Talking with Christians and asking them the question, “why do you stay? What compels you to stay?” makes me want to write, to find words, for why I have done the opposite.
My deconstruction took a year, just a year, yet it was slow and methodical. The question of whether God was good or not made me ask, what would it mean for God to be good?
The logical conclusion I reached was universalism. That God was strong enough, compassionate enough, merciful enough to forgive all, to heal all, to bring all home. If the good shepherd had 99 sheep and went out for the 1, then how can that not show that none would perish?
And that gave me permission to ask what are we being saved from? And realizing the inherent abusiveness of the gospel. Of telling children they were inherently evil and in need of saving. Of the shame thrust upon us. Of telling us we have a sickness we don’t have and selling us a solution that costs our life, our joy.
We all find stories that give meaning to us. I know progressive universalist Christians who find meaning in a Brown anticapitalist Christ. They see Christianity as worth saving. But as for me, I have washed my hands of the gospel. I have washed my hands of the story that drown me in shame. That has been used to justify wars, colonization, and white supremacy.
So off I go. To find a story that I do not have to justify. And a world without God, that is this beautiful and messed up and holy and gut wrenching does not have to be justified either. It is. And I am. And I am so grateful. To be conscious in a world with no meaning. That will one day end. And so will I. And I have peace like never before.