Faith Shift: Finding Your Way Forward When Everything You Believe Is Coming Apart by Kathy Escobar

Author:Kathy Escobar [Escobar, Kathy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781601425447
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2014-10-20T17:00:00+00:00

WHO ARE WE NOW … REALLY?

When I first landed on the outside of church, I started an informal group called the Ex-Good-Christian Women’s Breakfast Club. It was a way to bring some brave female friends together on a regular basis to share encouragement and support. Through the years, that group has been crucial to my healing because I can openly share what it feels like to lose the identity I had clung to for many years. Most of my former life was built upon people pleasing and performance. I was loved and accepted when I was doing, saying, and believing the right things. And because one of my biggest fears in this world was abandonment and rejection, I had an almost toxic addiction to keeping everyone around me happy.

After my faith free fall, the biggest loss was people’s approval. When I started ranting about dysfunctional church systems and my evolving liberal theological perspectives, it wasn’t some twisted experiment in being brave. It was part of shedding my identity and living with the painful consequences of that loss.

The cultures we come from are laden with powerful stereotypes about what is acceptable for both men and women. These expectations are crippling. Colleen, a middle-school teacher with a calm, peaceful spirit, sums it up well: “If I am not this good Christian woman, then who am I?” Many men are asking the same question about being a “good Christian man.”

These are some identity questions people ask during Unraveling:

Who are we when …

• we no longer believe the same things or remain part of a church?

• we don’t lead or serve?

• people disapprove of us?

• family members are hurt, angry, or concerned that we no longer want to play church with them?

• we are no longer directly affiliated with a church or group?

• we stay home on Sundays, as most people do?

• we don’t call ourselves Christians?

• our children aren’t learning about God in church?

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