Single People Often Feel Alienated in Churches

The great Christian blog The Wartburg Watch has had a series recently about how single Christians often feel alienated and rejected by conservative churches. Whether they were divorced, widowed or simply hadn’t married by the time they were in their late 20’s on up, many people have been sending in their stories to The Wartburg Watch.

People have talked about feeling pressured into poorly run singles groups organized seemingly for the purpose of trying to set up singles in relationships so they will get married, (some called them “meat markets”), people trying to set them up with other church members, when they clearly weren’t ready for a relationship yet.

Other issues have been people questioning whether they were gay because they chose to remain single (which would be scandalous in conservative/anti-gay churches), pastors constantly giving sermons on marriage, but not sermons of advice or encouragement to single people, and single people being made to feel that they are inferior to married couples (implications that get married and having children is god’s “perfect plan” for people).

Here are some quotes from the series:

From an e-mail titled “Singlness: SGM Style”:

I will provide background in my email below, but what strikes me most about how singles are treated in the church is that they seem to want to treat our "condition" as temporary. Little focus is given to singles because the goal is to get you married so you can become a couple and really be part of the vision of the church. So why invest too much time in ministry to singles when the goal is to get you out of singlehood as soon as possible. 

  I am stunned to believe that churches invest so much in children's ministry, college ministry, and family centered ministries and then if you don't get your MRS or MR in college (Bible college that is) you fall into a black hole. Singles are treated like they are in the waiting room of God's Will. We really don't matter until we get married and start having all those babies and homeschooling our kids. I also want to stress that by and large I believe most of my encounters within these churches were with earnest believers who truly want to serve God and were interacting with me in love - they are just misguided.

Subconscious Phone Conversations

I am proud to have yet another guest post published by my good blogging friend, Jonny Scaramanga of the blog Leaving Fundamentalism. In my early childhood, I spent time in the Assembly of God denomination, a Pentecostal organization.

In my guest post, titled Subconscious Phone Conversations, I talk about what my first "speaking in tongues" experience was like at age 11.

Here's an excerpt from the post:

I felt this strong, compelling urge to go forward, it felt like it almost wasn't even my choice to go up there, like I was a piece of metal being drawn to the altar by a powerful electromagnet. I get up there, and there are about 7 or 8 people praying, singing, and yes, speaking in tongues. I spend a good deal of time in intense prayer, the kind where you become so focused on your praying that everything around you kind of melts away, you wouldn't notice if the building collapsed around you. 

Finally, Someone Who Understands What I Am Talking About....

Some days, something happens to me as a blogger, that makes me think that all this time and energy I put into the blog each week is really worth it.

Recently, I posted a guest post from Jonny Scaramanga, creator of the blog Leaving Fundamentalism, about the A.C.E curriculum we both grew up with.

This past week, a comment was made on that post from someone else who personally experienced this atrocious curriculum as a child/teen. Here's what she had to say. Lana is a blogger (author of My Musing Corner), and a cult survivor, her parents were followers of the Bill Gothard/ATI branch of the Independent Fundamental Baptist organization.

Read the full comment here, she talks about where ACE fails in 28 different ways, it's a great read, you can read the comment in it's entirety on the post, or I've made it into a document on Google Drive, for ease of reading,  you can read it in that format here.

The Google document is accessible to anyone, no Google log in required. I'm only including some of the objections from her 28 point list here in this post, because the list, plus my comments would make for what could be the longest post I've ever published on the blog:


1. "You leave out one word of a Bible verse, and its five points off a test. "

She's right about points docked off of tests for failing to remember a Bible verse. In each book (the books are known as "PACE's"), there's a verse that they tell you to learn, and try to help you remember it with various exercises throughout the book, such as segments where the verse is given to you with words missing, and you must fill in the blanks. 

I don't know how it went in her home schooling family, but in the A.C.E school I was in until the 5th grade, the teacher would dock points for misspellings, no matter how minor, my mom was more flexible about that.

10. "The dinosaur and evolution comments are laughable." 

Jonny's aforementioned guest post talks about one of the ridiculous claims regarding creationism vs. evolution. ACE claims that a creature pulled from the ocean in 1977 of the coast of New Zealand could be a species of dinosaur. The creature was actually an animal called a basking shark. The confusion was cleared up in 1978, yet an ACE book published in 1989 was still claiming this. 

ACE also claims that the Lock Ness monster exists and is a type of dinosaur called a plesiosaur. (I wish I was joking about this)

12. "There are racist comments in there."

It's Been A Wild Ride For Me As A Blogger This Week

This week has been a wild one for the blog, with plenty of surprises, ups and downs, and there's been a lot for me to keep with. A guest post of mine was published, I've received a guest post submission, a request for an interview, and some backlash to a post I wrote several weeks ago.

All that in just 3 day's time.....

First, I'll start out with the published guest post. Jonny Scaramanga of the popular blog Leaving Fundamentalism, published a guest post I submitted. It was much the typical fare that you would come to expect on my blog.

 I went more in detail about the private school I attended that was a part of the Independent Fundamental Baptist network. I must have forgotten to include my title when I e-mailed it to him, I had originally titled it "Jumping On Cassettes", after a bizarre experience with the pastor who owned the school (read more about that in the guest post. It was a "life story" post that continued on with more about my home schooling past, and about the road that led me to become an agnostic.

 It was a great honor to write for his blog, he was raised up with the same fundamentalist curriculum I was, Accelerated Christian Education. If you have the time, I would highly encourage you to read a guest post he wrote for my blog, about his own personal experience with this system. It was a great guest post, and a great insight into this awful curriculum.

That very same morning (Monday). I also got a big surprise. I had wrote a guest post for Laughing In Purgatory that was a response to an article by Libby Anne of the Patheos blog Love Joy Feminism. Well, Libby Anne found that post of mine, and responded to it on her blog Monday.

A few things I learned from that experience:

1. Always beware of the tone of anything you write, my post took a somewhat accusatory tone towards Libby Anne, which wasn't what I intended.

2. When talking about a controversial topic, even if the post is meant to be a rant/discuss your personal feelings, always back up the post with links/quotes, people will expect it, even though you just intended for the post to be a rant.

3. Be prepared for backlash. The response wasn't as bad as I expected it to be, and Libby Anne, much to her credit, was rather civil, both in the post, and in a conversation I had with her by e-mail (I respect that about her and her writing, her blog is one of my favorite blogs).

Speaking of Laughing In Purgatory, which is where that original post of mine was posted, the author of that blog, Andrew Hall is back to bring some of his great satire to my blog. I've just received a new proposed guest post from him, I'm reading it now, and it will probably be published on Friday or Saturday.

The last time he sent in a guest post for this blog, it was a great success, and well received by readers. Read that post, Scholar Awarded Templeton Prize for Proving Jesus' Virgin Birth. There were some hidden jokes in that post, for instance, do you know who the man in the picture of "Dr. Mountebank", actually is?

Finally, I've been invited to be a part of the atheist blogger interview series on the blog Deity Shmeity. The blog author, "Grundy", has some great bloggers in that series that have responded to his request for interviews, blogger i have a lot of  respect for, like Vjack of Atheist Revolution, and Hermant Metha of The Friendly Atheist.

I'm honored to be invited to be a part of this project. I can't say for sure when this will be published, it all depends in part, on how soon I can get around to writing my responses to his questions (I've already received them in an e-mail).

It's been a wild week, for sure, it's the most excitement I've had as a blogger in quite a long time...

Jumping On Cassettes

I found a nice surprise when I logged into my Blogger account today. Jonny Scaramanga of the popular blog Leaving Fundamentalism, published a guest post today that I sent to him several weeks ago.

His blog is a great resource for understanding the mindset of fundamentalism. He grew up in the church of world famous "Word of Faith" minister Jesse Duplantis, and even played guitar in the church's worship band.

His blog tells the story of growing up fundamentalist, and mostly focuses on the private school that he grew up in, which used the atrocious A.C.E curriculum. My guest post there is about my personal experience with the same curriculum, first in a private school that was a part of a cult called the Independent Fundamental Baptist denomination, then as a home school kid.

I know, it's more of my endless depressing drivel ;)

I had originally titled the post "Jumping on Cassettes", but apparently I forgot to include that title in my submission, that title was based off of a bizarre experience with the pastor who ran the private school where I attended from kindergarten to the 5th grade.

He titled it Putting the Fundamental In Fundamentalist   check it out on his blog, let me know what you think, and keep reading on his blog, it's a site I highly recommend.

One Man's Childhood Experience With An ACE Cirriculm School: (Guest Post)

I was walking back from my village shop with a loaf of bread. Like always, I was staring at the ground, so I didn’t see the group of girls coming the otherway. I jumped when one of them spoke.

“Jonny, do you know Esther?”

A girl was speaking to me. I almost convulsed with the adrenalin. Then a voice completely alien to mine escaped my lips, at once threatened and aggressive.

“Yeeeaahh,” I grunted. The girls burst into laughter and walked off. One did an impression of my voice as they went. I returned to staring at the floor and walking home.

This was the result studying alone, in silence, being constantly told how evil the outside world is, for four of my most formative years. I could talk to grown-ups, of course, “Yes, Mrs. Johnson”, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Johnson”, “You’re right, Mrs. Johnson”. But people my own age? Those ones who were trying to drag me to hell with them? They were terrifying.

I Received An Incredible E-mail Today

I told my Google + followers last night that I had sent an e-mail to Jonny Scaramanga, a musician , and the writer of one of my favorite blogs, Leaving Fundamentalism, asking if he could write a guest post for my blog.

 He has an incredible story of growing up in fundamentalism that includes a curriculum he was taught in a small private school called Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), which he writes about extensively on his blog, Growing up, he attended the church of internationally known "Word of Faith" minister, Jesse Duplantis, and as a teen, he played guitar for the church's worship team.

His blog has taken off, some posts have reached up to 16,000 views, and he has been interviewed about ACE by BBC radio, and wrote articles about it for the Times of London, if that gives you an idea of how big his blog is in the atheist blogging world.

That is why I consider it an incredible honor that he replied to my e-mail (which I wondered if would even be able to respond, as many e-mails as he must get each day), and said that he is willing to write a guest post for my humble little blog here. I'm still in shock about it, I've replied, and you can be sure, I'll announce it with big fan fare when the post is finally published.

Keep a watch out on the blog and on my personal Google + page, and on the blog's official Google page for further update. Keep in mind that you can submit a guest post of your own to this blog, and check out the guest posts page for posts that have been written for this blog, and for the two part guest post series I wrote for My Secret Atheist Blog.

Was Jesus a Creationist?

I always like directing my readers to the great posts of blogs I enjoy. The title you see above is the title of a new post by blogger Jonny Scaramanga of Leaving Fundamentalism, I have mentioned his blog before sometime back, he's a musician, teacher, and blogger who normally devotes his blog posts to exposing Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E), a fundamentalist school curriculum that both he and yours truly were raised up on.

In this post, Was Jesus a Creationist?, he takes a different turn and takes a look at the view of Genesis by Christianity throughout it's history, and what he shows his readers will surprise you, Genesis was largely read in a figurative light for much of Christianity's past, even by honored church fathers like Augustine. Creationism, the literal interpretation of Genesis, was not actually the norm until about 100 years ago, when a Christian college sought to resurrect the view of a literal Genesis as the norm for Christianity. Their actions lead to the foundations for modern fundamentalist Christianity.

It's a great read, check it out!

I'm Back! (and so are some of my favorite blog series)

Hey, finally back from vacation, and I've noticed that one of my favorite blog series has returned. "Latebloomer" of Past Tense, Present Progressive has written part 3 of her criticism of fundamentalist author Reb Bradley's awful book "Child Training Tips". Not many people have heard of this book, but it sums up all of the most harmful aspects of raising children with a fundamentalist mindset. My family had never read his book, or even heard of him, but some things he has said, I have heard my mother express about raising children, verbatim. Part 3 in the series, "A Parent who Tries to Change Hearts and Minds Through Spanking" is the conclusion of the series. Read Part 1, and Part 2 if you have not already thorough my previous post on my favorite bloggers.

Another great blog is Leaving Fundamentalism, by British musician, teacher, and former Christian, Jonny Scaramanga. He constantly rails against the Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E) curriculum that he (and yours truly) was raised with. I saw a post recently about how their European division, Christian Education Europe, has been embarrassed by a former employee exposing their dirty secrets, read about it here.