Coming back into the fold, 2020s
I grew up in the Lutheran Church and had mixed feelings about it. The first pastor was very Christlike. He had the morals to stand up for the downtrodden, including one special case in the congregation.
One man was falsely accused of a child abuse crime at his previous Protestant Church. Parents thought he was ugly and creepy, so they invented a pedo story, told their kids the lines to say, then he was arrested and thrown in jail. He fought the legal case, my pastor helped him out with a lawyer, and he was proven innocent. The real world is messy, shit happens, but he was welcome in the pews of St. Paul's Lutheran. And he attended every Sunday
The next pastor was a dickhead who privileged the concerns of the rich who attended this church. My mom and I got involved with church activities, and he looked down on us, judging us to be crazy white trash. I was in middle school, needed therapy and his counciling was harsh, uncaring. I became an atheist at age 16 due to my qualms with the rampant hypocrisy
Fast forward to now. Due to some personal crises, I've been considering coming back into the fold. Devastating events, mental health breakdowns, the polycrisis in the news, family troubles showed me that trusting in a higher power might alleviate the shame, guilt, fear, paranoia. Praying to God helps ease my worries and anxieties. I ask God to help me, my friends, my family, the Palestinians, the undocumented immigrants
There's more from Jesus' teachings, from Bible stories that can guide us as leftists. We have additional holy texts penned by Karl Marx, Peter Kropotkin, and Emma Goldmann. I know Christofascists are evil, they pervert the Holy Word. Jesus loves me. He died on the cross to forgive our sins. I was baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran Church as a child. Religion might help me, it might help others. There are many religious and spiritual practices that could prove to be true in the afterlife. I'm a fan of reincarnation and the astral realm too. I'm taking Pascal's Wager. Believing in God is the best bet I can make