Author: Eleanor Skelton

Eleanor Skelton is a freelance journalist and educator. They were homeschooled kindergarten through senior year of high school within the high-demand subculture of fundamentalist Christianity during the 90s and 00s before completing their bachelor’s degree at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Eleanor speaks about their experiences in leaving a cult to advocate for other survivors. They are currently enrolled in a journalism graduate program at the University of Alabama. They write about deconstruction and mental wellness at www.eleanorskelton.com.

God agrees with ME!

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on November 30, 2014.

Like ships in the night
You keep passing me by
We’re just wasting time
Trying to prove who’s right
And if it all goes crashing into the sea
If it’s just you and me
Trying to find the light.
– Mat Kearney, Ships in the Night

So much religious noise, all around me…

“No, Eleanor, you have to receive the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues, and be baptized in my church, because it’s the only true Pentecostal church in Colorado Springs. I know you’re a Christian, but you aren’t Apostolic.”

“I’m a five point Calvinist. Human beings are utterly depraved and cannot be saved except by prompting of the Holy Spirit.”

“You don’t love Jesus, because you don’t obey his commandments.”

…I live in Colorado Springs, ok? Dubbed the Christian Mecca, due to Focus on the Family, Compassion International, the Navigators, and New Life Church.

And I have friends from nearly every denomination, and many friends of other beliefs.

Since I’m friendly and very extroverted, I often get well-meaning people trying to convince me of this or that doctrine. Or try to get me to go to their church when I’m not seeking another place to attend. My friend Cynthia B. calls this “church cannibalism.”

It all feels the same at the bottom – do you see me, do you value me as an individual? Do you care about me outside of earning brownie points for your church or god?

And if I don’t agree, then more convincing is in order.

It’s like the opening lyrics to Relient K’s song “Failure to Excommunicate.”

It’s the principle, it’s the issue / that your principle would dismiss you. / Because you don’t fit into that All-American Box, / that coffin created for creative thought.

I’m not denying that objective truth exists. But as imperfect humans, how do we know that we are properly interpreting that truth?

Academic research in 2009 indicates that humans have a strong tendency to make God agree with us, to anthropomorphize our deities.

Shouldn’t Christians be different, if we believe the verse we quote so much:

“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”

I think this is where fundamentalism for any belief becomes Pharisaical, looking for outward signs when no one knows anyone else’s heart.

One of Relevant magazine’s latest pieces, “Wrestling with Faith and Doubt,” addresses this:

“We never find Jesus calling someone a heretic because they interpreted an Old Testament story figuratively when it was supposed to be read literally or vice-versa.”

And the writer points out that in these details, we miss the endgame of Jesus’ message, loving God and our neighbor.

What if we were all just truth-seeking together, admitting sometimes we get it wrong? I admire people in the church who can say their well-meant methods didn’t work.

One of my pastor friends said at a conference last spring:

“I have a master’s in Christian education, and I thought discipleship was you get a bunch of people together and you do a Beth Moore Bible study, or a Henry Blackaby Bible study, and that’s what I did for years, but I was wrong.”

He discovered discipleship in community, bonding with others, not rote memorization.

Most of my spiritual journey has been finding where I got tangled, reaching for the light on the other side.

Rather than forcing change on everyone else, I’d rather seek out where I am wrong, to find spiritual healing for myself. The plank-in-the-eye metaphor is actually helpful here.

Because, like my pastor friend said about following Jesus:

“Some people make this complicated. It’s real simple. It’s so simple, it’s subversive.”

I crave more of this subversive simplicity.

Floating on a rebel tide

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on December 14, 2014.

I’m shooting for the stars to hit the moon
Mapping out a course for both my shoes,
I’ve already practiced acting like there’s nothing to it.
– Jellyrox, Rebel Tide

Some days I’m still lost.

Some days independence still knocks the breath out of me, and I’m reeling.

I’m split.

Over two years ago, I cracked, couldn’t live under the burdens anymore. And I left.

But I didn’t know how lonely I’d be, how long and cold winters could last outside in exile.

Try to hold the world together in my mind,
Try to make it snow in mid-July,
Try to prove my heart is worth the blood that’s pumping through it.

Some days I’m so cold. I warm my hands against favorite memories, hoping one day the frost will be over.

Looking for the light in the dark, the sunshine behind the shadow.

I try to keep my hopes above my doubts
Try to keep my thoughts above my mouth
I feel like a satellite just dying to leave my orbit…

I’m homesick. My friends noticed it reached unprecedented levels.

My friends have my back, my mentors believe in me. Somehow I’ll find the courage to keep walking, even if my steps are slow.

I take another shot at faking love
Miss it by a mile and then some
My insides are thirsty for whatever drink you’re pouring…

I’m tired all the time. The end of the year comes in like a tsunami, the semester drenches me. Maybe it’s senioritis, maybe the panic put a constant drain on my spirit.

I thought this biting wind would have moved on by now. Didn’t think the season would be so quiet a third time.

But they told me my freedom would have a price. Someday I’ll write about why.

And it takes you by surprise, like a rebel tide
Like lightning from the sky has been searching for you
And it splits you like a knife, the moment that it strikes
When you realize that death was looking for you.

I count the times I nearly died.

When the ether of death filled my nostrils, when I believed the only option was to slaughter my dreams, to bury them. Then reborn desires crowd around me, remind me of all the times I’d left them for dead.

Telling me my longings are real, blowing on my numb hands so I don’t freeze over.

Praying like a child Christmas Eve
Father, won’t you raise the son early?
I ask an awful lot of both my knees just waiting for you.

Help my unbelief

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on October 27, 2014.

I’m often told by friends and blog readers that my “vibrant Christianity” is inspiring, that I “maintain remarkable stability in the face of incredible odds.”

But I wonder if they’d still say that if they knew the me who sometimes wonders if spirituality is real or just a coping mechanism for survival, the me whose panic drags her to the toilet the morning of an exam. The twenty-something whose anxiety causes her to still jump and feel a rush of shame redden my ears when a supervisor approaches me at work, even if nothing is wrong.

So why do I stay? Why do I cling to Jesus?

The other day, I admitted to my friend Cynthia Jeub:

I explained it to my friend Aaron, who recently wrote a blog series on coming out as an atheist, like this:

“I know none of the things my heart wants to be true can be scientifically proven. I believe there is a God because I think I have experienced His presence. And I really admire this guy Jesus whether he was God or not. I think he was an incredible guy who didn’t take religious bullshit, and who wanted justice for the oppressed. And more than anything? I’d like to be like him and to shake the world up. But that’s all I know for sure anymore.”

But this is my story, and my other friends have different stories. I am finding healing within the context of Christianity, and my fragile faith is becoming my own. But not everyone does.

I’ve heard many people say your view of God is nearly identical to your view of your father.

So when friends have needed to leave their dysfunctional homes, sometimes their healing journey makes it necessary for them to leave Christianity entirely.

One friend described it as “ditching God” to “unravel the Good and Bad Shepherd.”

R.L. Stollar, community coordinator for Homeschoolers Anonymous, writes in his post The Scarlett Letter of Unbelief: “It’s hard enough on its own, this thing called belief. Life is filled with pain and suffering and when those elements get overwhelming, they reveal how fragile belief can be.”

Like my friends, I have tossed out all but the raw heartbeat of my faith, eliminating the poison for the cure. Finding what remained after the shattering. And only now can I safely rebuild.

Modern evangelical Christianity often values faith so highly that it fears the doubters. But as I commented on R.L. Stollar’s post last year, “the church needs to recognize that it is okay to be sad and okay to be messy and okay to be broken.”

What shows a “doubter” the Jesus we’ve read about more: an understanding hug, a cup of hot chocolate and Kleenex, or some memorized Bible verse thrown at them over and over until it has lost all meaning?

I don’t know how to explain the beautiful friends who were Jesus for me after I got kicked out of a church two years ago: some were agnostic or Buddhist or Catholic or Baptist. One of them was my pastor friend who played Jesus over 20 years ago.

And as I replied to Cynthia Jeub:

The Lighthouse Girl

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on June 17, 2014.

There was once was a little girl, raised in the Village.

The Village was a utopia, walled off for protection and insulated from the world. Even the families in the girl’s section of the Village did not see each other very often, but lived peaceably, like hermits, in accordance with the Code.

When the girl grew to be a maiden, sometimes she crept through cracks in the wall and explored the countryside. She gradually even made friends with the woodland folk, discovering new ballads and gypsy dances banned in the Village.

One day, the elders of the Village told the girl that absolute obedience was the only way to honor her parents and the Code. But the girl had dreams, and this meant soul death.

So one night the girl left the Village forever.

Her friends on the outside helped her travel to the coast, where she built a lighthouse with bricks and mortar and timber they brought. That section of the coast was so rugged that the deaths on its rocks were legend. Other attempts to build lighthouses had not survived.

The girl maintained it for years, weathering many storms. Her friends visited often to encourage her and the prosperity of the lighthouse, but sometimes she was lonely. Her friends started to call her Lighthouse, shortened to Light.

One friend was a girl-pirate who was once raised in the Village like her, but they had met beyond the walls.

Another village girl had become a spy for a local Baron. She took shelter in the lighthouse and lived with Light for many moons.

All three of them knew an older girl who escaped a failed utopia several years before. This girl had been cursed by her own Elders and turned into a mermaid, forever chained to the waves and spume. She shared the birth name of the girl-pirate.

The friends often wondered about their kinsmen in the Village, and hoped someday many more could be free from the well-meaning tyranny of the Elders. The four swore a solemn pact against injustice in the land.

A cyclone rolled across the waters one night, spewing hailstones like vomit. The lighthouse girl manned the tower, keeping the light alive. In her telescope, she spied the signal of a small boat foundering on the waves. Two passengers, one with gold hair and one with the hair of a raven, rowed and bailed water to no avail.

Despite the peril, the three friends, followed by the mermaid, took a larger ship. They rode out toward the lost girls, just before their rowboat crashed against the rocks.

Light, the girl-pirate, the spy, and the mermaid embraced the lost girls on the beach and welcomed them to safety. Light helped them to warm inside by the fire and dry their clothes. The lost girls told the friends that they fled another section of the Village, inspired by their love for one another, because their Elders had banned their friendship.

The four friends all knew the value of friendship, and told the lost girls to stay together, no matter what the Elders said, and to explore their newfound freedom.

Soon the spy-girl left on a clandestine mission for the Baron, and couldn’t send letters to the lighthouse girl.

The girl-pirate took the lost girls rafting, teaching them how to navigate currents and giving them sea legs.

Light helped the lost girls find a trade in town with a basket-weaver, but their spirits were wild and young, and they joined a band of traveling gypsies, squandering their earnings on trinkets.

Midsummer gales brewed out in the gulf, and the lighthouse was empty again except for Light. She was lonely once more, yearning for her old friends and for new refugees from the Village. She often visited the mermaid down in the tidal pool on calm, starlit evenings to plan new adventures.

One day, the girl-pirate came to the lighthouse girl and said she couldn’t stay on land anymore. She was bound for faraway oceans and adventures far from the Village.

Light hugged the pirate and cried. They walked down to the docks together.

Light told the girl-pirate how much she had learned from her. She knew how to tie sailor’s knots. She could brew herbal mushroom tea from the Orient. She could debate the Elders now if they confronted her and told her to tear down the lighthouse.

Deep in her heart, Light knew how much the pirate yearned for the sea, how the land was ebbing away at her friend’s spirit.

The lighthouse girl said the girl-pirate needed to sail. It was time. And she understood.

Why I’ve been a spiritual hobo

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on December 8, 2014.

Maybe I’ll try church again.

Two years ago, I’d been exiled from my church home four months before.

One Sunday, I went to a service at a local megachurch, hiding myself in the crowd. And I asked God why I hadn’t found a spiritual home yet, if I ever would.

And in the dimmed light and slow guitar chords trickling over me like creek water, I thought maybe he answered.

You won’t find a home. Not yet. You’re a hobo for right now. But I am going to show you all the different kinds of people who are part of me, part of my body.

So out I went. New Life Church became my soup kitchen, but I visited the LGBT affirming church, my friend’s mother’s Catholic church in Boulder, the Apostolic Pentecostal church.

I saw chanting and wailing, people speaking in tongues, people reciting the Apostle’s Creed and the sprinkling of holy water. I saw transgender women bustling around a church kitchen, brewing coffee.

And everywhere, I found someone whose heart seemed alive, people who sought Jesus.

For years, I’d been told that our church was part of a remnant holding to sound doctrine, that other churches were to be analyzed and mistrusted.

According to the Barna group, I’m not alone in being spiritually homeless. Their surveys say my generation tends to fall into three groups: nomad (Christian, but not involved in the church), prodigal (once Christian but no longer identifying as Christian), or exile (Christian, lost between the culture and the church).

I’ve written before that something that keeps me from leaving completely, something hopes I can still find light in Christian belief. Stuck somewhere between nomad and exile.

My friend Cynthia B. and I went to see Handel’s Messiah at Village Seven Presbyterian Church last weekend. Poor college students are always up for a free concert.

Churches feel awkward to me now. I don’t feel like I belong, because I’m not hiding my problems anymore. Cynthia and I sat in one of the back rows.

I was skeptical.

But the choir joined with the lead singer the first time, and I was four or five years old again. I know it sounds cliche.

But I forgot the beauty and the light I once found in music and church performances.

I’ve been escaping emotional hypothermia, realizing Jesus didn’t ask for my pain and didn’t need my defense, finding purity beyond the rings. And I let go my original concept of church to grow. To find church outside four walls.

I needed to know that Jesus didn’t label me, that there would be room for my doubts.

And now I cried, let the music and community back in again. I cracked open in the light, soaked my soul in the ethereal sound.

Maybe a hobo can find a home again.