My Experience in Protagonist Christianity

I’ve been thinking recently about my upbringing in the evangelical Christian faith and how I would characterize it. After hearing many stories from other people who were raised in stifling religious environments, I’ve come to the conclusion that I wasn’t raised in fundamentalist Christianity. I was raised in what I’ve decided to call, “Protagonist Christianity.” 

What is Protagonist Christianity? In this subculture, I wasn’t controlled by fear (at least, not overtly). They didn’t use fire and brimstone speeches about hell to force us to comply, and “legalism” was a dirty word. In Protagonist Christianity, we didn’t follow God’s laws because we were afraid of punishment; we followed them because this was clearly the best way to live. God’s ways (which is to say, our ways as handed down by our interpretation of what God wanted) were obviously the best: the best way to have relationships, to live, to work, to be joyful and fulfilled. Everyone else—from non-believers to adherents of other religions to even other Christian denominations—didn’t have it right. And so, their lives were a little (or a lot) worse. They were relegated to the role of side character: bland, boring, shallow, and unfulfilling. Or even worse, to the role of villain: actively obstructing God’s plans for his people (you know, us: the Protagonists). 

I made it through my time in evangelical Christiantiy without some of the outright trauma that those in fundamentalist circles had to endure. But Protagonist Christianity is sneaky: it keeps things positive, upbeat, and shiny, while slipping those messages of shame and self-loathing in between the lines. For example, I was in youth group for the heyday of ‘purity culture.’ I read “I Kissed Dating Goodbye” AND the lesser known sequel, “Boy Meets Girl,” as well as everything Elisabeth Elliott or Dana Gresh ever wrote. The message I heard over and over at church wasn’t, “have sex and you’ll be dirty and sinful!” No, it was: “Sex is TOO WONDERFUL within marriage to ruin it by experiencing it any other way!” Your body isn’t dirty or shameful (although we aren’t going to actually teach you anything about it, so you’ll be left to your own devices to figure out that it isn’t dirty and shameful, sometime in your 30’s when you finally take the time to address your loathing of your own vagina). On the contrary, it’s a treasure! A treasure that should experience only the best. And, since we are the Protagonists, we know what is best: marriage, between a Christian man and a Christian woman. Everyone else’s sexual experiences—yes, even your friends in college who have great sex and have yet to even fleetingly resemble a crumpled-up rose—aren’t true or real or legitimate. They aren’t the Protagonists. We are! 

I grew up thinking that people who followed other religions couldn’t be as passionate, knowledgeable, or moral as me. They’d chosen the inferior supporting role! And the best way to convert them was to go head-to-head and compare our religions: mine would clearly win out, as the superior way to live and the Clear Truth. This was what all the apologetics books taught me, anyway, and it was easy to believe when the only people I had around me were fellow Protagonists. Until, that is, I actually left home and went to a university where I met some of these supporting characters in the flesh. I was shocked to discover that some Muslims were just as enthused about the rightness of their religion as I was. They seemed fully alive, moral, joyful, and ready to claim that they were the Protagonists. That couldn’t be right, though. They were just supposed to be the extras cast in my personal movie, that gave me good stories to tell in small group about how I converted them to Christianity (or even better, how they ‘persecuted’ me when I tried). 

This Protagonist Christianity mindset is what allows Christians to believe that they can be loving while also “disagreeing with the homosexual lifestyle.” I didn’t hate gay people. They were just so far out on the fringe of my supporting cast that I didn’t really ever think about them. They weren’t fully fleshed out characters, with backstories and motivations and hopes and dreams. They were a category—a category that I occasionally had to think of with pity (if only they knew how much better life would be if they left those sinful practices behind and followed God’s ways!). They only crossed from ‘villager’ into ‘villain’ in my movie script when they tried to tell me that I was hateful or that my beliefs were harmful. Suddenly the soundtrack music got a little darker, and the camera zoomed in, and Protagonist Christianity dropped the positive veneer and got down to the bones of it: they are rejecting God because they love sin, and they’ll burn in hell for it. But blink twice and the birds start chirping again, we’re back to a cheerful montage, and I’m the main character again, with my rights and preferences taking center stage. 

If you’ve ever said or heard anything similar to the following phrases or practices, you might have been a part of Protagonist Christianity too.

1. Taking a Bible verse completely out of context to apply it to us and our modern-day situation, because we are the Protagonists! For example, having a group of middle school girls at a weekend retreat hold hands in a circle and repeat, “God is in her, she will not fall; God will help her at break of day.” (Psalm 46:5). Never mind that this verse is actually about defeat and victory in war, and about the protection of a people group (the Jews at the time of writing). We are the Protagonists in the arc of humanity, so we can take it and use it as we wish!

2. “God’s rules are there because he loves us and wants what’s best for us--God’s way is the best way to live!” 

3. “The entire bible points to Jesus. Every verse can be interpreted to teach us something about Jesus and His coming.” Note: this may make it seem like Jesus is the protagonist in Protagonist Christianity, but actually it’s us, the small group of Christians who are correctly interpreting the bible. 

4. “Once we know how amazing God’s love is, how can we NOT follow him?” This invalidates the choices and experience of anyone who chooses not to follow God the way we do. Clearly, they just don’t know. And it’s the Protagonist’s role to tell them! 

5. (In response to a comment about a theologian who they deem heretical) “Well, even a broken clock is right twice a day!” (Translation: this person isn’t a Protagonist, they’re following God the wrong way, so I can discount everything they say—but I’ll chuckle and admit that they might get it right every now and then!)

I might just be describing the typical self-centeredness of a teenage girl growing up in a homogeneous community and sheltered from conflicting ideas. But when I look at adult men and women who still live as if they are the Protagonist—despite plenty of life experience and evidence to the contrary—I start to wonder. My deconversion began when I realized that I was not actually the Protagonist, and that there were billions of people in the world with experiences as full and real and valid as my own. My deconversion became complete when I realized that I seemingly cared about the reality of those people more than God did.  However, that's a story for another blog post.