Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

When one becomes a Christian, it's part and parcel to share that news with the world. We are told we should not hide our light under a bushel but shine it on a hill. 'If you deny Me on earth, I will deny you before My Father in heaven.' (Matthew 10:33) Sharing our newfound faith is an important part of becoming a Christian. Baptism follows, which (varying degrees of significance amongst denominations aside) is a commanded public pronouncement of faith. If one were to become a Christian and keep it to oneself, there would be much speculation on the sincerity of that transformation.

However, when one leaves the Christian faith, it is something to be hidden. It is scandalous. It is in some cases jeopardous, even dangerous. In a Christian society, leaving the faith is most definitely NOT something to shout from the rooftops. While Christians would praise a Muslim for bravely coming out as Christian to his or her family (thereby likely being disowned, if not downright in danger of death), they cannot conceive of a Christian coming out as Muslim, or Jewish, or even Mormon, or -gasp- atheist, and why that person would want to share that terrible news with the world.

So I hide.

More than anything I want to announce to the world that I am atheist. I want to finally get it out in the open, so I don't have to hide who I really am anymore. I don't have any ulterior motive; I'm not out to change you or persecute you. I just want to be free. I want to be known.

But I'm afraid.

I'm afraid of losing friends.

I'm afraid of losing family.

I'm afraid of losing my job.

I'm afraid of losing clients.

I'm afraid of hurting my family.

I'm afraid of humiliating my family.

I'm afraid of putting my children at risk of bullying.

I'm afraid of putting my children at risk of proselytizing.

So I hide.

It is shameful that in a country that was literally founded on people seeking religious freedom, people are not allowed to be free from religion. Religious freedom was not set aside for Christians exclusively. It was intended for all religious people - and non-religious too - whether their beliefs were Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist or Baptist. Or atheist.

But the reality of it is, if you are not Christian - at least here in the Bible Belt - you are at risk. If you leave Christianity, you are an apostate - which is sometimes worse than being Muslim or Hindu (and therefore 'simply a part of your culture'). You may be seen as actually disgracing your family and bringing shame upon their religion... not unlike the Muslim who leaves Islam.

When I first spoke out against my church (still then a Christian), I was reproached for 'giving Christianity a bad name'. Many people felt what I had done was only further non-Christians dislike for Christianity. While I saw their point, I also saw the other side of it. Hiding the faults of churches furthers the non-Christian dislike for Christianity too, perhaps more so.

Apostatizing is perhaps the worst thing a Christian can do. It gives the religion a bad name. It gives non-Christians more ammunition. It lends credence to the possibility that Christianity is not the only answer.

Worse than anything, it waters the seeds of their own doubt that Christians don't want watered.


When I became a Christian (or rather, 'rededicated my life'), I told everyone. I didn't want to hide it from anyone. Even in situations that felt awkward, where I felt I might lose a friend or make myself look stupid, I made my faith known. I did not want to deny Jesus here on earth. When asked, 'So, do you think I'm going to hell?', I awkwardly answered yes. It was of utmost importance that I made sure everyone knew I was a Christian. I may have lost a couple of friends, though if I did, I never knew about it, but there was never any real backlash. I was accepted into a church and a society that congratulates such a decision, and everything was hunky dory. Some people thought I was a little nuts, but it didn't get much worse than that.

Unfortunately, I know for a fact that if now I shared even a fraction of that kind of openness about my non-faith, there WOULD be backlash. I KNOW I would hurt and humiliate my family. I KNOW I'd be unfriended on Facebook (by some friends and even some family members). I SUSPECT many of my other fears would become reality. I doubt I'd lose my job, but it's happened to people before who shared their atheism openly. There is such a stigma to being atheist. The word itself implies hedonism, arrogance, hatred, intolerance, and lawlessness. None of these words describe me, but as soon as I give myself the atheist label, I'll have given myself the rest of the labels too.

A few people know I'm 'not religious', but if I came out and used the A-word, they'd be really surprised, shocked even. So I could publicly call myself agnostic, but that implies a malleability that isn't actually present. It sounds like I just don't know but could be persuaded. It's a safer option, but thanks to the connotations of this word, it wouldn't be true.

All these words and their connotations. They are really unfair.

So I hide.

The truth is, I'm an agnostic atheist. I'm atheist in that I simply don't believe there is a god, any kind of god. I am agnostic, though, because I readily admit there is no way to prove it one way or another. I cannot prove god doesn't exist, and you can't prove he does. I don't believe in any deities (making me atheist as opposed to theist), but I can't unequivocally know that I'm right (making me agnostic as opposed to gnostic).

All it would take for me to stop hiding my light under a bushel is a simple 'Share' on Facebook. This post is written. The truth about me is right here, about to be published. It'll be out there somewhere in Internetland, but no one will be likely to find it. All I need to do is share the link.

But will I?

Dare I?

Conceal, Don't Feel

Like all things that get super popular super fast, the Disney movie Frozen has started to receive its inevitable backlash. People are finding all the plot holes, like the dodgy parenting and crazy acts of a crazy sister. And of course, people are sick of the songs, like "Let It Go" in particular.

But you know what? I loved the movie. And I love "Let It Go". And here's why.

First, let me state that I think it's just an adorable movie. It's entertaining, the characters are charming, Idina Menzel rocks my world and has done since playing Maureen in RENT. It's a kids' movie, so I don't worry much about why on earth a couple of parents would think it was wise to lock a kid up rather than teaching her how to control her powers. I love the message at the end that a) you don't need a man to save you and b) the act of true love that saved her was committed by her own love for her sister. Come on, it's a great message.

I just love it.

"Let It Go" is a great song. It's got all the Disney/Broadway key elements to it - passion, emotion, a a riveting crescendo, Idina Menzel. It's not about lesbianism (though even if it was, I'm cool with that) but about freeing oneself from the conformity forced upon them. In Elsa's case, it was the freedom to freeze a bunch of stuff without (she thinks) any retribution. And I suppose for a girl who realizes she's a lesbian, it's a song about the freedom to come out. (Though Elsa was not a lesbian. This just isn't in the movie. For me though, it's a song about letting go of religion.

I know I'm not alone in this. I know there are lots of other people who have been reduced to tears by the power of Elsa's words in this song in the context of "letting go" of the religious beliefs that they have been conforming to for years. I'm just going to go through this song, emboldening the lyrics that really touch me, and if necessary (though I'm sure you're smart enough to get the connections) adding some commentary on how it makes me feel in that context. Keeping in mind the song IS about freezing stuff, so you know, the "snow" would have to become metaphorical, which is actually still a pretty good metaphor for someone feeling stuck in a belief system and culture they can no longer accept for themselves. It's a pretty frozen place to be.

The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen.
A kingdom of isolation,
And it looks like I’m the queen.

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside,
Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I tried

[Heaven KNOWS I tried. I tried for YEARS to contain the storm that was swirling inside me. Knowing I didn't really believe any of this anymore but refusing to accept it. I tried so hard, but eventually, I just couldn't bear the storm inside me any longer.]

Don’t let them in, don’t let them see,
Be the good girl you always have to be.
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know,

[I wanted to be that good girl I'd always been - the girl who lead worship at church, who knew the Bible intimately, who spoke up at Bible studies and prayed out loud, who loved people and reached out to them. I didn't want anyone to know I wasn't that girl anymore.]

Well, now they know!

[Actually not too many know yet. Word is getting around though.]

Let it go, let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore,
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door!

I don’t care
What they’re going to say
Let the storm rage on,
The cold never bothered me anyway.

[I'd like it not to bother me, that is. It actually does.]

It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all.

[It's true. The further I get from it, the less I worry about it. The less I'm afraid of "hell", the less I'm worried about how people will treat me, the more I realize just how ludicrous Christianity, and all religion, is. Particularly poignant is how the "fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all" is - the threat of hell is horrifying and paralyzing, but the further away I get from it, the more I see it for what it is: manipulation.]

It’s time to see what I can do,
To test the limits and break through.
No right, no wrong, no rules for me,
I’m free!

[Without religion telling me what's right and wrong, I can finally accept what my heart has been telling me for years about right and wrong. Technically, without religion there is no actual "right and wrong"; that doesn't mean however that non-religious people have no morals. We are just willing to use critical thinking and humanitarian principles to inform what is ethical and fair. Like letting gay people get married.]

Let it go, let it go,
I am one with the wind and sky

[Sounds silly, but now that I see myself as a evolutionary development, I do feel more connected to the earth. We sprang from the earth, and we will return to the earth. It's kind of an amazing thing.]

Let it go, let it go,
You’ll never see me cry.

[Not true. But wouldn't it be nice if it were?]

Here I stand
And here I'll stay.
Let the storm rage on...

My power flurries through the air into the ground,
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around,
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I’m never going back,
The past is in the past!

[Can I get a non-religious AMEN to that?! It's the most freeing thought that I'm NEVER going back - the past is in the past!! Here's hoping I have at least another thirty years on earth to make up for the thirty years I lived in ignorance!]

Let it go, let it go,
And I'll rise like the break of dawn.
Let it go, let it go,
That perfect girl is gone.


[I don't have to be perfect! I can make mistakes! I will do my best as always to keep being the best me I can be, but now, I don't have a cosmic finger wagging at me every time I screw up or a book of rules to point out how supposedly broken I am inside. That perfect girl is gone; she left nothing but normal old me behind. Yes!]

Here I stand
In the light of day.
Let the storm rage on!
The cold never bothered me anyway.

[One day, one day soon, I'll stand in the light of day as an agnostic atheist. I'm still working on finding that courage within me.]


For so many years, I had the same Elsian (new word?) philosophy: Conceal, Don't Feel. "Put on a show; make one wrong move and everyone will know."  I concealed, not so much to myself or even to "God", but to everyone else, my doubts. I refused to feel how my doubts made me feel. Any time I allowed my feelings to spill over, I was drowned in my own tears, and drained afterwards from the emotional and mental distress. Losing my faith was utterly the most painful experience of my life. Having to conceal it so no one would know was exhausting. Keeping it to myself, refusing to feel it, refusing to "let it go" was isolating, like being locked in a dungeon all alone. The fear of what would happen if I "let it go" (aka hell) was more than I could bear.

Like Elsa, once I let go, everything changed. Even though she went through a rocky period before knowing how to "let it go" under control, she experienced freedom for the first time when she just let all that power explode around her. I know how Elsa felt, letting the storm rage on. It felt glorious.

To Church Or Not To Church? That Is the Easter Question.

Easter Sunday morning.  I'd wake up to a bright sun shining through my lacy white curtains and Keith Green's "He Has Risen" turning on the record player.  Mom would be making pancakes, or cinnamon rolls - something special on this special morning.  I'd put on my brand new springy dress, one of the only times a year I wanted to wear a dress, and if it was still a little chilly outside (a March Easter, perhaps), a pair of soft white pantyhose.  I'd run down the hall to find my pink plastic basket in between my brothers' blue and green ones, all filled with green plastic grass and multiple multicolored plastic eggs, full of chocolate and jelly beans and Sweet Tarts.  After gorging on special breakfast and however many eggs my parents would let me open, the five of us would pack into the minivan and drive to church.  The church would be full of beautifully dressed little girls, some of us with white straw hats, and combed little boys in shirts too starched to be comfortable.  We'd sing joyful, boasting songs like "Up From the Grave He Arose" and listen to the glorious story of the man whom death could not defeat.  After church, we'd drive to my grandmother or my aunt's house for a huge family feast - all the cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents would be there - and we'd hunt for even more Easter eggs, some plastic, some boiled and dyed (always a disappointment to find) in the large country yard before stuffing ourselves for the second time that day, only now with ham and deviled eggs.

If you grew up in America, and particularly if you grew up a Christian in America, this is a familiar scene from start to finish. While Easter was never as big to as Christmas, or even Thanksgiving, it was in the Top Three for exciting annual holidays.  Even as a child, getting the whole family together for a huge feast was the top reason I loved these holidays so much.  (Well, maybe it was in the Top Three reasons I loved them. Presents and chocolate were major factors too.)

As I got older, and the church calendar began to take on greater meaning for me, I started practicing Lent every year before Easter.  Lent was a deeply personal experience for me. I never attended a church that observed Lent, so I was pretty much on my own for figuring out what it was all about.  For many years I practiced it on my own, giving up a wide range of indulgences or vices, from chocolate or alcohol or meat to anger or shouting at my kids. Some years I even fasted on Good Friday.  Lent was a time of recognizing my shortcomings as a human, acknowledging my sinful nature, and finally rejoicing on Easter Sunday in my salvation from my broken and helpless state.

When my kids came along, we started up the secular traditions of Easter too - rolling eggs down a hill, egg hunts, Easter baskets and the confused Easter Bunny who for some reason lays eggs instead of giving birth to live young like all other honest, hardworking mammals. I continued my personal favourite Eastertime tradition of getting a new dress, for myself and for my two darling, sugary sweet daughters. And of course, we always went to church and sang "Up From the Grave He Arose", and when I remembered, I played Keith Green, no longer on vinyl but compact disc.

This is my first fully secular Easter.  Last Easter was complicated, as I was deep in the throes of confusion and doubt over my faith, but desperately holding onto belief in Christ and his resurrection with everything I could muster. I struggled through Lent last year, each day a reminder that I didn't fully believe anymore, as if I needed any more reminders tacked to my weary, conflicted heart. We rolled eggs down a hill on Easter morning, but the church service, as beautiful as it was, left me empty.  A year later, I'm now facing my very first Christian holiday as a confirmed agnostic, and I have no idea how to confront it.

Actually, that's sort of untrue.  Almost forty days ago, I faced Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent with a sad tug at my heart.  Observing Lent now meant nothing to me, but I missed it.  After wrestling with the concept for weeks beforehand, I decided I could practice Lent for personal reasons without including the spiritual aspects of it, but I couldn't stick it out.  Without the religious ties, Lent had no strength or power over my cravings, and I gave in after the first week.

I asked my husband what we would do for Easter.  He shrugged.  Having been raised in the United Kingdom in a church that didn't formally celebrate holidays, Easter involved some egg rolling and a slightly more built up Sunday dinner.  If he was lucky, someone would call out "Up From the Grave He Arose" for the congregation to sing, but it wasn't a given.

I told him I thought maybe we should just go to church.  It's Easter after all, what else does one do on Easter?  He didn't see the point.  I didn't either, but really, how else would Easter be Easter?  And getting down to brass tacks, if we didn't go to church, there would be no justification for a new dress!

Yes, if we're all honest about it, despite what we say is the "true meaning of Easter", consumerism, like pretty much all religious and non-religious holidays, is always going to be at the forefront.

Scott told me just to go buy new dresses if we wanted them.  And we'd do an Easter egg hunt and make baskets and such.

Without church, though, it seems, well, sort of a let down.  Rather anti-climactic.

None of this changes how I feel about church, however. The whole Jesus story is just a fairy tale now, like something I read in a children's book full of pink fluffy cloud illustrations and angels in white gowns with wings speaking with exclamation marks in word bubbles.  In fact, the church side of Easter, aside from the actual ritual of attending, irks me.  I realized just how much it irks me this morning when the young two kids and I went to the community library for Story Time, like we do most Thursdays.  The books were about Easter.  The first was a story about a little chick doing something inane and cutesy, and the second was about a little girl who lost her special Easter egg.  So far, so good.  Until halfway through book number two, when the little eggless girl explains what Easter is. "A man called Jesus came to earth to save all of us from our sins. But the people didn't like what he was saying and they killed him and put him on a cross.  However, three days later, the rock that was in front of his tomb had been rolled away and Jesus came back from the dead!"  She tells us that on Easter we go to church to learn about this man Jesus.

I didn't want to be that stereotypical anti-religious person who kicks up a fuss about religion being expressed to my children in the form of truth, so with great difficulty, I kept my mouth shut and my face smiling.  I did not manage to suppress a couple of deep sighs, though.  Luckily, a mother with a toddler and a five year old is allowed to sigh for any reason under the sun, so it wasn't noticed.  I looked around the room.  The likelihood is, most, if not all, these mothers, would be in total agreement with the story - in fact, grateful that the "true meaning" was being expressed.  I chalked it all up to part of living in a religious society, and at least it was Lolly who was hearing the story and not the Fifi.  Lolly has always been our resident atheist child, the one who told us when she was barely old enough to speak that Jesus was pretend, who has always refused to pray before meals or join the chorus of "amen"s after, and who recently told me with the decisiveness of a forty year old that "I am not a Christian" despite my never saying similar things to her. And Jaguar, well, he's not even two.  He just wanted to pull the books off the shelf.

It all comes down to this: I don't know what we'll do this Easter.  I have plastic eggs ready to fill and three baskets with plastic green grass.  I have new springy outfits for all of us, and will be bringing deviled eggs to the big family Easter lunch. We may go to church out for cultural reasons, or we might stay home and roll eggs down a hill (stone rolling away from the tomb associations aside).  I'm covering new ground here. Maybe in a few years we'll make our own traditions as we meet others like us.

No matter what we end up doing, however, I will never buy, nor can I understand why anyone, especially Christians, would ever buy, one of these.

Surely this is, like, six kinds of wrong?

You Can't Handle the Truth!

Being anything other than Christian in the Bible Belt is a little like trying to walk a tight rope suspended above an enclosure of tigers. Admittedly it depends on where in the Bible Belt you are - some cities are more tolerant than others - but where we are, it's pretty 'ropey' to be non-religious, and even worse if you are a confirmed agnostic or atheist. Though it's never happened to anyone I personally know, I've heard horror stories of people losing their jobs over their (lack of) faith and being ostracized by their community. Keeping our opinions to ourselves, in not only religion but also politics, has become our modus operandi. My husband doesn't talk about religion or politics at work, and I don't talk about them with other mothers at soccer practice or play groups. It's a little isolating, but it's what we do to survive. I imagine the small population of people with religious beliefs aside from Christianity or political affiliations aside from Republican feel the same way. (I remember me and my entire class shunning a girl on the playground in elementary school because her family was voting for Michael Dukakis instead of George Bush back in the 1988 presidential election.)

It's not that I'm ashamed of my new-found unbelief. It's more that to be an unbeliever is akin to being unvaccinated. It's as if people have this fear that if they come in close contact with an unbeliever, some of their unbelievingness might infect them, or at least infect the more vulnerable members of society. If an unbelieving child plays with their believing children, they might pass on some kind of doubt-bacteria which could start an epidemic. Christianity has practically eradicated atheism and agnosticism in the South; no one wants those few unenlightened families to interfere with the herd. Generally speaking, folks tend to have two reactions to someone who doesn't agree with their religious beliefs - proselytize or ostracize. (There are of course those wonderful people who choose to live and let live, for whom I am incredibly grateful.)

I'm not a rock, I'm not an island, so I do worry about being alienated. I grew up in this town, even though I lived elsewhere for fourteen years. I returned to this area a very different person than the young girl who left it. When I run into people who knew that girl, it's uncomfortable to reveal the woman I have become. So, it's not surprising what I said a few days ago to the dentist.

In all my thirty-plus years, I've never had a cavity. Until this year. So last week I went to my dentist's office for my first filling ever. I've known my dentists for most of my life. They are father and brother to the kid who was my best friend for many years. When we returned to the area, we chose their practice, because they are fantastic at what they do, and I know and trust them. While I reclined in the chair, waiting for the anesthetic to kick in, the senior dentist, my friend's father, came in to say hello, catch up a little on the fourteen years we've been away.

He asked about my parents, asked about my brothers.  I asked about his wife, his son. I asked if he was still at our old church.  He asked me where we are going to church.

I guess I sort of asked for that.

And at the moment of truth, I wimped out.  "We're going to the Lutheran church," I answered.

I was surprised by my response. It wasn't a complete fabrication; it is the church we were visiting as a last ditch effort to recover some sort of mustard seed of faith before realizing we just flat out did not buy into it anymore.  But it's not the church we attend. We don't attend anywhere.

The answer satisfied him, and we moved on.  But I kept thinking about what I'd said, about  how hard it is to admit being non-religious.  I could imagine the look on his face if I'd told the truth.  Which would it be, a millisecond of sadness, disappointment or disapproval before reverting to medical professionalism? Would the conversation have become stilted, uncomfortable?

Maybe, just maybe, it would have been fine, but I know this place and its people, and I can say pretty confidently that there would have been at least a little sadness in his eyes. It's hard for a Christian to see one of its sheep wandering, ignoring the shepherd's voice, leaving the flock.  It's not only hard because they worry about that sheep's eternal soul, but it conflicts with their understanding of the shepherd.  Why wouldn't the shepherd leave the flock in search of the lost sheep?  It must be a problem with the sheep, not the shepherd.  It's never a problem with the shepherd.

At the end of the day, my response was probably the most prudent one I could have given.  I hate being dishonest with others, untrue to myself, but I'll put both my hands up in the air and admit that on most days it's better than being pitied or rejected.