There is so much freedom outside of Christianity - Anna Schroeder

Today I spoke with Anna Schroeder, who grew up in New Zealand in a strict cult called The Evangelistic Church of Christ, before she dug deep into the claims of the Bible, and ultimately deconverted.

As we walked through her story, we talked about:

• Growing up with extremely strict rules that were used by the cult to control every area of the lives of the congregation, even down to the color and pattern of their clothing.
• How the church put extreme restrictions on what people could read and with whom they could associate, and harshly reprimanded those who did not fully comply.
• The gender roles that included the rule that women could not work outside the home and could not been seen outside during pregnancy.
• How the cult focused on various parts of the Bible at various times, then moved later on to another focus, forcing the congregation to shift in order to stay on track with whatever the men in leadership felt convicted of at that time.
• How the elders dictated who could get married, when they could get married, and even what clothes they had to wear during the wedding.
• The practice of Excommunication, where the church completely shuns people, even close family members.
• How the church leaders acted like the "voice of god" and demanded total obedience.
• Believing that the Bible was inspired by god and therefore had no errors.
• How fear of the end times and of the supernatural world dominates the Christian worldview.
• As a Christian, dealing with the reality that others would someday burn forever in hell, and how that leads to evangelism, to help people escape the coming torment--and how critical it became to ignore or try to forget that our loved ones would be tortured forever once they died.
• How the church's position against homosexuality helps open our eyes to the dark side of the church.
• How time away from the church can help people to lose their blinders and start to use their critical thinking for the first time.
• The significant effects of religious trauma on our minds.
• Realizing that when we were Christians, we had set ourselves up as judges over everyone else, and how freeing it is to just enjoy getting to know people, without constantly trying to access whether they are "right with god" and whether we need to "share the gospel" with them.
• The joy of leaving religion, and feeling the overwhelming sense of peace.
• Realizing how precious our short time on life is, especially once we realize there's probably no afterlife.
• Struggling with the motives of Christians, who often befriend people not because they actually want to be their friends, but to share the Gospel and have non-believers observe their lives so that they can "shine" the love of Jesus to them, and ultimately be able to list them, like a trophy, as someone they converted and "saved."
• The beauty of being able to learn from people with a different worldview and different life experiences, and of giving up the mentality that we are the teachers, and that non-Christians just need to listen to us.
• The daunting task of reshaping our worldviews and dealing with the trauma that the Christian worldview inflicted on us.
• How Christianity is a prison for the mind.

Thanks to Anna for sharing her story, and for demonstrating the bravery, strength, and intellectual honesty needed to deconvert from the Christian worldview.

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Mentioned in this interview:

The Liturgists podcast
https://theliturgists.com/podcast/

MythVision
   / mythvisionpodcast  

Dragons in Genesis
   / dragonsingenesispodcast  

The Vridar blog
https://vridar.org/

Recovering from Religion
https://www.recoveringfromreligion.org/


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Tim may be reached by email at: [email protected]

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--Tim

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Ending music by Eyal Raz, "Friends"

   • Friends  

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