Fundamental Erases People.

Fundamentalism erases people. 

"I’ve watched as men once alive with ideas and passion surrender their curiosity and intellectual integrity to conform to the ideological boundaries that will let them keep their jobs.  

I’ve seen women literally shrink—a pound at a time, a dream at a time—as they conform their bodies and their spirits to a strict ideal, as they try to make themselves acceptably small. 

I’ve seen the light go out in people’s eyes when they decide it’s safer to embrace a doctrine or a policy that their gut tells them is wrong than it is to challenge those who say it’s right. 

I’ve watched open minds close and tender hearts harden.

 I’ve seen people pretend to believe things they don’t actually believe and do things they don’t actually want to do, all in the name of conformity to God’s will, all in the name of sacrifice and submission. 

Fundamentalism erases people.  It erases their joy, their compassion, their instincts, their curiosity, their passion, their selves.  And then it celebrates this ghosting, this nulling and numbing, as a glorious “dying to the self,” just like Jesus demanded. 

But is this really what Jesus asked?"

(Rachel Held Evans)
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