When Faith Becomes a Hostage Situation
At 64 years old, I’ve come to accept a simple but unsettling truth: I will never stop searching for truth. No matter how uncomfortable it makes others. No matter how much it shatters the narratives I was taught to protect. The truth has become my addiction – but it’s a healthy one. Because after decades of living inside a carefully constructed illusion, waking up became a matter of life or death.
For more than three-quarters of my life, I was submerged in religious dogma – taught to believe I had something called “free will.” But that freedom came with a threat: Choose wisely, they said, or suffer forever.
Free will, I was told, was a divine gift. But in reality, it was anything but. The terms were simple: accept this version of truth, this interpretation of God, this salvation plan – or face eternal consequences so horrifying they defy comprehension. Unending pain. Gnashing of teeth. Flesh that burns but never dies. And as a child, this was presented to me not as metaphor or mythology – but as a guarantee.
Let me ask you: What kind of “choice” is that?
It’s no different than putting a gun to a bride’s head and saying, “Marry me – or die.” That’s not love. That’s not consent. That’s coercion. And in any other context, we’d call it what it is: abuse.
Yet somehow, in the realm of religion, we paint this hostage situation as holiness. We call it mercy. We sing songs about it. We celebrate it with stained glass and Sunday sermons. All the while, we ignore the psychological trauma inflicted on children too young to know better – and adults too scared to question it.
I was one of those children.
I was taught to fear first and ask questions never. I wasn’t invited into faith; I was threatened into submission. And I’m not alone. Many walk around today with scars they can’t name – scars not from a rejection of faith, but from the twisted version of it they were forced to accept.
Fear and faith do not belong in the same sentence. If your belief system requires threats of eternal punishment to keep you loyal, it’s not offering you salvation – it’s demanding your silence. It’s not extending grace – it’s holding your soul at gunpoint.
I spent a lifetime trying to reconcile that contradiction. I excused it. I preached it. I enforced it. But I can’t anymore.
Because faith should never feel like a hostage negotiation.
If God is love, there should be no room for threats. If truth is truth, it should never need to be protected by fear. If belief is a gift, it should never require barbed wire to keep people in.
Today, I walk away from the illusion of freedom disguised as faith. I no longer accept the narrative that demands blind allegiance under threat of eternal suffering. I reclaim my mind, my soul, and my voice from a system that kept me bound for far too long.
This isn’t bitterness. It’s clarity.
I’m not rebelling against God. I’m rebelling against the version of Him that was handed to me by frightened men who needed control more than they needed compassion.
And if this message makes you uncomfortable, ask yourself why.
If your faith can’t withstand scrutiny, it was never faith – it was fear in disguise.
I won’t live afraid anymore.
I won’t pretend anymore.
I won’t stay a hostage.
Not for another second.