“Oh, but I like your Christ”: A Personal Spiritual Journey of Religious Deconstruction

Since I can remember, I have had a "passion for deeper meanings." Even as a child growing up in Romania, I had an innate knowledge that there was "more" to the story than what was being presented in the scripted play of daily life. This search for truth naturally led me to the most accessible system available: Religion. But I soon discovered a frustrating paradox. The system that claimed to be the gateway to God often acted as a barrier, a heavy iron gate rather than an open door. I found myself caught between the "official" version of faith—filled with guilt, shame, and hairy-handed rituals—and the "Quiet Truth" I found in the sun-drenched kitchen of my grandmother.

For many, the process of religious deconstruction begins with a single question that the "Gatekeepers" cannot answer. For me, it was a thirty-year journey to realize that God doesn't live in the cathedral, trapped in the scent of incense and old wood. As Mahatma Gandhi famously said: “Oh, but I like your Christ. It is Christians that I do not like. Christians are so unlike Christ.” This sentiment became my compass, guiding me away from the marble floors of the institution and back toward the dirt and sunlight of the real world.

1. The Prison of the Pew: Confronting Church Trauma and the Gatekeepers

I was what they called an "old soul," which is just a polite way of saying I was a six-year-old with the demeanor of a cranky old lady. Every Sunday, my grandmother would herd us to the village church. To a child, a Romanian Orthodox church is not a place of comfort; it is a place of psychological and physical endurance. The building itself was simple, but inside, the atmosphere was thick with a gravity that felt like it was designed to crush a child's spirit. There were no pews to sit on. In the Orthodox tradition, you stand. You stand for two, sometimes three hours, your legs aching, listening to sermons that mean very little to a child’s heart.

I remember looking up at the vaulted ceilings, where paintings of saints sat in the clouds. They didn't look ethereal or kind; they looked stoic, serious, and judgmental. Their unblinking eyes followed you through the gloom, ensuring you behaved "or else." This is where my church trauma began—not with a single explosion of pain, but with a slow, grinding sense of inherent unworthiness. The music only deepened this feeling; the cadence of the songs was grave and drawn out, like a sad omen echoing notions of unworthyness and limiting beliefs. It didn't feel like a celebration of life; it felt like a mourning of it.

The disconnect reached its peak during the ritual of kissing the priest's hand. I remember asking out loud, in front of the entire congregation: "Why do I have to kiss his hand? It’s hairy! And what if he doesn’t wash his hands after peeing?" The adults were horrified, but even as a child, the "official" religion felt phony. It was a foundation built on fear, not love—a system that "sold" access to God, treating Divine grace as a commodity that could only be reached through specific rules and authorized middlemen.

2. The Business of Religion: Gold Foil and Broken Hearts

As I grew, the "Gatekeepers" revealed their true colors. In Romania, the hypocrisy isn't hidden; it’s blatant. I saw the "Business of Religion" for exactly what it is: a money-making machine disguised as a path to salvation. I saw priests who drove luxury cars through villages where families struggled to buy bread. I knew of priests with mistresses and even one who owned a strip club. It felt like a betrayal. I still loved Christ—I felt the "Christ Consciousness" of love and light—but I couldn't help but wonder: are these the same men who crucified Him? They certainly seem similar to the Pharisees He warned us about. They are the spiritual descendants of the men who burned my sisters at the stake for the "crime" of refusing to be servants and baby making machines.

The mask fully fell for me when my father passed away. My family was hurting, drowning in the raw, jagged edges of grief. In Romanian tradition, the priest must perform the funeral rituals. When he arrived, I expected a man of God to offer a crumb of kindness or a word of condolence. Instead, the very first thing he asked was whether we had paid the church tax.

That moment felt inhumane. It was a cold, clinical transaction in the middle of a tragedy. A priest is supposed to be the hands and feet of Christ—kind, giving, and generous. But this man, and so many others like him, are nothing like the Master they claim to serve. Christ told His followers not to even wear a second tunic; today, the church builds gargantuan, "ridiculous" cathedrals covered in gold foil while the homeless shiver on the streets outside.

We see this betrayal on a global scale, too. The documented child abuses in the Catholic Church are public knowledge, as is the fact that the institution often chose to protect the "brand" rather than the children. They transferred abusers to different parishes so they could "start fresh" and find new victims. Did Christ want golden buildings and big hats, or did He want us to house the homeless and feed the hungry? To protect the very children these men abuse? The answer is obvious, yet the business model remains unchanged.

3. Magic vs. Dogma: Finding God Outside the Church

While the church felt like a prison of "don'ts," my grandmother’s kitchen was a sanctuary of "ifs." She was a woman who had survived World War II and multiple oppressive regimes, yet she chose love over bitterness. She was a "village wise woman"—a woman who understood the language of the Earth. She was Christian, but her faith wasn't confined to a prayer book. She had the knowledge of cures, salves, and infusions.

This was my first introduction to being spiritual but not religious. I saw the divide clearly: the Church was focused on judgment and the "serious" business of salvation, while the Spirit Realm was focused on healing and the unconditional presence of the Divine in a cup of coffee or a bunch of dried chamomile. She could tell you the future by looking into the dark residue at the bottom of a porcelain coffee cup, but the real magic was in her resilience.

The most profound lesson I learned from her was about the invisible threads that connect us—a truth that persists even in a post-Christendom world. She told me how my grandfather had been sent to a Gulag in Siberia for seven years. In Romanian tradition, we give pomană—alms for the dead. Years later, they discovered that on the specific days he felt inexplicably full despite having nothing to eat in that frozen wasteland, she had been giving alms for his soul. This proved to me that the "Designer" doesn't need a priest; the intention of a loving heart is the only currency that matters. It was a bridge of love that spanned thousands of miles, proving that Spirit operates far beyond the walls of any building.

4. The Transition: Reconciling Christ with the Self

The "in-between" years were not easy. It took me a long time to learn that the Church and Christ are not one and the same. For years, I carried a heavy backpack of guilt. I had to reconcile the love and generosity I felt in my soul with the rigid dogmas that told me I was worth less because I am a woman. The Church wants us to believe we are born "defective" and "flawed," and that only a man sitting in a wooden box can fix us.

I finally realized the nonsense of it all. I don’t need to tell my sins to a man in a confessional—a man who may very well be more flawed than I am. Now, when I feel the weight of my mistakes, I go to a tree in an empty field. I cry to it. I tell it my sins. God hears me there, under the open sky, and He knows I am sorry. He doesn't need my money for another gold-plated dome; He wants me to use that money to feed the hungry.

Giving myself "permission" to be happy outside the walls of dogma was the ultimate act of liberation. It was the moment I realized that I didn't need to be "fixed" because I wasn't broken; I was just growing. I stopped looking for God in the "Gatekeepers" and started looking for Him in the reflection of the sun on my terrace.

5. The "Fruit" Meditation: Healing Through Presence

To truly heal from the "angry God" narrative, I had to move back into the physical reality of the Designer’s work. In the final chapter of my book, I suggest the "Fruit Meditation" as a tool for this reconnection. It is a simple act, but one that strips away the layers of religious conditioning.

1. Stop everything. Put down the phone and empty your mind.

2. Take a piece of fruit. Feel its weight—an apple, a peach, a grape.

3. Close your eyes and bite. Truly taste it.

4. Immerse yourself. Feel the texture, the juicy sweetness, and the pleasure of the simple act of being alive.

In that moment of total immersion, you aren't "doing" religion; you are "being" spirit. You see the Design—the biology, the environment, and the sun that conspired to create that single moment of pleasure just for you. This is the core of healing church trauma: realizing that the Divine wants you to experience joy, not just penance. The truth was always as simple as an apple, yet we were told it was as complicated as a thousand-page law book.

6. The Name Trap and Reclaiming Your Connection

We have fought wars for centuries over what to call the Divine. God, Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah, Source. We treat God like a brand name we need to defend, forgetting that a name is just a finger pointing at the moon. In my meditative states, the message is always the same: “Value Life. Serve it. Embrace it, love it.” It doesn’t matter what "label" you use if your heart is closed. Whether you identify as a Christian, a Buddhist, or simply a seeker, the truth remains: if you go inside, you will find Love.

The "Gatekeepers" want you to believe that you need a middleman in an ugly hat to tell you that you are loved. But you are part of the natural world—the only reality that predates our inventions. Nowadays, my "church" is my terrace. I go outside, I look up, and I see the sun. I know that as long as the sun is there, all is well. I feel the warmth on my skin and I feel love coming from it, radiating into my heart. I feel the connection to my grandmother, to my grandfather in the Gulag, and to the piece of fruit in my hand.

Go outside. Sit in the sun. Breathe. Wave at the sky when no one is watching. In the rustle of the leaves, you will hear a voice far more authoritative than any sermon. Finding God outside the church isn't a loss of faith; it is the beginning of a real one. It is a transition from a scripted play to an authentic dance. Kindness ripples. Love Life. All is well, as it should be.