A Faith Deceased - Part One

Faith is defined as the ability to blindly believe in the unknown or, in simpler terminology “a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.” Faith, in my world, has always been directly correlated with christianity. It is a term that, during the span of my time within christian organizations, I was made to believe was only sincere and true when applied to christian ideologies; ideologies being ideas disguised as science or philosophy. Throughout the beginning of my life I was trained to put faith within a manmade organization, more than that of a God. This was an organization led by broken, chaos ridden people who pretended to know how to change the world and acted as if their inner chaos was non existent- in other words an institution led by ideologues. It became clear that it was all but a sincere and pure passion for people, it was a political game of cat and mouse where virtue-signaling was the greatest pastime and man spent more time playing God than actually creating a healthy and United community. People became numbers, the more you had, the more you were celebrated; a vicious cycle that continuously repeated itself.

I grew up within a fellowship called The Potter’s House. I was in it from the age of 2 years old, until my family and I left when I was 19 years old. My entire life, identity, and purpose were tied into this community. I watched my parents sacrifice their mental health and family in the name of God. I saw them go from people to robots right before my eyes. I watched condemnation which was so often mistaken for ”conviction,” eat away at my dad over the years. I watched as my family became divided within our own home. The church demanded so much of my father’s time; between him working a full time job, being a pastor, leading outreaches and bible studies, street preaching and performing at concerts, leading revivals and traveling to preach at fellowship churches - he was hardly ever around. My mother, who’d married my father and adopted me, was young with three children who she was essentially raising alone. She was lost and broken and to this day the joys of being a mother are drowned out by the pains of having carried our family on her back, alone. I spent countless nights crying myself to sleep in fear of the rapture happening or my sudden death thrusting me to an eternal lake of fire, where I would burn forever and ever because I’d spent the day under my bed listening to an album by Christina Aguilera or mouthed off to my mom hours before. I lived my life in constant crippling fear. I watched my closest childhood friends live through abuse, while also having a fair share inflicted on myself; only to have it made clear that the abusers had God on their side and we deserved what we got for not honoring those placed in authority over our lives. How does a parent go from abusing their child, unbothered, to lifting their hands in church and praising God within the same hour and somehow their faith is saving them.

My entire family believed these people were our people, we really thought “this is our family” we saw, spoke, and loved them more than we did our blood relatives. We were convinced the bonds we had created would never dissolve, but we were wrong; The day we left our lives changed, it was whirlwind of chaos, pain, anger, confusion. Every single person turned their backs on us - It made me sick. These people were all we had; they were our family, our life, our entire future. To see the anger and judgment that fell over their faces when we chose to leave was painful. Soon after leaving my dad got cancer and to hear these people claim that my father was deserving of this… to hear it said that God had cursed him for rebelling and leaving the fellowship was heart wrenching. They claimed that he would lose his family, would not be successful and that God would curse his life. To think that God would place my destiny within the walls of THIS christian organization made me want to scream at the top of my lungs. Toward the end of my time within this organization, and those I was in thereafter, I found myself becoming encapsulated within my own bitterness. I began to judge the people in my life and spew their downfalls on others in order to make myself feel better about who I had become. I began living a lie, judging those around me more out of envy for their courage to explore life than I did the path they chose for exploration.

To this day, it is rare that I don’t cringe at the term “christian,” roll my eyes when I hear of a miracle or testimony, and the term “Faith” doesn’t urge me to run in the opposite direction. There is a sort of fog that consumes you when you’re within an organization or, dare I say, cult like this. In order to be relevant you cannot be yourself, you must only be who they train you to be… authenticity, without being said, is forbidden and all rules implemented are always to be accepted as irrefutable. You’re taught to believe you are irrelevant without them and attempting a life outside will only end in disaster. One of the things that was consistently brought up was how “empty” our hearts would be without christ and church in our lives; I honestly think it is more in the fact that people tend to find comfort in believing in an entity bigger than themselves. I spent some time attending OEA (program for people with eating disorders) and one of the things they told us to do was find a higher power and put our trust in it, whatever it might be; when we put our trust in our own ability, we tend to let ourselves down. When it comes to christianity - primarily organized religion - It is clear that the sense of fulfillment is found, not in an entity, but in being surrounded by people with a like minded mentality. Growing up, no matter what I went through, I felt totally invincible and complete because being a part of The Potter’s House made me untouchable.

I understand all christians might not be the same, but right now I’m going to allow myself to sit with my anger and disgust and maybe eventually circle back to analyze my feelings and separate them from what might be reality. If I am being completely honest, I find comfort in believing in God more because I am afraid not to than I do because I have faith he is real. My hope is that one day I can either walk away completely or learn to apply that blind faith that is so glorified within the holy book. Regardless of whatever doom christianity might claim is written in the stars for me, turning my back on a faith has finally left me at peace with where I am and what I have chosen. I have spoken before about the magic there is in discovering and believing in one’s own truth, and I stand by that. Right now, I am ok with leaving everything I was taught to be true behind and blindly diving into the abyss of the unknown. This is finally my journey to claim, this is my time to decide what I believe to be true and this is my faith to kill or revive. I’ve developed a love with the idea of Chaos and Order and the beauty that ties the two “Chaos is rejecting all you’ve learned, chaos is being yourself.” I love that one compliments the other, the idea of accepting the ugly and in doing so finding beauty is pure magic to me. I am hoping that, when I come back with another part to this post, I can do so with a clearer head and a lighter heart; but, for now, I’ll close my eyes and accept the beauty hidden within a faith deceased.

“There are no beautiful surfaces, without a terrible depth” - Friedrich Neitzsche