The book suggests that the defining problem driving out most people who leave is … just how American life works in the 21st century. Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success. Such a system leaves precious little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children. Workism reigns in America, and because of it, community in America, religious community included, is a math problem that doesn’t add up.
Speaking as a recovering Catholic, I think the whole child molestation thing is what put the final nail in the coffin for me. They prioritized not embarrassing the church over bringing child predators to justice. Absolutely disgusting.
Just got struck by the thought that I’ve never really processed how much I was probably affected by the very real terror at spending an eternity in Hell that defined my relationship to sin (making mistakes) as a child. No wonder I’m afflicted with this counterproductive perfectionism.
I wrestled with the concept of hell when I was in college, and it caused me to go nuts for a little while. I really, genuinely contemplated hell and what it actually was like and the implications of that for so many people I knew. Real Lovecraftian “horrors beyond human comprehension” kind of stuff. Christians don’t like to talk about it (outside of the church), but they actually believe 99.9% of humanity will spend eternity being tormented in ways we cannot imagine. And I think losing my mind a bit over it was a totally normal and rational reaction to that sort of thing.
The reality is that no Christians actually bother to think about hell much at all. It gives them satisfaction knowing the people they don’t like will suffer there but I don’t think hardly any Christians actually spend more than like 15 minutes of their lives thinking about hell. Because if they did, and they have even an ounce of empathy, they probably wouldn’t be Christians anymore.
IMO teaching kids about eternal torment in hell is child abuse and legally should be treated as such.
that defined my relationship to sin (making mistakes) as a child
that’s a messed up definition of sin to tell a child. It’s wrong and insane
Nobody understands, when God says wash your hands, God says wash your hands (CW: ableism, edgy humor from 14 years ago)
It worked for centuries or millenia before, those pesky people with their new modes of communication and materialism did a lot to bring the church down.
