We got serious about Jesus and went to a Christian college and prayferully studied the Bible, and everyone talks like we abandoned the faith when it was our very faithfulness that brought us out. 2/2

I don’t know what might work, but I know what isn’t. Unfortunately, the only way I got out was through experiences that contradicted my rigid worldview, and seeing how the things I believed were harming myself and others. That’s not a seminar you can package up. end/🧵

They don’t take contrary evidence in good faith or have good defenses for their own points because they are arrows against which they must defend their fervor—and the cost is Hell.
7/🧵

As a result, the wildest figments of divine intervention are taken as gospel, and any attempt to weigh those divine messages are attempts to lead them astray.
6/🧵

Righteousness was worth sacrificing myself for, especially when God himself told me so. It’s not that we’re taught that God speaks to us but evangelical churches do not offer any sort of priority on testing those experiences against any other markers.
5/🧵

As self destructive as my worldview was though, there isn’t a thing anyone could have said to make me realize I was so far off. I was so convinced that God had confirmed things for me that I felt like any attempt to get me to see reason was a temptation from the Devil. 4/🧵

It was an impossible struggle where merely noticing my own girlfriend’s breasts was a sin worthy of eternal damnation.

To no surprise, I was fraught with self loathing and insecurity.
3/🧵

When I was a senior in high school, I was the poster boy for Purity Culture. I was an absolute zealot. I attended an Every Young Man’s Battle book study grouo. My girlfriend and I committed to not even hold hands before marriage. I went almost two full calendar years without masturbating. 2/🧵

I was eating breakfast with my two year old and at one point I smiled at her and she said “me too daddy”

Message me somewhere who you are as i have no clue

But isn’t blue sky entirely public? I’m not sure I’d want to be as forthcoming as my Facebook posts

Reminds me of Lift to Experience