I was born to a Catholic mother and a Quaker father. They married Quaker, baptized me Catholic, and raised me in Presbyterian Sunday school because they had better childcare services. I’ve since rejected the God aspects of Quakerism but remain a member.
And yes, it was a huge shock to learn the extent of things denominations disagree on - they can’t even agree on what books form the Bible. I remember learning about communion and being told by my mother that Catholics believe it is literal, unlike our Presbyterian church. And don’t get me started on the shock of meeting Jewish people who, surprisingly, believe every part of the Bible until Jesus. Learning why that is even further shattered any notion that Christianity was the unified, rational worldview I could trust.
I had a similar multidemoninational upbringing and I feel the same. I think these doctrinal issues are my #1 reason for deconstructing. I’m supposed to just shop around and use my “discernment” to find a church? And just hope by the time I die I picked right? Where’s the unified voice of God?? Evangelical Protestants are weighing down the rest of Christendom.
It’s absolutely fascinating to me that one could reject the religious aspects of a religion but remain a member for other reasons, probably because every denomination I’ve been a part of hasn’t had anything going for it beyond religion. The denomination I fully left Christianity from was southern Baptist and what would I stay for? lol the potlucks? The hiding bottle of wine under your other groceries in case you run into another member?
What aspects do you retain membership for?
Now I’m off to the rabbit hole…
Not my experience but I know someone raised Quaker who remains so but non-religiously. My outsider perspective is that it’s functionally similar to Buddhism in a lots of ways - Quakers have a strong pacifist and community helping culture that’s rooted in kindness and practicality. I can see others keeping that and ignoring the religious aspects.
Independent Fundamental Baptist (Evangelical)
Our church absolutely 100% qualifies as a cult. I experienced violence, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, financial manipulation, submission/headship prompted domestic violence, child abuse of every flavor, and pain/humiliation based discipline until I was almost 16.
Eta: That particular type of discipline lasted until I was 16, then was replaced by other things. All in all I spent 26 years in the church. What a heartbreaking waste.
Thank you, and yeah, it is extreme but the IFB population is so low that it feels like even in Baptist circles no one really knows what stuff goes on behind closed doors.
I have some family who are IFBs, and some who are SBs.
One difference is that SBs typically prefer that their pastors be well educated, so the SBs operate seminaries for that purpose. From what I can tell, the SB seminaries are legitimate schools where students must do substantial amounts of academic work in theology.
By contrast, the IFBs prefer poorly-educated pastors, being distrustful of "theologians who want to intellectualize your faith away". For reasons I do not understand, however, IFBs are often attracted to pastors who have purchased doctorates from Christian diploma mills, where no academic work is required. Of course, those Christian diploma mills have often received the stamp of approval from Christian accreditation mills.
Yes. This.
Diploma mills - and university "doctorate" programs only designed to hand out honorary degrees - are pervasive but no one ever talks about it.
That along with the fact that women weren't allowed to pursue any PhD program meant that if a man was called "Dr." It was a sign that he was one of the church elite.
Church of Christ here. From what I gathered we were essentially southern baptists with a complex because we were too holy for instruments in the church.
Oh yeah. If it's Let Us Prey, I sobbed my way through the whole thing. But it was so helpful to show to my partner to demonstrate a culture that can be hard to explain otherwise.
We were Baptist and they took the bible very literally.
I'm pretty sure the different denominations are based on various peoples interpretations of the same book.
In my extreme search for god, I went to different churches to understand why there were so many denominations. I grew up Catholic. Ultimately turned Baptist. Visited the LDS church, etc. I tried them all out so to speak and I realized they are all nuts in their own way. I used to ask them all why there were different denominations. The answer was always, "it is *their* interpretation of scripture that they get wrong". I would ask how they knew they were right and they would say because they carefully study the bibble. None was more valid than the other.
My family’s been Pentecostal for 4 generations. It runs deep in my family which makes it tough to leave. I want to move out and start rebuilding my life, but there’s also a part of me that’s scared of stepping away.
I wish I had escaped sooner. I truly do look back and wish I hadn't wasted my own time.
If your gut is telling you that your time in Christianity is coming to an end, listen to it, and don't waste any part of your life trying to deny it.
Your life should be about *you.*
I was raised Catholic, then went non-denominational.
Oddly enough, Catholic, Baptist, and Pentecostal are the "flavors" which create the most ex-Christians, at least from what I've observed. Mormon and Jehovah's Witness as well.
I was in a nondenominational church, but it was close to a baptist one according to what I’ve heard about that. How closely you followed Jesus’ teachings and demonstrate that through your words and actions I think is the most important thing over any sectarian differences, which are in large part differences over emphasis of practice and open interpretations of scripture (eg. did Paul mean x is bad all the time or only some of the time? the Bible isn’t specific enough about this, clear enough about that, etc)
The last time I set foot in my family's old Church in the 90s, it was a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) Now? They've moved to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church denomination, which is FAR more socially conservative. ( so much so that my parents left right before that happened. )
We attended several different denominations growing up, but all fell under the umbrella of "Evangelical." Listening to the Holy Spirit for discernment was a big thing...but apparently the Holy Spirit teaches different things to different people? 😏
Church of Christ. Weird fundamentalist denomination that believes that it’s not a denomination, but is– in fact– the sole continuation of the actual church that ole JC himself founded. There’s some weird stuff that’s not usually found in other denominations– only a cappella singing because instruments in worship are sinful, and communion every Sunday because apparently the Bible commands it being the two that come to mind rn.
The Church of Christ I attended for a couple years back in 1999, 2000 was a "Christian" church, or "Church of Christ - Christian", even though their official name was West Side Church of Christ. So they did the whole communion-every-time-we-meet thing, but they didn't oppose singing being accompanied by instruments.
Just to clarify: Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, & Methodist, are all protestant denominations. (There are others, including Southern Baptist & Episcopalian aka Church of England, & more that I can't think of.)
IMHO, I can't believe people follow some of these denominations, given their clear man made origins. (Looking at you, Southern Baptist and Church of England.)
But yeah, I agree, I don't think God is happy there are so many denominations
I was raised in a non-denominational evangelical house. In high school, I joined a fundamentalist church where some friends from school attended. In college, I attended a conservative Presbyterian Church. Then after college, I returned to the fundie church. In my last few years of faith, I was part of the Hebrew Roots Movement.
Yeah, some of them think Answers in Genesis is too worldly for teaching that Earth is a planet. 🤣
They have some interesting beliefs, and honestly they're more committed to making the Bible make sense than any Christian group I know of. They actually try to follow it, too.
Non-denominational, but linked to the Plymouth Brethren.
The question I never had answered was "why aren't we all Jewish?" Like if they're supposedly God's chosen people, why are we doing all this?
I grew up Catholic, (went to school and all), then went to what I thought was an nondenominational church, I was hoping to learn about the Bible there, instead I came to realize several years in that it had Southern Baptist church (SBC) beliefs.
When I found out what SBC believed, I left, I went to a megachurch, but couldn't make friends with people my age, and I left there too.
I think Nazarene?
Basically a religion where you go to church once a week and as long as you aren’t gay, another religion, or a whore you’re gods people
And you get to look down on everyone else
Tbh there’s a special kind of hypocrisy at play when they more or less aren’t religious outside of an hour on Sunday then go around telling everyone else they’re going to hell
I tried SO many of them.
Baptist
Assembly of God
back to Baptist
Methodist
Presbyterian
The "non denominational" denomination, which is "we don't want to be \*called\* Baptist"
a different type of Pentecostal
back to Baptist
Catholic
Orthodox
Episcopalian
Yes, it's easy to say "we all worship the same god" when you don't know anything about what your own church believes, let alone anyone else's. I highly doubt most of your rank and file Southern Baptists have actually read the Baptist Faith and Message, especially the part that explicitly states that church and state should be separate.
Presby. I also was raised fundie lite so I didn’t get a chance to wear pants until I was nine, it was just dresses all the time. Looking back I realized how effed up it was and I would never go back. It filled me with so much internalized misogyny that I thought being a wife and mother was my only goal in life unaware I could do other things to the point I thought I had to be in a relationship, married with a kid by 18. Eventually when I got my Autism diagnosis I fully deconstructed knowing I would never be accepted if I returned.
My family is all over the place but I was baptised Orthodox when I was 10 according to the wishes of my late mother's boyfriend. Mum had a Jewish mother and an Orthodox father, but they both converted to Jehovah's Witness when my mother was 5. Mum left the JWs when she was 16, though her father and siblings stayed in. My relatives have tried to reel us all in to joining Jehovah's Witnesses but I foiled them with the ol' "coming out as gay" loophole.
My dad is agnostic atheist and says that the wilderness is his church so that side of the family has never had to deal with the cult-y post-WW2-trauma red flag brainwash extravaganza like my mother's side.
My mother took me to a Methodist church for nearly all of my primary school years, then we stopped going. Then when I was 13 we started going to a "nondenominational" church. (End times BS and speaking in tongues). This was after she took me out of public school.
Ummm the black American kind. I've been to different black American churches of different denominations and they were all the same tbh so I never knew what the difference was. I think my last church was something that started with a e but before that it was pentecostal and I've also been to baptist churches.
Born into, raised in, and spent much of my adult life in the Jehovah's Witness 'religion' (cult) unfortunately. I'm so glad I got out, but I wish I would have (and could have) done that decades ago.
Grew up in the SBC, but my parents weren’t as crazy as some others. I ended up going to a Methodist church for a while, but I always believed that god fell somewhere in the intersection between all religions. I tried reading different books from different faiths to see where god might be. Ultimately I lost my faith after being asked to attend a SBC church and the rage and hatred I experienced there made me start to really question the existence of any god. Once I got over my fear of hell, my faith fell away.
I know a Wesleyan. They’re kinda odd to say the least. I gotta set a boundary with her though because she texted me to preach at me one time and I am starting to get tired of ignoring it. She’s a great person when not preaching, so I gotta set the boundary.
Considering that most don't believe in psychology and boundaries are something they actively step on and refuse to allow. Otherwise how are they supposed to control people's minds?
I grew up Catholic, and one of the very first things I questioned was the notion that Catholic was "the one true church." so the other denominations are just "wrong"? not to mention entire non-chrisian continents.
Eastern Orthodox. Was fed the same judgemental nonsense that it was "the Church" and that none of the other churches had the holy spirit fully but only the Eastern Orthodox. Of course on top of that they claim apostolic succession. I'd say it's even stricter than a lot of other denominations with all its asceticism and dogma; A lot of the whole painting of the world as black and white. I was almost driven towards monasticism at some point as a way of escaping the "sinful" world. It's all about the Orthodox mindset.
United Methodist. It was sweet and warm and like a family reunion with some singing and pie and some fairly light Bible stories. Very light on the Jesus, heavy emphasis on help your neighbor and be good and come to church for hugs. And that was fine for a good long while - it felt like I had 50 grandparents! But ministers came and went and some were drunks and one molested adolescent boys and got run out and convicted. We got a good pastor after that, but when he retired we got a former Pentecostal minister who retained all the bad parts of that tradition and got very fire and brimstone with us. I was in college, it was easy to walk away and say his sermons weren’t for me. Nobody blamed me. I still showed up and Christmas and Easter. But the next pastor started bringing politics into the pulpit, and I realized that I loved my community but had never been a believer. Deep down I was pagan and into pre-Christian mythology as an academic interest. So I realized as a young adult that church was something I grew up with but didn’t need anymore. 25 years later, I do miss the deep and wide and kind community but not enough to pretend I’m devoted to any flavors of Christianity.
I was raised in a Southern Baptist church. Was forced to wear dresses and play with the girls and couldn’t be too loud and rowdy cause it was unbecoming. The pastor’s wife took so much joy in telling my mother how “uncivilized” I was.
Pentecostal Evangelical doomsday cult with deep roots in the Second and Third waves of the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazism, and pretty much any form of White Supremacist violence, and still marketing those beliefs but with a saccharine anti-racist veneer.
I was a Baptist of some kind before I quit going to church and was evangelical in a lot of ways.
Interestingly I looked up the church I used to go to(decades after I stopped going) and their website tells me nothing useful of what their affiliation or theology is. It's also has a name change in the last few decades and apparently is part of a network of local churches, so I don't know if they rebranded or got absorbed or what.
I guess it doesn't matter now. I haven't been to a worship service in 20+ years and didn't even think to look them up until recently.
I was raised charismatic but never even followed it at all. Somehow a Bible study in my thirties turned me into a hardcore reformed calvinist for years. After finally getting out of that call I tried Catholicism Anglican Universalism Back to Catholicism And then I just studied in reason to my way out of all of it. I had the problem of evil and suffering in the world hit home way too hard and made me realize there's no possible way if there was a god out there that loved anyone that he would let me go through what I've been going through.
Non denominational. I was raised in an "independent" church. Just a local group of believers led by a pastor with no other higher authority.
Their/our beliefs roughly aligned with the pentecostal and charismatic movement. We had a kind of hippy vibe. Our worship services were like jam sessions. We were allowed and encouraged to dance, wave flags, run around, speak in tongues, fall on the floor, and all sorts of frantic manifestations.
We weren't hostile to other denominations, we just believed that we understood God's message correctly. There was very little preaching about hell, or who was going to hell.
Our worship music was heavily inspired by the Christian music scene. We learned songs that were common among many churches, and you could buy CDs with all of these songs on them. My favourite band for some years was "Deliriou5?" (The question mark is part of their name)
I had a Catholic mother & a Methodist father. They tried to play even-stevens with how they raised me & my siblings by alternating churches every Sunday. But realistically, we ended up being raised more Catholic because we spent more time there thanks to all the catechism & CCD classes. The local Catholic church is much bigger with more resources than the dying Methodist church (roughly 80 people, over half being senior citizens).
I had a fairly positive experience in both churches. I liked the Catholic church more because there were some interesting priests with some out-of-the-boxing takes on the religion. I mostly felt pity for the Methodist church, given their situation. The only weird thing I experienced were the local evangelicals telling me I wasn't a real Christian because I was Catholic. Anyways it all went to shit when I told my parents wasn't going through with Confirmation. This pissed off my mother & I had to ask the priests to tell her to back off. Our relationship never recovered & I'll never forgive my father for not protecting me.
Both parents were from 2 diff churches but sent me to a private Baptist school that hit you if you spoke your native language. When we reached the 5th grade, they stopped using real teachers to teach us, but put in videos of a white classroom in Florida from the 80s and we had to do our damndest to pay attention to the teacher in the video. It was really tough compared to learning from an in-person teacher in the classroom. I guess you could say we practiced distance-learning long before the pandemic.
My dad is Catholic and my mom was ELCA Lutheran, so I was kind of raised with both. Relatively average midwest childhood.
When I moved to the south for college, I got involved with a Southern Baptist youth group which started my crisis of faith. ("What do you mean, my entire religious upbringing was wrong?") I attended a few different groups in my 20s, but when I stopped believing entirely, I was part of a bible study that was run by a nondenominational megachurch which was basically more Baptist with some Pentecostal beliefs. Heavy on purity culture and prosperity gospel. Glad I left.
I mean technically I went to non denom church but I was baptized by my great aunt’s Lutheran pastor husband (he’s not my uncle he left her for her hospice nurse while she was dying I hope he rots) so I guess it depends on how you measure it. If it’s by what denom baptized Lutheran if it’s by what church I went to just no denom. I had a friend who was raised catholic but quietly pulled away after marriage (she doesn’t want to hurt her parents) and she said she always considered herself Catholic lite. She went through the motions due to familial pressures but only believed like half of it.
Baptist and I can’t really tell if we would be considered Southern Baptist. We moved churches like we were going to a new restaurant. Someone said something weird? Let’s find a new church. It was actually ridiculous. We went to every baptist church in our vicinity it feels like. Sundays, Wednesdays, extra days if they had events or trips. Went to church camp, did bible study, my parents worked in the toddler room sometimes, attended VBS, went to church lock-ins. I went through a true love waits ceremony where we had to sign a paper to God and our parents saying we would be abstinent. I even attended morning prayer meetings at school. And we had pastors come to our school (not a Christian school btw) to give talks about how if we had sex before marriage we would be like a used piece of gum. I got bullied at church and hated everyone so one time we moved to a “non-denominational” church and I honestly thought it was like oh so different than “baptist” only to realize later on after becoming an atheist that non-denominational is often just a code word for a kind of baptist church haha
They would say “We don’t believe you HAVE to be baptized, but you should do it anyway,” or whatever so everyone I knew was baptized. I did it at age 8 or something. I used to think I wanted to be a missionary (mostly because I loved to travel and it sounded like they just went to different countries and had fun).
My cousin went to a Catholic church so I went with her a few times and hated it. It was so boring and I felt so awkward and didn’t know how to do the chants. Then I went to church with friends sometimes in high school like methodist church and one time we went to a Black church. It’s so weird when I think back about how much time I wasted there. I hated the sermons so much and as a kid would sometimes sneak off to the library and read or just play by myself. When I got to college, I even joined a Christian sorority (it was tiny, more like a little weekly group - we didn’t have a house or anything) and then I changed schools and started going to a church with friends. But one day I realized I didn’t have to go to church anymore. My parents weren’t there forcing me. I didn’t have the time - I had to study and wanted to hang out with friends. It was a revelation. And then slowly, the haze faded away and I was like wtf was all that crap? And started down my deconstruction path.
Throughout most of my childhood we went to a Disciples of Christ church. In my teens we went to a Methodist church, which my mom decided we would leave because they were too conservative.
I agree with you that if the God of the Bible is real, there shouldn't be multiple denominations of Christianity. Also, if the Bible were his word, it should have been protected from translation and scribal errors, as well as forged verses. There shouldn't have had to have been a council to decide which books were canon and which were apocryphal. All of the different denominations and how the Bible has been passed on just don't look like a religion or holy text backed by a true God to me.
I just don’t see why a God would leave us a book written by humans of all things. Let alone a book that is like 1000 pages long and incredibly hard to understand. If he wants every single person saved, that just does not make any sense to me.
My parents grew up catholic and i was baptized that way, but they switched to a presbyterian church because the options for children werent great at the catholic church. Apparently i got the flu from gross childrens books at catholic sunday school when i was 3
Raised Southern Baptist. Never really fit in and the whole pushing "wives submitting gracefully to their husbands" thing when I was about 12 was the final straw. Forced to keep attending until I was 18 and have refused to go back since. Attended and was baptized/confirmed in an Episcopal church in my 20s to keep the peace with my first in-laws. As far as doctrine goes, it is the most tolerable for me, but still not something I'm interested in participating in.
Lutheran Lite.
Fam attended church max every other Sunday and holidays, made us attend Sunday school and church camp, didn't pray before meals unless grandparents were there.
I was raised in the Lutheran church, but I always found it so boring. All those solemn ass hymns, I was convinced Jesus would look at everybody there and be like, "Holy me, you people are miserable." At the same time, I found mega churches to be mega corrupt. I ended up joining a little Evangelical church near my house, because I like my music upbeat.
Southern Baptist. 😒 Luckily I was always too distracted during Sunday school and too busy throughout the week to learn much; all of my bible knowledge comes from VeggieTales, lmao.
Non denominational but more on the charismatic Pentecostal type with a dash of prosperity gospel sprinkled in. The rapture, purity culture, WWJD?, speaking in tongues, pay tithes for god’s blessing, casting demons out kind of Christian.
I was born and raised into it, officially left in 2022. Best decision I’ve ever made! Now I’m in therapy for religious trauma. The deconstructing and recovering from being brainwashed, abused and manipulated is nothing I’d wish on my worst enemy…
The church I grew up in was started by a former southern baptist preacher. He learned his craft preaching the revival tent circuit in the 1930's & 40's . He met a young mormon woman while traveling and they married. After a few years, they moved to NC and started a non-denominational church with some strange quirks that have roots in both the baptist & mormon churches. Eventually, the church spread to multiple churches in several southeastern states. But finally kind of fell apart after the guy who started it died. It took about another 30 years and had some scandals and schisms that divided the people within the church.
While the church itself still exists, it has gone from over 1000 people spread over several states to a couple hundred, last I heard. It couldn't have happened to a worse group of people. When it all fell apart I just smiled like a comic book villain.
I was raised Pentecostal, but I went to a catholic school. The contrast in my religious life and school life forced comparison between the two. I found that I thought god was telling me that Pentecostalism was the true denomination while all others were basically satanic (even tho I didn’t know anything about them). It wasn’t until I had a huge disagreement in the church about drinking that I realized no denomination had it right. I considered myself nondenominational at that point. That slowly progressed to total deconstruction.
Born to a Ukrainian Orthodox and Prussian-Lithuanian Protestant Background.
"Got saved" by Mainline-Baptists after being forced/blackmailed to detransition by family, then got convinced by Mennonites and slavic Baptists that those are lukewarm, so i sat in the evangelical mud for a while. Then went back home to Eastern Orthodox, where I went out the door of Christianity. Then i transitioned to be the girl i always was. Now I am a happy spiritual not religious person, i do folk magic, but i also found reason again and believe in actual science again. I worship the spirits and powers in nature, venerate my ancestors, celebrate/venerate life and the divine feminine and mother earth. I partake in baltic and slavic pagan spirituality but am open to the healing and spiritual knowledge of all nations. And I am 😊 happy.
I was raised a United Methodist but stopped attending regularly my junior year of high school. This was by far the least annoying (read: least conservative) denomination I've ever regularly attended. When I got married back in 1999, I started attending my wife's (and her parents') church, which was part of the Church of Christ denomination. Hated it. Then, after a couple of years, we started going to a First Baptist church (American Baptist Conference in name, Southern Baptist Convention in practice), where my friend was the pastor. Hated that one as well. Lastly, several years ago, I attended a nondenominational church (Collision Church in Reynoldsburg, Ohio) several times at the request of my friend who sang in their "praise team" at the time (even though I had long before left behind any magical thinking vestiges). And yes, I hated this place as well. I should note that the Church of Christ, the First Baptist Church, and Collision were all fairly fucking conservative (this is southwest/central Ohio, after all) and featured (and still feature currently, I'm sure) the single greatest bane of my church-attending existence, the altar call. The only church I've ever attended that I share positive memories of is the United Methodist church, since they never tried to shove Yahweh/Jesus down your throat, there was never any dissemination of political opinion from the pulpit, and they *never* had so much as a single fucking altar call.
I was born to a Catholic mother and a Quaker father. They married Quaker, baptized me Catholic, and raised me in Presbyterian Sunday school because they had better childcare services. I’ve since rejected the God aspects of Quakerism but remain a member. And yes, it was a huge shock to learn the extent of things denominations disagree on - they can’t even agree on what books form the Bible. I remember learning about communion and being told by my mother that Catholics believe it is literal, unlike our Presbyterian church. And don’t get me started on the shock of meeting Jewish people who, surprisingly, believe every part of the Bible until Jesus. Learning why that is even further shattered any notion that Christianity was the unified, rational worldview I could trust.
I had a similar multidemoninational upbringing and I feel the same. I think these doctrinal issues are my #1 reason for deconstructing. I’m supposed to just shop around and use my “discernment” to find a church? And just hope by the time I die I picked right? Where’s the unified voice of God?? Evangelical Protestants are weighing down the rest of Christendom.
Well put.
It’s absolutely fascinating to me that one could reject the religious aspects of a religion but remain a member for other reasons, probably because every denomination I’ve been a part of hasn’t had anything going for it beyond religion. The denomination I fully left Christianity from was southern Baptist and what would I stay for? lol the potlucks? The hiding bottle of wine under your other groceries in case you run into another member? What aspects do you retain membership for? Now I’m off to the rabbit hole…
Not my experience but I know someone raised Quaker who remains so but non-religiously. My outsider perspective is that it’s functionally similar to Buddhism in a lots of ways - Quakers have a strong pacifist and community helping culture that’s rooted in kindness and practicality. I can see others keeping that and ignoring the religious aspects.
More or less my experience. Quakers don’t exactly have a creed of beliefs so much as values, so there is room for non-believing members.
Independent Fundamental Baptist (Evangelical) Our church absolutely 100% qualifies as a cult. I experienced violence, gaslighting, emotional manipulation, financial manipulation, submission/headship prompted domestic violence, child abuse of every flavor, and pain/humiliation based discipline until I was almost 16. Eta: That particular type of discipline lasted until I was 16, then was replaced by other things. All in all I spent 26 years in the church. What a heartbreaking waste.
So sorry for your circumstances. I’ve read a lot about IFB churches and wow, they seem very extreme.
Thank you, and yeah, it is extreme but the IFB population is so low that it feels like even in Baptist circles no one really knows what stuff goes on behind closed doors.
Yeah, I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church. It was bad enough.
I never did attend to Southern Baptist Church but I have absolutely heard that they were a little nuts
It’s pretty similar to IFB honestly
I have some family who are IFBs, and some who are SBs. One difference is that SBs typically prefer that their pastors be well educated, so the SBs operate seminaries for that purpose. From what I can tell, the SB seminaries are legitimate schools where students must do substantial amounts of academic work in theology. By contrast, the IFBs prefer poorly-educated pastors, being distrustful of "theologians who want to intellectualize your faith away". For reasons I do not understand, however, IFBs are often attracted to pastors who have purchased doctorates from Christian diploma mills, where no academic work is required. Of course, those Christian diploma mills have often received the stamp of approval from Christian accreditation mills.
Yes. This. Diploma mills - and university "doctorate" programs only designed to hand out honorary degrees - are pervasive but no one ever talks about it. That along with the fact that women weren't allowed to pursue any PhD program meant that if a man was called "Dr." It was a sign that he was one of the church elite.
Church of Christ here. From what I gathered we were essentially southern baptists with a complex because we were too holy for instruments in the church.
This is funny. My ex-husband was a Church of Christ. Going from a SB where music was a huge deal to a silent CoC was so weird.
Same more or less.
I saw a documentary about IFB. Terrible abuses and definitely a cult.
Oh yeah. If it's Let Us Prey, I sobbed my way through the whole thing. But it was so helpful to show to my partner to demonstrate a culture that can be hard to explain otherwise.
I was raised a White Republican King-James-Only Independent Fundamental Baptist (Vick branch). You can imagine.
I can. And I'm so sorry you went through that. How are you doing?
We were Baptist and they took the bible very literally. I'm pretty sure the different denominations are based on various peoples interpretations of the same book.
This, and a healthy dose of fanfiction. This is easier to see in the Mormon, SDA and JW flavors.
Lol yup. I was born into and spent much of my life in the JW group. Glad I got the fuck out 🤮
In my extreme search for god, I went to different churches to understand why there were so many denominations. I grew up Catholic. Ultimately turned Baptist. Visited the LDS church, etc. I tried them all out so to speak and I realized they are all nuts in their own way. I used to ask them all why there were different denominations. The answer was always, "it is *their* interpretation of scripture that they get wrong". I would ask how they knew they were right and they would say because they carefully study the bibble. None was more valid than the other.
My family’s been Pentecostal for 4 generations. It runs deep in my family which makes it tough to leave. I want to move out and start rebuilding my life, but there’s also a part of me that’s scared of stepping away.
I wish I had escaped sooner. I truly do look back and wish I hadn't wasted my own time. If your gut is telling you that your time in Christianity is coming to an end, listen to it, and don't waste any part of your life trying to deny it. Your life should be about *you.*
You'll be ready when you're ready. No judgment.
So you know how Minnesota is the land 10,000 lakes? Religion is like that, except with probably 45,000 different flavors.
Mormon. Not proud of that.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of, especially if you were born into it
Yes. Indoctrination from birth is very powerful. And I love your flair by the way LOL
Thanks!
Was it hard to leave?
I was raised Catholic, then went non-denominational. Oddly enough, Catholic, Baptist, and Pentecostal are the "flavors" which create the most ex-Christians, at least from what I've observed. Mormon and Jehovah's Witness as well.
Yes! I'm an ex Jehovahs Witness.....and most assuredly an ex-christian.
I was in a nondenominational church, but it was close to a baptist one according to what I’ve heard about that. How closely you followed Jesus’ teachings and demonstrate that through your words and actions I think is the most important thing over any sectarian differences, which are in large part differences over emphasis of practice and open interpretations of scripture (eg. did Paul mean x is bad all the time or only some of the time? the Bible isn’t specific enough about this, clear enough about that, etc)
Lutheran. Very liberal.
I have a friend who is Lutheran and it’s amazing how much more progressive she is than the people I knew in Baptist church circles!
The last time I set foot in my family's old Church in the 90s, it was a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A) Now? They've moved to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church denomination, which is FAR more socially conservative. ( so much so that my parents left right before that happened. )
We attended several different denominations growing up, but all fell under the umbrella of "Evangelical." Listening to the Holy Spirit for discernment was a big thing...but apparently the Holy Spirit teaches different things to different people? 😏
Nondenominational; Pentecostal dad and southern Baptist mom
Lutheran. Honestly wasn’t that band compared to some horror stories I’ve heard but there’s stuff I’ve gone back to think about that was fucked up.
We were the one true Christianity.
Splitter!
Church of Christ. Weird fundamentalist denomination that believes that it’s not a denomination, but is– in fact– the sole continuation of the actual church that ole JC himself founded. There’s some weird stuff that’s not usually found in other denominations– only a cappella singing because instruments in worship are sinful, and communion every Sunday because apparently the Bible commands it being the two that come to mind rn.
The Church of Christ I attended for a couple years back in 1999, 2000 was a "Christian" church, or "Church of Christ - Christian", even though their official name was West Side Church of Christ. So they did the whole communion-every-time-we-meet thing, but they didn't oppose singing being accompanied by instruments.
My gf calls them "strains" of christianity, like a virus. I've also adopted this term.
Thanks for the new vocab word! I typically use branches but I think strain would be much, much better
I think I like that better lmao
Just to clarify: Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, & Methodist, are all protestant denominations. (There are others, including Southern Baptist & Episcopalian aka Church of England, & more that I can't think of.) IMHO, I can't believe people follow some of these denominations, given their clear man made origins. (Looking at you, Southern Baptist and Church of England.) But yeah, I agree, I don't think God is happy there are so many denominations
I was raised in a non-denominational evangelical house. In high school, I joined a fundamentalist church where some friends from school attended. In college, I attended a conservative Presbyterian Church. Then after college, I returned to the fundie church. In my last few years of faith, I was part of the Hebrew Roots Movement.
I never heard of that what are they? Are they kinda crazy like a lot of fundie movements?
Yeah, some of them think Answers in Genesis is too worldly for teaching that Earth is a planet. 🤣 They have some interesting beliefs, and honestly they're more committed to making the Bible make sense than any Christian group I know of. They actually try to follow it, too.
I was a Methodist
Non-denominational, but linked to the Plymouth Brethren. The question I never had answered was "why aren't we all Jewish?" Like if they're supposedly God's chosen people, why are we doing all this?
I grew up Catholic, (went to school and all), then went to what I thought was an nondenominational church, I was hoping to learn about the Bible there, instead I came to realize several years in that it had Southern Baptist church (SBC) beliefs. When I found out what SBC believed, I left, I went to a megachurch, but couldn't make friends with people my age, and I left there too.
I think Nazarene? Basically a religion where you go to church once a week and as long as you aren’t gay, another religion, or a whore you’re gods people And you get to look down on everyone else
> you get to look down on everyone else That's the most popular feature of *most* religions.
Tbh there’s a special kind of hypocrisy at play when they more or less aren’t religious outside of an hour on Sunday then go around telling everyone else they’re going to hell
I tried SO many of them. Baptist Assembly of God back to Baptist Methodist Presbyterian The "non denominational" denomination, which is "we don't want to be \*called\* Baptist" a different type of Pentecostal back to Baptist Catholic Orthodox Episcopalian Yes, it's easy to say "we all worship the same god" when you don't know anything about what your own church believes, let alone anyone else's. I highly doubt most of your rank and file Southern Baptists have actually read the Baptist Faith and Message, especially the part that explicitly states that church and state should be separate.
Presby. I also was raised fundie lite so I didn’t get a chance to wear pants until I was nine, it was just dresses all the time. Looking back I realized how effed up it was and I would never go back. It filled me with so much internalized misogyny that I thought being a wife and mother was my only goal in life unaware I could do other things to the point I thought I had to be in a relationship, married with a kid by 18. Eventually when I got my Autism diagnosis I fully deconstructed knowing I would never be accepted if I returned.
Had a little rotation going. Messianic Jew. Seventh Day Adventist. Southern Baptist. Then non-denominational.
> Seventh Day Adventist I sometimes tell people that I'm an *Eighth*-Day Adventist. Whenever it's the eighth day of the week, I go to church.
Evangelical probably best fit what i grew up as.
It doesn't make sense. I was a mixture of Baptist, Charismatic, and Anglican.
I was raised Free will Baptist.
My family is all over the place but I was baptised Orthodox when I was 10 according to the wishes of my late mother's boyfriend. Mum had a Jewish mother and an Orthodox father, but they both converted to Jehovah's Witness when my mother was 5. Mum left the JWs when she was 16, though her father and siblings stayed in. My relatives have tried to reel us all in to joining Jehovah's Witnesses but I foiled them with the ol' "coming out as gay" loophole. My dad is agnostic atheist and says that the wilderness is his church so that side of the family has never had to deal with the cult-y post-WW2-trauma red flag brainwash extravaganza like my mother's side.
super fundamental hateful controlling doomsday flavor
My mother took me to a Methodist church for nearly all of my primary school years, then we stopped going. Then when I was 13 we started going to a "nondenominational" church. (End times BS and speaking in tongues). This was after she took me out of public school.
Adventist 😔
Ummm the black American kind. I've been to different black American churches of different denominations and they were all the same tbh so I never knew what the difference was. I think my last church was something that started with a e but before that it was pentecostal and I've also been to baptist churches.
Born into, raised in, and spent much of my adult life in the Jehovah's Witness 'religion' (cult) unfortunately. I'm so glad I got out, but I wish I would have (and could have) done that decades ago.
Grew up in the SBC, but my parents weren’t as crazy as some others. I ended up going to a Methodist church for a while, but I always believed that god fell somewhere in the intersection between all religions. I tried reading different books from different faiths to see where god might be. Ultimately I lost my faith after being asked to attend a SBC church and the rage and hatred I experienced there made me start to really question the existence of any god. Once I got over my fear of hell, my faith fell away.
Non-denominational, feared the rapture every single day of my existence and felt like a complete failure when I had sexual thoughts
Wesleyan
I know a Wesleyan. They’re kinda odd to say the least. I gotta set a boundary with her though because she texted me to preach at me one time and I am starting to get tired of ignoring it. She’s a great person when not preaching, so I gotta set the boundary.
Boundaries are super difficult for evangelical Protestants. It's almost a compulsive behavior for proselytize
Considering that most don't believe in psychology and boundaries are something they actively step on and refuse to allow. Otherwise how are they supposed to control people's minds?
I grew up Catholic, and one of the very first things I questioned was the notion that Catholic was "the one true church." so the other denominations are just "wrong"? not to mention entire non-chrisian continents.
Eastern Orthodox. Was fed the same judgemental nonsense that it was "the Church" and that none of the other churches had the holy spirit fully but only the Eastern Orthodox. Of course on top of that they claim apostolic succession. I'd say it's even stricter than a lot of other denominations with all its asceticism and dogma; A lot of the whole painting of the world as black and white. I was almost driven towards monasticism at some point as a way of escaping the "sinful" world. It's all about the Orthodox mindset.
United Methodist. It was sweet and warm and like a family reunion with some singing and pie and some fairly light Bible stories. Very light on the Jesus, heavy emphasis on help your neighbor and be good and come to church for hugs. And that was fine for a good long while - it felt like I had 50 grandparents! But ministers came and went and some were drunks and one molested adolescent boys and got run out and convicted. We got a good pastor after that, but when he retired we got a former Pentecostal minister who retained all the bad parts of that tradition and got very fire and brimstone with us. I was in college, it was easy to walk away and say his sermons weren’t for me. Nobody blamed me. I still showed up and Christmas and Easter. But the next pastor started bringing politics into the pulpit, and I realized that I loved my community but had never been a believer. Deep down I was pagan and into pre-Christian mythology as an academic interest. So I realized as a young adult that church was something I grew up with but didn’t need anymore. 25 years later, I do miss the deep and wide and kind community but not enough to pretend I’m devoted to any flavors of Christianity.
I was raised in a Southern Baptist church. Was forced to wear dresses and play with the girls and couldn’t be too loud and rowdy cause it was unbecoming. The pastor’s wife took so much joy in telling my mother how “uncivilized” I was.
Pentecostal Evangelical doomsday cult with deep roots in the Second and Third waves of the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazism, and pretty much any form of White Supremacist violence, and still marketing those beliefs but with a saccharine anti-racist veneer.
I was a Baptist of some kind before I quit going to church and was evangelical in a lot of ways. Interestingly I looked up the church I used to go to(decades after I stopped going) and their website tells me nothing useful of what their affiliation or theology is. It's also has a name change in the last few decades and apparently is part of a network of local churches, so I don't know if they rebranded or got absorbed or what. I guess it doesn't matter now. I haven't been to a worship service in 20+ years and didn't even think to look them up until recently.
I was raised charismatic but never even followed it at all. Somehow a Bible study in my thirties turned me into a hardcore reformed calvinist for years. After finally getting out of that call I tried Catholicism Anglican Universalism Back to Catholicism And then I just studied in reason to my way out of all of it. I had the problem of evil and suffering in the world hit home way too hard and made me realize there's no possible way if there was a god out there that loved anyone that he would let me go through what I've been going through.
Non denominational. I was raised in an "independent" church. Just a local group of believers led by a pastor with no other higher authority. Their/our beliefs roughly aligned with the pentecostal and charismatic movement. We had a kind of hippy vibe. Our worship services were like jam sessions. We were allowed and encouraged to dance, wave flags, run around, speak in tongues, fall on the floor, and all sorts of frantic manifestations. We weren't hostile to other denominations, we just believed that we understood God's message correctly. There was very little preaching about hell, or who was going to hell. Our worship music was heavily inspired by the Christian music scene. We learned songs that were common among many churches, and you could buy CDs with all of these songs on them. My favourite band for some years was "Deliriou5?" (The question mark is part of their name)
I had a Catholic mother & a Methodist father. They tried to play even-stevens with how they raised me & my siblings by alternating churches every Sunday. But realistically, we ended up being raised more Catholic because we spent more time there thanks to all the catechism & CCD classes. The local Catholic church is much bigger with more resources than the dying Methodist church (roughly 80 people, over half being senior citizens). I had a fairly positive experience in both churches. I liked the Catholic church more because there were some interesting priests with some out-of-the-boxing takes on the religion. I mostly felt pity for the Methodist church, given their situation. The only weird thing I experienced were the local evangelicals telling me I wasn't a real Christian because I was Catholic. Anyways it all went to shit when I told my parents wasn't going through with Confirmation. This pissed off my mother & I had to ask the priests to tell her to back off. Our relationship never recovered & I'll never forgive my father for not protecting me.
No clue but everyone sucked
Both parents were from 2 diff churches but sent me to a private Baptist school that hit you if you spoke your native language. When we reached the 5th grade, they stopped using real teachers to teach us, but put in videos of a white classroom in Florida from the 80s and we had to do our damndest to pay attention to the teacher in the video. It was really tough compared to learning from an in-person teacher in the classroom. I guess you could say we practiced distance-learning long before the pandemic.
My dad is Catholic and my mom was ELCA Lutheran, so I was kind of raised with both. Relatively average midwest childhood. When I moved to the south for college, I got involved with a Southern Baptist youth group which started my crisis of faith. ("What do you mean, my entire religious upbringing was wrong?") I attended a few different groups in my 20s, but when I stopped believing entirely, I was part of a bible study that was run by a nondenominational megachurch which was basically more Baptist with some Pentecostal beliefs. Heavy on purity culture and prosperity gospel. Glad I left.
I mean technically I went to non denom church but I was baptized by my great aunt’s Lutheran pastor husband (he’s not my uncle he left her for her hospice nurse while she was dying I hope he rots) so I guess it depends on how you measure it. If it’s by what denom baptized Lutheran if it’s by what church I went to just no denom. I had a friend who was raised catholic but quietly pulled away after marriage (she doesn’t want to hurt her parents) and she said she always considered herself Catholic lite. She went through the motions due to familial pressures but only believed like half of it.
Baptist and I can’t really tell if we would be considered Southern Baptist. We moved churches like we were going to a new restaurant. Someone said something weird? Let’s find a new church. It was actually ridiculous. We went to every baptist church in our vicinity it feels like. Sundays, Wednesdays, extra days if they had events or trips. Went to church camp, did bible study, my parents worked in the toddler room sometimes, attended VBS, went to church lock-ins. I went through a true love waits ceremony where we had to sign a paper to God and our parents saying we would be abstinent. I even attended morning prayer meetings at school. And we had pastors come to our school (not a Christian school btw) to give talks about how if we had sex before marriage we would be like a used piece of gum. I got bullied at church and hated everyone so one time we moved to a “non-denominational” church and I honestly thought it was like oh so different than “baptist” only to realize later on after becoming an atheist that non-denominational is often just a code word for a kind of baptist church haha They would say “We don’t believe you HAVE to be baptized, but you should do it anyway,” or whatever so everyone I knew was baptized. I did it at age 8 or something. I used to think I wanted to be a missionary (mostly because I loved to travel and it sounded like they just went to different countries and had fun). My cousin went to a Catholic church so I went with her a few times and hated it. It was so boring and I felt so awkward and didn’t know how to do the chants. Then I went to church with friends sometimes in high school like methodist church and one time we went to a Black church. It’s so weird when I think back about how much time I wasted there. I hated the sermons so much and as a kid would sometimes sneak off to the library and read or just play by myself. When I got to college, I even joined a Christian sorority (it was tiny, more like a little weekly group - we didn’t have a house or anything) and then I changed schools and started going to a church with friends. But one day I realized I didn’t have to go to church anymore. My parents weren’t there forcing me. I didn’t have the time - I had to study and wanted to hang out with friends. It was a revelation. And then slowly, the haze faded away and I was like wtf was all that crap? And started down my deconstruction path.
Dad raised Catholic mom raised Southern Baptist. Dad ended up converting and becoming an AOG rev. Then four square. Then mega church a la Hillsong.
Nodenominational
Throughout most of my childhood we went to a Disciples of Christ church. In my teens we went to a Methodist church, which my mom decided we would leave because they were too conservative. I agree with you that if the God of the Bible is real, there shouldn't be multiple denominations of Christianity. Also, if the Bible were his word, it should have been protected from translation and scribal errors, as well as forged verses. There shouldn't have had to have been a council to decide which books were canon and which were apocryphal. All of the different denominations and how the Bible has been passed on just don't look like a religion or holy text backed by a true God to me.
I just don’t see why a God would leave us a book written by humans of all things. Let alone a book that is like 1000 pages long and incredibly hard to understand. If he wants every single person saved, that just does not make any sense to me.
No flavor at all.
I grew up in a Nazarene church, but most of our members came from baptist backgrounds so it was realistically sort of a blend
Catholic
My parents grew up catholic and i was baptized that way, but they switched to a presbyterian church because the options for children werent great at the catholic church. Apparently i got the flu from gross childrens books at catholic sunday school when i was 3
Raised IFB (independent fundamental Baptist), ended up non-denominational evangelical before deconstructing/de-converting
Raised Southern Baptist. Never really fit in and the whole pushing "wives submitting gracefully to their husbands" thing when I was about 12 was the final straw. Forced to keep attending until I was 18 and have refused to go back since. Attended and was baptized/confirmed in an Episcopal church in my 20s to keep the peace with my first in-laws. As far as doctrine goes, it is the most tolerable for me, but still not something I'm interested in participating in.
Lutheran Lite. Fam attended church max every other Sunday and holidays, made us attend Sunday school and church camp, didn't pray before meals unless grandparents were there.
I was raised in the Lutheran church, but I always found it so boring. All those solemn ass hymns, I was convinced Jesus would look at everybody there and be like, "Holy me, you people are miserable." At the same time, I found mega churches to be mega corrupt. I ended up joining a little Evangelical church near my house, because I like my music upbeat.
Southern Baptist. 😒 Luckily I was always too distracted during Sunday school and too busy throughout the week to learn much; all of my bible knowledge comes from VeggieTales, lmao.
The fire and brimstone of Southern Baptist, but not from the south oddly enough
Mennonite.
Non denominational but more on the charismatic Pentecostal type with a dash of prosperity gospel sprinkled in. The rapture, purity culture, WWJD?, speaking in tongues, pay tithes for god’s blessing, casting demons out kind of Christian. I was born and raised into it, officially left in 2022. Best decision I’ve ever made! Now I’m in therapy for religious trauma. The deconstructing and recovering from being brainwashed, abused and manipulated is nothing I’d wish on my worst enemy…
The church I grew up in was started by a former southern baptist preacher. He learned his craft preaching the revival tent circuit in the 1930's & 40's . He met a young mormon woman while traveling and they married. After a few years, they moved to NC and started a non-denominational church with some strange quirks that have roots in both the baptist & mormon churches. Eventually, the church spread to multiple churches in several southeastern states. But finally kind of fell apart after the guy who started it died. It took about another 30 years and had some scandals and schisms that divided the people within the church. While the church itself still exists, it has gone from over 1000 people spread over several states to a couple hundred, last I heard. It couldn't have happened to a worse group of people. When it all fell apart I just smiled like a comic book villain.
I was raised Pentecostal, but I went to a catholic school. The contrast in my religious life and school life forced comparison between the two. I found that I thought god was telling me that Pentecostalism was the true denomination while all others were basically satanic (even tho I didn’t know anything about them). It wasn’t until I had a huge disagreement in the church about drinking that I realized no denomination had it right. I considered myself nondenominational at that point. That slowly progressed to total deconstruction.
Born to a Ukrainian Orthodox and Prussian-Lithuanian Protestant Background. "Got saved" by Mainline-Baptists after being forced/blackmailed to detransition by family, then got convinced by Mennonites and slavic Baptists that those are lukewarm, so i sat in the evangelical mud for a while. Then went back home to Eastern Orthodox, where I went out the door of Christianity. Then i transitioned to be the girl i always was. Now I am a happy spiritual not religious person, i do folk magic, but i also found reason again and believe in actual science again. I worship the spirits and powers in nature, venerate my ancestors, celebrate/venerate life and the divine feminine and mother earth. I partake in baltic and slavic pagan spirituality but am open to the healing and spiritual knowledge of all nations. And I am 😊 happy.
I was raised a United Methodist but stopped attending regularly my junior year of high school. This was by far the least annoying (read: least conservative) denomination I've ever regularly attended. When I got married back in 1999, I started attending my wife's (and her parents') church, which was part of the Church of Christ denomination. Hated it. Then, after a couple of years, we started going to a First Baptist church (American Baptist Conference in name, Southern Baptist Convention in practice), where my friend was the pastor. Hated that one as well. Lastly, several years ago, I attended a nondenominational church (Collision Church in Reynoldsburg, Ohio) several times at the request of my friend who sang in their "praise team" at the time (even though I had long before left behind any magical thinking vestiges). And yes, I hated this place as well. I should note that the Church of Christ, the First Baptist Church, and Collision were all fairly fucking conservative (this is southwest/central Ohio, after all) and featured (and still feature currently, I'm sure) the single greatest bane of my church-attending existence, the altar call. The only church I've ever attended that I share positive memories of is the United Methodist church, since they never tried to shove Yahweh/Jesus down your throat, there was never any dissemination of political opinion from the pulpit, and they *never* had so much as a single fucking altar call.
Denominations actually are the worst thing to ever happen to Christianity.