By Kris Zyclo

Just to give you a little background info on me, I was raised in a Southern Baptist, religious fundamentalist home. By the time I was a teenager, I had had enough of the church’s bullshit! I was sick of hearing about stupid things like eternal damnation and how God is an angry man in the sky who is more concerned with people’s sex lives as opposed to real problems like war and famine. Anyway, I decided I was an atheist when I was 13 with occasionally dabbling in eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism. Fast forward to my early 30’s, I hit a mega low point in life and decided to give Christianity a another shot. I had been involved in radical political circles and had read about people like Leo Tolstoy and Dorothy Day so I began to identify as a Christian Anarchist. After doing a little research I discovered the Episcopal Church. They were left leaning and were accepting of LGBT. However, since they were liberals, they were aligned with the values of the democratic party so I didn’t completely fit in. Not only that but they were very bourgeoise. They were upper class, well-educated types who wear expensive suits. Coming from a working-class background, I felt out of place. Nevertheless, it was an exciting time in my life. I made a lot of new friends and I even met my wife there. One of the greatest gifts I received from them was how to not take religion literally and to read scriptures allegorically, which is something I still value.

However, during the covid-19 situation my entire world came tumbling down. For one thing, I found it to be rather absurd that the church stayed closed for as long as it did. Other churches were opening and resuming their services as normal. It was as if they were trying to outdo other churches with a “Look at us! We’re morally superior!” attitude. During that time period, the church started holding mini church services on zoom. I’ll never forgot the day when out of nowhere the priest put his pronouns on his zoom screen next to his name. Like we needed a reminder that he had a penis. It was hilarious because it didn’t catch on. No one else wanted to participate so he eventually stopped doing it. A couple years ago, the priest became loudly supportive of critical race theory out of nowhere. He had never mentioned it before but as soon as it hit the mainstream, he was suddenly an expert and vehemently supportive of it. Another thing that completely irritates me is the church’s obsession with appealing to racial minorities under the guise of so-called inclusivity. For example, they added a Spanish section to their Sunday bulletins in an attempt to lure in Hispanic people. Guess what? It didn’t work! They’ve been doing this for a few years now and they’re still a predominately white church. I highly doubt minorities are interested in hanging out with a bunch of rich white people. In my opinion, going out of your way to appeal to minorities is racist in itself. It’s basically white people trying to speak for minorities. They’re like “Hey people of color! Come and hang out with us! We know exactly what you want!” I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually get so desperate that they start purposely serving fried chicken and watermelon during coffee hour. I also noticed a lot of hatred towards anyone on the political right coming from the entire Christian left community as a whole. For instance, there’s a website called the Christian Left and they have a facebook page that I used to follow. They spent a lot of time bashing the right in their posts and there would be comments from followers like, “What an idiot.” Hmm, didn’t Jesus say to love your enemies?

The straw that broke the camel’s back came after the church had started to meet in person again. The state I live in banned biological males from participating in women’s sports, which was something I strongly supported. Anyway, the priest went to a protest against the ban then decided to go on rant about it the following Sunday instead of doing an actual sermon. I was infuriated and never wanted to come back but my wife still wanted to go so I slugged it out for a couple more years. In sum, I ultimately concluded that the Christian left is literally the counterpart to the Christian right. They are just two sides of the same coin. I basically feel exactly how I did all those years ago as a 13-year-old when I got fed up with the Southern Baptist church. My perception is that the Christian left is well aware of the dark side of Christian history (i.e., the violence and oppression) so they will go along with whatever the left says or does for the sole purpose of not being associated with the Christian right. In my eyes, that’s weak and absolutely pathetic! These days I am still very spiritual but I don’t label myself any particular religion.