Religious Trauma: Prayer, persecution, and when thepoetmiranda plans to stop being "mean" to Christians
From thepoetmiranda's editor's desk
Mean Miranda, Part 1
I’ve written repeatedly about Christians threatening me because I’m a trans woman. Several moderate and progressive Christians who see themselves as affirming have responded to my writing not with assurances that they will fight the bigotry in their faith communities but with tone policing about me being “mean” to Christians.
One of the first poems I shared on thepoetmiranda.com was inspired by Christian threats.
Prayer
Remember the Prayer of Jabez craze in the early 2000s? For those who don’t, Prayer of Jabez was a bestselling book that encouraged Christians to use the Bible verse 1 Chronicles 4:10 as a mantra to gain “blessings” in their lives.
Prosperity gospel preachers had already been teaching the pray Bible verses to force G-d to give you things approach for years, but it really took off after this book sold a few million copies. Of course there was (and is) also associated merch. Lots of it.
While people around me prayed for new luxury brand cars, I prayed verses like James 4:17 ("Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin."). Of course, I was trying to avoid a Hell I only believed in for my own soul (Side B of the mixtape memoir piece below is where I talk about that):
I was a young and idealistic Christian who thought what Jesus of Nazareth said about loving our neighbors should be our focus, so I kept proposing more good works for our community. Church leadership dismissed everything I proposed and scoffed, “well, we have a food pantry.” My pastor told my youth pastor to tell me to stop being a nuisance.
More G-d bless me verses made the rounds in evangelical circles after the Prayer of Jabez success. When 9/11 happened, one verse in particular became Christians’ communal mantra—I mean, prayer—2 Chronicles 7:14.
Many evangelicals saw the 9/11 attacks as an attack on Christendom as much as it was an attack on the United States. They buy into myths about us being founded as a Christian nation and believe that social fracturing, unaffordability, and all our other problems can be solved by collective repentance.
Persecution
Have you ever had someone pray at you?
I don’t just mean the derisive use of “I’ll pray for you” or “Bless your heart.” Has anyone ever told you that they’ll pray for G-d to harm you? Because I’m a trans woman who interacts in multiple online spaces (Christians have also harassed and threatened me offline), that happens to me fairly regularly.
Christians have told me that they pray for the success of oppressive laws, that they’re praying for G-d to kill me, and that they’re praying for Trump to start “rounding up all you tr***y freaks for the camps.” That seems to be an admission that evangelicals know that the concentration camps that the U.S. regime is building are for torture and killing, doesn’t it?
Lately, a new prayer has been lobbed my way in comment sections and DMs: invocation of 2 Chronicles 7:14. They don’t use “turn from their wicked ways” as a call for me to repent from being trans (which isn’t actually a sin) but rather as a threat that they intend to “get rid of perverts like you.”
Under the lens of Christian nationalism, things like greed and sexual predation perpetuated by cisgender heterosexual men aren’t sinful, but my personhood is. To them, killing people waiting in line for food isn’t a sin, but crossing a line on a map or waiting for the government to process paperwork you’ve already submitted is.
Christian nationalists always see sins as external to themselves and the people they sees as sinners as too far gone to save. Christian nationalists see disabled people as inherently lazy, black people as violent thugs, indigenous people as backwards savages, Hispanic and Latino people as thieves of their inheritance, and transgender people as rejectors of imago Dei (the image of G-d).
Christian nationalists want to divide us sinners into two groups: forced labor and human sacrifices. All for their blessing.
Mean Miranda, Part 2
I had to wade through, escape, and deconstruct so much before I was able to come out and be myself. I had hoped that parting ways with the church would allow me heal from my religious trauma, but the devils followed me out the doors.
I will continue speaking out against the Christians who want me to either live as a second-class citizen or die as their human sacrifice.
Christians who don’t support hatred need to spend less energy tone policing me and more time telling their brethren to stop threatening people, G-d damn it. Maybe after that we can work our way up to rebuking Christians for bearing false witness against trans people.
💜thepoetmiranda📚
Yes!!!
For those who throw evil my way, I imagine them inside a black bubble. The inside of the bubble is a mirror. Everything they send out goes IMMEDIATELY AND DIRECTLY back into them. Make sure no light escapes the bubble and send them into the far-off universe, stewing in their own shit. It’s the Reverse Karma meditation. Love you. 😘💕