serve or attend church because of my heart issues, frightened that I wont be healed or will endure more punishment from God because I cant go. I am no longer a Proverbs 31 woman who can work long hours and be disciplined, because of my heart issues. Every year was supposed to be my year, but I am living a nightmare with in a dream life, searching for the truth about my situation. Did my sin finally catch up with me ? Or maybe I need to divorce myself from thinking like that and heal my body through modalities the church forbids ?
I feel like I am at a scary crossroad where I dont know if I am selling my soul or going to end up dead over really bad theology. If I had to choose I would do everything I can to extend my life by any means necessary and God would understand. Like sometimes I feel if I was in a long term sinful relationship with a loving atheist, I wouldnt be sick right now. I am so tired of pretending celibacy is easy and doesn’t have serious drawbacks to your health. I guess being single is easier for people who have never been married. I really loved being married, especially when we had good times. I enjoyed being home with my husband, watching track or boxing. Having husband forced me to cook well, exercise,take care of your health and create a home.
I am not like some superfeminist, I love men 😂 Especially dark skinned intelligent men with impeccable taste in music & style. Maybe that comes from really loving my grandfather. That man loved me and gave me sense of identity. I grew up in a family, where I was loved by black men, though not including my father.
So I guess I am trying to find the right theology to heal the unique scars on my soul, while helping me to become all that has created me to be. Again this is not as easy as people make it out to be. I feel there are alot of smoke and mirrors or confusion about how God works. Met alot of ministers who were not down with purity culture. Then there are many happy couples that didnt wait to get married, the husband is not the priest nor is he even Christian. I am just confused as to why God looks over some marriages and people, and they don’t follow the “rules”.
I mean this is a fundamental issue I have since becoming a jazz musician, playing “the devil’s music.” I think more devils play gospel and Hillsong church though having excellent music ministry, their pastors acted like devils, so I am confused who is playing the devil’s music. Maybe everybody’s devils like different music. Jazz inspires me to be an angel. I want to be as authentic on and off the stage, I want my music to have integrity, and I recognize the power of music to move and enlighten the culture. That is such a weird epiphany. All I know is these “rules” I was given just seem like broken spells or spells for a specific type of person. Sort of like seeds for a specific type of soil. Good banana seeds wont grow in Chicago, but will grow in the Caribbean. I feel like some of these “rules” I was taught were meant for a certain kind of person and I have to come up with my own set of rules for the person I am. For example, I fall into the you can go to hell for committing suicide “camp.” I aplogize to anyone who has lost a family memeber to suicide. I simply pray that there is a loophole for them. However, I believe you can go to hell for suicide. In fact, when I was going through severe depression during my divorce to the point I was hospitalized, I had a George Bailey kind of moment. I got a vision of me having to watch my parents raising my kids and that was utter hell to me. Like I couldnt stop my parents from hurting my daughter the way they hurt me and she would go through the same pain. I thought my parents would turn my son into a man whore or severly depressed drug addict like Juicewrld.
Once parents my came and asked me if they should adopt and I said oh no 😆 They are awful parents and have an insane marriage. I can’t remember a time when they werent in the same room arguing. The best way to ruin a family event for me was invite my parents. I don’t believe in horoscopes but there has to be something to the personality types associated with astrological signs.
My whole thing with astrology is another deconstructing point of mine. Allow me to digress from my very interesting parents. I believe we are created from star dust or some celestial particles and that our personalities are shaped by when we are born. I hate to admit it but I am definitely a Cancer through and through. In my flesh or my nature I am sensitive and super emotional. I have tried to deny this reality but it is really true. My environment is super important me. I can’t stand any kind of strife in my home. However, conflict is apart of life and you need to learn to handle it. You also need to lean on the Holy Spirit to deal with the negative aspects of your astrological sign. Also there are still details in your life where you need to go to God for. So I think astrology can be a guide, but the Cross is the sign we use to align our behavior. I think of astrological signs like personality tests. I just know for me before I got into astrology as a relationship gauge, I did notice I got along very well with Virgos and Capricorns. But keep in mind just because you are naturally drawn to someone doesnt make them spiritually good for you or that they dont have harmful relationship patterns. Then the issue is common life goals and values. Ultimately God has the final say in who you should connect with and every connection is an opportunity to grow in some way.
Final thought for this part of my honest deconstruction series is my thoughts on love and marriage today. I think most annoying thing of the past 10 years are all the relationship gurus and Christian dating books. Do we really think we as humans understand the complexity of God combining billions of people into new billions of people who will ultimately bring about his complex plans of the Earth. If anything the Old Testament has taught us, is that we have no clue who God chooses to use or what kind of sexual relationship He will use to include in his plan. I am so glad that the Torah was written, because I am sure he was as grossed out by incest as we are today, though children of that were part of His plan.
Then you would think that adultery and murder would not be apart of Jesus’ lineage but Solomon is the result of some serious sins.
I am not suggesting that incest, adultery and murder are good, I am just saying that if God can use children from those jacked up relationships, He can use and love kids whose parents got married too young, or whose mom was a crackhead or his parents had too much drink and had a one night stand or whose parents arw gay. This makes the risk of love worth it for me. Going on a journey with someone to build an extraordinary life and to raise great kids, is a sacred & worthwhile pursuit no matter how it ends. I have seen people wait to have sex to get married and know someone who fasted and prayed for her husband, yet my marriage lasted longer. Women are told to never marry or date someone who is financially insecure and I have seen homeless guys become great stepfathers and husbands. Only God knows which two people were meant to become one for all eternity. However, he isnt going to stop his plans because of our shortcomings and sin. He knows we cant follow rules. Our parents Adam and Eve couldnt follow one simple rule which made their firstborn into a murder. So He isnt shocked by our sin and shortcomings. He loves us for who we are and wants none of us to perish in our sin and stay away from the awful consquences of sin.
I mean I cant speak for anyone else but fornication isnt a sin I can engage in without pyschological damage to my soul. I am determined to create an art of work called I am not made for sin. Someone in the ex evangelical reddit group got upset because I mentioned soul ties. He said it was a scare tactic. Telling someone not to shoot themselves in the face isnt seen as a scare tactic but sage advise. All I can say if you have never had a few soul ties where you or someone else lost their everloving mind then you aint fornicating right 😆
SELAH.