Raised KJVIFB and ACE K-12. Decoupling not deconstructing. Anyone else?

I grew up in an independent fundamental Baptist church in Southeast Texas. My parents ran illegal game rooms and were active in Wicca before they converted, they liked the security and firm separation between them and what they perceived as a dark world of corruption and compromise. 

I was raised K-12 in ACE School of Tomorrow. I attended the coastal Plains regional convention in Palacios multiple times throughout my childhood. I didn’t just live in this ecosystem. I thrived in it. Bible bowl champion eight different times. I still remember my mom combed my hair like the mascot Ace, the perfect fundamentalist giddy child.

I'm not here to bash Christianity. I'm still a believer. What I'm processing is the ecosystem that grew around my faith rather than the faith itself.

The closed information loop. Sword of the Lord, Chick Publications, Alberto Rivera, Trail of Blood. IYKYK 

The idea that Baptist history skips from Acts to the American founding fathers with a 70 page pamphlet of anti-Catholic propaganda to fill the gap. The KJV was elevated beyond translation into something truly sacramental (in some cases believed to be capable of retroactively, correcting original manuscripts) while nobody mentions that Erasmus was a Catholic humanist who backwrote missing portions of Revelation from Latin.

I'm 22, recently married, working construction, teaching myself church history, reading the Didache and Eusebius and the London Baptist Confession on my lunch breaks.

I'm not angry. I'm just finally seeing the walls clearly enough to understand why I spent my whole life feeling like I didn't fit inside them.

Anyone else come out of this specific world? What did decoupling look like for you?

Posted May 28, 2026, 5:06 PM UTC

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