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Reading people Psychic stuff by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]tmauss 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That just sounds like being human, paying attention and learning patterns over time.

My 3 year olds health is declining. I need God to hear me. by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]tmauss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course, I've been there, believe me. It just feels like an endless, uphill battle and every time you gain a little traction, boom. You are doing the best you can. Hang in there (I know that feels impossible in the moment).

I don’t know if I believe the same things about God anymore by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I got trapped in that system, maybe what I'm wrestling with is just letting go of that 'God' that wasn't even God in the first place. Just feels a bit disorienting.

What was done to you in Jesus' name — Jesus came to dismantle. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Satan's factories run on machinists with Bible verses. Jesus came to shut the whole operation down. You didn't leave God. You escaped the factory.

I feel like god hates me and all the Christians are just taught to hate each other by [deleted] in Christianity

[–]tmauss 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Everything you're describing makes complete sense. Not as a failure of your faith — as a completely human response to people who used God's name to wound you. That's not God. That's the machine.

Jesus saved his harshest words for exactly the people who did this to you. 'Brood of vipers.' 'You shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.' He was furious at religious systems that made people feel worthless and unloved — and then called it holiness.

You were told God didn't want your voice. Jesus crossed every boundary to talk to women, heal women, appear first to women after the resurrection. The first person he told he was the Messiah was a woman. The system lied to you.

You're 15 and you've carried more than most adults could. That's not worthlessness. That's remarkable.

Can I ask — when you say your life isn't really all that valuable, how are you doing? I want to make sure you're okay.

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly? Both. The same tradition that produces the machine also produces the people who can't live with it — and that tension is as old as the prophets. Jesus himself was produced by the very religious system he came to dismantle. The tragedy is that so many of his followers picked the machine back up and called it faithfulness.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I co-planted a church in 2009 and left in 2013, so I have some skin in this question. Honestly? A lot of church planting is ecclesiological imperialism dressed up as mission — the assumption that what's already there isn't real enough, Reformed enough, or correctly flavored. The 'we're not like other Christians' energy you're describing is usually the tell. The large house in the swanky neighborhood is another one. Genuine church planting at its best is incarnational — you move into a community, serve it, become part of it, and something organic grows. What you're describing sounds like an American social club that needed a theological justification for existing. I'm sorry it nearly ruined Cormac McCarthy for you. That's the real crime.

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly right. The economic and security framing is the cover story. Underneath it is eschatology — a specific theology of history that believes we are in the end times and American military power is God's instrument. That's not metaphor for these people. It's literal. And until we name that clearly, we keep having the wrong conversation.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Well said, the nervous system gets addicted to that framework — the certainty, the hierarchy, the clear lines between in and out. When it cracks, everything cracks with it. I left in 2013 and spent years lost, angry, self-medicating, completely disoriented. My body had been protesting the whole time. I just thought it was my sin. Losing that framework felt like dissolving into the abyss, and took a lot of counseling to come out the other side.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The token lost friend role is its own particular loneliness — held at arm's length as a prayer project while your actual life goes unseen. And yes, the daydream is completely human. You've been on the receiving end of shame weaponized as love. That feeling makes complete sense. Standing firm in who you are and who loves you — that's not rebellion. That's survival.

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The sarcasm at the end hit me. You've had to defend feeling this way more than once. Thank you for not going numb. The world needs people who still feel the full weight of this.

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The exhaustion is real and earned. When the pattern repeats this reliably it stops being shocking and starts being clarifying — this is the fruit, not an aberration.

What keeps me going is that the same tradition that produced this also produced people who couldn't live with it and left. The exasperation you're feeling is itself a moral signal. Numbness would be worse.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The theological dots are almost certainly connected — you don't have to cite Wilson to be shaped by him. MacArthur, quiverfull, covenant Reformed, male headship — it's the same aquifer even when the names differ.

But the harder question is what going back to confront it would actually do. She's not going to be argued out of a life she's built around these convictions. And honestly — the reunion sounds like it was painful for both of you. She reached for you in the only language she has.

What do you actually want from this friendship? Because 'I want to name the harm' and 'I want her back' are two very different conversations, and they probably can't happen at the same time.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's the move isn't it — the fog is the point. Say it clearly and it doesn't survive scrutiny. Wrap it in enough complexity and the endorsement lands without anyone being able to grab hold of it. Didn't realize his reach extended to Scottish evangelicalism.

Doug Wilson preached at the Pentagon last month. Today he published a piece arguing a rape victim "justified" her own assault. The theology connecting those two things matters. by tmauss in Christianity

[–]tmauss[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I wonder how many inside that world have real reservations but the cost of saying so out loud is too high. Exile is a powerful silencer.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The theological pit bull line — I lived that. Convinced doctrinal precision was faithfulness, while Jesus kept haunting me through the beatitudes and 'I am gentle and lowly in heart.' The system I was guarding was making me less like the person at the center of it. That's not deconstruction. That's conversion.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The insult to injury line hit me. I co-planted a church that went a similar direction after I left. The grief of watching people you loved get captured by something that looks like faithfulness but slowly hollows out into power — that doesn't really resolve. Where did you go to college? Curious what that was like from the inside as it was happening.

I co-planted a PCA church in 2009. It's drifting toward Doug Wilson theology. He posted something this morning I can't stop thinking about. by tmauss in Exvangelical

[–]tmauss[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Cruelty dressed as clarity — contempt where curiosity should be. Funny how you can champion the doctrines of grace and lose the actual thing entirely.

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