Leaving the church to save my soul

A divine journey

Apr 09, 2025

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Something about spring reminds me of church, what with all the rebirth and revival taking place out there in the natural world. The association is unsurprising given the recurrent themes of crucifixion and resurrection this time of year. For me, for a very long time, church was so much more than what the family did on Sundays before I was old enough to make my own choices, though that was undoubtedly the start of it.

Long after childhood, I continued to engage, and what I gained held increasingly consequential sway. It was my community, my source of emotional and spiritual nourishment, and a singular part of my identity, until it wasn’t. This is the story of why I needed to walk away.

The church experience of my youth was formative and I dare say magical, though the Harry Potter haters would not sanction use of that term. When I left home for college, I carried that ideal with me. There, at a large, state university, tens of thousands of students reduced me from a mid-sized fish in a mid-sized pond to a minnow in an ocean of unfamiliarity. When a good-looking guy from my dorm invited me to his church, I was thrilled and at least a little lustful. Hey, no shade, God. You created hormones!

Nothing ever came of the fellow, but the fellowship of that non-denominational church filled a void. These were not the Methodists of my past. These were Charismatics, with a capital C. It was the first time I’d been part of what they would call a spirit-filled service, where people were moved to speak in tongues. Hands waved and syllables poured forth with an energy akin to that of a Grateful Dead concert, minus the psychedelics.

Someone was always off track, backsliding, prodigal, in need of repentance.

These people were high on Jesus, a strong attractant for an impressionable young person with good memories of church. So invested was I in this new level of devotion that I sent a letter to my parents suggesting, in less than graceful terms, that they were unlikely to be given keys to the kingdom of heaven after death. Hey folks, thanks for the free ride to college. A shame you’re headed to the abyss after you die.

Wisely, they summoned me home, post haste, insisting I meet with a trusted pastor at my former church to assess whether I’d joined a cult. I assured them they had no need to worry, that I was fully in control of my decision to be an ass as I cultivated a deeper relationship with the Divine. I never doubted that was true.

Time passed. I found more ways to surround myself with religious activities and like-minded friends. I felt sorry for those who hadn’t found their way to this enlightened community.

Yet, despite my relative contentment, I still had a problem. No matter how high I reached, I couldn’t touch my spiritual aspirations. Those pesky transgressions kept bringing me back to my knees in humbled shame. Because I couldn’t stop cursing, or coveting, reading the occasional horoscope, or wanting to pull the fucking toenails off the girl who stole my boyfriend out from under me, I was unworthy of grace.

The same was true of everyone in my circles. Someone was always off track, backsliding, prodigal, in need of repentance. If they didn’t chasten themselves for their own failings, there was a believer ready to do it for them, while saying prayers for their sorry soul.

I began noticing how exhausted I was from this Sisyphean struggle. Sure, the scriptures said my sins were already forgiven, but it was still up to me to exorcise my personal demons. I took to fasting every Friday, spending mealtimes in self-reflection and supplication. Double win if I managed to lose a few pounds.

One night, with a few familiar zealots, I attended a healing service during which a young woman using a wheelchair was invited onto the stage. I knew her peripherally from Sunday services, and I understood her to have a degenerative disease affecting the strength of her legs. The minister, adjusting his microphone, made a big deal of invoking the trio of Christian superheroes before praying and asking for miracles in the name of all things holy. People in the audience swayed back and forth, arms raised, some making indecipherable sounds. When the intensity of the moment reached a fever pitch, the man told the girl to rise up out of her chair and walk toward him across the stage. With obvious effort, she managed to stand, but she fell back immediately.

I heard the preacher tell her, a semblance of sympathy in his voice, that if she believed deeply enough, he was sure she could have the healing she wanted someday. He advised her to continue working on her relationship with God. Through deceptively crafted words, he blamed her for being unable to walk.

Everything I’d been experiencing—all the fervent sermons, the verbal gibberish, the ecstatic praise—was predicated on judgement.

Something inside me splintered that night, a broken mirror reflecting a dozen distorted images of my own face. It terrified me, and I couldn’t stop seeing it. For every moment I’d felt the warmth of belonging, I had felt in equal measure the chill of reproach. Nothing I could add or subtract from my discipline would ever be enough. Approval, or the lack of it, was a proxy for power. It started with the leaders of the church and went all the way up to their interpretation of the big guy in the sky.

In my heart, that was the moment everything shifted, though it would be another decade before I could fully own it. Everything I’d been experiencing—all the fervent sermons, the verbal gibberish, the ecstatic praise—was predicated on judgement. The righteousness, the worthiness, the disobedience, the forgiveness, that was all an avenue for exerting control and inflicting dominance on me, on the girl in the wheelchair, on each other.

I am far from alone in my decision to distance myself from organized religion. According to Michael Graham, Jim Davis, and Ryan Burge, authors of The Great Dechurching, in the last 25 years an estimated 40 million Americans have left their churches. Some of those surveyed cite as justification the depravity of religious institutions, with examples far worse than mine. More often, people just can’t make the time. In a culture that asks us to work 40 hours or more a week, have hobbies, maintain friendships, care for parents, and engage kids in extracurricular activities, something has to give. Church draws the short straw. Add the possibility of a message that amplifies a sense of moral inadequacy, and thanks, but no.

…he met people right where they were and held out both hands for support.

It would be wrong of me to leave you thinking I retained only sour memories of my time as a churchgoer. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Many of my guiding principles are still rooted in what came to me in those days, and I still feel deeply connected to the threads of divinity that knit all living beings together. I like to say that I didn’t cast off my beliefs, I just widened them enough to hold more of the planet in their embrace.

Apart from the evangelical college years, until I was 28 years old and moved away, I was part of a home church with more than 2,000 members. It took the deep pockets and the good intentions of many to sustain the full complement of structures and schedules that made the establishment what it was, and I was among those who contributed fully.

I participated in and led programs, immersed myself in camps and retreats, gave money and sang my heart out in the choir. I still miss that kind of singing. I walked the length of its long aisle to marry my husband, my children were baptised there, my parents were memorialized and interred there, most recently in November 2021 when we celebrated the fullness of my mother’s long life.

Of the people I met and came to love, one man holds a place of honor. He is a reader here and a very dear friend. He also celebrated his 80th birthday yesterday. It is my great hope that these words will reciprocate, in some small way, the tenderness and discernment he modeled for me and countless others across his years in ministry.

When I hit junior high school in 1975, he was in his fourth year as youth pastor at that big ol’ church and had solidified his reputation as a perfect fit for the job. Kids adored him. Parents marveled at him. He was young and zany, funny and dependable, energetic and grounding. Most of all, he was nonjudgmental. Though he could offer a cogent sermon, he never preached. Instead, he met people right where they were and held out both hands for support.

When teenage angst threatened to swallow me whole, he lifted me up with words of wise encouragement. When my parents called me home after receiving a letter from their indoctrinated, college-age daughter, they trusted he would provide the counsel I needed. Unlike the control-seeking, sanctimonious church leaders I saw too often, he was a true minister.

A magnetic combination of personality and acceptance attracted people to him, creating a vibrant, open-hearted community. Youth from other churches and from no churches at all migrated to our activities, growing the size and influence of the program. He always said he was just doing what he was called to do. I never doubted that was true, and I never needed to reconsider my trust in him.

Perhaps predictably, his popularity eventually turned an envious few against him, reminiscent of Jesus himself. He retired sooner than planned 25 years ago. Many former youth and youth leaders still communicate with him regularly through a lively social media page.

Tragically, the church where all of that goodness grew no longer exists. In August 2023, its congregation, including many members newly recruited by the sitting senior minister, voted to leave the denomination. They “disagreed with its stance on LGBTQ+ issues in marriage and the clergy,” the Fox News article said. A temporary and now-expired church law allowed them to disaffiliate while retaining the property and its assets.

And so it is that the church of my past–where the organ’s bell chimes were given in memory of my grandparents, where I stood to offer youthful thoughts about rebirth and revival on more than one Easter Sunday, my voice hoarse from having just returned from a raucous spring break with my high school friends–has left the walls that held it for more than 60 years. My parents’ ashes remain tucked into a wall outside a structure where worshippers I deeply disagree with now pursue their beliefs. It is my life’s conviction to consider those people and their decisions without judgement, though I struggle mightily to achieve that goal. If it turns out we do get the chance to move up or down when we die, I’m glad it won’t be my job to decide where anyone goes.

~Elizabeth

A rendering of the church - artist unknown

It’s so nice to see you here, returning and new subscribers alike. If this felt relatable, I hope you can take a moment to wing out a wee 💚 before you go (the button is at the top and bottom of every post). Restacking or sharing the post with others delights me even more, and comments are the best. That way, we encourage this special community of our own.

Are your memories of church recent or do they draw from experiences in your past? Do you participate in any meaningful spring rituals?

Chicken Scratch by Elizabeth Beggins

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