Unfollowing Fundamentalism

When I moved to Australia, I was given the opportunity to start fresh again. To wipe the slate clean of the old ties I had to my evangelical world and to meet people who were more in line with my politics, my spirituality and my passions. And so began the massive (literal) witch hunt to find a church that ticked the boxes to all my particular views and stances. After trying different communities, mainly within the progressive appeal of Uniting Churches, I found one that I could find home in: a social justice warring community. Instantly I fell in love with it, enamoured by how completely opposite it was to my old form of Christianity. Further, I found a community in the small but mighty community of inter-generational folk. It was something that I thought I could be a part of forever. However, the dream of this church fell apart for me about the time of the pandemic.

Things that I noticed that reminded me of my old evangelical church I had originally dismissed started to grow on me when I was away from it. Whenever I would order meat in front of the minister, I would have to endure a scowl and lecture about climate change and how animals are endowed with God’s spirit too. Whenever there was something political going on in Australia, whether it was about climate change, racism, the Stolen Generation or insert-progressive-issue-here, instead of bringing a message of union and hope across divisions, the message was often polarized, condemning people on the right and those in the middle who sat on the fence. There was a certain air of superiority and even a colonizing attitude to these messages, ironically. Even the charismatic minister would colonize my stories and conversations, re-wording and re-theologizing them.

It came to a head for me a couple days ago, when I met up with a member from this community. When she asked me about my relationship with my partner, it was clear her motives were determining whether I was smashing the patriarchy as much as she was. To her, my partner was just a white man with a penis and privilege. And so I tried to swerve the conversation back her way to avoid the judgement I knew too well from my evangelical past. And then it dawned on me: I had stumbled into fundamentalism, again.

But that’s just the natural phenomenon of growth, isn’t it? I swung so far to the right when I was growing up that the only way I could counter-balance it was swing all the way to the left. I guess I’m still growing. I guess I’m still trying to find a community that accepts the body of Christ, accepts the diversity of stories and accepts me.

So now, as this church starts in-person services again, I will be sleeping in on Sunday mornings, contextualising scripture for my communities as a chaplain, listening to where the spirit is leading me next and trying my best to open to a God who is constantly waiting for us to see the divine not just in our own sociopolitical circles, but within the diversity of all creation.