My Christian Reboot

Aside from holiday visits to my grandmother’s church as a kid, I didn’t grow up in a religious household, but my wife did, and after getting married we did some dabbling here and there before eventually going pretty all-in during the late ’00s with a local branch in the ICOC movement.

Despite my ongoing scrupulosity issues and some eyebrow-raising moments here and there (which I now deeply regret staying silent about), things were generally fine, and we built up a number of great relationships and legitimately good memories.

Then came Trump and all that Trumpism exposed and encouraged.

I’ve written extensively about how the events of 2015-today fully shattered my previous relationship with the church, so I won’t rehash everything here, but someone I really respect recently asked me what it is I do believe these days, so I thought I’d outline where I stand as of January 2023.

First things first, I can’t say that I’m an “exvangelical” (in the sense of having walked away entirely from organized religion). This isn’t the case, and in fact my wife and I are still attending a different ICOC-affiliated church, albeit a bit more of a “misfit toys” branch. That being said, I find myself infinitely more sympathetic to exvangelicals and those undertaking the painful process of deconstruction than those that remain terminally incurious and…