I suppose I excluded some important detail. The reason I had wanted to read the Bible then was so I could better understand God’s word and confront my family with that understanding. But reading the Bible didn’t clarify things for me the way I thought it would, instead of clear instruction on right and wrong I found more hypocrisy and contradiction, as well as a disturbing focus on the appropriate conduct of slave-owners and the treatment of women as property.

Reading the Bible gave me the same whiplash I felt seeing the hypocrisy of the people around me, which made me realize that it wasn’t in spite of their faith, but because of it.