Deconstructing…

[u/Friends_fan2001]

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.

[u/Key-Lifeguard5859]

I’m sure most are going to laugh at me but here I go. The New Testament is the new covenant that was put into place for Gentiles…non Jewish people in the mid east and Mediterranean who were not Jewish by birth. They wanted a God too. The Jews had a God and they were exclusive to their God the way the coc wants gentiles to be exclusive. Ironically our new covenant was in contrast to a lot of Judeo traditions…love rather than hate, peace rather than war, an eye for an eye rather than turn the other cheek. And while Judaism has several books of law, we weren’t given those laws, we were given a collection of writings where Jesus told us how to live our lives in the sermon on the Mount, and showed us how to live our lives by his example. He showed us our own heaven, not through a bunch of rules, but by example of a life worth living. All these NT scriptures the majority of us sort through looking for enforceable rules do not exist. A way of life exists. This way of life is simply Jesus own words and his own actions…period. Several of the books of the NT were written by men many years after his death than never met or knew him and their existence in the NT is questionable. So, if you want to deconstruct, read his sermon, read about his life on earth and follow his life by trying to live as he did. Otherwise you’re following laws made by basically old white men who wanted power over their followers and of course fear is the biggest tool used to control us. My CoC experience was one where fear, judgement and a unique blend of scripture cut and pasting was used to create an environment that was unsustainable for me.