Religious hypocrisy within church leadership led me to question everything I once believed. As I navigated this difficult journey, I discovered a more authentic path to spirituality, one that resonated with my true self and values. This is the story of how I broke away from the confines of traditional faith and found my own way.
Dear Mr. Friendly,
I am blessed beyond words to tell you that my husband completely ignored your advice from a few years back. You remember us, right? Your church is too small not to notice when we arrived… And when we left. Your “counsel” is the reason we ultimately left your church. This allowed our marriage space to heal and then seek out a new church family that practices grace and forgiveness.
It’s absolutely disgusting that your first reaction to our marriage story was divorce. Even worse, you attempted to convince my husband to leave me. Convince. That word alone is problematic in the context of the delicate situation you were given access to. Why in the hell would you, as a professed Christian leader, feel the need to convince a man to leave a wife he truly loves?
This is slut shaming and you made me a victim of it all over again.
You fucker.
Thankfully my husband could see right through the smoke screen. It’s obvious you operate from a legalistic belief about what God says and choose to bypass God’s ideas of grace and forgiveness. You see, my husband reached out to you for support at MY URGING. What makes this more upsetting is you already knew going into those conversations that we already have past church hurts. And now we added you to the list.
We should have leaned into our intuition when you told us that the women in your church would not be supportive of my work as a Christian Sex Coach. In fact, you explicitly suggested I don’t tell anybody about what I do! Well, I am happy to say that I told your peeps exactly what I’m about at every chance. Through shaky knees and sweaty palms, I shook hands of strangers and honestly answered every question they asked me. But don’t worry, the conversations never lasted too long.
Your congregation is full of religious hypocrisy and truly makes it difficult to feel loved and accepted.
The few times a friend disclosed they attend or have visited your church, a pit forms in the base of my stomach. How many more marriages are you trying to destroy? And how many women are being slut shamed and told that other women won’t accept her? How many human beings have come and gone due to your congregation’s lack of love and profound judgements towards others?
You should not be leading a church or a home group.
You should be participating in one.
Blessings,
Jessica Leigh Biles
Christian Sex Coach + Educator
• This open letter is directed towards two men in place of significant leadership at a local evangelical church. To be fair, I don’t know which man explicitly told Mr. Sexy to leave me.
A few years later…
Since then, I’ve done a lot of growing up. For one thing, I no longer follow the status quo set by church leaders. In fact, I don’t attend church at all—at least, not the kind you typically envision when you hear the word “church.” These days, my church is the open blue sky every morning as I walk along the ocean shoreline. During these walks, I listen to a podcast that inspires me to live better, followed by music that tugs at my emotions, helping me process my life.
Reflecting on my lifetime of allowing church leadership to guide my decisions, I now wonder what took me so long to break away from so much religious hypocrisy.
In many ways, I began to view the church as a low-key cult. Out of curiosity, I looked up the definition of a cult, and surprisingly, Christianity seems to fit quite well.
- A cult is “a system of religious veneration (reverence) and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.” (Jesus, the Bible, the Cross…)
- A cult is “a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.” (church—you know the ones)
- A cult is “a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.” (Jesus, the Bible)
Therefore, it really depends on how you view Jesus and the Bible. Could this be religious hypocrisy? Is Jesus truly worthy of our devotion, as the Bible claims? And let’s be honest, Christianity is a system that leverages the devotion to Biblical figures and objects to attract and maintain its audience.
When I consider a “relatively small group of people” engaging in practices “regarded by others as strange or sinister,” I immediately think of the mega-churches that collapsed due to “strange” and “sinister” actions by their leaders. I also recall attending church as a 12-year-old girl and watching as everyone around me fainted and were covered with white sheets. That experience scared the hell out of me.
In conclusion, my journey away from traditional church structures, driven by the realization of religious hypocrisy, has been both liberating and enlightening. Embracing a more personal and natural form of spirituality has allowed me to reconnect with myself in ways I never imagined. I realized that faith isn’t confined to four walls or dictated by a set of rules; it’s found in the quiet moments of reflection and in the beauty of the world around us. Although leaving the church was a difficult decision, it’s one that has led me to a deeper, more authentic understanding of my beliefs and my place in the world.
