WHY WE CREATED THIS WEBSITE
People who find their way to Religion Detox Network might wonder who created it and and why. These are fair questions that we also ask and research before reading websites and blogs dealing with religion. Therefore, assuming that some readers will want to know a little about us, we offer the following review of our personal experiences in and out of religion.
The significance of our history is not that we (Paul and Barb) have a unique history that is worth reporting or that we are special in any way. We are a common, middle class, Midwestern couple without social pedigrees, degrees, wealth or reputations that would attract anyone to us personally or to our story. The significance of our history, however is that it could be, and should be, common to all religious people. In other words, everyone, regardless of their personal religious history can learn something from our history.
In summary, we spent most of our lives in religion, and then, little by little, God opened our eyes to the emptiness of religion. That caused us to study to discover what God wanted for us instead of religion. What we eventually learned is that God hates religion and that he has a clear alternative in mind for his people.
This website therefore is the result of the process we have endured in our escape from the sin of religion to the Promised Land.
The first thing we want to declare is that we are not now involved with organized religion in any way. It might be said by those who like to use labels that we fall in the SBNR category, but we do not think that label does any better job describing us than Nones or Dones does to describe others. Furthermore, we are not comfortable judging (i.e. calling) ourselves “spiritual.” To do so would be the equivalent of drawing attention to our status with God so that others will find us special in some way. Nevertheless, SBNR is a term that some people may find useful to identify where they are, so we have included it to help people connect with others.
One of the problems with labels is that they are only a snapshot in time and do not say anything about where we came from or where we are going. We know where we came from, of course, and even though we have moved, and are still moving away from practicing organized religion, it is important for us to declare that we retain many fond feelings about our religious history and the friends we made along the way. We did not leave angry or hurt, but we left purposely and decisively, but not without doubt and uncertainty about where we would be going or what we would be doing without religion.
Although our future was unclear, we never had any doubt that God created our unique religious history for our instruction and did not despise any of it — including the years we spent deeply intoxicated with religion — in any way. That history included many years where we were proud to call ourselves Christian, proud to be associated with several solid, name brand churches populated by many faithful Christians with whom we enjoyed sincere fellowship, and proud of the esteem we enjoyed in the eyes of other Christians. We were so full of pride that we did not understand then, as we understand now, how important it was for us to have others praise us for our religiosity.
In our ignorance, religion was all good and we will admit that, even though we have been disengaged from religion since 2005, we still occasionally miss some aspects of it and shamefully find some of those old religious attitudes and behaviors surfacing again. These are the lingering effects of religious toxicity.
But that was then and this is now, and we are very mindful of the fact that only a few years ago we would have been in the “Still Religious” category. Even though we are no longer involved in religion, we are still very respectful of the place of religion in our spiritual life and in the life of others. This is right, of course, because, when God gave the commandment to honor our fathers and mothers, he meant our spiritual parents which includes everyone who ever taught us while we were involved in religion as well as those who teach us after we leave religion. And we must not ignore that God said that the law of religion leads us to faith.
Given our history, some forum visitors might be surprised that we invite people of all religions –even atheists and agnostics — into forum conversations. They might seem out of place and irrelevant to forums oriented to Jews, Muslims and Christians, but, because the potential for doubt and conflict are present in all religions, we want to provide forum opportunities for everyone. To punctuate that point, we will say that there was a long period when I (Paul) identified more with atheists and agnostics than Christians. But, even though I had that identity, I was invited into a small Bible study group that was the beginning of where we are today. Therefore, we never want to be exclusive and always want to be inclusive.
We hope that our personal disclosures will help readers appreciate our sincerity when we say that we understand that it is hard to overcome religious habits and thinking. Even though we have not been part of a religious community since 2005, we are still surprised and shocked to find that the subtle, toxic effects of religion are still present in our lives.
We also know that it is also very hard to gain freedom from religion when family and friends continue in their religion. Because there is great opportunity for conflict when differences of opinion about religion are exposed we expect that sponsoring this website will cause trouble for us with friends and family members who are still religious. Nevertheless, we willingly accept the conflict with the hope that our story will somehow influence others to overcome their affections for religion and embark on the journey to New Covenant discipleship.
Go to the next page for a review of our religious history.