Sometimes people ask me why I became an Unfundamentalist. Well, the main reason is that I know what real fundamentalism is like; because I was raised within it's bubble.
It's important to note that my parents and some of the church leaders of my youth were reliably good spiritual guides.
But the larger U.S. Fundamentalist Christian culture my non-denominational church was part of - as well as the denomination it eventually joined - was toxic, injurious, and theologically bankrupt.
This fundamentalist culture of book stores, music, magazines, movies, youth revival conferences, "family-focus" organizations, and televangelists falsely indoctrinated us to believe that we were completely worthless in the eyes of God. We were taught that we were dirt: undeserving, untrustworthy, deserving only of punishment.
Naturally, this is how we came to view everyone else too. Logically, this leads to the hubris and judgmentalism so common to fundamentalism.
(Sadly, this completely theologically-backward understanding is what is still articulated by much of the Praise and Worship Industry).
We were taught that Satan would take every opportunity to creep in and trick us away from “the narrow path.” Questions, doubt, and sin were of the Devil, evidence of weak faith, or of no faith at all. Looking back now, it's patently obvious that this absolutism was complete bullshit, plainly contradicted by scripture. But back then, it was leveled against us as an absolute truth.
This is the patriarchal, ego-fortifying, psyche-destroying, soul-crushing, domineering, brain-washing, fear-inducing, manipulative, spiritually-abusive world of the fundamentalism I know so well.
It showed nothing of an unconditionally loving God – the God that, since I have left that awful world, I have come to know and love.
The full article is available here
