Leaving Christianity Archives - The Gravity of Guilt

Belief, Family, God, Leaving Christianity

If fear is at the foundation of your Christian experience, where does that leave you when you leave?

Christina Buckland | November 28, 2023

After I had my first article published, where I talked openly about my sister’s addictions and my understanding of death and God, I felt conflicting emotions. I felt tall and strong for being honest with myself to write and own my experiences and have them published under my own name. I felt an unfamiliar feeling of self-clarification from sharing my feelings that would undoubtedly hurt my family’s feelings, but doing it anyway for the sake of my own growth. I…

Christianity, Leaving Christianity, Sex, Sexuality & Gender

Purity Culture – I still have my flowers

Ruby Claire | March 7, 2023

A decade ago, I would have believed this dream was a vision from God. A vision showing me His Truth, reaffirming His view on purity and sex. Now, I understand it as a projection of inherited fear and my own lack of self worth.

Leaving Christianity, Sexuality & Gender

To the Pastoral Carer who Taught me to be Single, Celibate, and Cis

Lili Zoe | February 9, 2023

At one point, I remember you offered me a six-week program that you had designed, in which I could mourn my loss of love. One designed for women with “same-sex attraction”. A program through which I could express grief over the fact that I would give up my ‘desire for a romantic relationship’, and find joy in the Jesus I was being presented with. I think it was supposed to be cathartic?

Belief, Family, God, Leaving Christianity

Embracing the New Age practices I was taught to fear

Christina Buckland | October 18, 2022

New Age was a big, scary word that covered a range of practices that, I was told, was a highway line to hell. Literally. Yoga, reiki, crystals, meditation, clairvoyance. I was taught that these practices could make you feel really good, but it was a trick.

Christianity, Church, Community, Leaving Christianity, Sex, Sexuality & Gender

I want an apology for how the Church taught me about purity

Ruby Claire | July 2, 2022

Youth group was an incredibly gendered time in the mid 2000s. It was the age of Joshua Harris’ I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and the idolisation of friends who saved their first kiss for their wedding day. It was also the age of gender-segregated talks on purity.

Christianity, Family, Leaving Christianity