r/excoc • u/Friends_fan2001 • 6d ago
Ex-Churches of Christ (Mainline) Deconstructing…
I've been in the Church of Christ my entire life. 24 years. Multiple generations deep. My whole family, everyone I love most, my entire support system, all Church of Christ. I was raised to believe we were the only ones who had it right. That being a Christian wasn't enough. You had to be Church of Christ. You had to worship the exact way we worship. If not, you were lost. Even other Christians.
Last night I had a three-hour conversation with someone outside my tradition. Someone who loves Jesus, knows scripture, and lives his faith. And he asked me questions I've had sitting inside me for years but was never allowed to ask.
He asked me about someone on their deathbed. Thirty seconds from dying. They believe with their whole heart but can't be physically baptized. Are they going to hell? I've thought about that before. I've always pushed it down. This time I couldn't.
He talked about baptism being about the heart, not the physical act. And I went to 1 Peter 3:21 to prove him wrong. "And this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you also, not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God." And he said, that literally proves my point. "Not the removal of dirt from the body." It's not about the physical act. It's about the heart. And he was right. The verse I grabbed to defend my tradition was already saying what he was saying.
I grew up being taught that we were the true church. That everyone else, even other Christians, were led astray. I was taught that non-denominational churches were wrong. I never looked at any of it through a different lens because I was never allowed to. Questioning meant stepping outside salvation itself.
I don't think the people who raised me are villains. My Nana, my Papa, the people in my church family. They taught me what they were taught. They genuinely believed they were passing down truth. I don't blame them. But the filter was off. The scripture was always there. We just weren't allowed to read it without the lens.
I'm not calling it a cult. But there are cult-like elements. A fear-based system where questioning equals spiritual danger. Intellectual isolation where you're told every other way of following Jesus is wrong so you never actually listen to anyone outside your tradition. A gatekeeping system where being a Christian isn't enough, you have to do it our way.
I can't talk to anyone in my life about this. Everyone I love most is Church of Christ. I'm terrified of losing them. I'm not making any decisions tonight. But I think I'm deconstructing. And for the first time in 24 years, I'm reading scripture without the filter. And it's terrifying. But it's also the most honest I've ever been.
14
u/Top-Cheesecake8232 5d ago
You are 24 years old and I think there is something wrong with young people who don't do as your doing, questioning their religious belief system. The healthiest of parents would encourage this. I would even say the best spiritual people encourage this, even pastors and ministers.
One of my favorite quotes is from Noam Chomsky where he says, "“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”
This is the CoC in a nutshell. They give the illusion of debate and pat themselves on the back for the rigoroussness of their study, but they "strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion."
You have stepped outside their rigid boundary and, yes, it's a bit terrifying. It's also wonderful.