A lot of us are shaped by role models, and are influenced by ideas we’re exposed to when we’re young. As many of my friends will know, I became a Christian at the age of fifteen, after hearing the “gospel message” explained to me for the first time. I use inverted commas there because there’s a lot of different perspectives out there on what constitutes the “gospel message”, but in my case it was an evangelical one. The key components of that are that we’ve all fallen short of God’s standards, but he loved us so much that he sent Jesus to die so we wouldn’t have to be punished for our sins. If we accept God’s love and sacrifice for us, we’ll live with him eternally in Heaven. You get the idea. Other Christian traditions emphasise different bits of the message, but the key aspect in the version I was sold is the concept of being “born again” – you have to accept the message for yourself in a conscious turning away from your previous existence.

Anyway, quite a few of you will know what happened next. I’ve written about it quite extensively on this blog. Things were generally fine for a few years, but began to go quite badly wrong when I spent a year on a voluntary mission and outreach programme, organised by Pioneer, and placing me at Revelation Church on the south coast. It was only many years later that I realised I was exposed to some extremely harmful beliefs and practices, and that they did me a lot of damage. Unfortunately, later on, I ended up at Emmanuel Church in Wimbledon as well, run for many years by Jonathan Fletcher. He was a very hardcore conservative evangelical who attempted to avoid any proper oversight from the Church of England, ostensibly for theological reasons, but it turned out he was horrifically abusive and exploitative, and was physically and sexually assaulting young men. Being involved in those sorts of things left a very bitter taste in my mouth, and it won’t surprise anyone to learn that I’m not a Christian any more.

I think it’s fair to say that Emmanuel and Revelation, while quite different in lots of ways, have several key things in common, and those things are:

• Very uncompromising and demanding leaders;
• Very extreme views which place them largely outside the typical historic positions of much of the church;
• Very strong emphasis on high standards of behaviour and belief that are almost impossible to maintain; and
• Very negative views of Christians seen as more compromising or liberal than them.

I think these things pressured me into taking my faith extremely seriously indeed, and it led me to being quite seriously harmed. It also led to me harming others, by saying and doing very mean-spirited things that I now really wish I hadn’t.

Anyway, I’ve often wondered over the years if my Christian life would have turned out differently if I’d been exposed to different forms of belief, practice and theology. The more mystic, contemplative and liberal forms of faith now seem much more attractive to me than they ever did before, because I’ve come to realise how flawed fundamental forms of evangelicalism are. Let’s face it – any belief gets flawed and harmful when you’re taught that everyone else is dangerously wrong.

This all came back to me last weekend, when I travelled to London to attend the Idler Festival. It had a fantastic lineup of speakers, thinkers, writers and performers, and one of the more interesting ones was Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. During the time he led the Church of England, I was a member of Emmanuel, and he may as well have been a minion of Beelzebub as far as they were concerned. They absolutely hated him, because he came from the high church, liberal end of Anglicanism, and was pretty inclusive in his theology. I know what Revelation would hastve made of him as well – an out-of-touch, irrelevant purveyor of “dead” Christianity, with none of the coolness and power of their form of faith.

Fast forward to now, however, and I heard him speak and field questions on the topic of solidarity, an important one in the messy, fractured world we live in. He’s just written a book on the subject. As he spoke, I was struck by his compassion, wisdom, kindness, inclusivity, love and intelligence. He gave thoughtful answers to complex questions, and has clearly spent a lifetime mulling over very big issues. As the talk went on, I was struck by how much my values align with his, and how similar our views are on lots of things.

I was attracted to faith in the first place because I’m a deep thinker (or overthinker) and I want to grapple with big subjects. On the surface, the form of evangelicalism I signed up to seemed to be very promising – they were literally talking about the origins of the universe, and matters of cosmic significance. Unfortunately, I came to realise later that there’s not much intellectual clout behind much of evangelicalism’s ideas. Certain supposedly classic evangelical books feel like they’ve been aimed at five-year-olds, such is the vacuous and rigid quality of their arguments.

Williams, however, has clearly grappled with stuff, and has come to conclusions after literally wrestling his way through it in thought, study and prayer. This is something I respect far more than someone who just accepts what they’re told, and can’t deviate from the theology and ideas they grew up with. The few evangelicals I have seen who have stuck their heads above the parapet and really questioned things, such as Steve Chalke, Vicky Beeching and Joshua Harris, have really suffered for it. Most people in that world are too scared to do too much questioning, because everything will fall apart for them if they do.

I’m aware of how dangerous it is to idolise church leaders, as I’ve done it myself and have suffered for it, but I now see people like Rowan Williams in a very different light, and I’m keen to learn more about the traditions, beliefs and behaviours he represents, because they seem to be much more “me” than fundamentalist evangelicalism ever was. I suppose certainty is comforting, and at various times in my life I’ve needed it. I can’t help feeling, though, that if I’d been exposed to more people like Rowan Williams when I was younger, rather than people like Gerald Coates, I might still be a Christian of some sort. I’m not sure I could ever set foot in a church again after what I’ve been through, but I found it encouraging that there’s people out there like him, and he doesn’t have to be feared or loathed for what he represents. I’m very keen to learn from him.