Jennifer Welch

This is a crazy person.

But what bothers me so much about evangelical Christians is their inability to feel to let their better impulses break through.

It is their default setting is cruelty.

Their default setting is I don't care.

And I

was raised in an atheist home and my default setting was to

care for people, to have empathy for people.

My mother and I had a trans hairdresser in the 1980s.

And my mother showed this person nothing but kindness and grace.

And when I had questions like, what happened there?

What's going on?

Jennifer, all you need to know is nobody in their right mind would choose this in the middle of the Bible Belt because these people are the meanest, most cruel, judgmental people on the planet.

And she was right, my mother, every single time.

And I don't know if people on the coast or people abroad understand the cruelty that is woven into this sect, this cult of evangelical, white evangelical Christianity in the megachurches.

And there are degrees of it where some of them are just real hateful on the pulpit.

But the most insidious ones are this feel-good megachurch with the coffee shop and the bookstore.

And they teach this Christian narcissism.

you only care you're not doing well you're not doing good enough you're not worthy you're not worthy you're not worthy you're not worthy so they beat you down so much that then you're incapable of feeling empathy for anybody else because all you have to focus on is your personal relationship and so many of my friends fell prey to all of this growing up you fell prey to it and the deprogramming and the shame and the horrors that come out of it

It is really, really bad.

But I want you all to know that there are obviously the Joel Osteen's who it's clear.