Christian "charity, priorities," glad-handing, and guilt-tripping.

[Creed of Heresy]

It's good you got out of a dysfunctional church like that one. But, now what? Does one group of people put you off to all people who fly that flag forever? If that is the way healthy people worked everyone in England would be speaking German today, and we would not have imported toys and movies about giant robots, and cool electronics.

Treat this experience like any other. Do not stereotype a whole planet's worth of people because a handful of people in that group are not who they say they are. Take solace in the fact that God hates hypocrisy as well, and is not fooled by what we call ourselves. At the same time we are still expected to seek Him out even if the church of our fathers, falls far short of our needs.

I'll be honest, I hear about this kind of shared experience from others often enough that I genuinely question most churches' priorities and faiths quite strongly. There are plenty who actually are accepting and don't hold so fast to the old testament and I've got no beef with them (hell, recently I saw a picture online of a church board that said "We're sorry the acceptance of gay marriage violates the sanctity of your fourth marriage," which had me wishing more would emulate that kind of mentality), but the ones that DO pull this kind of bullshit utterly disgust me. I hate glad-handers, I really hate guilt-trippers, and I hate slut-shamers, and fuck me if there aren't a healthy helping of church congregations that do one, some, or all of those things. Insecurity runs rampant among many Christians, leading me to suspect that quite often their facades of piety only become so vehement because they are noticing that despite all the warnings the bible has put forth, the world isn't falling apart at the seams and societies where Christian values have historically been very strong and are now very weak, faint, or completely irrelevant are not degrading or receding but are socially, economically, and technologically advancing at an exponential rate.

When so many turn from your view of the world, a view that has stated that the lifestyle of your worldview will be the one to bring prosperity while others suffer and fall apart, and they do not suffer and fall apart, and those who share your worldview are lagging behind, losing steam and generally going to shit, it's easy to see why they're so insecure; human sensibility (and that soft, persistent voice of reason) begins to come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, you're horribly, horribly wrong, and you're wasting your time and your finite time on this word. When your prayers go unanswered, and you or your loved ones continue to suffer despite a life of humble devotion, and the invisible hand of God seems to instead be aiding others (at least in this particular mindset, it will seem that way), one begins to think, quite reasonably, that perhaps nobody's listening...perhaps even if there IS someone listening, they're a colossal dick for letting you and others suffer despite your devotion and faith.

As the supposed Christ-figure once said, according to one of the Gospel-writers, "Oh father...why have you forsaken me?"