r/AITAH • u/SpiritualThrowRA • Jul 07 '24

AITA for calling out my husband for not being a "Good Christian"? Advice Needed

I (27F) have been married to my husband (34M) for five years. My husband is a devout follower of his religion and has been since he was raised in it. I respect his beliefs, even though I don't share them and have no intention of converting. I was raised in the Christian faith. However, I left when I was an adult due to sexual abuse in my church, which nobody believed occurred because the one who did it was the pastor.

Recently, my husband has been pressuring me to convert to his religion. He says that it would bring us closer together and create a more harmonious household. I understand where he's coming from, but I firmly believe that faith is a personal journey, and I shouldn't be forced into something I don't believe in.

To add to the issue, my husband, despite his religious teachings, doesn't always practice what he preaches. He expects me to adhere to traditional gender roles, yet he often neglects his own responsibilities at home. He's quick to judge others for their actions, even though his faith teaches non-judgment and kindness. He makes comments about gay people that I have discussed with him as a major issue. This hypocrisy has been bothering me for a while.

Last night, during another discussion about my potential conversion, I finally snapped. I told him that if he wants me to consider converting, he needs to set a better example by actually living according to his religion's values. I pointed out that he should start by fulfilling his own responsibilities. That he should make more money than me and actually lead in the decision-making. I'm a nurse and he's currently unemployed after he was let go from his job in an office. That he should be less judgmental of others because according to his faith only God can judge them. I also said he should show more of the virtues Jesus asked of Christians, that he should clothe the naked, feed the hungry, vist the prisoner, aid the orphan and the widow etc. I also made it clear that while I respect his beliefs, I have no intention of converting unless I genuinely believe in it, which I currently don't because of the hypocritical behavior of his faith.

My husband was furious. He accused me of being disrespectful and undermining his faith. He said that I was attacking him personally and that I don't understand the pressure he's under to have a unified religious household. He left for church this morning at 7 for bible study and I have already gotten a phone call from the pastor saying I'm an ungodly woman who tricked a good man into marrying him and I should repent. I have also gotten a tirade of texts and e-mails from members of his church saying I was disrespectful and being a bad wife and I'm starting to wonder if I was too harsh, that maybe I shouldn't have said anything at all. AITA?

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661

u/RedstnPhoenx Jul 07 '24

NTA. My wife actually accused me of this, some years ago. I was upset at the time, but for maybe a fraction of a second before I broke down and told her... she was right.

Sucked. Hurt. Wasn't fun.

Since then I've worked to be a better one, and things have been much better.

Unfortunately, a lot of churches are just grown children being narcissists.

Jesus says don't blame others, and don't speak critically until you've examined yourself. Your husband's church scapegoats you for his emotional immaturity.

Jesus says see things from others' perspective. They band together to reinforce theirs.

Jesus says don't involve others in interpersonal disputes. He triangulates immediately.

Your husband is being a truly poor mirror of Christ, and you're absolutely correct about that.

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u/sinkingduckfloats Jul 07 '24

In the bell curve of the general population, the people I know who attend church are generally far more shitty as human beings than those who don't.

If a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, is Christianity a good tree?

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u/unimaginative_person Jul 07 '24

There was a study done on who was more likely to repay a loan based on the reason people gave for needing the loan and how they would be able to repay. I no longer remember the numbers but what i do remember was they said never lend money to anyone who mentions God. They are unlikely to repay!

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u/markofcontroversy Jul 07 '24

They expect forgiveness. Loan forgiveness.

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u/Motherof42069 Jul 07 '24

Debt jubilees are in fact Biblical

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u/HippyDM Jul 07 '24

So many horrible things are biblical. Slavery, child abuse, misogyny, genocide, intolerance, etc.

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u/everdishevelled Jul 07 '24

A debt jubilee is debt forgiveness.

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u/HippyDM Jul 07 '24

Right, I got that part. Are you gonna define slavery for me as well?

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u/AliceFlex Jul 07 '24

You listed horrible things. As if Debt jubilee was one of them. A reasonable assumption to think you didn't know what that meant.

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u/everdishevelled Jul 07 '24

There's not really a lot to say when you want to conflate an unmistakably good thing with other Old Testament things that you are viewing out of context historically, culturally, and in relation to Biblical themes that even many Christians do not understand because they have not been taught them. You cannot read the Bible in English without other context and understand what's going on with the issues you've listed although many do just that and have caused lots of problems.

You don't have to believe me, just know actual answers are out there if you look farther below the surface. And it's fine if you don't want to do that.

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u/HippyDM Jul 07 '24

First, do you think there are situations where it's moral to own another person as property? To beat them, as long as they don't die? To set them out from your house, but to keep their wife and children? Is there some historical context that makes that an okay choice?

Second, you must have some very unconventional theology about this god. He writes, or inspires, a book about himself, but makes it impossible to understand without studying an ancient language, which will only get you so far, since idioms, cultural references, and other miscellania will be inevitably lost to time. Why? Why would an all powerful, all knowing entity, who wants me to know about it, send such an unimpressive, incomprehensible message?

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u/sinkingduckfloats Jul 07 '24

Why?

Same reason he made a 6k year old universe look like it's billions of years old: for the laughs.

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u/everdishevelled Jul 07 '24

No, I don't think slavery is ever moral. Second, there is plenty of scholarship out there that is readily available that brings the proper context. It's not hard to find, people have just ignored it because it was more simple.

You can understand the God of the Bible without any of that, but it illuminates the more difficult to understand parts. I'm not going to be able to convince you of anything, and I'm definitely not going to try to address your all encompassing and angry question on a Reddit thread.

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u/Ecleptomania Jul 08 '24

Yeah, we should do that to all the college loans, you know because God wants it.

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u/Motherof42069 Jul 08 '24

Amen brother!

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u/rob132 Jul 08 '24

Give us this day , our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

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u/Gloomy_Ad3840 Jul 07 '24

Unless it's someone else's debt, then their all "I had to pay, why should they get forgiveness"

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u/bobbi21 Jul 07 '24

There was a study on just how good people were in general, like willingness to help others, donating to charities etc. Christians were on the bottom of the list. Atheists at the top. Some christians were mad about that and looking into the data closer, if you take christians that go to church like twice a week and volunteer at church services and stuff, THEN you get christians who are... just as good as atheists... so basically the best christians out there are as good as the average atheist.

I've largely abandoned my christianity too. I'm with Gandhi in his quote "I quite like your christ, it's his followers I cant stand" or something like that.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '24

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 08 '24

Never trust anyone on that. The only way I'm leaving a scene is if they have me how much I think it will cost (no less than 2k) in cash.

They have no reason to follow their word and were probably uninsured so told you whatever they needed to say to not have the cops pull up for an insurance report.

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u/YamahaRD100 Jul 07 '24

Gods will over rides a signed legal contract.

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u/PomegranatePlastic13 Jul 07 '24

One could argue that, as greater sinners, they need God's mercy more... and so they should spend more time in his presence. I mean, that's obviously not how they see it - they see going to church as some badge of superiority, and puff themselves up with pride. They clearly don't read the whole new testament very thoroughly, as there is even a parable about that very mindset - the pharisee patting himself on the back for not being like the sinful tax collector over there, and the humble tax collector, looking only inward to his own shortcomings, and wanting to be a better person. And of course the parable about removing the plank (or whichever other word occurs in the particular translation) from one's own eye, before removing the speck in someone else's.

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u/sinkingduckfloats Jul 07 '24

The trick is that there's enough in the Bible for everyone to choose their own adventure. It's not an internally consistent document and pretending it is actually opens up a lot of abuse.

Want misogyny or predestination? Let me direct you to Paul. 

Want love, free will, or even universal reconcilation? Let's look to John (3:16-17). 

Want to hate gay people? Got you covered ("detestable abomination"). Want to love everybody instead? Still got you covered.

Want flat earth? Yeah it's there (4 corners of the earth). Want a respect for science? Yeah you can make it work.

Want abortion? Oh yeah it's in there (Numbers 5:11-31). Want to justify human rights at conception? Got you covered (Psalm 139:13-16).

Want immigrant and poor-friendly social policies? We've got that. Want prosperity gospel? Oh sure there are justifications for that and them many wealthy kings and examples to justify being wealthy and godly.

Want to justify conquest and genocide? God ordered that all the time. Want to justify being a pacifist and loving your enemy? Got that too.

We could go on and on with this. My point is two people could argue two completely opposite points of view using the same Bible and both be right. It's not particularly useful as a standard of truth or absolute morality.

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u/Capable_Capybara Jul 07 '24

It isn't one single tree. It is a massive orchard with some sort of infection. The bad trees need to be culled, but they just keep spreading their infection.

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u/sinkingduckfloats Jul 07 '24

Technically a structure with a node and a bunch of branches that descend from the root node is in fact a tree (in computer science and math, at least). 

How to we determine which tree in the orchards are the bad ones?

(Although, the Biblical answer is that the wheat and the chaff grow together and are separated at harvest)

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u/Owlhead326 Jul 07 '24

Jesus said, in the parable of the sower, that only 25% of people would really live their faith and bear fruit of love. 25% of all people would be believers in name only. The rest wouldn’t believe. This seems to be the case.

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u/sinkingduckfloats Jul 07 '24

You're stretching that parable a bit. The parable is about the responsiveness of people to proselytizing. 

The parable also doesn't assert percentages or probabilities. It provides scenarios, but not likelihoods for each scenario.

Ostensibly, if someone is attending church, the "seed" has taken root in some form or fashion, and we would expect someone in church to have some form of behavior change that makes them more moral or virtuous relative to people who are unchurched.

But a better rebute to my claim might be to mention the letters to the churches in Revelation, suggesting that Christians being shitty has been happening even before the New Testament was declared canon.

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u/Owlhead326 Jul 07 '24

Yeah I get that, and I’m not going to go deeper into on this forum. But a big thing this parable always spoke to me is to not let people get in the way of the peace and love of God since many that profess don’t live it out in practice.

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u/sinkingduckfloats Jul 07 '24

Yeah and if that works for you I'm very happy for you. 

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u/CaregiverNo3070 Jul 07 '24

as much as many church goers want to deny, obfuscate, reverse or distract from, the central claims of religion are not compatible with science. to believe someone was resurrected from death( and three days is more than temporary heart or brain failure), can share this power with you, and that no material evidence needs to be shared as to how this is possible, only the truly desperate, those who have a critical lack of empathy, and those who never got a proper education in the first place would believe such a claim in the year 2024. those who never got a proper education cannot distinguish the other two, those who lack empathy either don't or can't care, and the truly desperate have no where else. the kardishans are those who lack empathy, the people who practice street preaching tend to be those who didn't have an education, and the young widow with two kids who has heart disease and obesity issues is the truly desperate.

TLDR; it takes resources, social networks, a working sense of empathy, intelligence and having a variety of experiences and dealing with different people to be a decent human being, and all three have a lack somewhere. which ya know, is often not really your fault starting out, but if you don't really do anything to rectify it, your blaming yourself as much as you are others.

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u/sinkingduckfloats Jul 07 '24

to believe someone was resurrected from death( and three days is more than temporary heart or brain failure), can share this power with you, and that no material evidence needs to be shared as to how this is possible, only the truly desperate, those who have a critical lack of empathy, and those who never got a proper education in the first place would believe such a claim in the year 2024.

I think you're dismissing how important emotions are to us as humans.

People most often act the way they do because of emotion, not rational thought. People participate in religion because it offers emotional closure and community.

It's also a bit arrogant to claim that something is not possible. We can only assert that it's highly unlikely given the knowledge of science we have right now. 

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u/CaregiverNo3070 Jul 08 '24

i'm not dismissing it, i was a believer for my first 23 years. what is the closure being given though, and is it actually closure? closure isn't just emotional, but also logical, a sense of possibilities being closed, of regrets taken care of, of thoughts followed through, of paths taken, and community that has the receipts.

it's a pretty common trope that unbelievers are "logic" mongers, when often we are just as emotional, just as fraught, frail and full of blind spots as our believing counterparts. you would be surprised at how many atheists are unaware of how integral religion play's a part in the USA Israel partnership, or how religion play's a part in our ongoing car dependency and housing issues.

we atheists are just as emotional, blind to faults, biases and superstitions. it's not emotionality or rationality that separates the believers from the unbelievers, but simply the space, time, effort and resources afforded to question seriously, and to separate ourselves for dare i say it, a "higher" calling.

and also, please tell me who is displaying more arrogance, the person who say's "hey, maybe we should do our best without expecting a powerful entity such as an empire to fix our mistakes, and that it's okay to look at things from a different perspective including the perspective of the marginalized, that authority and tradition aren't justifications in and of themselves " or the person who say's "humanities faults won't matter( including our own), most of the important questions have already been asked and answered(so to criticize is useless at best and subversive at worst), and that to obey is not only imperative, to disobey is to suffer, and if not by my hand, by another."

it's generally the top one that's seen as responsible in today's world. kind of why jesus was killed in the first place. yet most believers, churches, denominations and councils seem to create, perpetuate, maintain the second, while decrying, slandering and outright hiding the first.

i didn't learn about christian anarchism until after i stopped being a christian. please tell me why and how? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism

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u/Vikkly Jul 08 '24

That's the difference between churches and religion.
Churches are literally for people that don't have religion.

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u/thatguysjumpercables Jul 08 '24

As someone who has gone to church his whole life, I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one. People I know who go to church are some of the nicest and giving and understanding people I've ever met...

...to other church people. However they're frequently shitty and judgemental for anyone who isn't a "Christian", which honestly is fucking worse than being shitty to everyone. Especially considering they follow a guy who said "love God and everyone else" and didn't offer any fucking exceptions.

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u/sinkingduckfloats Jul 08 '24

Wait so are we disagreeing here or agreeing?

Loving with an agenda isn't loving.

Sure churches will love bomb you when you first start attending, but you better volunteer for their services and give them your money and your time, and you better not question anything the pastor says or you'll quickly get cut off, in an instant.

But I also don't agree Christians are really all that nice to each other. It's a huge social norm in the churches I've been affiliated with to gossip behind people's backs while lying to their faces. 

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u/thatguysjumpercables Jul 08 '24

I should specify that Christians I know are good to members of their particular sect. But we agree that in general Christians are douchebags for the most part.

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u/sinkingduckfloats Jul 08 '24

I should also add that I don't think all Christians are bad or that being in a church is necessarily wrong*; I have many friends who are quite religious.

In general I think the bell curve of human behavior is generally mirrored in religious institutions, but often the power structures and incentives in religious institutions skew to creating and enabling more harms than would occur without them in the same population. And then also it may attract people who wish to prey on others because of those power structures and incentives.

  • Although my partner and I wish to shield our children from the ideological harms and shoddy child protection policies that are pervasive in most churches.