What I wish people knew about Jesus, the Wellness Space and Fundamentalism
*Photo found on pinterest with no source.
TLDR: In this essay, I will share a bit about my experience falling into and leaving fundamentalism, the overlaps of fundamentalism with narcissistic abuse, my predictions about the wellness space and the collapse of wellness gurus into the alt-right, and near the end, what I wish people knew about Jesus.
I chose Jesus, and then fundamentalism chose me.
In the 7 years since formally leaving the Evangelical church and deconstructing my faith, I have been on a winding journey of personal faith and spirituality. If you’ve been following my public work, you have been privy to the devastation of leaving everything I believed to be true, the existential dread of living in the liminal spaces, and the steady rebuilding of my life, community, and relationship to the Sacred that followed. Many of you have undergone this alongside me.
Most people who hear that I was an “Evangelical radical” assume it’s because I was raised in the church, but I was not.
In fact, I chose to be a fundamentalist all on my own! I sought out and chose the Christ message for myself as a young teen. Picture it: a neurodivergent, precocious and peculiar 12-year-old, longing to belong in a blended and dysfunctional family discovers a message of radical love and grace no matter how “good” you are.
I was (and remain) genuinely and sincerely enamored by Jesus.
I was moved by the idea of a God who would come to Earth to be close to humans; close to me. I still tear up as I recall the memory of finding sacred refuge in a love I hadn’t yet experienced from people. I was in middle school when I began bringing my bible to school, preaching to other students, hosting bible studies, and inviting people (and my parents) to church. I attended Baptist churches where I learned theology, non-denominational churches where I saw people from all backgrounds (from bikers to accountants to kids) united in celebration of life, and Pentecostal churches where I spoke in tongues and was blissed out for weeks.
I was a seeker– a seeker of belonging, love, grace, and family.
Jesus offered me all of these things. It wasn’t until I went to college that I got involved with a version of Christianity so rigid, dogmatic, homophobic, and body-hating that my sincere love for Jesus became distorted. Leaving a very traumatic few years behind, I was desperate for safety, belonging, and love. Desperate for certainty. Within 6 months in this new Church community (which I now know was a high-control group) I became indoctrinated with homophobic beliefs, began confessing my “sexual sin” of self-pleasure to mentors weekly, was filling my bookshelves with books about spiritual warfare, healing through prayer, being an “excellent” and submissive wife, and the inerency of the bible. This was long before the age of social media bubbles and Q-Anon.
Within 18 months, I was married to the first boyfriend I’d had. I was discouraged from having friends outside the church (unless I was “ministering” to them and reporting it to my weekly prayer group), discouraged from reading books outside the church, discouraged from developing a career, discouraged from going to therapy, discouraged from voting for equal rights for Queer and Trans folks, and discouraged from speaking to a member of our church who was gay; (he was on “church discipline” where we were to socially isolate him until he felt lonely enough to come back to God).
All in the name of Jesus– the one who came to bring Grace and Liberation to all.
Having a history of adverse childhood experiences I was uniquely severed from my own intuition, and with a fractured relationship with family, I did not have a support system strong enough to witness the brainwashing and disintegration occurring. Those who did see it didn’t feel close enough to express concern. After all, I showed nothing but smiles, kindness, and vibrancy. I felt amazing! I finally was being loved how I’d always wanted, and I felt good about it. I belonged. I knew the rules and was determined to follow them.
Being rewarded by my community for becoming increasingly more extreme, combined with being told that anyone who disagreed was being deceived by the devil, meant I got all my needs met from one central place. Those “others”, the ones who were worried about me, or disagreed – I was told to pray for them. Any doubts I had, I was told to pray more. Any fears I had, I was told to pray more. Any temptations I had, I was told to pray more. Any qualities I had that were not meek, humble, and submissive, pray more. Any desires rooted in pride, pray more. Give it all to God. So pray I did. I journaled my prayers daily for years, fasting regularly, rarely missing even a day of scripture study.
Looking back at these years feels like a different lifetime altogether.
It didn’t seem “that bad” while I was in it– until it did of course.
What could be so bad about wanting a family with a strong leader?
Or a faith community that agrees with you?
Or to live into God’s design for your life?
My first warning sign was the panic attacks. They arose before church every Sunday for a year.
My second was when my church leaders asked me to not question the creepy and strategic ways they were applying their “discipleship model”-- which felt more like manipulation to me.
My third was when my church passed out signs to oppose a city-wide vote for Queer rights, and no one would entertain my questions. They were all answered with typical circular reasoning. It all led back to: because the Bible said so, and what you don’t understand, give it to God, have faith, and pray. You’re not meant to understand God’s will anyway.
Slowly, my questions, my boldness, my muchness, my love for justice and grace– they drove me right out of the Church. And out of every relationship I’d gained while within it. Eventually, the very appeal that brought me to Jesus, and the very belonging I thought I’d gained, propelled me right out of fundamentalism.
The belonging, the grace, the love, the goodness… it was entirely conditional.
On the other side of this, I can see how the slow disintegration that occurred: the slow hijacking of my critical thinking, the slow narrowing of my world, and the slow slide into fundamentalism was masked as truth, love, and purity.
The Jesus I knew at the start of my journey, and the Jesus I still deeply love, I did not find in the throws of fundamentalism.
Recovering from fundamentalist indoctrination is the same as recovering from an abusive relationship.
I’ve experienced both.
And with both, once you’re out of the environment and begin to think for yourself again, there is a brutal reckoning with your own sense of reality. Those who have experienced spiritual or relational abuse know what I’m talking about.
The shame of being duped; the shame of not knowing better. The “how could this happen to me!?” The fractured self-trust. The manipulation and gaslighting so sneaky, so internalized that you no longer need an external source to stay on “good behavior.” You’ve internalized your oppressor, so now you’re self-surveillancing. The denial of reality. The suppression of the body. Suppression of nature. Suppression of your voice. Suppression is simply a byproduct of supremacy, so you know your place.
There is a reason those who have been abused in such a way are such fierce advocates for the truth: they had to fight with everything they had to regain stability, sovereignty, and truth.
I know I did.
This is why at the start of the pandemic I shared with my audience to be wary of the rise of fundamentalism.
As the culture became rife with division, fear, and uncertainty, I knew those without a solid foundation (and perhaps some with) would collapse into fundamentalism.
I, of course, am not the first person to have predicted this. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color have been naming this long before I even left the church. Political experts know that far-right, fascist, extremists have been long strategizing how to oppress minorities, and to take away the rights of women, queer and trans people. Fundamentalism is not new– just have a simple google of the fashion of 1970’s Iran.
Working in the wellness space, I’ve observed the rise of fundamentalism amidst my peers, and it grates on the deepest part of me. Almost weekly I’m seeing “leaders” who have long made their money selling liberation share misinformation about medical procedures, misinformation about women’s bodies, fear-based and incorrect information about trans people, riffs on living according to “God’s design” and slowly falling down the path paved perfectly for them from the New Age into alt-right fundamentalism like it was curated just for them. (Oh wait, it was).
While this is of no surprise to me, I am angry.
It was a slow progression, as it always is. It starts out with a dash of fear, a sense of instability, a riff or division in the family, a desire to belong, a desire to have all the right information, a desire to have a healthy family… and it collapses into something branded as Jesus, but is completely hollow on the inside.
Falling into fundamentalism doesn’t “just happen.” There are conditions that create this.
It’s a predictable recipe: slow brainwashing mixed with propaganda with a dash of lacking media literacy all swirling in a punch bowl with people’s personal fears and desires– often valid fears and beautiful desires. In essence, it takes on all the same qualities as an abusive relationship– which is why it's so insidious, and why trying to wake someone up to this feels like screaming into a void.
Personally, the hardest part of witnessing this is knowing that this trend is just taking root.
As more and more popular voices in the wellness space begin continue sharing misinformation to their insular audiences (who see them as pseudo-gods to begin with), as they use their charismatic persona, their newfound and emboldened sense of certainty, superiority, and skill set as marketers, these messages are only at the start of their growth. And real lives are at stake.
It's going to be in the name of purity.
It's going to be in the name of God's will.
It's going to be in the name of protecting children and the traditional family.
It's going to be in the name of well-being.
It’s going to be in Jesus' name –
A name I have devoted my life to understanding and use as a model for how I love. A name misused for selfish, political, and inhumane motives by Christian fundamentalists more than anyone I’ve ever known.
A name I believe is more misunderstood the closer you are to Evangelicalism.
These days, when I hear Evangelicals speak about Christ, my whole-body response is to defend a beloved friend. I want to yell “you don’t even know him!!!”
I find it cheeky and just like Jesus, that it was in leaving the institution of Christianity behind, seeing that I myself was a pharisee, a wolf in sheep's clothing, the prodigal's older son that I became familiar with the grace always available to me. The very grace that called me at only 12 years old. The very grace that life offered me when I left fundamentalism, left abusive dynamics, and gave my life to truth– the truth that because I exist, I am worthy.
In a time where fundamentalism uses Jesus to perpetuate corruption, supremacy, distortion, and hate, this is what I wish people knew about him–
I wish people knew they could experience the depth and grace of the Jesus message without the fundamentalism and dogma he literally came to free us from.
I wish people knew Jesus was a brown political radical from an oppressed class, a Palestinian refugee, murdered not to pardon sins, but as a result of a brutal government that didn’t want people to ask questions or experience liberation.
I wish people knew the Jesus message was used to colonize because it was a message for the oppressed class: women, children, the elderly, the poor— a message of liberation, taken, appropriated, and re-written (as today's KJV Bible) to gain political power over the masses.
I wish people knew the story of Jesus is a metaphor for not needing a mediator between humans and God, that it’s not outside us, but *within* that we find God.
I wish people knew Jesus’s death was a public demonstration and living metaphor for the human tendency to scapegoat— how groupthink and mob mentality seeks to find an innocent one to blame to take on the collective shadow. (Much like the narratives the Nazis had for the Jews, like Trump has for immigrants, like the Evangelical church has for Queer people).
I wish people knew Jesus never spoke of hell, or gay people, not even once— but he did speak of corrupt religious leaders, loved the “least of these,” liberated the most oppressed, the people most likely to die at the hands of political corruption.
I wish people knew Jesus spoke in a way that those without ears to hear wouldn’t understand what he was saying— perhaps those loudest about what they think Jesus was saying have deeply, sincerely misunderstood him.
I wish people knew grace means not having to “do” anything to receive the love of God— no amount of believing, changing, or being “good” could ever make one more worthy of Grace. Grace is freely given, no strings attached.
I wish people knew Jesus didn’t write the Bible— and neither did any women. However, women were the first people Jesus revealed himself to, the first pastors and teachers of the Christ message.
I wish people knew the more they leave Evangelicalism, the more they might actually know the heart of Jesus and experience grace.
I wish people knew the sword Jesus came to bring was one of Liberation for all; truth beyond human constructs of supremacy.
I wish people knew the message of Jesus will bring you deep into the well of your own heart, where compassion, justice, and service are what it looks like to live a life shaped by Christ.
I wish people knew to know Jesus is to not need the Bible to be true to experience the change that comes from experiencing Grace.
I wish people would spit the name of Jesus out of their mouths when talking about trans kids, queer people, impoverished mothers, and people of color— you want to stop taking the Lord's name in vain? Why don’t you begin right here.
When you say you “follow Jesus,” what exactly do you mean?
Happy Holidays,
xo, Madison
P.S. May we be fucking discerning about which “spiritual teachers” we follow on the internet.
