Dear GCB,
I wonder how cold it is way up there on your high horse where you sit ready to look down at anyone who crosses your holier than thou path. Does it make you feel closer to Jesus (because I don’t really think He lives in the sky)? Do you think you look good up there, pompous and arrogant, a knower of all of the things and a judge to us all? I see you. I’ve watched you for a while.
I see the way you whisper in church with your girlfriends, how you look down your nose at the single mom who comes to church in her beat up jeans with her four kids. I see the way you roll your eyes when the preacher’s wife, a tall pretty blonde, walks up to the pulpit to speak to the children. You see, I’ve been around you my entire life. I grew up with you. I know you well.
You were part of the group of girls who made fun of me at church. You announced in front of everyone that I had a (gasp) run in my stockings. You pointed to my teeth and asked loud enough so everyone could hear why they were so yellow.
In Sunday school.
You made me cry and didn’t apologize. You laughed at me when I forgot the bible verse that I knew but was too nervous to remember when I had to stand at the front of the class.
You were the girl who told the only boy who gave me any attention at church that I was a slut who slept around and that I would give him AIDS. Then you called him gay for liking me.
In junior high. At youth group.
You told the other girls that I was poor. (Perhaps compared to you, I was, but I was rich in something else. Kindness. Love. Compassion.)
I hated church because of you. I laid in my bed on Sunday mornings sick with anxiety waiting for my dad to come in and tell me to get ready. I obsessed about what to wear, how to fix my hair, shoes, fingernails, jewelry, purses, and all because I wanted to impress you, and every time you pulled me into your group and made me feel like I might belong, you dropped another mean bomb on me and exploded any hope that I had of ever fitting in.
At church. In God’s house.
And now, we’re all grown up, and I hear you on your phone with your girlfriend in the grocery store talking about what Joel Osteen says is right and true and good and just, and then after we’ve checked out and loaded our groceries, I see you behind me at the light. You’re annoyed because I’ve rolled down my window to give the man on the corner with the sign a couple of dollars. You think he’s a nuisance to society, that he’s mucking up the scenery of your cute suburban town, and God forbid, you be delayed. You might be a few minutes late to prayer group because I looked him in the eye and told him that he mattered.
You can’t wait to jump online and shame other moms about their parenting. You love to post hateful sanctimonious comments to mothers who are just like you, struggling every day to make it. You look down your haughty nose at other parents who aren’t raising their children the way you are. I hear you. And I see you. You’re quick to judge and point out other people’s faults, and often you do it publicly. I don’t know a lot of things, but I’m fairly certain this is the exact opposite of WWJD.
You use Facebook as a platform to preach God’s love. Your feed shows constant daily devotionals and scriptures to make sure the world knows what a great person you are. Yet, when you’re the center of a group of women, you’re the first to bring up what so and so wore or said or did and get the rest of the girls to join your personal tirade. Then when that same so and so posts that she’s having a hard time on Facebook, you’re quick with the prayer hands emoji and always say “praying for you, my friend,” right before you call your other friend to gossip about her problem behind her back.
You’re the reason I don’t go to church. You’re the reason Christians get a bad name. You’re the very reason I question my own faith. Because how can I be part of a group with so much judgement for people who they don’t understand? I know you’re the minority, that most Christians are inherently good and kind, but you’re louder than everyone else, so you have become the figurehead for me and for a lot of other people.
And that figurehead is the face of a hypocrite. You bathe in the glory of God’s love and forgiveness when everyone can see, but when you think nobody is looking, you’re doing the exact opposite of what you preach. You show your little girl that it’s okay to talk bad about other people. She heard you talking about how Sally is having marital problems and will probably get a divorce and that you can’t possibly be friends with Sally anymore if she’s divorced, and then your daughter hears you and your friend plot out how you’re going to snuff Sally out of your life, and then that sweet little girl goes to school the next day and creates a club and doesn’t allow a little girl to play with the other girls, and poor little Paisley goes home to her mom and tells her that she no longer has any friends because she wore purple today and everyone else wore pink, and so nobody would play with her. And she’s in kindergarten. Do you hear this?
Let me say it louder.
Your daughter is listening.
Do you want her to see the same woman I see? The Good Christian Bitch who thinks she’s better than everyone else?
I didn’t think so. Get off of your high horse. Put down your prayer hands, and be the person you pretend to be on Facebook, at church, when everybody is looking. Because you know what? I’m always looking. Your daughter is always looking. And all of those sinner/non-Christian heathens whom you’ve spent a lifetime looking down your nose at, they’re looking too, and they’re staying as far away from you and your church as possible. Oh you think they don’t know where you go to church?
You have a sticker on the back window of your Cadillac Escalade, right next to the one with the stick figure family with a mom, a dad, two boys and a girl. I noticed you because you just flipped me off in traffic. Must be running late for bible study.
Sincerely,
Everyone
PS: If you’re sitting there wondering if this post is about you, it isn’t, but it also probably is.
(This post first ran on Cellulite Looks Better Tan)
About the author: Mandi Castle is a reader, writer, and reality TV show watcher. She is obsessed with books, music, and football and has an addiction to smart funny people. She recently published her first novel “Dear Stephanie” available now on Amazon. To connect more visit mandicastle.com,or follow her at https://twitter.com/MandiCastle, https://www.facebook.com/authormandicastle
2 Comments
I feel like I should say I’m sorry… even though my experience growing up in a church was nothing like yours and the girls in our church didn’t grow into those women (it probably helps that there was only 4 of us).
However, you sound like you grew up to be the perfect type of person who I seriously wish there were more of… in churches, schools, shops, EVERYWHERE
Amen to this post. I gave up going to church last year because some of the people I was around were just bad people. Last night, I told my father about this one church lady who said something to me a while back that bothered me for a long time. It happened one night when she drove me home from a potluck dinner at the church. I believe she also said for me not to tell anyone what we discussed that night in her car. I talked to my counselor about this one lady and how I feel she’s a bad person, but never really talked to my dad about what she said until recently. The only reason why I kept silent about what she said for four years was because my dad liked her. However, he also said something didn’t sit right with him about her personality and now he knows why. He plans on sending her a lovely email someday soon telling her how bad she is as a person. I eventually told her and a few other church members that I was also mildly Autistic but that didn’t stop the gossiping and insults behind my back. She continued to say uncomfortable things to me, but more subtly even when I was trying to be nicer and more discreet. I got tired of dealing with phony people. There were actually more single ladies than men…at least that’s how it seemed. Now, I know why. When you’re a bitch to everyone, no decent man wants you. To them, I was an easy target: overweight, unemployed turned community college drop out. When I realized my life wasn’t going the way I wanted to, I stopped talking to a lot of these people because I knew how they saw me. I don’t need someone that’s either gonna bring me down or secretly loathe me while I’m in their presence. She probably knows I couldn’t trust her. That’s why I stopped telling her things. One day, she said on a prayer call for me to get my priorities straight. The same thing my nasty sister said one day before she stopped talking to me. Most people who say this things have the worst values.