Leaving Sundays: Ebony Exodus, Why some Black women are walking out on religion and others should too

This book collects stories from Black women and their experiences with church and why they are leaving altogether. Some have chosen to simply leave the physical church building and others have left the idea of God altogether.

As we mosey along here in 2017, I am feeling better and better about my decision to no longer attend church. It's clear that church has taught most people nothing about what Jesus was truly about and I don't know if knowing how to do church is going to help folks as things descend into chaos.

The author of this book, Candace R.M. Gorhan is a former evangelist who left church and is now an atheist. In her opening she talked about how much more better her life is now that she no longer attends church.  One of the things she mentions is how much  free time she now has for important activities such as self care.

I can agree with similar sentiments because since leaving church a year ago, I've decided that church is not the highest and best use of my time. What is the purpose? What is our mission? Why am I there? I know why I go to my business community. It's for ongoing support, guidance, and to fellowship and grow with other women entrepreneurs so that I can help more women through my business.

I didn't see that in church. It took up a lot of time and it seemed like the point was to keep the church going.  Plus they didn’t allow you to do anything except if you were in the clique or a family member.  I soon found it taking up too much time without much value.

I would no longer attend my business community if it was just about keeping The leaders community going. I also would not attend if it was a time waster without any action.

This book is primarily about Black women and church. I was interested in this book because I think it's crazy that black women are the most religious group but yet we are less likely to be married and have stable families. One of the women I know says that women should spend less time at church and more time nurturing their families. I have to agree. Churches like single women because a lot of the time the pastor becomes a figurative husband or an object of idolatry for these single women.

And as I book I read last year said, churches like single people because they do all of the work since they don't have anything else to do in the eyes of church.

Considering that the majority of black churches are filled with black women, I also find it interesting that there are few Black celebrity women preachers.

I can tell you from my experience in the Black church that many of the women in these places are angry, depressed, bitter, lonely, unhealthy, obese, have bad relationships with men and their children. This behavior is not exactly glorifying God.

Fear Based Religion

“The African-American version of Christianity tends to be significantly more fear inducing than other brands of Christianity.  One can expect the average sermon or church service in a black church to make some reference to hell; why hell is such a scary place, what kinds of people are going to hell, and how to avoid hell.” - Candace R. M. Gorham

Oh my. This. I can remember lots of scary sermons where the preacher hollered and screamed about the day of judgment. As a child I was very frightened.

Now that I am older, I realized that this was a manipulation tactic to keep people coming every week. We never heard about living out our purpose or the greatest good to glorify God.

While the preachers were scaring the church with tales of hell, I guess they weren't frightened of going to Hell themselves after defrauding naive church members.

One of the women interviewed named Bria said that church is a straight up hustle in large part due to members choosing to be willfully ignorant.

She also said that the reason people will keep going back to a church that is spiritually abusive towards them is because the members are scared.

“How do they control us? Fear! Fear! You're scared not to go to church. You're going to deal with some guilt. Especially women” - Bria

She accurately describes that if you decide to skip church someone will call to find out why and so you feel bad.

I have to say that's one thing that I don't miss about church. The phony relationships and always feeling you have to perform for the audience.

It's wonderful to know that I can be beautifully human and explore life without worrying about performing for the church audience. It's also nice to be able to explore things of faith fully without worrying if it fits into the church box.