Honestly, I’m firmly in the Freebirds camp.

That is a fascinating ball of whack you’ve found there.

“Through good luck and having respected, important parents, she escaped the harm that evangelical churches regularly inflict on other people.” <Oh thanks for this, I couldn’t make it THROUGH.

Blanket negotiations are the most tense political situation most of us will ever be directly involved in.

Remind yourself every time you just do something because you feel like it and you don’t have to justify it to anyone.

Sick sick sick. I am so sorry you had to go through that. *hugs*

Evangelicals made me sit in a corner and go without dinner because my family didn’t pray before meals. They used me as an example for their children. Then they ate dinner and talked loudly about how people who don’t pray before meals are going to hell. And this was when I was a dinner guest at their houses. I was 10.…

Laura was the pastor’s kid. That alone makes me want to barf. She has zero concept of how real people are really treated by churchies.

Uhhh, I’m glad you personally don’t feel traumatized by your upbringing. That’s great for you. Isn’t amazing how God just happens to agree with all the positive, empowering, loving things your parents believed? And how the omnipotent creator of the universe loves The Lord of the Rings and The Simpsons just like your…

The fact that a pastor’s kid wrote this piece and has the nerve to tell us how the church is full of warm fuzzies makes me spitting mad. What a sheltered, privileged existence. Of course the church was great for her... Evangelicals practically worship pastors and their families.

Evangelical church survivor here. I hated it. I was forced to do it because my mom wanted to feel a sense of belonging. It fucked up my childhood and my identity so badly that I will never forgiver her for that.

— So Evangelism was good for you, likely due to your white, upper middle class upbringing. But that’s not the case for all Evangelists, so was it actually good? You sound grounded and self aware, but that’s not a common trait from many Christians I’ve known, and that’s from CA to TX to NY.

The core of evangelism is running around and telling other people that your system of beliefs is correct and that theirs isn’t.

Christianity in this country has always, from the very beginning, had a huge persecution complex, regardless of the amount of actual power that they hold in the community or their proximity to people actually being persecuted. The idea that it is strange for people in the “mainstream” to be out and proud about their…

I’m happy for you, and it sounds like your parents are pretty great people.

Oh wow. I grew up not far from Willow Creek, in Arlington Heights, and was always equally terrified and fascinated by that place. For those of us that weren’t part of it and never directly knew anyone that was a member it was a cultish megaplex. We didn’t know if it was just a giant church complex or a compound…

Okaaaay, but why? Like, I’m glad that this author is a well-adjusted person with happy memories of her childhood and adolescence, but I don’t really see how that contributes to the conversation.

“It is rare to hear someone in mainstream media acknowledge that they are glad to be or have been evangelical, even though about a quarter of Americans are evangelical.”

Barf. I know Willow Creek Church. The people I know from there are all very “nice” as long as you are exactly—EXACTLY—like them. This reminds me of Shauna Niequist, also from Willow Creek. I dare you to read one of her books without throwing it across the room. This essay is exactly like her writing: shallow and full…