Today I am thankful that I realize why I left Christianity.
I was devout.
Even when I had no church, ten percent of my income went to buying food for the homeless people I met.
I'd quite literally share my bread and juice (didn't drink wine either due to the Mormon faith I grew up in).
I submitted to the men in my life.
I've only dated one man who beat the sh!t out of me. He used Christian headship as an excuse. God gave man "dominion" over women. Women need to submit to men. His buddies thought I wore the pants, so he had to beat the insubordination out of me.
Later on, I learned that he'd beat me to go hang out with his lover. I divorced him to spare him a trial for attempted murder. I evaded the process server. He married his mistress and she would call me to ask how to get him to stop hitting her. I hear now he's cheating on her.
I fear for her life.
Want to know something? He doesn't go to church. He's never been baptized. His wife goes to church. She's a devout Catholic. She believes she has to stay in the dangerous situation.
The first two men I dated were decent. They never hit me.
One was a devout Christian. He left me so I could go to college.
The other was a devout Pagan. If a Pagan man hits a female, he has to answer to his feminine Goddess.
The third one beat me.
Michael is the fourth one. I still don't know enough about what is going on to classify his stuff as abuse or manipulation. I know people tell me to wake up and see what is going on.
Yes, it is emotionally and financially abusive. I don't know if he's the person behind the physical abuse and the property damage. I need more proof.
Steve didn't get to stay with me long enough to really abuse me. I left when he started to get dangerous.
The abusers all have one thing in common. They believe that men have the right to control women and that they got that right from the Christian God.
None of these men went to church on a regular basis.
I think that is why I won't join a Christian church.
They don't speak out about this issue enough.
I realize that this is why I'm Pagan. Paganism is balanced. The power is equal between the sexes, yet it is different.
Each of us has a feminine and a masculine side. They need to be balance. Too much of one is a problem.
That is part of the issue with relational violence. There is no balance. One person dominates the other.
Christianity, for the most part, is imbalanced. It honors the male polarity while dismissing the feminine.
Although I grew up with witchcraft, I never wanted to cast a spell. I cast my first one a the age of twenty-eight. I cast it to keep a dangerous person from threatening me again.
I quickly learned that this person threatened me because Shannon told him I was trying to get him arrested. He was my neighbor. Michael had given his sister a key to the house without telling me. Shannon had a gun, took one of her cop buddies (whose been fired) and went to his home. She told him that I sat on my couch taking notes about him to turn over to the cops.
I was working on my Master's thesis. I would do my writing on the couch.
This guy took a bb gun and threatened me through my window.
When the bad cop was fired (they called him "Cookie" and he worked in Denver), another officer came and spoke to the neighbor and learned what had happened. We all had a pretty good laugh over it when he saw my thesis was on the uses of metaphor with regard to Pediatric Dental Anxiety rather than....well....him.
We moved.
That spell helped me identify the problem person and cut her out of my life. It also helped the police department get rid of someone who was later found to have broken numerous other laws (you can Google the guy's name and read everything they caught him doing - it was bad).
I still hate spells.
For me, Christianity means being abused. Paganism is more empowering.
It's sad. It hurt to break away from the church. I really had no choice. I can't afford to get hit every time I assert myself.
I wish Christian leaders would educate their flock as to the true nature of headship. A man is to love his wife as he would love his God and his savior. A woman is to love her husband as she would love her God and her savior.
Headship never means abuse.
Until that changes, I'll worship apart from the church.
Love ya,
S.