Writing about religion, psychology, politics, and other impolite dinner conversations
When did Jesus become pro-gun, anyway? You might have noticed I haven't been posting as much here recently - that's because I've moved my primary publishing location to Substack! If you want to get newsletters straight to your inbox, please hop over to christinegreenwald.substack.com and subscribe. I've got a great article coming out this week … Continue reading Christian Nationalism is Literally Killing Us
Finding the sacred after church hurt Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash When I was 22, at the same age a lot of young people leave their faith altogether, Good Friday and Easter were my favorite holidays. I hated the commercialization of Christmas (still do). It was my first year living in the “real world” after college, in … Continue reading Easter Relationship Status: It’s Complicated
Patriarchy performed in a religious setting attempts to justify itself by claiming to be God-ordained. For people within the religious system, to call it God-ordained is to play the ultimate trump card.
If I have something good, something desirable, this part of me feels guilty that I am “allowed” to have that; that I might be so spoiled as to have such a lovely thing. It comes up with constant reasons why I shouldn’t pursue such things.
No group can be perfect in all these measures, but people who have experienced religious trauma have a hyper-sensitive alert system for anything that feels off. “Off” might include problematic theology, power dynamics, in / out requirements to be part of the group, environments of control or secrecy, and so forth.
Thus, the way that I will distinguish spirituality and religion is this: Spirituality is to believe that at one's core, you can tap into a guiding force of Love and that there is a powerful life force (whatever you call it) that moves us in the direction of healing and wholeness.
I think the real reason I am writing this post today is because I have been struggling to finish the last chapter of my book: a chapter entitled "Still Christian?" It's not that it's not written - it is.
I have some seriously conflicted feelings about this whole weekend. I know I am not alone in this, either. For many people who have deconstructed and/or lost the faith they once had, major holidays like this can bring up a LOT of complicated feelings. We used to make a big deal out of Easter and Christmastimes, and now we don't really know what to do with it.
I began writing my spiritual memoir back in 2013, writing that now feels like the AOL / dial-up internet version of the book I am working on now. I have been transforming those memoir pieces into a book that examines fundamentalist evangelical Christianity and how it so frequently creates trauma in its adherents.
this weekend I realized that the tagline I had for my blog is misleading. Not intentionally, of course, but rather because I thought it was what I was about - or what I was supposed to be about. My tagline was "thoughtful explorations of spirituality, psychology, and their intersections," as you may recall. After all, I'm a counselor, and I feel myself to be spiritually inclined and want to write about it. So that's what I do, right? Actually, no.
Christine Greenwald 