Chris​Hubbs​.com

My DayOne journal entry reminds me that it was six years ago today that after far too many years of waffling, I finally drafted a letter to the leaders at our evangelical church letting them know we were leaving. A brief excerpt:

…this [leaving] is largely a result of how my theological beliefs have shifted (grown?) over the past decade, pushing a larger and larger gap between the written and unwritten positions of [the church] and where I find myself. This would include Calvinism, the high emphasis on penal substitutionary atonement as the right expression of the gospel, Republican politics, complementarianism, and the need to focus so much on issues of sexuality and gender identity. These combine to form a church culture that I know I’ll never be able to lead in, which has become increasingly uncomfortable to fellowship in, and for which it’s very hard now to justify to my kids why they should be continuing to drink from this stream.

For the next three years we attended only our beloved “zoom church” of distant friends who were similarly exiles, shepherded by a faithful Presbyterian pastor lady who led us in prayer, liturgy, and community.

We always knew that zoom church wasn’t going to be the permanent solution, and in 2023 we started attending our local Episcopal Church. For the past three years they have been a welcoming family, giving us the time and space we needed to heal and then encouraging us to participate in the areas that fit us best. After three years here, my only regret is that we didn’t make the move sooner.