#ex-lutheran

[thatstormygeek]

Within the last couple of months, for the first time in my life, I started to consciously think that maybe I actually kind of deserve to just...exist? Like, I don't have to earn my life - it's okay to just live. Not going out there hurting anyone. Just taking care of my pets and my family and having my little life.

Of course, in that time, I've also had the cops called to my house for a "wellness check" and had my water shut off without notice or warning. So it kinda feels like the world is disagreeing.

[imlocalatbest]

my newest linocut

18x24

[theexlutheranchic]

I No Longer Want To Be In The Same Room With The People Who I Used To Worship With

My church was worse than your average high school with petty gossip and cliques. My family was never on the "in-crowd" and to be given any sort of respect, you had to tithe. If you were not privileged enough to tithe, your time volunteering for the church was never good enough. I even received a lecture as a teenager when my mother had me attend private high school that there would be enough money for the church if she stopped being selfish and sent me to public school.

The disdain I have for the people who I used to attend church with is quite real with my mother, grandparents, and I put out for these people, yet they don't have to reciprocate. We were all heavily involved but in the eyes of the privileged there, it was never enough for them.

It all changed when my father died and very few people bothered to come to my father's viewing, a phone call, or even a card after all my mother, my grandparents, and I did for so many of them. A former friend of my grandfather's at church said "I needed to know the consequences of being shy and not tithing. "

In the years of following my father's passing, I ignored the people who I went to church with in public. I never believed that your faith should be a one-way relationship and the people you worship with should punish a teenager because their family was not part of the in-crowd because they didn't tithe.

My abhorrence of the people of my former church continued even until now when they cancelled a member of the church because he dared to question where the money was coming from for a pricy ministry. When he lost his battle with Alzheimer's, they cancelled him on All-Saints Sunday by excluding him from the alter. Those who justified it, said he needed to know the consequences of not giving until it hurts because in their eyes, he was he selfish one. My former church claims they are purveyors of inclusion when they are the symbol of radical exclusion.

[squeesquoo]

Whoops 😬

[am-i-a-boy-or-a-crybaby]

Iscariot

6

I am sitting behind you in the church and you are the coolest person I know. I watch you sit perfectly still as I fidget with the hem of my dress; it doesn’t fall low enough. I wish I was like you, the model grandson, in the pews dressed in your nice shirt and pants. I like it when we are told we could be twins, even though I know it’s not true. We’re pen pals, but I dream about moving closer because we are the best of friends.

12

I am sitting in front of you. You look me in the eyes and say the one thing I wish you wouldn’t. One sentence leaves your mouth and I start to grab at my jeans, they’re too tight, they are beginning to hug my body in a way that I’m supposed to like. I am angry beyond words, so I don’t say anything. I just stare at you as you walk away. I don’t understand how you can be so heartless when all I’ve ever wanted was to be like you. I no longer want anything to do with you.

18

He’s dead. We sit next to each other during the service, a silent olive branch. I fidget with the cuff of my suit jacket as you stay a still as possible. I feel oddly comfortable sitting in the pews despite the circumstances, but it’s as though if you move everyone will see that you are more like me than you know. We haven’t spoken in six years, I doubt we will for at least a couple more. Neither of us let go of more than a tear or two, we are men after all.

-grayson h

[f4rfields]

i love watching tradcath convert dorks scream and cry and throw up about basic-ass concepts in catholicism bc it's always just like. so funny.

why do you go to the tradition and authority-based form of christianity bc you want more tradition and hierarchy and then lose your mind over the tradition and hierarchy being too traditional and hierarchical for you? you signed up for this, dude!!!

[illnessfaker]

is it contentious to say that people need to rid themselves of the idea that christianity is a white, western religion. genuine question.

[trekwanderer]

My mother is trying to guilt me into going to my sister's confirmation at the old church I used to attend. I'm having so much anxiety over this. I refuse to go, I will never set foot in that church again. I have so much trauma and anxiety. I told her to respect me and my feelings. Honestly terrified of her response, why am I still so scared of her?? I'm 29 for fucks sake.

[hiddenbysuccubi]

It can be calming but I've rectified this by knowing the Wiccan Rede and by finding a Wiccan replacement for the Lord's Prayer that I grew up with. Goddess hold me in your arms tonight, Keep me safe until morning light, And if one more thing that I may pray, Please keep me safe throughout the day. (optional) Under the Maiden, Mother, Crone By the power of 3x3, An ye harme none so mote it be. It's been remarkably simple and useful in replacing the "our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is heaven" bit that I was made to kneel and recite at bedtime as a child.

Knowing the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary has so far in life been so useful in so many unexpected ways

[theexlutheranchic]

How This Started, The Ex Christian Edition

I came from an interfaith marriage; my mother was a Lutheran and my father is Catholic. I was baptized under emergency circumstances by a priest since I was gravely ill as an infant, but I was not taken to Mass after an incident with a graphic crucifix as a toddler.

Thanks to my Catholic grandparents, they were bigoted towards me and treated me like a second-class citizen. I never knew much about them and they would exclude me from family activities where my cousins were included. When I would visit them, they would have been your stereotypical New England Catholic Democrats with pictures of JFK next to the Pope.

While I may have been raised and confirmed in the Lutheran Church, I had the misfortune of spending four years in Catholic high school where I learned that Catholic bigotry isn't just within my family and no amount of dragging me to Mass will make me want to convert to Catholicism (sorry not sorry groypers).

You can thank Catholic high school for starting me down the road to leaving Christianity. I had one of those cranky religious teachers that Hollywood would make a character out of her. She started on the propaganda that stillborn and those unbaptized go to hell. I had one detention well worth it. I said to her "Mrs. McCarthy, why on Earth would God punish an innocent baby for being still born or being premature and passing before they could be safely baptized?"

The hag couldn't stand it and said "You have a detention. It's best to obey Church rules."

[asordidbarwere]

showed my dad my angel hare fanart (because i'm proud of how it turned out/he likes to see my art) and now i'm afraid he thinks i've become a christian

[bug-juices]

Why do I have Quran posts all over my tumblr dash I’ve been reblogging sad gay people and like softcore porn

Not hating just wondering what algorithm decided I was the target audience

[lilafunger]

Overly Specific Headcanons about the Religious Sect Olivia and Reila grew up with!

I am Terminally autistic about both cults and generally just Intense and Not So Good For People sects of Christianity and I enjoy thinking about my blorbos' upbringings, so I thought I'd do some Research on real life religious stuff and come up with some headcanons based on all that. I might do the same thing with some of the other characters, because thinking about this is super fun to me, but tbh, doing it with the (ex) Alll-merian guys is probably going to be easiest, because I can lean moreso onto Christianity as an inspiration for practices. anyway yapping under cut V Discussion of some real life religious stuff and also of ableism down there.

FIRSTLY I had to figure out which subdenoms I wanted to take inspiration from, so naturally I started by looking up which ones were most Popular in Germany during the 1930s, around the equivalent of where Olivia and Reila were growing up. It was pretty split between Catholicism and Protestantism, in this particular timeframe of WWII and a short while during the buildup toward it, there seems to have been a sect called The German Evangelical Church, which was much too intertwined with the state and injected much too much Nazi propaganda into its preaching. I'm not gonna go into that too much! Mostly because that's a wildly upsetting topic for a LOT of people and not really necessary, as Funger's own Kaiser has his own slew of horrors he's been getting up to. The German Evangelical Church was sort of a mix of denominations, one of the key figures of which was Lutheranism!

SO. Basically, the Church I'm imagining the Haas family as having grown up with would be a fairly extreme sect of Lutheranist-inspired Alll-merianism with a REAL healthy dose of Kaiser Propaganda in there. I ended up researching a mixture of the German Evangelical Church, hyperconservative and apparently quite cultlike Lutheran sects like WELS.

I think I'll call it the Bremen Evangelical Alll-merian Synod or BEAS...

I don't think the sect is very uh... Pro Science at all. Reject Fallible Human Reason and Embrace Only the Most Literal Interpretation Of Our Alll-merian Texts! Don't look for information from outsiders, you have to be careful of getting caught up in False Doctrine! (In fact, just don't trust other people.) But yea, I think the rejection of human reason and of science fits well with the twins' parents utter reluctance to get her actual help for her condition. and ALSO imagining it having been that way makes the fact both of them grew up to be so academic very satisfying to me.

Very very literal about their Interpretations of The Texts. Very Very Very Literal.

At WELS schools at least, it sounds like there's quite a major culture of No Privacy!!! We just come into your room! Which reminded me of how Ever-watching Olivia and Reilas' parents are described as having been. So I think I can mentally expand on that and make a Thing of it.

I wonder what the Alll-merian equivalent of Luther's Poop Covered In Snow analogy for his ideas on Original Sin is... I'm not actually sure, I'd have to figure out more about the in-universe ideas about sin and stuff. But humans are nasty poop covered in the righteousness of the ascended one. Don't become too self loathing about that.

NOW. Keeping in mind Le'garde's goal of "Uniting" the world, I think one way his nonsense leaks into BEAS is through Mission work!! Good Deeds won't save people, proselytising will! Kinda like the Mormon approach to mission work perhaps? Veeeeeery heavy on the importance of getting people ALL OVER THE PLACE baptised in Alll-mer's name. Just Alll-mer's, definitely not the Yellow King's.

Man this is less about Religion headcanons and more about the twins' upbringing in general but I am Quickly beginning to imagine the parents favouring Reila faaaaaaaar too much. On top of how people can be about disabled people in general, which I could talk about so so much but I won't right now. But I think between her having spent so much of her youth bedbound (she wont be able to grow up and EVANGELISE :( ) and the lack of respect for her particular interests and talents, I think it would be very easy for her to be reduced to being sort of a burden in their eyes. Radiating and Shadowed,,,,

On that note, I did some looking into the real life beliefs about disabled people. What I found was that there's a lot of referring to it as A Way For The Works Of God To Be Displayed In Them and as A Manifestation Of Original Sin. I am... Less sure of how this would be translated to this universe through an Alll-merian lens. Also Martin Luther Himself I believe was a little too pro Murdering Disabled People, identifying at least one kid as a changeling, so the vibes around disabled people in a religious sect partially inspired by WELS can only be... Just. Great. I've heard at least that it's not great to be disabled in that group, but it's hard to find any specific info.

Because of the intensity about the scripture being the only infallible thing, I imagine the Bremen Evangelicals reject Enki's writings of Alll-mer as a creation of Vitruvia, much preferring the original Virgin Mother story.

Leaning into the WELS inspiration and what little I know of that, I think the community can be sort of a popularity contest so to speak...

Maybe Le'garde's goal of uniting the land to bring about a new era is twisted into something wholly unrelated for BEAS, like We All Have To Bring About The New Era for The Second Coming! or something along those lines.

Lutherans in general are in favour of secular healthcare, but Olivia and Reilas' parents notably and canonically are Not... Maybe it's because it's a much more intense group. Don't trust the fallible knowledge of random outsiders, no matter how many degrees they have! We Trust In Alll-mer!

SHAME SHAME SHAME SHAME SHAME

I think the Lutherans are fairly unique in that they do a Last Supper type sacrament that other denoms don't?? idk. But maybe BEAS has some fucked up rituals they do based on that... Considering the nature of Fear and Hunger's setting, maybe in the most most most closed off scary places (Probably not on the kinda scale where Olivia would have seen or been involved in it) some shit like Crucifying your local Sin Eater and then eating THEM! This not wine blood actually is a symbol of Alll-mer's divine blood and this not bread flesh actually is a symbol of Alll-mer's divine flesh! :) yummy

I might think More on this another time but I'm getting tired so this is what you get for now. Feel free to add onto this if you have any ideas :0

i might well be onto NOTHING here but it is fun to think about

[cosmic-walkers]

The show is basically telling us that Henry is already disillusioned with Thomas, he already sees no use for him anymore. He has slowly been distancing himself from Thomas, and leaving Thomas at the mercy of the other nobles because he himself, is starting to dislike Thomas. The comment about making Thomas and his family rulers of England, put Thomas in an extremely hot spot with the other nobles and Henry knew that, and he didn't come to protect him or explain what he meant. The Pole business has been one of the main factors running the relationship between Thomas and Henry.

However, it also has to do with outside factors as well. Obviously, there are people - like Stephen whispering into Henry's ear about Thomas, and that is putting Thomas in the hot seat.

But then it is, as Wolsey said - when Henry fucks up, who is going to be blamed? Thomas.

Henry realizes that his empire is crumbling by his own hand, but he is putting it on Thomas. At this point, France is an enemy to England, and historically, the pope has given any Catholic nation the right to invade England. Henry has been declared an enemy of the Church, and despite him breaking away from Rome, excommunication terrifies him; being seen as an enemy of Catholicism terrifies him, and it has happened.

And then, there is the pilgrimage of grace; the show pretty much brushed over this. But over 20,000 people were in open revolt against Henry due to the reformation, the destruction of the monasteries, the changing religion, etc. Henry's own country is turning against him, other monarchs and nations are turning against him, France - whom is envious of, is possibly going to invade him. And in his mind- it is Thomas' fault. thomas talked him into the reformation, Thomas guided his hand, it was Thomas who passed laws and legislations; it is Thomas's fault. Even tho in reality, Henry wanted him to do all of those things. Henry praised him for it, for the money it gave him, for the power he felt he had to change the religion, etc.

It's Henry's fault, but to Henry it's Tom's fault, and he'll make everyone know. So add all of that to Henry's mind, and then here comes Stephen, the ex-situationship, who is not only visicous, but is determined to make Thomas feel the same way he did before he was sent to France, but WORSE. He is on his own revenge quest against Thomas, and he is not just here to shame Thomas, he is here to kill Thomas. That is the creepy part, he literally wants Thomas dead.

Thomas's LAST chance, is the marriage. Thomas has already lost value in Henry's eyes, he is already looking for and has found a replacement for Thomas in his mind, he doesn't need Thomas any more, and what is worse is that Thomas is a liability. SO yeah, while I initially believed their relationship fell apart when he lost his temper at him, it fell apart away before.

And oh yeah Henry hates Lutherans LOL keep that in mind

[jasper-borealis]

traumatized Ex-litergical Lutheran here.

you don’t need to read this, I adore your work, just feeling a lot of emotions so here’s my thoughts

cw. Religions trauma, self harm, general mental illness.

your comics bring out a lot of…mixed feelings sometimes. On the one hand, I adore religious history, the occult aspects of faiths, and how every religion influences aspects of each other. Your art brings a fun and fresh take on a lot of it, and I really really enjoy it!

Now as much as I love religious art, for example I collect rosaries and have a orthodox icon on my gallery wall, and I still sing some of the hymns of my youth, I am well and truly done with anything to do with the version of Christianity I grew up with. I was dashed against the rock of ages, I was burned and scared by the flames of Pentecost, I was choked with the sacred wine. I went to a progressive Lutheran church and sang in their choir as a part of an activity with my community choir I’m a part of last Sunday (long story) and that was…one of the hardest things I’ve done in awhile. hearing the same hymns, following the same liturgical practices and structure, hearing the same confessions and creeds, well and truly felt like I was back in the furnace…

but this time, the furnace was colder, more subtle, instead of pouring the molten lead down my throat as I screamed for forgiveness, the words of the priests where more like a slow heat, still striking the same points, but more gentle…

and I fucking hate that in that moment as I listens to those confessions, and those words…I felt that calling again. like the slow claws of a abuser slowly rubbing your shoulders as they tell you they will treat you better…but, even if they did…I still am burned, my wings and well and throughly shredded and cut, I will never be able to fly across the jordan to that place of peace…not only did the church I grow up in ground me, but I myself ripped out my own feathers and screamed out for God to strike me down. I would daily beat myself, fantasizing in vivid details all the punishments I would face once I met the reaper…all the torture, pain, and screams…it honestly became a fucking…like, fetish. I would just focus on what I was going to get when I died, how I would be counted as one of the goats at the final days.

So that’s why I honestly am kind of…jealous of queer Christians. I wish I could have the comfort, the rites, the community you all have…I still crave it myself.

Maybe one day I will be able to move on from the scars The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod carved into my flesh, if some aspect of worship of the Devine is a part of that? I’m open to it…but not right now.

TLDR your art is amazing, and brings me comfort knowing that there are queer Christians who have been able to carve a path for themselves…but that is not a path I am on at this moment. Maybe one day, but not right now.

I’ve gotten a lot of messages from people about how my comics have affected how they view themselves and their sexuality, but ngl, I always wondered if they ever affected someone religiously.

Like finding a closer connection to God, realizing Christianity isn’t for them, following another religion, etc.

[winged-thinged]

Intro Post

This is a space for me to process complicated ex-Catholic feelings. Polite discussion is welcome, debate is not. Me talking about my trauma is not an invitation for you to come in and try to change my mind.

A little bit about me: I was raised Roman Catholic with strong fundamentalist influences, of the Hillsong and the trad cath AND the doomsday variety. I got my BA in theology from a Catholic liberal arts school with an emphasis on queer theology, spent some time in the Lutheran and UU spaces, and am now something like an atheistic pagan or a religious naturalist. I'm also nonbinary transmasc, aro-grayace and queer. This blog is for unpacking my experiences and the harm that my Christian upbringing did to me, both as a queer person and otherwise.

I do not need saving, because I am a good thing just the way I am.

Welcome and be well! You deserve to be treated kindly, because you are a good thing, too.