Waking up from fundamentalism

Image from RecoveringFundamentalists.com

The following blogger enters the confessional and shares a sad list of insensitive and abusive interactions she had with those around her while still a fundamentalist.  While it’s not about women’s ordination, it’s about what happens when individuals take Biblical texts literally and impose the consequences on others. While having the best of intentions, fundamentalists are out of touch with their impact on others. It all seems rather too close to the rigid adherence of LCA social conservatives.

Wordgazer’s Words: My Wish-I-Hadn’ts.

I have, over the course of years that I’ve been a Christian, changed the way I think about a large number of things.  Some of the beliefs I used to hold caused me to treat people (or even myself) in ways that I’m sure now were not what Jesus wanted.  Though I’m sure I have His grace and forgiveness for these things, that doesn’t change the harm I now believe I did.  So here are some of my regrets.  Some of them, as I look back, make me laugh or shake my head; others make me very sad.  If anyone who reads this was affected by any of these things, I hope you already know how truly sorry I am.

So here, in no particular order, are my Wish-I-Hadn’ts:

I wish I hadn’t kept bothering my Catholic co-worker with invitations to my church’s events, even though she had told me she had her own faith.  I thought I was trying to get her away from a false religion.  She thought I was just plain annoying.

I wish I hadn’t had my pastor preach a how-to-get-saved sermon at my wedding, to the captive audience of relatives and friends who had only come to see me get married.

Read many more.

The post, “Don’t talk about it”, tells some of her story of living in Maranatha Campus Ministries, an authoritarian Christian community.

Are you a recovering fundamentalist, or perhaps you have a story of being mistreated by fundamentalists or fundamentalism?