I broke up with Jesus on Facebook.
It was April 2018 when I made it public, and I did it in long-form. From the comforts of my share house bedroom, on sheets I bought from Vinnies, I posted a blog to my newsfeed titled ‘Losing my Religion and Leaving the Church Behind’, and then I closed my laptop, switched off my phone and went for a walk.
It was a crisp April evening and the trees on my cul-de-sac were losing leaves in the wind. I had taken the weight off my shoulders, put it out on display on the internet, and I left it there. I was lighter. I felt free.
I had managed to move house often enough to blur the strength of my faith and commitment to parishes so I knew there was no one Minister who could take ownership over my spiritual journey. And yet, I knew there were friends who would be finding this out for the first time, and I knew they would be heartbroken.
So I threw the baby out with the bathwater and they were ejected with the same fervour. Whoooosh, out you all go! God, church, Christians, baptisms, prayer… See ya! You all deceived me and I am done!
Later that evening, I returned home to hundreds of comments and emails and DMs. There was a lot of support and a lot of heartbreak too. It created a minor ripple in the Sydney Anglican scene and it spurred me to keep writing. The content of the emails showed me that there was a lot that needed to be spoken about. From sex, to relationships with family to spiritual abuse.
And that’s where The Gravity of Guilt was born.
Of course, leaving Christianity wasn’t as simple as writing a blog, tying up loose ends with old Christian friends and trotting off to live a life of sin. 20 years of memorising Bible verses and hearing the same messages about your brokenness and the reality of hell isn’t going to disappear overnight. The metamorphosis was slow, and it began with the trivial things (like yelling JESUS CHRIST when stuck in traffic) before it moved to the reconstructing of values, purpose and revised structures for healthy relationships. This was the most challenging part.
Now today, many years on, I still find myself facing some of the learned ideas about my body, my gender and my sexuality, in moments of vulnerability. False ideas about the person I am based on the number of people I have slept with. Limiting ideas about the scope of spirituality and spiritual practice. The journey never ends, and neither does the need for grace, for those who have helped us and harmed us on our journey.
Whoever you are, welcome. We are not religiously aligned and we don’t mind where you sit on the whole faith thing. This is a safe place to land.
Love,
