We begin our series on the problems with Evangelicalism by sharing some ‘dark testimonies’.

These are testimonies by Christians who were subjected to the dark evils of being part of a domineering Evangelical faith. Testimonies where damage was done, and people were abused to one extent or another. In some cases, there was a happy ending. In other cases, not so much. But I’m going to share them anyway.

The testimonies give great examples of some of the excesses and abuses of Evangelical leadership, their indoctrination methods and their harsh dealings with members of their congregations. As usual, I would emphasise that not all Evangelical congregations have leaders like this; however a potential church member isn’t going to know until they have been ‘netted'^[1]. Most new Christians, and also people ‘seeking’ or showing an interest in Christianity, haven’t a clue about the less-than-innocent things that go on in the churches at which they enquire, in their innocence, about the things of God.

As I said in the opening piece of this series, normally I like to concentrate on “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Phil 4:8) but in these cases, it is necessary to look into the darkness to see what it’s really like in there.

So here’s the first of those pieces, an account of the oppressive Calvinist church^[2] background of my online friend, Sonny Ray:

Of course, like I assume most American highschoolers of the early 1970s, I was taught Edwards’ “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.”^[3] That was the flavor of the “christianity” (note that I didn’t capitalize it!) I grew up with.

We were taught nothing but fear. I was 14 when I “prayed the sinner’s prayer” and “got saved”. But by that point I already had a decade of KNOWING and BELIEVING in the God of Love. Looking back, I realize that I knew what they taught us was not the God of Jesus. The god (note that I didn’t capitalize it!) they taught me was not the Love of 1 Corinthians 13.

But growing up in conservative, rural, Deep South United States in the age of drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll, they kept us almost perfectly in check by threatening us with hell. And I not only got it in church (note that I didn’t capitalize it!). I got it at home. Mama was the image, in the flesh, of the tyrant god that the Calvinists teach. She ruled with anger, shaming, degradation, all kinds of negative approaches. Not to mention extreme corporal punishment.

It took me a very long time to walk away from that lie. To throw out the tyrant slavemaster and abusive father-figure they showed me. To learn again the God I understood as a 3 year old. The God who’s “got the whole world in His hands”. That was a children’s song my mama sang to me out on the front porch of our house one night. It was very probably the ONLY positive contribution she ever made to my faith. For in THAT MOMENT, I knew God was love. And I wanted to know that God. A God who could love me that much was a God I wanted to know. A God I could believe in.

But even having had that epiphany, I had no control over the indoctrination I received and accepted for the next 40 years! Hell, I was a CHILD. How was I supposed to avoid what they forced down my throat? They were meant to teach, guide, nurture and protect me!

But God love them. I can’t be too hard on them. They only passed down to me, the same errors they were taught.

It took me almost 30 years to escape. I’ll save the details of that for some other time. But when I escaped, I set a huge bonfire, burning that bridge behind me. Breaking away from that hell was traumatic. I knew I had to walk away. But I can’t tell you how much fear dogged me. It took a good while for me to get done with the deconstruction; burn the wood, hay, and stubble; and start gradually building back, stone by stone, the foundation and then the structure of the faith I have today — 27 years later!

I could go on. But you get the picture.

[Emperor] Constantine I was IMO one of the worst things that ever happened to the movement begun by Jesus. And we’ve already spent 1700 years, this year, paying the consequences of THAT error. And he was only one of the problems — errors — hypocrisies — heresies — the “church” has succumbed to in the 2000 years since Christ.

– Sonny Ray, used with his kind permission

Note how, in Sonny Ray’s experience, even though he had ‘prayed the Sinner’s Prayer’, still his church and family felt they could threaten him with Hell.

This, to me, has to be one of the worst inconsistencies in all of Evangelicalism. ‘He who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved’ (Romans 10:22; Joel 2:32), claims the evangelist salesman who calls people out to the altar to ‘get saved’. Will be saved. Not, ‘will be saved as long as you behave yourself’, but will be saved. “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6) [emphasis mine] and other similar reassuring verses.

And then in a typical bait-and-switch, all of a sudden the deal is changed; now you have to behave yourself as well; if you believe that, then it effectively cancels out those verses they used to sell it to you.^[4] The idea of threatening the ‘already-saved’ with hell also has this corollary: the person making the threat is also subject to its effects; i.e. they too could ‘go to hell’ if they put a foot wrong, despite being ‘already saved’. The idea of ‘once saved, always saved‘, is anathema to these people because if that was true then they’d lose their ability to threaten. Maybe also they are so insecure in their salvation that they feel that they too would be condemned due to ‘blood-guiltiness'^[5] were they to not ‘point out’ errors and transgressions in others?

He also demonstrates something I have mentioned in my previous work: how the pure Jesus experience, knowing God as Father and all that, how it gets overlaid by layers of toxic church baggage, through intensive indoctrination. It really is criminal, although Sonny Ray is very gracious towards the people who did that to him and doesn’t hold it against them.

Anyway, these are just points that immediately struck me; I will leave you to glean your own conclusions and thinking from the story.

Grace and Peace to you!