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William Wren

@william-wren.bsky.social

Ex-Christian writing about why I left and why it matters for all of us. Politics, philosophy, and the pursuit of greater understanding.

36 Posts6356 Follower 14699 Folgt

Elinor Ashleigh @elinor-ashleigh.bsky.social · 4w ago

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Elinor Ashleigh @elinor-ashleigh.bsky.social · last mo.

Text on image reads: "The only way Israel was a 'torchbearer' for other nations was when they burned them to the ground." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #theology #Bible #BibleStudy #Israel #politics

Elinor Ashleigh @elinor-ashleigh.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Text on image reads: "Christians: 'I will pray you find the truth.' Translation: I think I'm being helpful, but I don't actually understand because I have intentionally isolated myself from other perspectives. Even though Jesus taught me to follow the golden rule, I lack the imagination to understand what it would be like to engage someone as close-minded and insulting as I am when it comes to my beliefs. There is no love like Christian condescension." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #criticalthinking #epistemology

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Text on image reads: "Religion doesn't just fail to heal shame—it installs it. From the earliest age, you're taught that you are fundamentally broken. Born sinful. Deserving of punishment by default. The only remedy? Surrender to an authority that defined the disease in the first place. That's not healing. That's a control mechanism. The shame doesn't stay in the pew. It follows you into your body, your sexuality, your relationships, your sense of whether you're allowed to trust your own mind. It teaches you that doubt is betrayal and boundaries are selfishness." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #religioustrauma #mentalhealth #psychology #healing #lgbtq

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 3mo ago

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William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion. I'm not affiliated with Open Stories Foundation or Mormon Stories, and I'm not a lawyer. Donations go directly to OSF, a 501(c)(3). You can donate at www.mormonstories.org/legal/

Text on image reads: "The lawsuit against Mormon Stories and John Dehlin may not seem relevant to most of us, but it is. This is not just about one church suing someone they disagree with. It is about what any organization can get away with when it has amassed an ungodly fortune and hides behind the shield of 'religion.' The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a dangerous and powerful organization that is causing harm throughout the world with impunity. These types of authoritarian organizations thrive in secrecy. Sharing what you learn brings their actions into the light." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #religion #religioustrauma #exmormon #mormon #LDS #MormonStories #Christianity #secularism

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Text on image reads: "Christianity doesn't just teach you poor things. It teaches you to think poorly. It rewards certainty over inquiry, obedience over critical evaluation, and faith over confidence proportional to the evidence. It trains you to treat doubt as a moral failing and to pattern-match everything into a cosmic narrative where questioning the authority is the problem, not the authority itself. Leaving isn't just about rejecting specific beliefs. It's about unlearning an entire epistemology." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #epistemology #criticalthinking #atheism #psychology #mentalhealth

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Text on image reads: "You didn't bring children into the world because they needed you to. You did it because you wanted them here—for love, purpose, connection, hope, or whatever else. That was a choice you made. And it means the ethical weight is entirely yours. You owe them a life worth living. They owe you nothing." #parenting #ethics #philosophy #humanism #childfree

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Text on image reads: "Proselytizing assumes you have something the other person lacks. But if your belief requires faith rather than evidence, what you're actually offering is your conviction dressed up as their need. And if your religion were self-evidently true, you wouldn't need a strategy for getting other people to believe it." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #epistemology #criticalthinking #atheism #secularism #philosophy

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Text on image reads: "For those going through deconstruction: You're allowed to be okay with not going back. You're allowed to stop trying to make the old beliefs fit. You're allowed to build something new, even if it looks nothing like what you left behind." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #religion #religioustrauma #mentalhealth #healing #secular

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Text on image reads: "Progressive Christians want us to take the Bible seriously, but not literally. Translation? They don't want us to hold them accountable for propping up a horrific text ostensibly inspired by their horrific god that is continually used throughout history to justify horrific ends. Instead, they want us to let them pick and choose what feels good to them, accept that it comes from some vague divine authority, and feel compelled to join them based on that authority. But no matter how much smoke and mirrors they employ, it doesn't change that they're continuing to lend legitimacy to the single most damaging text ever produced by human hands." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #theology #progressiveChristianity #Bible #criticalthinking #religioustrauma

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Text on image reads: "You are more than the faith you left behind." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #religion #religioustrauma #mentalhealth #healing #exmormon #secular

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Text on image reads: "Conservative Christians will move heaven and earth to protect kids from competing in sports with the rare transgender child, then turn around and vote against healthcare for millions of poor children. This is what happens when your worldview and your consequent morality are predicated on an archaic purity culture rather than on essential human wellness. Trans rights? Throw an unholy fit. Meanwhile, global poverty? Refugees? The military-industrial complex? Healthcare as a human right? Keep an unholy silence. Because caring about those issues would actually cost them something. Power. Wealth. Political influence. Much easier to manufacture outrage over who uses which bathroom." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #ChristianNationalism #politics #lgbtq #transgender #healthcare #humanrights

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Text on image reads: "Liberal Christians, you love to tell us Jesus' message was 'all about love.' But that requires ignoring an enormous amount of what the Gospels actually attribute to him. This is the same Jesus who tells people to hate their families, says he came to bring 'not peace but a sword,' calls a Canaanite woman a dog, threatens entire cities with fates worse than Sodom, and describes most of humanity being cast out to eternal punishment. You don't get to curate the highlight reel and then ask us to take your bespoke theology seriously." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #theology #progressiveChristianity #Bible #BibleStudy #criticalthinking

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Text on image reads: "Christian nationalism is not a distortion of the American religious tradition. It is the American religious tradition—or at least one of its longest-running threads. The idea that God has a special covenant with this nation, that its founding was providential, that its laws should reflect biblical principles—this didn't arrive in 2016. It was here before the Constitution was. What changed isn't the theology. What changed is the political utility. A movement that once operated as cultural backdrop has been organized into a voting bloc with legislative goals: abortion restrictions, religious exemptions from civil rights law, public funding for religious education, and the slow erosion of church-state separation under the banner of 'religious liberty.' The problem isn't that Christians participate in politics. Everyone should. The problem is the claim to divine mandate—the assertion that your policy preferences aren't preferences at all but commandments, and that opposing them isn't disagreement but rebellion against God. That framing doesn't leave room for democracy. It leaves room for theocracy with better branding." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #ChristianNationalism #politics #democracy #church #secularism

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Text on image reads: "Faith isn't a virtue. It's epistemological surrender. It's the decision to keep believing when the evidence stops supporting you—or worse, when it contradicts you. We don't celebrate 'faith' in any other domain. We call it denial, wishful thinking, or confirmation bias. But wrap it in religious language and suddenly it's noble." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #epistemology #criticalthinking #atheism #secularism #philosophy

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Text on image reads: "Raising children in a religious tradition that teaches 'God loves you unconditionally but will torture you forever if you believe the wrong things' is psychological abuse. Full stop. You're teaching a child that the most powerful being in existence operates on the logic of an abusive parent: 'I love you, but I'll hurt you if you don't love me back correctly.' That's not theology. That's trauma." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #religioustrauma #childhoodreligioustrauma #mentalhealth #parenting #theology #hell

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

#Christianity #faith #epistemology

Science and Faith

And Christians' Gross Misunderstanding of Their Differences

open.substack.com

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Text on image reads: "Faith isn't a way of knowing anything. It's a way of justifying anything. You can't use faith to distinguish true claims from false ones—only claims you've already committed to from ones you haven't. It's not a path to truth. It's a permission slip to stop looking for it." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #epistemology #criticalthinking #atheism #secularism #philosophy

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Text on image reads: "A timeline of omniscient planning: Step 1: Create humans with free will, knowing exactly how they'll use it. Step 2: Watch them use it exactly how you knew they'd use it. Step 3: Kill nearly every living thing on earth—animals and infants included—to fix a behavior problem you created. Step 4: Restart with one family. Step 5: Humans immediately go back to having the behavior problem you created. Step 6: No acknowledgment that your plan didn't work. This is the being we're told plays 4D chess with the cosmos." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #theology #Bible #criticalthinking #atheism

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Text on image reads: "An all-powerful, all-good being creates humans knowing they'll fail. They fail. He's offended for some reason. He can't just forgive them—even though he makes the rules—because his 'justice' requires a blood payment. Animal blood is the go-to for a while, but it needs to be an absurd number of animals killed in a highly ritualistic fashion. Eventually, for some unknown reason, he stops with the animals and sends a version of himself to be tortured to death to pay himself the debt he imposed so he can forgive the people he made in a way that necessarily meant they'd need forgiving. Also, if you don't believe this happened, the deal's off and you'll be tortured forever. The truth that no one is willing to share at the altar call? A being who can't just forgive isn't all-powerful or all-good." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #religioustrauma #theology #Bible #criticalthinking #atheism

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Text on image reads: "An omniscient being shouldn't need retcons. And yet the Bible reads like a writer's room that kept changing showrunners. God starts as the sole source of both good and evil. Then later editors bolt on a Satan figure to absorb the blame. The law is eternal and perfect—until Paul decides most of it was actually a temporary placeholder. God is unchanging, except for the dozens of times he 'relents' or 'regrets.' These aren't mysteries. They're patch notes. If a freshman turned in a paper this internally inconsistent, they'd get a rewrite request. But slap 'divine' on it and suddenly the contradictions become 'layers of revelation.' The simplest explanation isn't that an infinite mind works in ways we can't fathom. It's that finite minds kept revising the character." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #theology #Bible #criticalthinking #epistemology

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Text on image reads: "When someone tells you they were harmed by their religious upbringing—that they spent years believing they deserved hell, that they suppressed their identity to conform to doctrinal expectations, that they lived in fear of a god who would punish thought crimes—the correct response is not 'that wasn't real Christianity.' It is Christianity. It is a recognizable, scripturally grounded, institutionally supported version of it. The people who teach those doctrines aren't fringe actors. They are pastors, elders, Sunday school teachers operating within established theological traditions. You can argue that your version is kinder, more inclusive, more focused on love than judgment. But that doesn't erase the doctrinal through-line. The Bible still teaches that humans are fallen and deserve punishment. It still centers a god who demands belief as the condition for salvation. The 'good versions' simply make these harms harder to spot. The harm isn't an aberration. It's built into the foundation." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #religioustrauma #theology #progressiveChristianity #Bible #lgbtq #mentalhealth

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

#Christianity #religion #theology #epistemology

Bad Theology or Bad Epistemology?

“Bad theology gets people killed.”

open.substack.com

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. — 1 Samuel 15:3. Nothing says 'loving god' like ordering the slaughter of an entire people group." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #religioustrauma #theology #Bible #BibleStudy

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Text on image reads: "165 people dead in Minab, mostly young girls. The Bible's god commanded Israel to kill Canaanite children. He commanded the slaughter of Amalekite infants. He murdered Egyptian children to make a point. If you think Pharaoh's tyranny justified killing Egyptian firstborns, if you think Canaanite or Amalekite "wickedness" justified killing their children, then you've already decided that bad governments make children acceptable collateral. Christians defending this bombing aren't misreading scripture. They're applying it." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #Christianity #religion #religioustrauma #theology #Bible #ChristianNationalism #politics #Minab #Iran

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Text on image reads: "I do not know if a higher power exists. I know that epidermolysis bullosa exists. It's a genetic condition where the skin is extremely fragile and blisters at the slightest touch. It causes constant pain and death in infancy. I do not know whether some god exists. I know that no omnipotent, omnibenevolent god exists." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #atheism #agnosticism #theology #religion #philosophy #criticalthinking

William Wren @william-wren.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Text on image reads: "I didn't leave religion because I was angry or hurt—though plenty of people leave for those reasons, and they're valid. I left because the epistemology stopped working. The claims didn't hold up under the same scrutiny I applied to everything else in my life, and I couldn't keep granting them a special exemption. I write about religion's problems not because I think believers are stupid. They aren't. I know a number of very intelligent religious people. I write about it because I think bad epistemology has consequences—for individuals, for communities, for policy. When you build institutions on claims that can't withstand scrutiny, the institutions inherit that fragility. And the people inside them pay the cost. This isn't a personal attack. It's an invitation to engage with what I'm actually saying rather than with the caricature of the angry atheist who just wants to tear things down. I'm not interested in destruction for the sake of destruction. I'm interested in whether the ideological structures we've built can bear the weight we've placed on them." #deconstruction #exvangelical #exchristian #faithtransition #atheism #secularism #epistemology #criticalthinking #religion #religioustrauma