Some thoughts on the latest atheist/progressive Christian controversy... from someone who grew up evangelical (homeschooled! ), got a Masters in Eastern religions, then became an #exvangelical...

I don't think religion is universally irredeemable. There are many positive aspects to religion (meditation via Buddhism, empty spaces via Daoism, protecting nature via Native American spirituality, etc.). I wrote my thoughts on this 7 years ago: https://rlstollar.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/how-i-learned-to-stop-being-afraid-and-love-other-religions-part-one/

At the same time, we can't ignore how power systems both use and co-opt religions to abuse people. Sometimes power systems aren't even necessary: religious people abuse all on their own. They justify this abuse with direct appeals to their sacred texts... texts that often agree.

I absolutely love liberation theology. I've read it since my senior year at my undergrad college, when I was introduced to Gustavo Gutierrez's "Theology of Liberation." Since then, I have read mujerista, Palestinian, black, disabled, LGBTQ, and child liberation theologies.

I them all. The way they invert troubling or violent passages in the Bible is personally liberating. I find those inversions give me a sense of empowerment (because I can talk back to the text) and poetic justice (because they now say the opposite of fundamentalists).

This is why I am so drawn to child liberation theology, and why I write child liberation theology myself even though I generally operate as apatheist: the exercise of flipping passages on their head gives me a great sense of freedom and helps me process my own religious trauma.

But not everyone finds liberation theology empowering. And that's 100% ok.

Not everyone finds theology in general, or *religion* in general, empowering. That, too, is 100% ok.

It's not bigoted or racist to find religion triggering or abusive.

Basically every religion has been used at some point or another to abuse people and take away their rights. Yes, even the stereotypically "peaceful" religions like Buddhism and Daoism have been used to abuse and disenfranchise.

I don't think it's a hasty generalization to say all religions can be and have been abusive. I think that's pretty factual. I can't think of a single exception to that when it comes to any significant religious system.

On the other hand, though, I do think saying religion is wholly irredeemable is erasing all the ways religion has been empowering and liberating. And that's important because to help eliminate religious abuse, we need to *scaffold*.

We can't just expect survivors of religious abuse to jump from abusive religion to no religion. They often need to take baby steps, which means we first need to be able to identify positive aspects of religion to replace the negative aspects.

Deconstruction for a survivor of religious abuse is usually a frightening process. It feels like you are losing your own sense of selfhood... like you are disintegrating, damning yourself to hell.

Hearing "'all religions are irredeemable' is the only valid path of deconstruction" could very well damage some survivors' attempts to deconstruct.

On the flip side, hearing "you can't criticize the religion you grew up with unless you study liberation theology" is also wrong.

Not everyone has the time or money or privilege of reading liberation theology texts. In fact, I'd argue that such a claim runs counter to the very heart and soul of liberation theology itself.

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