Were you raised fundamentalist?

Mine was an odd, cherry-picked fundie lite. Skirts were always to be worn in church, but outside I could wear pants and shorts. I wasn't home schooled and women weren't simply expected to be SAHMs (although this was rural south where the majority of the congregation were either close to or below the poverty line, so most families didn't have the privilege of a choice in the matter). A lot of the other beliefs are very adjacent to those I see in this sub. Courting wasn't really a thing but purity culture was absolutely rampant, to the point our "church elders" held a meeting to discuss excommunicating a high school member who had gotten pregnant. Preaching was all screaming baptist, altar call, hellfire and brimstone type, and kids were expected to sit and listen through it all. Missionary work was seen as good if done in the States (though I never saw any actual missionary work happen while in the church) but bad if done outside of the States. Our bodies were our temples, so I got lectured by our pastor and given the cold shoulder by him for the rest of my time there for having a purple hair extension clip in as an 11 yo, but the tattoo my granddad got in the Navy was fine for whatever reason, probably cause he was a retired pastor. Though there was no stigma for us to go to college or to work, there was still standard issue fundie misogyny, and divorce was one of the bigger taboos. One of the most heart-breaking stories is that of my great aunt whom I still visit every now and then and the closest thing to proof of angels on earth I've ever known, who stayed with her ass of a husband his entire life and tried her damnest to make the best of it. He also straight up told my mom one day, completely unprompted, that she had no business being with my dad because he was a heathen who didn't go to church, but also divorce=bad so like, what was she gonna do? Mom stopped drinking the kool-aid a few years after I was born, but when I was about 14 we made the joint decision to leave. We ended up in a much more loving, accepting church, though I'd still say their beliefs were more of a relaxed girl defined-esque system. I left that church as soon as I entered college, but mom's still in it and honestly, it's done a lot of good for her and has helped her heal so much from all the garbage we grew up around. She's even started to de-radicalize my granddad, whom I never in a million years would ever think would backtrack on his beliefs. However for me personally, it was the teachings from the new church that I've had the hardest time moving on from. My friends whom I've told this to think I'd be more traumatized from my first church, but even as a kid I was pretty much convinced all the fundie church beliefs were hypocritical and insane, but it was the the more loving delivery of the common baptist beliefs and the genuine friendships I made in my second church that really had me going. In my life, I never truly felt "saved", despite countless times I'd just break down sobbing and praying so hard for Jesus to save me, just to hear crickets. Four years of that left me with a whole lotta anxiety that I've just now finally started to come to terms with.

/r/FundieSnarkUncensored Thread