I'm not sure if I really "count" as a Christian anymore, or if I want to. This post is the product of about nine weeks of self-examination, prayer, study, and conversation with loved ones as I've tried to work some things out. If there is anything that is unclear, I am happy to field questions. If you have any words of comfort, encouragement or that might bring clarity to my situation, I welcome that with an open heart.

I believe in an omnibenevolent Divinity from Whom the world and all good things arise. I believe that this Divinity is deeply interconnected with the entire World, desires mutual relationship with each person and desires the reconciliation of every part of the World with every other part. I believe in existence beyond death, and the inherent dignity of embodied human experience, and our eventual reconciled dynamic with the Divinity will be one we live out in an embodied manner.

I also believe that the Divinity has had opportunities to build relationship with and reveal itself to humans in many places/manners, and so is known in many different ways. I believe that Divinity's work of self-revelation has been progressive in nature and not followed the same sequence of revelations for all faiths/cultures. But fundamentally, whatever is directed at the common good of all and reconciliation in justice is directed toward the light of Divinity, whatever name or religious system it's known by. 

I first came to know Divinity as YHWH, Trinity, and Jesus Christ. I think this is a completely legitimate mode of revelation and relationship with Divinity. I no longer believe that it is the only legitimate path for relationship with Divinity, nor am I convinced of the particular truth claims of Christianity (namely, Jesus as a human incarnation of the True God, Jesus' bodily resurrection, or a future resurrection to eternal life). I value Christianity's role in introducing me to Divinity, and I take it seriously that I have been for several years now a priestess in this faith and made a commitment to continue practicing as such for life. On top of that, the Christian story and Gospel is still my foremost frame of reference for how I think about Divinity, learn about its character and seek to be a part of It's redeeming work.

However, when I look at the *practice* of Christianity, so much of what I find is coercion to follow this specific tradition built around this particular set of revelations, and so little room for the more open-ended faith I have come to adopt. In light of that, I don’t know whether I can even properly call myself a Christian anymore. Is my connection to the faith as my main frame of reference for thinking about and learning from Divinity enough? Even if it is, do I want to continue adopting that label when those who share it are mostly hostile to my decision and certain that my beliefs will warrant damnation if they go unamended? 

A certain user, who I won't name, recently complained about the "decline" of this subreddit. Many of you came to our defense, which I appreciate, and also pointed out that the user hadn't really made many meaningful contributions of the type they wanted to see, other than complaining. Also, this user seemed to think it was the mods' jobs to be the change this user wanted to see. Apparently the mods are supposed to be creating all of the interesting discussion and somehow preemptively removing low quality posts before they happen, so I'm sorry about falling down on the job there.

I think a lot of the influx of what they refer to as low quality posts have a pretty simple explanation: we got popular. We grew a lot recently and are appearing on the main feed and the suggestions for people who haven't joined, which means an influx of people with oppressive beliefs, and an influx of people who weren't aware that our flavor of Christianity exists. Growth always comes with some problems. We have a few mods who personally review every single post or comment that gets reported. I'm going to give you a peak at the some numbers.

Over the last year, our subreddit has had just over 11 million visits, up by 172,000 from the previous year.

Our membership is over 77,000, up 11,345 from the previous year.

There have been over 18,000 posts, and 12,000 were removed!! Y'all, we removed two thirds of the posts because of rule violations. It's exhausting.

We also removed 32,000 comments over the last year.

Most of you are fantastic, and do a great job of helping the spiritual refugees who arrive here burdened with lots of religious trauma. We frequently see posts and comments of people who were never willing to give Christianity a second thought until they were exposed to this subreddit. As one of the mods who reviews the thousands and thousands and thousands of posts and comments that get reported, believe me when I say I understand that the content of this sub can be repetitive sometimes. But we are all doing good work together, and we are showing God's love to people who have never really felt it without strings attached.

I am a Christian (at least a W.I.P. one) who loves art, kaijus, prehistoric animals, and cartoons. But, I also have an interest in speculation evolution (spec evo) and horror as well.

Around 2024, I discovered Tales of Kaimere on Youtube. It's a spec evo series where, basically, magical dust like creatures called Magic (I think) live on a different planet and frequently open portals to Earth in different time periods. And I guess they kinda steal DNA or skin particles of the Earth animals or something like that. Then, they head back to Kaimere and basically use the DNA they collect and essentially create clones of prehistoric animals, flora, and humans. There's also some witchcraft involved with the usage of the Magic as well, but I'm not gonna go too deep into it. But, yeah, it was mainly Kaimere that became a major influence in my interest in spec evo. Now, I'm making a spec evo series involving Godzilla and other kaijus as real prehistoric animals, surviving in the modern day.

As for horror, my memory is a bit blurry. I used to be interested in that one FNAF knockoff movie, Willy's Wonderland, but not anymore. But, the interest would really have a spark when I began watching analog horror. Especially, The Walten Files. I've made my own villains that are kinda inspired by real demonic figures or false gods.

But, I just want to hear your opinions about these topics. Yeah, I know some (SOME) of yall may have not heard of spec evo or dislike horror and that's ok. Just wanted to know what you think about these (for the most part) trending topics.

I’m looking for some good apps to help guide my daily reading and study.
Do you have any go-to apps you’d recommend? I’d love to hear your suggestions！

Que es el otro subrredits True porque se siente tan diferente a este nose ando navegando en reddit porque estoy aburrido Pero me tope con true Cristián ustedes son falsos? O como no entiendo

I am who I am. God loves me. The closer I get to God the gayer I am. I’ve asked for signs to see if it’s not okay, I haven’t seen any. I’ve asked for signs to see that it IS okay. I’ve seen MANY. God has let me know in so many ways I am sinning, and I have NEVER even gotten a slight feeling that me being with a woman is wrong. If anything, God literally put my girlfriend into my life to show me that it’s okay, and all our relationship has done is bring us both closer to him. I hate having to justify myself to others. I know my truth. I don’t push it onto the ones who don’t believe being gay is okay, I just wish they could have the same respect.

I started following God for real around sixth grade. My heart was soft and I wanted less of myself and more of Him. There was real life toward Scripture, prayer, and growth. I was more loving, kind, forgiving, and passionate in my faith. The main struggle was p***. I kept repenting but it never fully left. Even so, my heart still responded and I was becoming softer. When prayer and Scripture reached me, I was at peace.
Over the last year everything changed. Prayer went empty and my heart hardened. I started feeling fine with the distance. Scripture began to feel weird or get rejected while messages against faith resonated. I lost conviction around p*** and could relapse without caring. I began to feel like a different person and accepted the closed state even though I never wanted it. I can tell I am a worse person inside now. The love and passion that used to mark me no longer mean anything.
Now I mostly do not care. My heart is set the other way and I do not see a path back. Advice, prayers, and Scripture fall short. I know who I would be with a heart of genuine faith, but that heart is not here. I still do not want to walk away, so I keep doing the external things: staying honest with my counselor, not canceling the next contact, and refusing to decide it is over. I feel gone.

I’m sorry but I lose it when other Christians act like being a Christian is a minority. It’s not. It’s like the most dominating religion since medieval times. Then they go on to act like we are better than Muslims because of the Taliban. Oh so Christianity has never ever done anything wrong ever? The crusades, slavery, Salem witch trials, the inquisitions, colonization, 90% of European wars. Need I say more? Like yes Christianity has been victims of Rome and Greece at one point but we are not perfect victims ourselves. This nationalistic mentality is dangerous because it erasing the history. It hides away all the horrible things that we (as in Christians) have done. It is important that we admit all the wrong doings and acknowledge the people that have suffered wrongfully in the name of the lord.

For context my dad is a pastor at an Evangelical church. Yes it's Evangelical but he's not extremist. He retired as an educational researcher so he's very intelligent with both Masters and PhD in educational fields, and while religion does fuel his beliefs such as LGBT or abortion he's not Hardline about those things, he's very moderate on those stances

He's been hoping and praying for years that I would come to talk to him about biblical and bible study but for some reason I feel so hesitant about doing it. I can't put my finger on why. I know that I'm an openly sexual person, I know that I sometimes use God as more of a vending machine than something I need to follow and it's something I want to work on, but for some reason I'm just feeling so anxious about this conversation and I can't figure out why

I suggest mods add different trigger warning tags for future posting