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    My Journey out of Christianity
    My Journey out of Christianity
    My Journey out of Christianity
    Ebook77 pages1 hour

    My Journey out of Christianity

    By Kathy Bosman

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    About this ebook

    A memoir of spiritual trauma and healing, "My Journey out of Christianity" is a very personal story of my spiritual experiences in the Christian church. Wounding from the dogma and controls of religion led me to eventually leave the church and seek a spiritual relationship elsewhere. This story highlights what I went through as a Christian and why I chose to leave organised religion. For those who are hurt by religion or abused by the church and Christian teachings, this book may offer a companion along the way. Everyone has a unique experience. My story is one of finding my authentic self and a desperately needed freedom.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKathy Bosman
    Release dateFeb 3, 2016
    ISBN9781310315381
    My Journey out of Christianity
    Author

    Kathy Bosman

    Kathy lives in South Africa, where the summers are hot, the winters cool, and bugs thrive. She writes fiction in many forms, most of the time with women who feel deeply, men who care strongly, and characters who learn lessons along the way. Every so often, she sprinkles a little magic in her stories. When she’s not hectically busy, she loves reading, going dancing, watching movies, water painting, and exploring the spiritual world.If you’re inclined to keep up with Kathy’s book news, you can follow her on her website: http://www.kathybosman.com or subscribe to her newsletter: http://eepurl.com/NokET

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      Book preview

      My Journey out of Christianity - Kathy Bosman

      Chapter One – The Start of the Journey

      It’s hard being vulnerable and putting myself out there. The things I’ve done and gone through are personal and raw. I believe I have a story to tell. I stand by the power of the story in showing the heart of people and revealing truth.

      Writing my experiences has helped with my healing. My story is a spiritual tale—it’s a journey of the spirit, a seeking of the soul from brokenness into the light into the free places of LOVE. The Church and Christianity deeply wounded me. Yes, I found God there, but I also lost him there. And found the Divine / Love again later somewhere else. I’m still finding more, and every glimpse is a joy to behold.

      So, we shall start in the beginning. I’m not going to go into every boring detail of my life. I’ve had a pretty ordinary life in so many regards, but one part I wish to share with the world is my spiritual journey. I will give some life background to explain the journey though.

      I was born into a home with a mixture of backgrounds. My mother was born Jewish and my father into a Christian family (but not evangelical). They were both Scientologists at the time I came onto the planet. Even my older brother was enamoured by Scientology. I never took to it, being too young, and then my mother grew gravely ill with an auto-immune disease, which as far as I understand is now more treatable. Some of my relatives say that Scientology led her to refuse medical treatment, but my dad is adament that is not the case.

      My father left the Church of Scientology after her death and never went back to any religion. But he sent me to Sunday School upon the urgings of a school friend’s mother. I joined the Anglican church Sunday School and loved it. Later I joined a more free-spirited Baptist youth group where I became born again after listening to a very scary sermon saying I’d go to hell if I didn’t give my life to Jesus right there and then. Not fully understanding what I was doing, I raised my hand and prayed the sinner’s prayer—a prayer Christians believe makes you born again.

      I learned the Christian culture in this group, but it was in many ways a lifesaver for me. Christian groups and youth groups formed a core of my social existence as a lonely, motherless child and teenager. I’d found my place in life.

      But it wasn’t until I joined the SCA (Student Christian Association) in the first year of my high school and went to a camp, that I fully understood what becoming born again and giving my life to Jesus meant. I was deeply touched and radically gave my heart and soul to this belief and the movement that was sweeping through our school. About a third to a half of the school students in our large school of possibly about six hundred girls belonged to the Student Christian Association. It was a big movement at the time. On the same day I gave my life to Christ, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. Wow, what an amazing experience! I was swept away with the corporate feelings in the long worship sessions we had together. I longed to have the touch of God’s presence that my friends seemed to be having and, with a lot of deep focus and prayer, began to get those feelings, too.

      Five years in high school, being deeply entrenched in the SCA and my Methodist youth group, made me seriously reconsider my desire to be a social worker. I believed God was calling me to go to Bible college instead—a college belonging to Christian Centre—a Charismatic church which my father had always forbidden me to attend. He didn’t like the Charismatic Christian meetings and he never told me why. I now see how much wisdom he had. Maybe he knew how much they would mess me up inside. Although, I don’t only blame the Charismatic movement as much as Christianity’s many beliefs and practices for messing me up. But in some ways, the Charismatic churches seem to have persuasive and life-encompassing views and teachings which make you become a puppet, unable to think for yourself. The danger is that outwardly they seemed freer—we could dance in the aisles during worship, lift our hands, pray in tongues, kneel down, whatever we felt led to do, not like the Methodist church I went to in my youth which was formulaic and rather staid. But that outward freedom disguised the inward bondage to a belief system that gradually put my soul and spirit into chains.

      I went to Bible college and thus began some mental anguish that reached its peak in my third year.

      It’s amazing how your heart is open when you first go to a place you believe God has led you to. You believe everything you’re taught, and you suck it up like a thirsty sponge. So, that was me. I believed every teaching and took it deeply to heart. Too deeply. After a while, I became self-critical and expected too much of myself. I had to evangelize when I took the long walk to the bus stop every afternoon after class else God wasn’t pleased with me. I had to spend hours in prayer and the Word. I had to shout praises to God whenever I could. I had to fast. Although the fasting thing didn’t take root straight away, it became bigger and bigger as the months went by. Charismatic Christians love to fast. They believe it brings them closer to God and sets them free of any bondages they may have—any strongholds of Satan—basically a place Satan takes captive in your mind and emotions. And according to them, we all have them. Any mental anguish or anxiety, shyness, negative emotions, all seem to stem from Satan and his hold over our minds and lives. Fasting is a sure-fire way to get rid of these things.

      I did have lots of mental anguish from a difficult childhood. Before my father married my stepmother, I suffered lots of loneliness, especially in the afternoons after school. My father was a busy, working, single dad and my brother was a lot older

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