I know I am not alone as I write this raw reflection on the disorienting events of the past few years. The faith that I grew up in and thought I understood but has hurt me instead. The politics that co-opted Evangelical Christianity and turned into a cult. The mass destruction of life through COVID and gun violence with little regard for science-based recommendations to stem the tide of death. The shocking tolerance, and even promotion, of racism, antisemitism, and misogyny. How in the world did we get here?

As I sit down to write this, my palms are sweaty, my mind racing. I have all these emotions just under the surface, swirling, but I struggle to form a coherent and neat story. I am still digesting Beth Allison Barr’s “The Making of Biblical Womanhood”. Barr uses her expertise in history and her personal experience as an Evangelical pastor’s wife to shatter the unbiblical and hurtful theology of complementarianism. It sounds benign enough until you dive into it and understand that it’s really a deceptive title that provides cover for a theology that creates a dotted line between women as different but equal partners to women as objects: submissive, silenced, exploited, and abused. I felt nauseated as I reflected back to the day in late 2021 when I realized that the church we had been attending in the Indianapolis suburbs (Traders Point Christian Church, TPCC) held such a belief, but was too timid to announce it on their website. It wasn’t until I used my voice as a physician during COVID, begging the church to encourage masks and vaccines, that we started asking, “Where are the women?” and only then did we learn that women are not welcome as leaders. I can’t help but wonder if my medical advice was equally silenced because I am a woman. If so, that makes it even worse.

That began my journey of distancing myself from the church altogether. If the church won’t profess that women hold equal honor in the world, do I even want to be a part of that oppressive place? No. No, I do not.

Over the next year, I watched in sadness and horror as “Christians” who I have known as friends and loved for many years seemed to sell their soul to the cult of Trumpism, and devolve into a strange form of Christian nationalism, erroneously suggesting that the United States is a “Christian nation”. It is not. The First Amendment provides for the separation of church and state. Baffled by the blatant disregard for history and our Constitution, I pulled away more from the Evangelical church, its beliefs, and the dangerous call to abandon intellectual discussion for the blind devotion to a narcissistic leader who is brazenly devoid of even the most basic moral qualifications to be an Evangelical Christian.

We moved 500 miles away from TPCC in the summer of 2022. A clean break from the church that hurt me, us. Months later, I still don’t have the courage, the strength, the clarity to find another faith home. When people have asked if I am a Christian, my response is, “I believe in Jesus. I follow Jesus and his teachings.” Jesus made it clear and simple: Matthew 22:37-39 “37 Jesus replied, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.’ 38-39 This is the first and greatest commandment. The second most important is similar: ‘Love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.’” Love God. Love others. That’s it. Jesus didn’t command us to overthrow the government or make it a “Christian” one. Loving others includes sacrifice. And yes, sometimes sacrifice looks like wearing a mask, putting some guardrails on gun ownership and use, paying taxes to care for the poor, and participating in the social contract of public health, education, safety, and honoring our physical environment. Loving one another looks like denouncing racism and antisemitism. It looks like elevating women as fully equal in the eyes of the Lord. Love looks like erring on the side of acceptance and grace, to all of God’s children, no matter who they love or how they identify themselves. There is not one single verse in the Bible where Jesus calls us to judge, fight, hate, or degrade another person. It baffles me that somehow the Evangelical church has decided that war against others is in any way in alignment with the Greatest Commandment. It simply is not.

Evangelical Christianity relies heavily on the power of confirmation bias and the inertia of groupthink. When one hears “Vote Pro-Life” from the pulpit, there is little appetite to explore the ramifications of that political ideology or understand the incongruency of “pro-life” with “pro-gun” and “anti-immigration” rhetoric.

So here I sit. Unraveled. What I previously held neatly as my understanding of my faith is no more. But I don’t sit here without resolve.

“And out of a whole lifetime, by God, sometimes the only thing that saves a person is error, and I know that we shall not be saved so long as our error is not precious to us.” –Clarice Lispector in The Complete Stories

What is more beautiful than digging our heels in defense of an indefensible position? Having the humility to see how what we believed to be true, is in error. Having the courage to break from the psychological safety of a mob to find the truth. Having the curiosity to seek facts over feelings. And having the patience to know this work will not happen overnight.

I choose to rest in the safety and love of my family. In the past three weeks, we have laid to rest both my uncle and his daughter, my cousin. Death is a powerful time to reflect on where we have been and where we are going; what is important to us; and who we want to be. A walk along a creek with my family this weekend led me to the old stone bridge I have seen and climbed upon for the past 45 years. It’s a crumbling but beautiful reminder that looking back will carry us forward. The errors of our past…the Holocaust, slavery, the days before women’s suffrage…the dark days…will illuminate our path if we let them. Jesus’ simple message of love is the clearest path forward…to mend the unraveling.

Disclaimer: My viewpoints are not necessarily reflective of my employer, or any local, regional or national organization that I belong to. As a matter of fact, I pretty much just speak for myself. Please keep that in mind.