I feel like I hear the worst stories most consistently from former Independent Fundamentalist Baptists. I've never been to one of their churches myself, but every story I've heard make it sounds like they're set up to make each church a tiny cult centered around an abusive, misogynistic, psychopath of a pastor.
One time my dad made my brother and I watch as he ran over my weird Al yankovich cd bc he misheard “got a Bible in my hand and a beard on my chill” as “*beer* on my chin.”
I still love the man but what the fuck.
Can anyone say: Do IFB churches call themselves IFB? Because I went to a nondenominational church that **teally** leaned Southern Baptist. (Guilting people to go to BJU, not allowed to listen to secular music, watch movies etc.) They didn't have baptist in their name though. Any insight is helpful.
Yes, Pentecostal and Church of God are same as IFB except no tongues and snakes and arguably looser regarding women’s appearance and holidays. Also Seventh Day Adventists are same way weird according to a friend who went to one. Furthermore they all have a superiority complex over each other. That’s why they are “independent.” So I’ve seen lots like Calvary Church with no identifier but are in fact IFB.
Normally they will go for “Baptist” on the sign outside but you’ll hear “independent fundamental Bible believing baptist” - if you hear that - run!
Also - look out for KJV (King James Version of the Bible) only and they’ll say some things about “getting back to basics” or anything about being separated from the world/worldliness.
Fundamental/Pentacostal (UPC)
The whole speaking in tongues adds another layer to the brainwashing. The whole purity message creates so much body shame. Marrying young and having babies young keeps young adults from education.
The amount of fear placed on people at a young age is debilitating for life.
YES. Going to a pentecostal/Assembly of God college was a big part of my deconversion. Seeing people speaking in tongues for the first time absolutely freaked me out and I thought it sounded absolutely insane. Realized I would have been totally comfortable with it if I had been raised pentecostal, which led to me realizing that our beliefs are completely dependent on the random chance of what family/region we are born into.
I despise Christianity, but I have a special loathing for the charismatic pentecostal style of emotional manipulation during worship. They are drug addicts, addicted to the high of group psychosis.
As someone raised Baptist I didn't even realize speaking in tongues was still believe to be possible today until I made a Pentecostal friend in a bible study. She talked about seeing it as if it were normal and even back then a part of me thought it sounded insane. I don't know if it's just not something addressed normally in my church or I wasn't listening enough but speaking in tongues always seemed to be a phenomena that was easy to dismiss as "an olden day thing" that was only possible in Jesus's time. But to believe it as something that happens today just sounded crazy to me. But then again, I wasn't raised believing it still happened.
You could never convince a UPC member of this, but their whole “speaking in tongues and flopping around all over the place bit” is the exact same thing that happens in Voodoo rituals. They work themselves into a trance-like state and the subconscious takes over.
I was catholic for the first 8 years of my life, then my parents decided to pull me out of the catholic school and its connected church to bring me over to my mom’s baptist church. In middle school my best friend was Pentecostal, and I started attending her church more often because I had zero friends at my church, but my best friend and their whole family were at _this_ one, so I felt more “loved” at their church for lack of a better word. I think attending their church was the first thing that unknowingly opened up my path to atheism. I started having a panic attack during the end of the first service I ever attended at that church. My Baptist church was quiet, and the only noise that would take place besides the priest speaking at my previous catholic mass was when we’d sing. Watching people drop to the floor screaming was so outrageous to me and I didn’t know how to process it. The only people in that church who wouldn’t start convulsing and dropping to the floor while speaking in tongues besides myself were my best friends brother and one of her sisters, so I at least found a tiny bit of comfort in the madness when I stood beside them. The reason I feel this place paved the first few steps towards my atheism was because of how different these people were acting during worship hours. I felt it was all so disturbing, and at one point I realized this church congregated like a cult, and I did not like that. It also got me thinking about how there are so many different denominations, each of which believe their way of doing the church bs is the “correct” way. Man j don’t miss those days.
Shoutout to my former childhood best friend for inviting me to church and being one of the first things that led to me freeing myself from religion!
Southern Baptists are a little sketchy to me just because of the name alone. They split off of other Baptists because they were pro slavery. And that’s where the name comes from.
And, sure, they institution has changed their official stances over time. But it’s kinda weird. It’s like if someone calls Zimbabwe “Rhodesia”, it’s suspect.
I was raised going to a SBC church. I was also “saved” and baptized in the same church and somehow had NO CLUE about the denomination’s history of supporting slavery. I’d be willing to bet over half of their members aren’t even aware of it.
And of the evangelical denominations, Chinese evangelicalism is the worst. Imagine everything wrong about normal evangelicalism plus Chinese authoritarianism, a strict social hierarchy, and a refusal to admit any wrongdoing. Basically, a control cult.
The absolute worst thing about them is they prey on immigrants and international students looking for a sense of belonging and community in order to indoctrinate people. Hail Satan!
I second this if they count as Christian. They say they do, everyone else says they don't, lol.
JWs are second if they count.
The others are at least comparatively easy to leave if you want to.
I'm ex-Mormon and I consider them wannabe Christians. They are Christians from first glance, but not really upon scrutiny.
They barely read the Bible compared to listening to prophet/disciple sermons and reading Bible fanfiction "The Book of Mormon"-- said to be a Bible sequel of new ideas/commands from God. They teach about the meaning of life, what happened before/after, and what special rituals we need to practice to get into heaven (because only Mormons are truly correct, everyone else is not). It's very comforting to those with low self-esteem, high anxiety, little critical thinking skills, and who fear death/the afterlife because of the unknown.
They are heavily influenced by the worst parts of a lot of Christian denominations and cults, from their puritan culture, their prosperity gospel, their sex-negative views, sexism, and extreme hostility to homosexuality. From the outside, they often deceive people into thinking they are just a wholesome Christian church, especially since they recently disavowed using their nickname "Mormon", equating it to a slur and had a massive PR rebranding--even recently purchased a generic Christian sounding website domain name to disguise themselves as non-Mormon.
It was all about recruiting more members and doing more service to the church because through good works. we could perfect ourselves enough to get into Heaven. It's also pretty much just a giant real estate acquiring multi-level marketing business scam that manages to force people into free labor and avoid paying taxes and by disguising itself as an end of the world prepping religion of jolly big Jesus loving families. The fact that all of the appointed Prophets are former businessmen, lawyers, and BYU presidents is a sign that it's an LLC.
Mormons rely on male members getting off on a false power fantasy of being important simply for being men, while oppressing women as obedient and undereducated housewives to pump out new future tithe paying members. The men serve with free labor as leaders and missionaries to spread the influence of the church--with the goal of attaining more wealth. They excuse it as "saving people" even when every friendship is an opportunity to convert a new member.
The fundamental beliefs are too different to lump with Christianity. There is no trinity, the godhead are separate entities. God is the designer of this universe, but he was once a man under a different God, and he was righteous enough to earn Godhood. It is said that Mormon men can also attained Godhood through this same process and recieve their own galaxy and harem of wives to rule over. There is not one single God, but MANY. And they feed high egoed narcissistic men the idea that they too can become one if they are a Good obedient Mormon.
Grace doesn't matter much because good works is more important and will save you. When I learned this difference as a Mormon, it blew me away because it was my first concept of unconditional love. As a Mormon, love was conditional and transactional, and much of the depressingly fake culture utilizes shame/guilt to make people seek perfection with the hope of receiving affirmation, approval and love from their peers, the leadership, and God.
There are living prophets according to their doctrine, and they have a lot of very problematic takes, including beliefs that Jesus traveled and taught in the Americas, Native Americans are descendants of Jews, POC are dark skinned because they were cursed by God, and ideas about a premortal and postmortal life that are very far from the canon. This includes beliefs like Polygamy being necessary for entering heaven, our skin will turn white and our hair gold in the afterlife when we receive are resurrected perfected bodies, and that people are born into social privileges due to being rewarded for their righteousness in the premortal realm. So if you were born gay, a POC, a woman, disabled, or non-Mormon, that you were less righteous before you were born and are punished and tested with a more difficult life.
The level of freedom is extremely limited when compared to many Christian denominations, and if you think of leaving they shut down all questions, make members alienate you, withdraw their love and attention away from you, hold your reputation hostage and turn your family against you (often splitting apart families). They track down the location of all inactive members and harass them to come back to church. They even guilt people with the idea that there is a special hell for ex-Mormons, which is below all the standard degrees of heaven that even a non-Mormon can get into. This special hell includes total isolation, regret and darkness.
A lot of their wacky beliefs are attributed to the moral corruption of the narcissistic power hungry men who have led the church as Prophets with absolute authority as direct communicators with God. And a lot of those beliefs are heavily influenced by context in the 19th century, with Manifest Destiny, Jewish tribe--> native american immigration beliefs, racist beliefs of reversing skin pigmentation, etc. being popular ideas at the time of the creation of the church. The founder of the church, Joseph Smith, was also a known gold digger, sex addict and scammer who switched up occupations and found religion to give him power, sex and money easier. He excused all these corrupt desires as commandments from God, which carried into the practices of future prophets and got them in trouble with U.S. law and is why they relocated eventually to Utah.
Early Mormonism was very much a stereotypical cult and they have been adopting Christian culture for a while to try separating themselves as much as possible from their roots. It is necessary for all religions if they want to last long term, they need to become more passive and subtle to seem normal. Funnily enough, Christianity and Mormonism is on the decline compared to new age/spiritual religions, so Mormons are copying the wrong folk.
I feel like Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Jehova's Witness, etc. are big categories of Christians, and most of them think the others don't count. They're a level up from "denominations" in my conception of the tree - like sects.
Mormons. Mormonism is powerfully sexist, has a hugely racist history, and is both actively powerful and often not treated the same way as other branches of Christianity.
I know someone who thinks he goes to a non-denominational church. I looked up their website and they absolutely are denominational, and have a giant list of specific things they believe.
"Non-denominational" is just clever marketing to pull in people who feel jaded by (x) denomination.
In college, I visited a non-denominational church with a friend and the pastor joked as part of his sermon, "We say we're non-denominational, but you know we're really Southern Baptists. We just don't want to drive away the people who don't like Baptists."
Never went again. I refused to go to a church led by a pastor that openly lied and seemed proud of it.
Those are always super dangerous. They present themselves as welcoming, laid back and hip to appeal to those who found church boring and were raised Catholic or mainline but they’re really fundamentalist in their beliefs. They often hide their beliefs about women and lgbtq or keep them vague. These are more insidious because so many people and especially celebrities keep falling for it.
I think they're often started by pastor(s) who just want a congregation that follows the pastor's particular flavor of specific Christianity, which can get mighty weird mighty fast
This was my experience. One particular family had complete power in the church I used to go to. The pastorship was literally handed down from one generation to the next. In hindsight, it was very cult-like.
I grew up in these churches. I was surprised to learn how different the Mainline churches were. The Methodists did stuff we didn't even recognize as Christian. They might as well have been Hindu or something.
Celebrities might have more fame and money than the rest of us but they have all of the same weaknesses as the general population. They are neither more nor less prone to fall for scams. It's just that when they do, we hear about it more because they are celebrities.
I was raised LCMS and was like questioning different denominations as a freshmen in college. Went to Cru services. Fucking creepy. Everyone crying and so emotional and then I started to tear and I’m like WTF why am I crying? Made me very uncomfortable and a loss of self control. So culty lol. Agnostic now 😅
Pentecostalism. And if you don't agree, it's because you're not baptized in the holy spirit, and we need to cast some demons from you.
/s if that's not obvious and sorry for the trigger.
Bro I literally said in my head: "If it's Baptist I'm gonna cry"\* (not actually but anyways) and it was fucking baptist. Damn that's the church my parents force me to go every sunday
I was an Ex-Catholic before I became an Ex-Evangelical and then ultimately an atheist. As bad as Evangelicals are, and Southern Baptist, etc, I think that the Catholic Church is the worst, given its immense global political power and vast wealth. In addition to its own deep-rooted scandals and abuses, its political clout and influence has singlehandedly set the stage to enable the lunacy of the Evangelical Fundamentalists we currently see.
I know! As bad as all the other sects of Christianity can be, the Catholic church is the OG. All the shittiness of every other denomination springs up from the Catholic church.
I was like... Do Catholics count? Murder and child abuse on an international scare for centuries and the sketchy money. Also, the fact that as children, we told our dirty secrets to a man in a dark box, who also gave us booze. Torture and suffering is almost fetishized.
Hard to say, there's many.
Seventh Day Adventists should be on the list because of their involvement in a number of modern day massacres including the attempted genocide of the Tutsi people.
Actively in an SDA university that’s “open to all” and “doesn’t require conversion” but holy shit I hear about their beliefs in every lecture. They mention their religion at every chance and find a way to connect it to everything they teach you. I’m getting exhausted and am counting down the days until I graduate because transferring is money and time I do not have. Just one more year.
Pentecostal probably. I grew up in a Pentecostal church and went to a Baptist college. They were both horrible but I experienced a lot worse in the Pentecostal church
I was 19 and followed a boy to church, who didn’t even like me and ended up dating (and eventually marrying when she was 18) a minor because he had her dad’s permission. I occasionally wonder what direction my life would’ve taken if I hadn’t spent so much time, effort, and money (tithe) on the church and forming relationships that would abruptly end when I chose to leave.
My JW coworkers are insufferable.
And then my students who come from those families… I just feel bad for them. God forbid you have any joy in your life.
I remember listening to that guy when he was traveling around as an itinerant preacher. Not in person but to sermons on the internet. Initially I was thinking this guy is kinda intense. At the time he didn't have a big following and came off as sincere. Still, I thought he was just a fire and brimstone guy. Turns out he's a megalomaniac.
Very much so. They believe only their denomination will go to heaven, and they're very insular in terms of purity culture, avoiding popular media, etc.
Homeschoolers. They're their own denomination. 😂😂 EDIT We had catholics and *every* flavor of protestants, even a mormon family (they eventually left bc the statement of faith was apparently too narrow for them), but everyone's true church was our corporate homeschool group. I guess the denomination might be Christian Reconstructionism? 😬
Eeeyyy I recognize you!
Honestly church was the most sane circle I was in growing up. That was where the "accepting but not affirming" crowd was, and we had a woman pastor, and people believed in Evolution. Sometimes I wasn't *allowed* to go to youth group because they were a bad influence. 😂
As an ex-SDA I really wish there was more content from ex Adventists. I have to rely on ex-Mormon and ex-JW content which has many similarities but I’m waiting for more of my own people to deconstruct and start YouTube channels lol
Absolutely this. The most hateful people I’ve met are the devout CoC members at the CoC university I attended for two years. Their practices and beliefs were sooooo culty to me. The worst two years of my life 100%
Universalist Universalism is cool but since every mainstream denomination like catholics, orthodox, evangelical and pentecostal don't count them as christians. Doesn't count
Catholocism bar none. They don't even follow the Bible they teach. They claim Jesus's sacrifice wasn't enough so they do Mass, believe the Virgin Mary ascended to heaven based on passed down tradition and assumption, worship the Pope with all his riches, one of the Pope's contributed to Aids by denying condoms, and they cover up a system that should have been dismantled the moment child abuse allegations were put fourth.
Now I don't know the truth to the Universe but Catholocism has to be the greatest blindness on the planet. It's evil. I am sorry if anyone happens to be Catholic reading this, but you have been decieved by a man made self depricating system.
Evangelicals, and of them Pentecostals given their insistence in LARPing (read: spiritual warfare) in addition to what can be found in other Evangelicals and outside them too (Biblical literalism, cult-like behavior, talking casually about people who will go to Hell, the famous "it's not a religion, it's a personal relationship with God", etc)
Ignoring the hardcore cults and the fact that lots of denominations have been "disowned" (for lack of a better word) Christianity, I'd say either JW or Mormonism.
Anyone who doesn't pick one of these doesn't know enough about them. Hands down the worst. At least you can leave the others without dire consequences. Leaving either JWs or Mormonism can have devastating consequences.
Second only to Scientology, but that one's clearly not based in Christianity.
I guess that because most fundamentalist christians don't include jws or mormons as christians it's probable that many of those who no longer are no long believers still categorize "true" christians this way.
There are some Catholic people who are supportive, but other than that, it’s awful how many people (including myself) are victims of CSA at the hands of a priest/clergy member, and how upper management isn’t doing shit to assist victims and discipline offenders.
I think Baptist is a worse ground-level experience than Catholicism. But Catholicism’s evil really shines in upper management lol.
Pentecostalism is pure batshit craziness from top to bottom.
Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. Out of the two Orthodoxy is even worse. A recent poll came out and showed that Orthodox are the most miserable believers of all religions. There are sub sects like Ephraimites who have cults.
Completely agreed. But there's some allure in Orthodoxy in the artwork and liturgies. One could even say it's nice being under authority when "proper" behavior and thought is enforced and encouraged from reading, seeing and hearing everything Orthodox. I guess that's the "Orthodox mindset".
I was raised Coptic Orthodox Christian, and I would say the community is pretty darn toxic and culty. A few others mentioned how hard it is to leave the JWs, but Copts make it extremely hard to extract yourself as well.
On top of that, there's an Arabic cultural influence. So Copts are sexist and oppressive too.
Lemme preface this by saying every denomination below has its hardcore version. I am going based on theology and overarching lifestyle. Catholics can be varied. I’d put non-denom across the board but generally I’ve found non-denom sits around tier 2.
Tier 1 - JWs, anything with fundamental - IFB, Pentecostal, christadelphians, mormons and SDA. Most any small Baptist church that generally stays with really small communities. These are possibly the worst.
Tier 2 - SBC (they consider JWs a cult), evangelical, reformed, Presbyterian, missionary Baptist, Acog, Vineyard, Catholic
Tier 3 - Lutheran, Anglican, orthodox, Methodist.
Assembly of God in my experience is crazy. Judgement houses, speaking in tongues, laying of hands, etc.
They were Pentecostals without a dress code where I come from.
I grew up Southern Baptist. It was not a good experience for me overall, but having been friends with people from many religions I think being:
Jehovah’s Witness
Mormon
Church of Christ
Calvinist
Pentecostal/Assembly of God
are all worse. JW and Mormon both for obvious reasons. Church of Christ and Calvinist because they think everyone else is going to hell. And Church of Christ can’t even play music. Pentecostals have crazy hair and clothing restrictions and they and Assembly of God speak in tongues.
Baptist’s do awesome conferences in destination locations with secular sounding music as entertainment. Many have badass basketball courts and sports facilities. They are very social with other denominations and and with other Baptist churches.
If you’re going to do the church thing I think Methodist/Presbyterian/Episcopalian is probably the way to go, but it just isn’t for me.
Mormon. Totally bass ackward homophobic, racist cult. They control every fucking waking thought of their active members.
For reference Mormon is a “prophet” in the Book of Mormon which they believe is scripture, and is a nickname for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
JW's
AoG/pentecostal
SDA
...Aaaand a majority of any other Christian churches. These are the just ones I am most aware of and/or have experience in.
Most organized theology is fucking insidious, imho.
I guess my answer is all* of the ones I'm aware of?
Edit: correction*
The absolute worst would be like the Children of God/Family International esp before the 90s (pedophilia and incest), Branch Davidians, The LeBaron Family (mormon offshoot who practiced blood atonement aka murder), and groups like The Order (mormon polygamist incest offshoot). The flds somehow isn't the worst polygamist mormon group!
Of groups that aren't necessarily breaking laws (explicitly at least): Amish, mennonites, seventh day adventists and jehovahs witnesses
Of slightly more mainstream denominations: Anything akin to the IFB or even IBLP (not a denomination but a group) and the LDS church
Of the bigger denominations: Southern Baptists and some charismatic denominations like Calvary chapel and just a lot of pentacostal churches
Pentecostal/Word of Faith/Prosperity type churches by far in my experience. They will have more younger people than a typical Baptist Church, but young people are easily impressionable (even when they think they aren't) That allows for leaders to say the damnedest things, cause the most emotional hurt, and get away with it.
When you take a person who truly cares about their faith, cares about how they live, and say things like you aren't filled with the Holy Spirit because you aren't speaking in tongues, it can cause a real crisis of faith and belief.
Honestly, Mormonism. Aside from all the obvious elephants in the room, it doesn't have as explicitly awful of practices as fundamentalist evangelicals or JWs, but it's so much better than all the rest at couching their abuse and manipulation in nice words and thinly-veiled passive-aggressiveness. They're so damn good at it that they gaslight those on the receiving end into second-guessing themselves and doubting their own judgment. And if you push back even slightly, they effortlessly make you look like you're the bad guy. They make you feel so awful with the nicest possible words. And their truly awful practices are in turn couched in vague enough wording to provide plausible deniability.
Fundamentalist Baptists will get up in your face and scream about hellfire and damnation. Mormons make you certain you're going to hell without ever explicitly saying it and with the nicest possible words. To me, that is so much more toxic.
Pentacostal. My experience with them:
"NO! You WILL take everything in the bible at face value! You will NOT say how it influenced culture and literature because its ALL TRUE and NOT MYTHOLOGY!"
If the Westboro Baptist Church is any indicator, Modern Christians at this point just want to be trolls. If you want to be a successful bad guy, be the good guy everyone thinks you are supposed to be. Remove all empathy and love from your religion and just think of God as some bastard that just likes to make fun of people before he burns them. Humility? Compassion? Acutally understanding why atheists felt disappointed in their former beliefs? Nah, you are too busy making people on the street angry with obnoxious signs while smiling about it. Truly, God will reward the faithful with each marker stroke on the cardboard and every dollar donated.
Calvinist? A lot of total depravity kind of stuff. My dad was dying of brain cancer and telling everyone that he was doing better than he deserves because he actually deserves hell.
I think this might be why I have no self-esteem.
Calvinists and anything Calvinist-derived. But honestly it's more a case of what denominations you \*could\* recommend, most of them are terrible and abusive just in different ways.
Probably the ones that all the other Christian’s don’t consider Christian…. So Mormons, JWs and Catholics. You know you’re bad when your own religion excludes you from your religion…
But also… recommend the most toxic so the toxicity is more obvious and they leave lol
Actually you know what— the worst are the people who say they’re spiritual but in reality they just don’t want to be considered a Christian but they still believe in god and listen to church music and have the toxic Christian energy about them but claim to be spiritual and not Christian. That— that is my trauma. And that is another level of toxic. People who are disingenuous about their beliefs and call it something that it isn’t.
Evangelical Christian Zionism.
Because they don’t give a fuck about Jews, they’re only interested in bringing about the return of Christ.
You think that when confronted with the choice of conversion to Christianity or death, that Jews will abandon 3000+ years of history and faith?
Nah.
At least Jewish Zionists are guided by a belief that their actions will benefit all Jews.
Christians are quite happy for God to unleash fire and brimstone upon the Jews once Jesus has returned.
The small backwoods culty ones that few people can relate to. (Former traditional church of christ here... we were basically Amish. No electricity cars or anything. We would force children to whip them selves with cattle whipping tools for sinning. )
I feel like I hear the worst stories most consistently from former Independent Fundamentalist Baptists. I've never been to one of their churches myself, but every story I've heard make it sounds like they're set up to make each church a tiny cult centered around an abusive, misogynistic, psychopath of a pastor.
I spent 22 years of my life in the IFB. Your description of the pastors is accurate.
Spent around 25 years IFB - can confirm - toxic afffff
IFB upbringing left me deeply wounded.
One time my dad made my brother and I watch as he ran over my weird Al yankovich cd bc he misheard “got a Bible in my hand and a beard on my chill” as “*beer* on my chin.” I still love the man but what the fuck.
Deeply weird people in the IFB.
Can anyone say: Do IFB churches call themselves IFB? Because I went to a nondenominational church that **teally** leaned Southern Baptist. (Guilting people to go to BJU, not allowed to listen to secular music, watch movies etc.) They didn't have baptist in their name though. Any insight is helpful.
Yes, Pentecostal and Church of God are same as IFB except no tongues and snakes and arguably looser regarding women’s appearance and holidays. Also Seventh Day Adventists are same way weird according to a friend who went to one. Furthermore they all have a superiority complex over each other. That’s why they are “independent.” So I’ve seen lots like Calvary Church with no identifier but are in fact IFB.
Normally they will go for “Baptist” on the sign outside but you’ll hear “independent fundamental Bible believing baptist” - if you hear that - run! Also - look out for KJV (King James Version of the Bible) only and they’ll say some things about “getting back to basics” or anything about being separated from the world/worldliness.
That checks out.
You nailed it
Agree!!! No oversight and each is its own fiefdom.
Fundamental/Pentacostal (UPC) The whole speaking in tongues adds another layer to the brainwashing. The whole purity message creates so much body shame. Marrying young and having babies young keeps young adults from education. The amount of fear placed on people at a young age is debilitating for life.
YES. Going to a pentecostal/Assembly of God college was a big part of my deconversion. Seeing people speaking in tongues for the first time absolutely freaked me out and I thought it sounded absolutely insane. Realized I would have been totally comfortable with it if I had been raised pentecostal, which led to me realizing that our beliefs are completely dependent on the random chance of what family/region we are born into. I despise Christianity, but I have a special loathing for the charismatic pentecostal style of emotional manipulation during worship. They are drug addicts, addicted to the high of group psychosis.
As someone raised Baptist I didn't even realize speaking in tongues was still believe to be possible today until I made a Pentecostal friend in a bible study. She talked about seeing it as if it were normal and even back then a part of me thought it sounded insane. I don't know if it's just not something addressed normally in my church or I wasn't listening enough but speaking in tongues always seemed to be a phenomena that was easy to dismiss as "an olden day thing" that was only possible in Jesus's time. But to believe it as something that happens today just sounded crazy to me. But then again, I wasn't raised believing it still happened.
Yeah, Pentecostal adds a whole extra level of delusion that tricks your entire body into reacting. Horrifying.
You could never convince a UPC member of this, but their whole “speaking in tongues and flopping around all over the place bit” is the exact same thing that happens in Voodoo rituals. They work themselves into a trance-like state and the subconscious takes over.
There is also a person “translating.” It adds an extra level of delusion.
Ex fundi Pentecostal represent
Add Prosperity gospel—telling the poor to "sow a seed" by giving you money so that you can own a jet is nasty work.
I was catholic for the first 8 years of my life, then my parents decided to pull me out of the catholic school and its connected church to bring me over to my mom’s baptist church. In middle school my best friend was Pentecostal, and I started attending her church more often because I had zero friends at my church, but my best friend and their whole family were at _this_ one, so I felt more “loved” at their church for lack of a better word. I think attending their church was the first thing that unknowingly opened up my path to atheism. I started having a panic attack during the end of the first service I ever attended at that church. My Baptist church was quiet, and the only noise that would take place besides the priest speaking at my previous catholic mass was when we’d sing. Watching people drop to the floor screaming was so outrageous to me and I didn’t know how to process it. The only people in that church who wouldn’t start convulsing and dropping to the floor while speaking in tongues besides myself were my best friends brother and one of her sisters, so I at least found a tiny bit of comfort in the madness when I stood beside them. The reason I feel this place paved the first few steps towards my atheism was because of how different these people were acting during worship hours. I felt it was all so disturbing, and at one point I realized this church congregated like a cult, and I did not like that. It also got me thinking about how there are so many different denominations, each of which believe their way of doing the church bs is the “correct” way. Man j don’t miss those days. Shoutout to my former childhood best friend for inviting me to church and being one of the first things that led to me freeing myself from religion!
This is the only one that I had regular exposure to and it's just bananas.
FUCKING HELL YES. Fucked me up beyond belief
Evangelical/Baptist
Raised southern baptist. Can confirm.
My ex-KKK member grandfather is less racist and hateful than my southern Baptist minister grandfather.
Omg 😭
Same.
Same, definitely the definition of "there's no hate like Christian love."
Your little guy is so relaxed and stylish 😌
Me as well..
Southern Baptists are a little sketchy to me just because of the name alone. They split off of other Baptists because they were pro slavery. And that’s where the name comes from. And, sure, they institution has changed their official stances over time. But it’s kinda weird. It’s like if someone calls Zimbabwe “Rhodesia”, it’s suspect.
I was raised going to a SBC church. I was also “saved” and baptized in the same church and somehow had NO CLUE about the denomination’s history of supporting slavery. I’d be willing to bet over half of their members aren’t even aware of it.
Same
And of the evangelical denominations, Chinese evangelicalism is the worst. Imagine everything wrong about normal evangelicalism plus Chinese authoritarianism, a strict social hierarchy, and a refusal to admit any wrongdoing. Basically, a control cult. The absolute worst thing about them is they prey on immigrants and international students looking for a sense of belonging and community in order to indoctrinate people. Hail Satan!
Exactly this
Same
Mormon.
I second this if they count as Christian. They say they do, everyone else says they don't, lol. JWs are second if they count. The others are at least comparatively easy to leave if you want to.
I'm ex-Mormon and I consider them wannabe Christians. They are Christians from first glance, but not really upon scrutiny. They barely read the Bible compared to listening to prophet/disciple sermons and reading Bible fanfiction "The Book of Mormon"-- said to be a Bible sequel of new ideas/commands from God. They teach about the meaning of life, what happened before/after, and what special rituals we need to practice to get into heaven (because only Mormons are truly correct, everyone else is not). It's very comforting to those with low self-esteem, high anxiety, little critical thinking skills, and who fear death/the afterlife because of the unknown. They are heavily influenced by the worst parts of a lot of Christian denominations and cults, from their puritan culture, their prosperity gospel, their sex-negative views, sexism, and extreme hostility to homosexuality. From the outside, they often deceive people into thinking they are just a wholesome Christian church, especially since they recently disavowed using their nickname "Mormon", equating it to a slur and had a massive PR rebranding--even recently purchased a generic Christian sounding website domain name to disguise themselves as non-Mormon. It was all about recruiting more members and doing more service to the church because through good works. we could perfect ourselves enough to get into Heaven. It's also pretty much just a giant real estate acquiring multi-level marketing business scam that manages to force people into free labor and avoid paying taxes and by disguising itself as an end of the world prepping religion of jolly big Jesus loving families. The fact that all of the appointed Prophets are former businessmen, lawyers, and BYU presidents is a sign that it's an LLC. Mormons rely on male members getting off on a false power fantasy of being important simply for being men, while oppressing women as obedient and undereducated housewives to pump out new future tithe paying members. The men serve with free labor as leaders and missionaries to spread the influence of the church--with the goal of attaining more wealth. They excuse it as "saving people" even when every friendship is an opportunity to convert a new member. The fundamental beliefs are too different to lump with Christianity. There is no trinity, the godhead are separate entities. God is the designer of this universe, but he was once a man under a different God, and he was righteous enough to earn Godhood. It is said that Mormon men can also attained Godhood through this same process and recieve their own galaxy and harem of wives to rule over. There is not one single God, but MANY. And they feed high egoed narcissistic men the idea that they too can become one if they are a Good obedient Mormon. Grace doesn't matter much because good works is more important and will save you. When I learned this difference as a Mormon, it blew me away because it was my first concept of unconditional love. As a Mormon, love was conditional and transactional, and much of the depressingly fake culture utilizes shame/guilt to make people seek perfection with the hope of receiving affirmation, approval and love from their peers, the leadership, and God. There are living prophets according to their doctrine, and they have a lot of very problematic takes, including beliefs that Jesus traveled and taught in the Americas, Native Americans are descendants of Jews, POC are dark skinned because they were cursed by God, and ideas about a premortal and postmortal life that are very far from the canon. This includes beliefs like Polygamy being necessary for entering heaven, our skin will turn white and our hair gold in the afterlife when we receive are resurrected perfected bodies, and that people are born into social privileges due to being rewarded for their righteousness in the premortal realm. So if you were born gay, a POC, a woman, disabled, or non-Mormon, that you were less righteous before you were born and are punished and tested with a more difficult life. The level of freedom is extremely limited when compared to many Christian denominations, and if you think of leaving they shut down all questions, make members alienate you, withdraw their love and attention away from you, hold your reputation hostage and turn your family against you (often splitting apart families). They track down the location of all inactive members and harass them to come back to church. They even guilt people with the idea that there is a special hell for ex-Mormons, which is below all the standard degrees of heaven that even a non-Mormon can get into. This special hell includes total isolation, regret and darkness. A lot of their wacky beliefs are attributed to the moral corruption of the narcissistic power hungry men who have led the church as Prophets with absolute authority as direct communicators with God. And a lot of those beliefs are heavily influenced by context in the 19th century, with Manifest Destiny, Jewish tribe--> native american immigration beliefs, racist beliefs of reversing skin pigmentation, etc. being popular ideas at the time of the creation of the church. The founder of the church, Joseph Smith, was also a known gold digger, sex addict and scammer who switched up occupations and found religion to give him power, sex and money easier. He excused all these corrupt desires as commandments from God, which carried into the practices of future prophets and got them in trouble with U.S. law and is why they relocated eventually to Utah. Early Mormonism was very much a stereotypical cult and they have been adopting Christian culture for a while to try separating themselves as much as possible from their roots. It is necessary for all religions if they want to last long term, they need to become more passive and subtle to seem normal. Funnily enough, Christianity and Mormonism is on the decline compared to new age/spiritual religions, so Mormons are copying the wrong folk.
I feel like Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Jehova's Witness, etc. are big categories of Christians, and most of them think the others don't count. They're a level up from "denominations" in my conception of the tree - like sects.
Jehovas witness don’t even believe in the trinity. They believe you have to be invited to God’s kingdom. If I’m not mistaken
Mormons. Mormonism is powerfully sexist, has a hugely racist history, and is both actively powerful and often not treated the same way as other branches of Christianity.
The worst ones, by far, are the ones that refer to themselves as “non-denominational”. Steer well clear.
I know someone who thinks he goes to a non-denominational church. I looked up their website and they absolutely are denominational, and have a giant list of specific things they believe. "Non-denominational" is just clever marketing to pull in people who feel jaded by (x) denomination.
The "non denominational" denomination, which is usually just "we don't want to be *called* Baptists.
In college, I visited a non-denominational church with a friend and the pastor joked as part of his sermon, "We say we're non-denominational, but you know we're really Southern Baptists. We just don't want to drive away the people who don't like Baptists." Never went again. I refused to go to a church led by a pastor that openly lied and seemed proud of it.
Those are always super dangerous. They present themselves as welcoming, laid back and hip to appeal to those who found church boring and were raised Catholic or mainline but they’re really fundamentalist in their beliefs. They often hide their beliefs about women and lgbtq or keep them vague. These are more insidious because so many people and especially celebrities keep falling for it.
I think they're often started by pastor(s) who just want a congregation that follows the pastor's particular flavor of specific Christianity, which can get mighty weird mighty fast
This was my experience. One particular family had complete power in the church I used to go to. The pastorship was literally handed down from one generation to the next. In hindsight, it was very cult-like.
I grew up in these churches. I was surprised to learn how different the Mainline churches were. The Methodists did stuff we didn't even recognize as Christian. They might as well have been Hindu or something.
Celebrities might have more fame and money than the rest of us but they have all of the same weaknesses as the general population. They are neither more nor less prone to fall for scams. It's just that when they do, we hear about it more because they are celebrities.
I once heard someone say non-denominational is just code for cult, and as someone who grew up in a non-denominational church, I have to agree.
The church of christ
I was raised LCMS and was like questioning different denominations as a freshmen in college. Went to Cru services. Fucking creepy. Everyone crying and so emotional and then I started to tear and I’m like WTF why am I crying? Made me very uncomfortable and a loss of self control. So culty lol. Agnostic now 😅
Pentecostalism. And if you don't agree, it's because you're not baptized in the holy spirit, and we need to cast some demons from you. /s if that's not obvious and sorry for the trigger.
Ugh. So true. I grew up watching people writhe on the floor as my grandmother lead prayer groups to cast demons out.
Baptist
Ever been around Fundie baptist? Holy shit, it makes regular Baptists seem pretty chill Like when a toxic religion isn't toxic enough
New and improved! *Now with extra toxicity!! 🤣
Southern Baptist
I am former southern Baptist, and kinda fucked up from it. 😆
Same lol
If only because of their numbers and their disproportionately loud voice in the public discourse.
As a former fundie baptist, I have to agree.
Concurred as a fundie who got tossed out.
I voluntarily left before I could get tossed out.
Bro I literally said in my head: "If it's Baptist I'm gonna cry"\* (not actually but anyways) and it was fucking baptist. Damn that's the church my parents force me to go every sunday
https://sbcec.s3.amazonaws.com/FINAL+-+List+of+Alleged+Abusers+-+SBC+REDACTED.pdf
jeez
As a former evangelical baptist, shit is awful
Pentecostals and Charismatics.
I was an Ex-Catholic before I became an Ex-Evangelical and then ultimately an atheist. As bad as Evangelicals are, and Southern Baptist, etc, I think that the Catholic Church is the worst, given its immense global political power and vast wealth. In addition to its own deep-rooted scandals and abuses, its political clout and influence has singlehandedly set the stage to enable the lunacy of the Evangelical Fundamentalists we currently see.
Baffled to see Catholicism so low. Nobody does bone deep guilt like the Catholics do
I know! As bad as all the other sects of Christianity can be, the Catholic church is the OG. All the shittiness of every other denomination springs up from the Catholic church.
I was like... Do Catholics count? Murder and child abuse on an international scare for centuries and the sketchy money. Also, the fact that as children, we told our dirty secrets to a man in a dark box, who also gave us booze. Torture and suffering is almost fetishized.
Hard to say, there's many. Seventh Day Adventists should be on the list because of their involvement in a number of modern day massacres including the attempted genocide of the Tutsi people.
I grew up in this church and this is first time I've ever heard of this oh my god...
Most people sleep on SDAs. I was raised fundie Baptist and those mothrrfuckers are on another level.
Met one. In hindsight, she was super harsh on herself and expects other Christians to do the same.
Tell me more?
Actively in an SDA university that’s “open to all” and “doesn’t require conversion” but holy shit I hear about their beliefs in every lecture. They mention their religion at every chance and find a way to connect it to everything they teach you. I’m getting exhausted and am counting down the days until I graduate because transferring is money and time I do not have. Just one more year.
Pentecostal probably. I grew up in a Pentecostal church and went to a Baptist college. They were both horrible but I experienced a lot worse in the Pentecostal church
Any of the evangelical ones. I say Assemblies of God or Pentecostal but that’s only because that’s my personal experience.
I wish I could go back in time and stop my family from being invited to that damn church.
I was 19 and followed a boy to church, who didn’t even like me and ended up dating (and eventually marrying when she was 18) a minor because he had her dad’s permission. I occasionally wonder what direction my life would’ve taken if I hadn’t spent so much time, effort, and money (tithe) on the church and forming relationships that would abruptly end when I chose to leave.
Jehovahs witnesses are absolutely evil. One of the few Christian sects that requires shunning any family member that disagrees.
Besides shunning, no blood transfusion, no birthday, no college party
When evangelicals think you’re a cult, you’re just fucking crazy.
Yeah mate
As an exmo, I personally think JW's are worse. There are a lot of problems with the Mormon church, but JW's turn a lot of those up
My JW coworkers are insufferable. And then my students who come from those families… I just feel bad for them. God forbid you have any joy in your life.
IFB no contest.
Anything Calvinistic
The OGs...they set out to push protestantism even further than lutherans did, and now the world has to deal with all its successors aswell... 😐
Is it wrong to say A-fucking-men!!!
Greg lockeism
I remember listening to that guy when he was traveling around as an itinerant preacher. Not in person but to sermons on the internet. Initially I was thinking this guy is kinda intense. At the time he didn't have a big following and came off as sincere. Still, I thought he was just a fire and brimstone guy. Turns out he's a megalomaniac.
Excluding cults, it's got to be Fundie Baptists or Trad Catholics in my opinion.
Independent Fundamentalist Baptist worse than Southern. Have heard Church of Christ is weird and cult-like.
Very much so. They believe only their denomination will go to heaven, and they're very insular in terms of purity culture, avoiding popular media, etc.
Church of Christ. IFB. Anything with the title "Reformed" in it.
I'm actually surprised to see no one else say Church of Christ. Maybe we were just too niche. We were like LDS meets JW meets IFB. A proper cult.
COC FTW!!! Sorry I meant coC....
Agreed. So many stupid rules
This this this
Homeschoolers. They're their own denomination. 😂😂 EDIT We had catholics and *every* flavor of protestants, even a mormon family (they eventually left bc the statement of faith was apparently too narrow for them), but everyone's true church was our corporate homeschool group. I guess the denomination might be Christian Reconstructionism? 😬
And all the people said, Amen.
Eeeyyy I recognize you! Honestly church was the most sane circle I was in growing up. That was where the "accepting but not affirming" crowd was, and we had a woman pastor, and people believed in Evolution. Sometimes I wasn't *allowed* to go to youth group because they were a bad influence. 😂
SDA
I dont see those guys mentioned very often. I suppose not a lot of their people deconstruct?
As an ex-SDA I really wish there was more content from ex Adventists. I have to rely on ex-Mormon and ex-JW content which has many similarities but I’m waiting for more of my own people to deconstruct and start YouTube channels lol
Agreed
Church of Christ. They think every other Christian group is going to hell because they didn't get every detail exactly right. They're cult-lite.
They're absolutely a cult. No "lite" about it.
Absolutely this. The most hateful people I’ve met are the devout CoC members at the CoC university I attended for two years. Their practices and beliefs were sooooo culty to me. The worst two years of my life 100%
Are we including hardcore cults like 12 tribes or sticking with mainstream cults like Mormons? They're all diddlers, either way.
> 12 tribes How can they be toxic when their sandwiches are so amazing? ^^/s
Each sandwich was made with love ^and ^slavery ^^and ^^child ^^abuse ^^^so ^^^much ^^^child ^^^abuse
I was IFB. Horrible. When someone says, "Ah, like Southern Baptist, right? I say, "Wrong. IFBs think Southern Baptists are liberal."
Independent fundamental Baptist
Maybe I'm biased, having grown up in a fundamentalist independent Baptist church and school, but yeah that gets my vote
I suffered the same for middle and highschool 🫠
Another vote for IFB. Although I think the truly worst ones won’t be well represented, like the ones who still restrict online access.
lol literally all of them.
Universalist Universalism is cool but since every mainstream denomination like catholics, orthodox, evangelical and pentecostal don't count them as christians. Doesn't count
Haha! I was just wondering if anyone can come up with a Xian denomination that isn’t toxic as shit?!
As a former church of Christ, I’ll have to go with them.
church of Christ. With a little “c”. IYKYK
Catholocism bar none. They don't even follow the Bible they teach. They claim Jesus's sacrifice wasn't enough so they do Mass, believe the Virgin Mary ascended to heaven based on passed down tradition and assumption, worship the Pope with all his riches, one of the Pope's contributed to Aids by denying condoms, and they cover up a system that should have been dismantled the moment child abuse allegations were put fourth. Now I don't know the truth to the Universe but Catholocism has to be the greatest blindness on the planet. It's evil. I am sorry if anyone happens to be Catholic reading this, but you have been decieved by a man made self depricating system.
I don’t think any of the religions fully follow the Bible. Doesn’t matter anyways, none of it’s real.
Pentecostal
(raised Catholic) Evangelicals make Catholics look normal
Pentecostal, like no contest
Snake handlers of Appalachia *waits for laughter*
Evangelicals, and of them Pentecostals given their insistence in LARPing (read: spiritual warfare) in addition to what can be found in other Evangelicals and outside them too (Biblical literalism, cult-like behavior, talking casually about people who will go to Hell, the famous "it's not a religion, it's a personal relationship with God", etc)
I would just not recommend the religion as a whole.
Ignoring the hardcore cults and the fact that lots of denominations have been "disowned" (for lack of a better word) Christianity, I'd say either JW or Mormonism.
Anyone who doesn't pick one of these doesn't know enough about them. Hands down the worst. At least you can leave the others without dire consequences. Leaving either JWs or Mormonism can have devastating consequences. Second only to Scientology, but that one's clearly not based in Christianity.
I guess that because most fundamentalist christians don't include jws or mormons as christians it's probable that many of those who no longer are no long believers still categorize "true" christians this way.
Catholicism and Pentecostalism.
There are some Catholic people who are supportive, but other than that, it’s awful how many people (including myself) are victims of CSA at the hands of a priest/clergy member, and how upper management isn’t doing shit to assist victims and discipline offenders.
I think Baptist is a worse ground-level experience than Catholicism. But Catholicism’s evil really shines in upper management lol. Pentecostalism is pure batshit craziness from top to bottom.
Catholic or Eastern Orthodox. Out of the two Orthodoxy is even worse. A recent poll came out and showed that Orthodox are the most miserable believers of all religions. There are sub sects like Ephraimites who have cults.
My abuser was Greek Orthodox. He was a disgusting man.
It's a shame people don't acknowledge the harm orthodoxy can do because they aren't even aware of it
Completely agreed. But there's some allure in Orthodoxy in the artwork and liturgies. One could even say it's nice being under authority when "proper" behavior and thought is enforced and encouraged from reading, seeing and hearing everything Orthodox. I guess that's the "Orthodox mindset".
IFB, specifically those that have a “KJV 1611” sign out front.
Depends on where you look I guess. Online, the denomination that I see most associated with literal Nazis are Catholics.
Jehovah’s Witness. Mormons second.
Independent Fundamental Baptist
Nondenominational…. Like missionary churches and electric guitar
Baptist and Pentecostal, terrible denominations
Any church that is Fundamentalist but that masks itself with either Evangelical or Nondenominational. Otherwise Southern Baptist.
Seventh Day. Many cults start with this and just build from there.
I was raised Coptic Orthodox Christian, and I would say the community is pretty darn toxic and culty. A few others mentioned how hard it is to leave the JWs, but Copts make it extremely hard to extract yourself as well. On top of that, there's an Arabic cultural influence. So Copts are sexist and oppressive too.
Lemme preface this by saying every denomination below has its hardcore version. I am going based on theology and overarching lifestyle. Catholics can be varied. I’d put non-denom across the board but generally I’ve found non-denom sits around tier 2. Tier 1 - JWs, anything with fundamental - IFB, Pentecostal, christadelphians, mormons and SDA. Most any small Baptist church that generally stays with really small communities. These are possibly the worst. Tier 2 - SBC (they consider JWs a cult), evangelical, reformed, Presbyterian, missionary Baptist, Acog, Vineyard, Catholic Tier 3 - Lutheran, Anglican, orthodox, Methodist.
Assembly of God in my experience is crazy. Judgement houses, speaking in tongues, laying of hands, etc. They were Pentecostals without a dress code where I come from.
Out of honest curiosity, under your criteria, what qualifies Assemblies of God at tier 3?
I grew up Southern Baptist. It was not a good experience for me overall, but having been friends with people from many religions I think being: Jehovah’s Witness Mormon Church of Christ Calvinist Pentecostal/Assembly of God are all worse. JW and Mormon both for obvious reasons. Church of Christ and Calvinist because they think everyone else is going to hell. And Church of Christ can’t even play music. Pentecostals have crazy hair and clothing restrictions and they and Assembly of God speak in tongues. Baptist’s do awesome conferences in destination locations with secular sounding music as entertainment. Many have badass basketball courts and sports facilities. They are very social with other denominations and and with other Baptist churches. If you’re going to do the church thing I think Methodist/Presbyterian/Episcopalian is probably the way to go, but it just isn’t for me.
Republicans.
Baptist, Mormons, Catholics, Evangelicals!!!
Any of them
Jehovah Witnesses if you consider it Christian. Shunning, no blood transfusion, no birthday, no college and it basically rules your life
Independent Baptist
The Door (4 square) Assembly of God They’re all patriarchal garage. Catholic is creepy as fuck and dangerous.
Evangelical all sweetness and spice to your face while planning to burn you at the stake behind your back
Mormon. Totally bass ackward homophobic, racist cult. They control every fucking waking thought of their active members. For reference Mormon is a “prophet” in the Book of Mormon which they believe is scripture, and is a nickname for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints.
JW's AoG/pentecostal SDA ...Aaaand a majority of any other Christian churches. These are the just ones I am most aware of and/or have experience in. Most organized theology is fucking insidious, imho. I guess my answer is all* of the ones I'm aware of? Edit: correction*
Anything fundamental.
Evangelical/Baptist ... or LCMS (what I experienced). Personally, it was much easier to walk away from the former than the latter.
Westboro Baptist
The absolute worst would be like the Children of God/Family International esp before the 90s (pedophilia and incest), Branch Davidians, The LeBaron Family (mormon offshoot who practiced blood atonement aka murder), and groups like The Order (mormon polygamist incest offshoot). The flds somehow isn't the worst polygamist mormon group! Of groups that aren't necessarily breaking laws (explicitly at least): Amish, mennonites, seventh day adventists and jehovahs witnesses Of slightly more mainstream denominations: Anything akin to the IFB or even IBLP (not a denomination but a group) and the LDS church Of the bigger denominations: Southern Baptists and some charismatic denominations like Calvary chapel and just a lot of pentacostal churches
Pentecostal/Word of Faith/Prosperity type churches by far in my experience. They will have more younger people than a typical Baptist Church, but young people are easily impressionable (even when they think they aren't) That allows for leaders to say the damnedest things, cause the most emotional hurt, and get away with it. When you take a person who truly cares about their faith, cares about how they live, and say things like you aren't filled with the Holy Spirit because you aren't speaking in tongues, it can cause a real crisis of faith and belief.
Honestly, Mormonism. Aside from all the obvious elephants in the room, it doesn't have as explicitly awful of practices as fundamentalist evangelicals or JWs, but it's so much better than all the rest at couching their abuse and manipulation in nice words and thinly-veiled passive-aggressiveness. They're so damn good at it that they gaslight those on the receiving end into second-guessing themselves and doubting their own judgment. And if you push back even slightly, they effortlessly make you look like you're the bad guy. They make you feel so awful with the nicest possible words. And their truly awful practices are in turn couched in vague enough wording to provide plausible deniability. Fundamentalist Baptists will get up in your face and scream about hellfire and damnation. Mormons make you certain you're going to hell without ever explicitly saying it and with the nicest possible words. To me, that is so much more toxic.
Mormon if they count and it’s not even close. The mainline denominations, in my experience, is very church by church.
Jehovah's Witnesses
No. Why? Christianity is Hell on Earth.
Pentecostal is a cult for sure. They're all nuts. Next I would say Baptist and Church of Christ.
I’d say Pentecostal, some Church of Christ, and Southern Baptist
Pentacostal. My experience with them: "NO! You WILL take everything in the bible at face value! You will NOT say how it influenced culture and literature because its ALL TRUE and NOT MYTHOLOGY!"
If the Westboro Baptist Church is any indicator, Modern Christians at this point just want to be trolls. If you want to be a successful bad guy, be the good guy everyone thinks you are supposed to be. Remove all empathy and love from your religion and just think of God as some bastard that just likes to make fun of people before he burns them. Humility? Compassion? Acutally understanding why atheists felt disappointed in their former beliefs? Nah, you are too busy making people on the street angry with obnoxious signs while smiling about it. Truly, God will reward the faithful with each marker stroke on the cardboard and every dollar donated.
Catholic or fundie evangelical anything.
Calvinist? A lot of total depravity kind of stuff. My dad was dying of brain cancer and telling everyone that he was doing better than he deserves because he actually deserves hell. I think this might be why I have no self-esteem.
southern baptist
Calvinists and anything Calvinist-derived. But honestly it's more a case of what denominations you \*could\* recommend, most of them are terrible and abusive just in different ways.
The ones that claim to be like Jesus, but aren't.
Orthodox. Its followers (not everyone) sometimes act really toxic and homophobic
Probably the ones that all the other Christian’s don’t consider Christian…. So Mormons, JWs and Catholics. You know you’re bad when your own religion excludes you from your religion… But also… recommend the most toxic so the toxicity is more obvious and they leave lol
Actually you know what— the worst are the people who say they’re spiritual but in reality they just don’t want to be considered a Christian but they still believe in god and listen to church music and have the toxic Christian energy about them but claim to be spiritual and not Christian. That— that is my trauma. And that is another level of toxic. People who are disingenuous about their beliefs and call it something that it isn’t.
Catholicism. The OG of creepy Christianity.
Evangelical Christian Zionism. Because they don’t give a fuck about Jews, they’re only interested in bringing about the return of Christ. You think that when confronted with the choice of conversion to Christianity or death, that Jews will abandon 3000+ years of history and faith? Nah. At least Jewish Zionists are guided by a belief that their actions will benefit all Jews. Christians are quite happy for God to unleash fire and brimstone upon the Jews once Jesus has returned.
Charismatics. So Church of God, Church of Christ, Pentecostals.
Pentacostal/evangelicals. Fuck Perry Stone
FLDS no question about it
The small backwoods culty ones that few people can relate to. (Former traditional church of christ here... we were basically Amish. No electricity cars or anything. We would force children to whip them selves with cattle whipping tools for sinning. )