Photo by Marcus Woodbridge on Unsplash

I’m so happy to be back writing after taking the month of June off to rest and process! The biggest question I wanted to work through without the pressure to get a new article out every week is, “Who am I writing for?

Since I started taking writing more seriously about two years ago, I’ve honed and clarified my “why?” You see, I write because I have undergone quite a metamorphosis over the last eight years. In 2016, I was a dedicated card-carrying evangelical. I was proud to be a Reformed Baptist whose theology made me dangerous enough to be an arrogant ass but still ignorant enough to think I had God, Jesus, and Christianity figured out.

It has taken a lot of heartache, pain, and humility for me to get to the place I am now. I write for a single reason:

Let me briefly unpack this statement.

I am socially, economically, and theologically progressive. As an evangelical progressive meant ‘heretic,’ ‘liberal,’ ‘unbiblical,’ and a plethora of other nonsense. Because of this, I suppressed many of my questions, thinking, and convictions in the name of ‘belonging.’

I came to a place on my journey where I promised not to suppress my questions or convictions again to try to fit in with mainstream Christianity. I also decided to share my metamorphosis openly. I am grateful to God that I am self-aware enough to recognize I’m not the only person who has been hurt, burned, burned out, abused, traumatized, or used by the Church. I write as an act of rebellion against the Christian status quo. More importantly, I write to let other wanderers know they aren’t alone.

What I naively didn’t expect was the amount of anger my writing would receive. For several fundamentalists and evangelicals, progressive and Christian are oxymorons. They don’t go together. At the same time, those who believe this are some of the most self-righteous, apathetic people I’ve ever known.

My writing tends to get the majority of pushback from this fundamentalist/evangelical crowd. There’s a spectrum to the pushback I receive. It can go from cordial and respectful discussion that ends by agreeing to disagree to folks trying to ‘Bible thump’ me into submission with out-of-context verses. At its worst, people resort to personal attacks, judgementalism, and threatening me with hell and judgment for saying I’m Christian but not in the same way they are.

I took June off from writing because I began to wrestle with the temptation to make my writing more palatable to a broader audience. In full transparency, I asked myself, “How do I get this group to be more accepting of my thoughts and perspective?” My time away gave me the perspective and clarity to realize I was falling back into old habits. The ‘Aha!’ moment I had was realizing that those who have issues with my writing do so because I’m not writing for them. I don’t write to affirm them. I don’t write to appease their false sense of certainty masquerading as faith.

The more I write, the more I hear from people who share similar beliefs, ask the same questions, and struggle to find like-minded people. These people, like me, are committed to being Christian, but not at the cost of leaving their intellect and convictions at the door. They love Jesus; they recognize the uniqueness of what happens when people gather to worship in a sacred space. They are convinced the Way of Jesus is the way of love, life, and freedom from the domination systems of this world. Yet…they are often ostracized, made to feel unwelcome, or run out of the Church. Borrowing the phrase from the late Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, I call these people Believers in Exile.

My writing has been and will hopefully always be available for anyone who desires to engage with it. Some think that because I still associate myself with the term ‘Christian,’ my writing must be like the ‘pie in the sky’ devotional style found throughout mainstream Christianity. It comes as a shock after reading one of my articles that I’ve questioned the literalness of Jesus’s resurrection, that the Trinity is explicit in the Bible, or that the Bible is the literal words of God.

To be as straightforward as possible to those I am writing for and those who may stumble upon my work expecting one thing and finding another, here are the four markers to help you determine if you are a Believer in Exile.

I write for two types of intellectually honest people. The first group takes modern scholarship, historical context and criticism, and the Bible as a human book seriously. To these folks, scholarship isn’t a code word for ‘apologetics.’ They are comfortable with letting science, archaeology, and history speak into and help shape how Christians understand 2,000 years of our faith. There isn’t a fear that some new revelation will discredit the faith like a house of cards.

For example, I can almost hear people’s jaws hitting the floor when I’m asked, “Would you stop believing in Jesus if one day his grave was found and his body was still in it?” My answer is no. Not at all, not the least bit. If anything, all it would do is affirm my perspective that the gospel writers weren’t writing about a physical resurrection but were using metaphorical language to try and explain what the early Christian community experienced after the crucifixion of Jesus.

The second group cares less about modern scholarship and the research/study aspects of the faith. To be clear, it’s not that these people think modern scholarship is unhelpful; it’s simply not a priority to how they experience the divine. This group tends to align more with our mystical saints from a bygone era. They understand faith inherently means a lack of certainty. Where there are questions they don’t have the answer to, they are comfortable with “I don’t know.” A lack of certainty is not a sign of immaturity but an acknowledgment that God can never be fully known or “figured out.” They hold tightly, seek to pursue God deeply in what they know and trust God to handle the rest.

Both groups offer a depth of faith and honesty that is often void in mainstream Christianity. Both groups also know from experience that they threaten the status quo. Their questions are viewed as dangerous, and their embracing faith over certainty is something to be feared. I write for those whose questions are balm and a blessing, not a threat. I write for those who have embraced a journey of faith and have turned down the fool’s gold of certainty.

Church abuse happens in all sorts of ways. Most often, we associate church abuse with sexual abuse. With stories coming out daily about clergy (Catholic and Protestant alike) sexually abusing or participating in the cover-up of sexual abuse of a parishioner (most often children), it’s understandable why we think this way. However, abuse and trauma can happen in many other ways.

I was in a meeting a few weeks ago with a group of church abuse survivors where I shared this example of spiritual abuse;

For those who bought into the vision or marketing of a church and fully gave themselves to the cause only to be chewed up and spit out, I write for you. More than any other institution, religious institutions have a massive impact on a person's values, sense of self-worth, and the shaping of a worldview. When you are taught that God ordains your church leaders to represent God, and they take advantage of or abuse you, it often feels like God abused you. There’s no way anyone who experiences abuse, trauma, or burnout at the hands of the Church can walk away unscathed. It changes us at the core.

I write and often speak on behalf of those the Church has hurt. No mission, vision, or dream of “saving the world” justifies wounding people spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically in the name of God. More than anything, I try to offer the radical love of God in my writing. In my experience, God’s radical love often helps those the Church has wounded learn to live again.

Church history contains examples of Christian thinkers, scholars, and unapologetically progressive activists. Tragically, evangelicalism tends to whitewash these fantastic people’s teachings and examples by revising their stories to fit evangelical tastes.

For example, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t believe in penal substitutionary atonement as the reason Jesus died on the cross. Furthermore, Dr. King learned about nonviolent civil resistance from one of his mentors, Bayard Rustin, an openly gay black activist. Bayard Rustin learned from Gandhi, a Hindu who believed his nonviolent activism was putting into practice the teachings of Jesus.

Most Christians ignore all of these details about Dr. King. Instead, they turn his work into an argument for ‘color-blind’ thinking. There’s no racial justice, no repentance, no reparations, nothing. At most, Dr. King has become the historical figure that makes evangelicals feel like their racial justice advocates because they attend a Juneteenth march while voting for a man who is dedicated to exterminating the ‘illegals’ at our border.

I write for those who accept Dr. King in the fullness of who he was and what he stood for. They believe economic justice means more than diaper drives at Christmas. Racial justice is more than the Church's DEI hire, and social transformation isn’t the Church gone ‘woke’ but God’s people bringing the kingdom.

If you see yourself in any of the above markers, then you are someone I am writing for. I have no expectation that you will agree with everything I say or write. As a matter of fact, I hope you don’t. I still have much to learn from you, and I hope you learn something from me. If we agree on everything, I may be more of an echo chamber than a helpful perspective. However, I am always happy to learn and engage in healthy and honest conversations.

I want to continue learning from those I write for and hope to offer you a safe place. For those who don’t fit any of the markers I shared, I would love for you to engage with my writing, and I hope we can learn from each other. If not, that’s okay. I know why I write and who I’m writing to and for. I’m a lighthouse for believers in exile. The light may be a blinding hindrance distracting you from your faith journey. For others, my work offers a path to safety and guidance as they navigate Christianity as wanderers.

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