Keri Ladouceur no longer calls herself an Evangelical Christian.
Like many younger members of this sprawling American religious tradition, she’s left what she says has become a movement mostly defined by aggressive white conservatism and Christian nationalism, the prerogatives of male privilege, and a near obsession with regulating human sexuality.
why? because power and influence.
All religions are a business that sell fear to their victims. One of the greatest fears of an individual is disappointing other people - we are social animals after all. So how great a fear it must be to face being shunned by your fellow church members if you dare to speak up against the business.
Some disclosure - raised as a catholic. Walked away from it all in my 20s after one too many sermons talking about how much money the church had been making. That, and as a middle school child having to suffer attending the funeral of a paedophile teacher at my catholic school. The piece of shit had a reputation but the church protected him.
Out of all that I try (and constantly fail) to live by one phrase of Jesus: Love one another as I have loved you. Hell you can even drop the “…as I have loved you.” You don’t even need to believe in God to live by those words.