Don't Go Back There
Sat 23 May 2026
Content warning: discussion of religion and politics. If those subjects are triggers for you, I fully understand, and offer instead this lighthearted post instead.
Note: this post is in some ways a continuation of this one from 2024, but you don't need to read that first.
There's a phrase found in the Bible, which may be commonly referred to as, "not mourning over Saul." It actually comes from one of the historical books of the Tanakh:
And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, but Samuel grieved over Saul. And the LORD regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.
The LORD said to Samuel, How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.
—I Samuel 15:35-16:1, English Standard Version
I've spent a lot of time thinking about my time in the Charismatic Church, specifically in the past decade. I've seen the church used to justify cruelty, hatred, xenophobia, and all manner of foolishness of men (this is one case where I don't mind being fairly gender-specific. We men have a lot to own up to).
Starting in maybe mid-2017, I became increasingly troubled by the amount of trump kool-aid being imbibed by folks around me at the church I was going to. Let's call it "The Barn" (not the real name). As we reached the midpoint of 2018, and things started getting really insane (parent-child separation at the border with no intent to find the "real parents"), I started getting into sharper and sharper Facebook conversations with my "friends" at church who supported trump.
When the child separation crisis came to a head and the true, ugly mask of cruelty was exposed under all of the carelessly-clad excuses, I came to a tipping point, and had to leave.
I spent the next two years barely able to walk in the door of a church, let alone feel at home there. The cognitive dissonance and disgust utterly poisoned my ability to "enjoy religion," as it were.
Finally, after four years of struggling with this utter vexation of soul, I thought I felt a call to go back to my old church and try to reconnect there at "The Barn". One of the pastors welcomed me "home" with literal open arms, and I enjoyed reconnecting with a handful of old friends, although many others have moved on (as is typical for churches that doesn't do formal membership).
So, great, right? Healing, restoration, and reconciliation flowed like a river, right?
Not exactly.
While the one pastor was very warm toward me, the other one was a little indifferent, even though they were the person that I had known better when I was there before for two and a half years, four years prior.
There were some uncomfortable moments. Some literal facepalm moments. Moments where the pastor in question mentioned having COVID, but being cured by Ivermectin. *sigh*. Yeah.
Then there was the time when I went up for prayer, and the pastor in question was praying for me rather intently, gazing into my eyes, and asking if I felt anything. For those not familiar with Charismatic/Continuationist churches, this means they're either praying for healing, or deliverance (meaning exorcism). Yeah, they were hoping to cast the critical thinking out of me, as it were.
As I wrote about in the previous post (linked above), it got to the point where I just couldn't continue. I kept visiting their prayer meetings from time to time, and I felt like I really had a place and function there, just in prayer (not doing anything formal or speaking on the microphone or anything), but after the latest Israel - Gaza conflict, there were some things said by this same pastor in prayer that were just... too much. In prayer, they said (almost verbatim, near as I can remember), "we go to war with the enemies of Israel!" Now, I understood it to be said in the spiritual sense, and meant in defense of innocent lives among the Israeli population, but... yeah, no.
I never returned.
Then in 2023, I joined a church that was pastored by a guy I knew and liked from my old church. Let's call this one "The Attic" (again, not the real name).
Things were great! I was feeling at home again. The messages were... empathetic. Compassionate. Even somewhat nuanced.
Perfect! Home free, right??
Well...
The people there were very warm, very fraternal. But man, there were a gaggle of trump supporters there. The messaging wasn't trumpian, but the people were.
For nearly two years, I did my best to ride out the cognitive dissonance. Tried not to roll my eyes at utterly ridiculous statements over lunch. Tried to smooth over uncomfortable conversations, as if, as if...
I remember so many time in the shower practicing angry rebuttals of absolutely foolish statements I heard my "brethren" say. It was as if nearly every time I spoke to someone at church, I had to go to therapy afterwards (or to say it in a Charismatic way, "I needed to go for a Sozo afterward"). The tension in my soul again continued to mount.
Finally, the Soulless One bought/lied/cheated/swindled/propagandized his way back to the White House. I couldn't imagine going to church with trump supporters during a second trump term, so I simply didn't.
I went to an Anglican church for about six months starting in early 2025 (refreshingly sane, but wasn't quite the right fit for me), and finally found my way to my current megachurch where... it's also sane. The messaging is sane. The people are... sane, for the most part? I mean, I'm there, so it's a little suspect, I guess. 😂
It wasn't until I was having tea/coffee with one of my new church friends one Monday morning that I realized I had been gaslighting myself all that time.
I had been "Mourning Saul."
The fact of the matter is, whoever those people were, whatever they really wanted, whatever those churches were or will be, their acceptance and laud for a racist profligate is a serious moral deficit, and they'll have to deal with that. That's on them.
I can love them, accept them, ridicule them, or rebuke them, but I don't have to torture myself with the insanity that their itching ears have brought on all of us.
So don't go back there.
Category: Life Tagged: Bible Christianity Content Warning Life Loss Non-technical post Politics