Kill The Evangelist In Your Head: How to Have Actual Relationships as an Ex-evangelical

Leaving evangelism is one thing… leaving the mindset is a whole other ball game

You’ve done one of the hardest things you’ll probably ever do—you left. Or maybe you were kicked out and stayed out. You deconstructed. You untangled the beliefs that once structured your entire world.

Now, you might be searching for something to fill the church-shaped hole evangelicalism left behind. Many exvangelicals turn to activism as a new source of meaning. It makes sense—activism offers community, a sense of purpose, and the motivation to create change.

I know for me, as a deconstructing teenager, it was easy to swap my church family for my feminist and activist family (which, of course, was better in a million ways). And honestly? I was good at being an activist.

✔️ I could get people to volunteer.

✔️ I could register them to vote.

✔️ I was a promising young political organizer.

But it took me years to recognize the darker side of my drive—the parts shaped by my evangelical upbringing:

🔹 The savior complex I hadn’t yet unlearned

🔹 Perfectionism that kept me constantly striving but never feeling good enough

🔹 Hollow relationships that left me feeling used and lost

From saving the world to… saving the world

Let’s be clear: being an ex-evangelical can make you a highly effective organizer. Many of us leave with skills that are actually useful in activism—public speaking, mobilizing people, persuasive storytelling. That’s not the problem.

The problem is that our underlying mindset often doesn’t shift as we look for meaning outside the church.

In evangelical Christianity, “saving the world” meant individually “saving” souls for Jesus. That wasn’t just one aspect of our faith—it was the entire foundation our lives were built on.

And that belief? That doesn’t always disappear when we start deconstructing.

For many of us, the first thing we recognize as toxic is the community itself. We see the judgment, the purity culture, the control. But we don’t always realize that the underlying mindset—the one that shaped our sense of urgency, morality, and self-worth—is still running in the background.

We go from desperately trying to win souls for Jesus to desperately trying to win souls for social justice.

We may not realize that we still see people as needing to be “saved.”

We may still feel that same urgency, that same all-consuming anxiety.

Just like killing the cop in your head means not seeing people as beings that need to be policed, killing the evangelist in your head means not seeing people as potential converts before seeing them as human beings.

Everyone has to be perfect but especially me

One of the hardest patterns to unlearn is policing others into a “correct” moral code. This can cause us to isolate—not just for safety, but for comfort.

🔹 We expect moral perfection from the people around us.

🔹 We expect moral perfection from ourselves.

🔹 And if we or others fail to meet these impossible standards, we feel the same sense of guilt, shame, and unworthiness we once felt in church.

I want to be clear: I’m not saying we shouldn’t call each other in. Your conservative uncle does have some seriously bad takes. But evangelicalism taught us that perfection is the only way to morality, and if you’re not perfect, you must repent and do better immediately.

This can lead us to:

⚠️ Feeling like we can’t be around people who think differently, in fear that it will “taint” our values (sound familiar?)

⚠️ Feeling like we must constantly be “doing enough” to prove we’re good people

⚠️ Feeling like no matter what we do, we are failing—even without Pastor Jim whispering in our ear that we’re not doing enough for Jesus

This mindset doesn’t just burn us out—it makes it impossible to have real relationships.

Healing and finding new ways to relate

Releasing our responsibility to a God of perfection

This is so much easier said than done. But one of the first acts of healing for exvangelical activists is learning to let go of perfectionism as a moral standard.

As an exvangelical therapist, I’ve seen so much misunderstanding about what perfectionism actually is.

The first thing people say is, “But I’m not good at being perfect!” (This is exactly what I told my own therapist while deconstructing.)

But here’s the thing:

✨ Perfectionism isn’t about being perfect—it’s about believing you must be perfect to be worthy.

✨ Perfectionism sets impossible standards (10 Commandments, anyone?), which means you’ll never meet them.

✨ Perfectionism doesn’t want you to be perfect—it wants you to never try so you can never fail.

So, how do we start to unlearn this?

We give ourselves permission to try.

Affirmations for healthier relationships

I love trading in bible versus for mantras so here are a few to get you started in shifting the way you see yourself in relationships.

✨ It is not my job to “save” anyone. I can share my thoughts without expecting people to change.

✨ People are allowed to be on their own journey. Just like I was.

✨ My worth is not measured by how “right” I am or how much I do.

✨ It is okay to rest. Rest is part of the work.

✨ I don’t have to be perfect to be making a difference.

✨ I can build relationships that are based on mutual care—not just shared ideology.

Why this work is hard and why you shouldn’t do it alone

If this feels overwhelming—that’s because it is.

Undoing years and years of conditioning isn’t something you can do overnight.

And here’s the real kicker:

We can’t learn to be in new relationships… without actually being in relationships.

You don’t have to be perfectly healed before you can access community. In fact, community is part of the healing.

That’s why I created the Religious Trauma Healing Intensive—a 12-week group therapy & EMDR program designed for exvangelicals who are:

✔️ Working through perfectionism, guilt, and shame after leaving high-control religion

✔️ Trying to rebuild their identity outside of evangelical conditioning

✔️ Wanting to unlearn toxic relationship patterns and build healthier, more fulfilling connections

💛 If this resonates with you, click here to learn more about the Religious Trauma Healing Intensive. You don’t have to do this alone.

Hello it’s me, Emerald Anderson-Fitzpatrick (LMHCA) writer of this blog and therapist owner of Queer of Cups Counseling.