A young man sits alone in his bedroom. He has just made a decision that will affect the rest of his life. He’s going to leave the Holdeman Mennonite Church. It will be a long road ahead but he had to make a decision. Would he remain in “The Church” with its Orweillian internet filters and its archaic traditions every year swearing before the congregation that he is at peace with God and Man and loves “The Church” and her ways, and desires to go along to communion, or would he venture out of the community in which he was born and raised. If he leaves, his family will endure tremendous personal humiliation and in accordance with a “Conference Decision”, correct speak for the rules by which church members must live, they can never again greet him with an embrace or eat at the same table with him. If he stays, he will have to accept dozens of ancient rules, ranging from a ban on photography for non-business purposes, to a decision to not play sports in public settings i.e. parks, ice arenas, ball diamonds etc. He could deal with all that. After all, he’s dealt with it for twenty years. But what he can’t do is continue lying to himself and to his family about what he believes.
He had always been a voracious reader having read each of the several hundreds of books in his family’s multiple bookcases. By the time he graduated from the tiny 8th Grade Mennonite school he attended, he had read every book in their small library, several hundred total. Notably absent were any books mentioning evolution and scientific research unless it included some Christian twist. Having graduated, he went to work on his parents’ dairy farm. Twice daily, he milked 50 cows in an old tie stall barn until he turned 18. A couple months after his 18th birthday, he got a job building portable storage sheds for a business owned by another mennonite. As this job was somewhat monotonous, he bought a pair of earbuds and began listening to a wide range of podcasts and audiobooks. From George Orwell and Fydor Dostoyevsky to Yuval Noal Hurarri, he consumed classic literature of yesterday and today. While listening to the Joe Rogan Experience (no he’s not some Nazi) he was introduced to evolutionary biologists and historians who painted a picture of a history he never knew. From the likes of Jordan Peterson, Daniel Kahneman, and Johnathan Haidt he was introduced to a scientific view of human psychology that shed new light on the way he thinks and the way religion and community make him feel. His worldview is forever altered. Around the time he turned 19, he accepted that he no longer believed in the God of his parents and his ancestors. He stopped attending church services and “youth deals”(chaperoned group dates, dating is strictly prohibited). During revival meetings in the winter of 2018 he didn’t go to communion and make a false claim that he is at peace with God and Man. When his parents asked, he told them he doesn’t really believe in a God anymore. They want to believe that he’s lying, perhaps he’s just fallen into pornography, an embarrassing sin that will result in being temporarily expelled from the church. But alas, It’s very simple, he no longer shares their religious beliefs. In January of 2019, he got his GED and applied to a local community college something that is forbidden in the Holdeman Mennonite church. His application was accepted but he hasn’t told his parents or accepted the admission because he doesn’t want to hurt them. Would this mean having to move out on my own with no friends and no connections? It’s not the pain it will cause him that gives him pause, he can deal with that, It’s the pain that it will cause his family to see him “go lost” that he dreads. So he sits at his (unfiltered) laptop and writes.