Demonically Charged

Why I’m Done Making Myself Smaller for Evangelicalism and Capitalism

This past weekend I was having a conversation with my mom, and she was asking me about some of the stuff I’m working on. I told her a little bit about one of my latest ideas, and her first question was:

“And how will that make money?”

That kind of branched off into a conversation about capitalism and some of my views, which just naturally and very dangerously segued into a conversation about evangelicalism — because, let’s be real — evangelicalism is just the religious mask of capitalism.

And that’s not a new thought.
To know me—or to be getting to know me now—is to know that I hate capitalism and I hate evangelicalism.

Equally.
But if I had to choose?
Evangelicalism, a little more.

For me, there are only two things I hate in this world: everything and evangelicalism.

I hate it.
And you know what?
I should.

Because it hates me. It does.
And—spoiler alert—it hates you too.

And it’s nothing personal.
It’s just a hateful ideology.

And there are conversations to be had about separating and making distinctions between evangelicalism and Christianity. Historically, I have believed and moving forward, I would still like to believe that there is a difference — that somewhere out there, there does exist a version of Christianity that could be good.

But honestly?
The line gets blurrier and blurrier all the time.
And way too many of the people who are dedicating their lives and social media presences to advocating for reforming it…
are not being real about it.

The conversation I had with my mom ended with her telling me:

“You are not good. You are walking in darkness. You are demonically charged.”

And when I say that was how it ended, that’s not really true—
That shit was in the middle.

The conversation actually ended with them telling me they’ll continue to pray for me.

And with me crying on the way home,
because
what the fuck.

How do you reason with that?
You can’t.

And we have to stop trying because that doesn’t want to be reasoned with.
It wants to rule.

And what it can’t conquer, it will crush.

And when it can’t get you to do it to yourself anymore…
When a pandemic sweeps through and breaks our capitalistic/evangelical patterns in a way that wakes some of us up in ways that make us completely unable and unfit to just return to the old ways of being and thinking— we become enemies of those states of mind.

And yeah yeah yeah—
Loving your enemies is supposed to be part of Christianity. But let’s be real:
Evangelicalism does not love its enemies.
Is not kind to its enemies.
Does not care for its enemies.
And does not play fair.

And Christians who are still pretending that all the toxicity, the corruption, the stupidity are bugs and not features of evangelicalism are engaging in a kind of delusion that is ultimately completely unhelpful.

There is no such thing as good faith dialogue with a bad faith.

---

Why am I saying all this?
Because as my friend Ashlee says:

“My nervous system is still evangelical.”

Because it is.
I grew up in that shit.
I can never unknow it.

Whatever I believe, Christianity will always be the first lens I see anything religious through. That bad religion is an indelible part of who I am.

And you know what?
It’s not for nothing.

Whatever I am here to do, all of that is part of it.
And I have to stop trying to leave all that behind and get past it.

There is no getting past it—
Because everywhere I go, it’s there.
Because everywhere I go, I’m there.

And I’m unable and unwilling to be as small, as inconsequential, as quiet and as compliant as those capitalism/evangelicalism want me to be. It has not mattered how much I have tried to live and let live, to constrain myself to certain spaces and certain topics, to shrug off the cruel inconsistencies of evangelicalism… It doesn’t matter how respectful I have tried to be to that dumbass dissonant belief system—

It will not let me live.

Am I perfect?
No.

But am I “not good,” “walking in darkness,” and “demonically charged”?!
Me?? (I mean… maybe? 🤷🏾‍♀️ Is thinking a demon?)
It’s just so mean.
And so over-the-top unwarranted.

And that’s what evangelicalism had to say to the blandest, most respectful version of me: The version that hasn’t tried to push my beliefs and hasn’t tried to take anyone else’s away.

I was joking about my YouTube tarot show with some friends the other day and one of them said,
“Hey, you haven’t been sending us the links.”

And one of them said,
“You don’t have to send it to me.”

And we laughed.
But you know what?
I haven’t been sending the links.
Because I haven’t wanted to bother anyone with it. I haven’t wanted to make anyone uncomfortable. Meanwhile, evangelicals have never cared about making me uncomfortable with their beliefs.

“You think you’re good? So tell me—what’s so good about you?”
Said my mom, who loves me.

And I was at a loss.
Because my nervous system is still evangelical.
And that’s a trick question.

Being good is knowing there’s nothing good about me.
So to think I know what is good about me is to be prideful—
which is to be not good.

So I said…
I’m kind.
I care about people.
I think I’m a good friend.
I’m honest.

And then I kind of trailed off.

Because damn—
That’s not how this is supposed to work.

If you look at me and you can’t see anything good—
There’s nothing I can do about that.

Because I am who I am.
And I can’t keep wasting time. Can’t afford to give any more minutes, months, decades of my life trying to be a version of me that evangelicals can be comfortable with.

Because it doesn’t fucking work.
That faith is zero sum.
That faith seeks to destroy.

And it doesn’t matter how small you agree to be to keep from riling it up. It will use people you love to make you smaller still. And to whittle you down even more.

So fuck it.

What’s so good about me?
I don’t know.
But there are a good number of people who I think are fantastic who like me. And that’s gotta mean something.

(To hear all of the above and a tarot reading — click here 👀)