Relearning How to Think: A Critical Thinking Guide for Exvangelicals
<<Can you do an exvangelical trauma-informed review and education of critical thinking for me since I missed out on it growing up?>>
ChatGPT: Absolutely. Let’s break this down into two major areas:
Exvangelical Trauma & How It Affects Thinking
Critical Thinking Education: What You Missed & How to Learn It Now
1. Exvangelical Trauma & How It Affects Thinking
Evangelical Christianity, especially the fundamentalist variety, tends to instill thought control mechanisms that shape how you process information, make decisions, and engage with the world. Growing up in this environment likely left you with cognitive distortions and gaps in your reasoning skills. Let's outline the key ways this happens:
A. Thought Control in Evangelicalism
Fundamentalist religious environments manipulate thinking using:
Binary Thinking (Black & White Thinking) → "Things are either good or evil, true or false, saved or damned." This eliminates nuance.
Authoritarian Epistemology → "Truth comes from the Bible, pastors, or God, not from personal inquiry or evidence."
Fear-Based Reasoning → "Questioning is dangerous; doubt leads to hell."
Emotional Manipulation → Guilt, shame, and fear replace rational argumentation.
Rejection of Unapproved Sources → Scientific, historical, or secular viewpoints are dismissed as worldly, deceptive, or sinful.
Appeal to Divine Mystery → If something doesn’t make sense, the answer is either “God’s ways are higher than ours” or “You need more faith.”
These mechanisms work together to create a cognitive environment that suppresses independent thought and replaces it with submissive acceptance of doctrine.
B. The Impact of Exvangelical Trauma on Thinking
Now that you’ve left, your brain is likely rebuilding its ability to reason independently. But you might notice some struggles:
Doubt Feels Dangerous → Questioning things still triggers anxiety or guilt.
You Second-Guess Yourself Constantly → Since authority dictated truth before, you might not trust your own conclusions.
Mistrust of Knowledge Sources → You were told secular information is deceptive, so it can feel unsettling to trust new knowledge.
Panic Around Uncertainty → If you don’t have a clear answer, you might feel lost or unsafe.
Desire for Absolute Certainty → Fundamentalism taught that the truth is singular and clear-cut, making ambiguity uncomfortable.
Emotional Hijacking → When faced with an argument or idea that reminds you of evangelical reasoning, you might shut down emotionally.
C. Healing & Rebuilding Thought Processes
Notice When Fear or Guilt Shows Up in Your Thinking → Is your hesitation based on reason or lingering indoctrination?
Challenge Binary Thinking → Ask, “What’s the nuance here?” or “Are there shades of gray I’m missing?”
Practice Intellectual Self-Trust → Remind yourself that you are capable of learning, analyzing, and forming your own conclusions.
Expose Yourself to a Variety of Perspectives → Read broadly, even from perspectives you instinctively recoil from.
Engage with Questions Without Immediate Answers → Sit with uncertainty and notice the discomfort without rushing to resolve it.
2. Critical Thinking Education: What You Missed & How to Learn It Now
Evangelical education and culture often discourages critical thinking in favor of faith-based thinking. If you didn’t get a strong foundation in reasoning skills growing up, here’s a crash course.
A. What Is Critical Thinking?
Critical thinking is the ability to analyze, evaluate, and form reasoned judgments based on evidence rather than emotion, authority, or tradition. It means:
Questioning assumptions
Evaluating evidence
Recognizing biases
Forming logical conclusions
Understanding different perspectives
B. Key Skills You Might Have Missed
Logic & Argumentation
Understanding logical fallacies (common errors in reasoning).
Recognizing valid vs. invalid arguments.
Differentiating between correlation and causation.
Scientific Thinking
Understanding how evidence works (scientific method, peer review).
Learning why multiple sources of data matter.
Avoiding cherry-picking (selecting only the evidence that supports your belief).
Media Literacy
Recognizing misinformation & propaganda techniques.
Identifying bias in news, books, and online sources.
Questioning who benefits from a certain narrative.
Historical Thinking
Learning how history is recorded and revised.
Understanding how myths and biases shape what we believe.
Recognizing how Christianity shaped (and distorted) history narratives.
Philosophical Inquiry
Understanding epistemology (how we know what we know).
Engaging with big existential questions without defaulting to dogma.
Exploring ethics beyond religious rules.
C. How to Learn It Now (Without Getting Overwhelmed)
Step 1: Start With Logical Fallacies
These are common errors in reasoning that you were probably exposed to all the time in church. Learning them will help you identify bad arguments—whether they come from a pastor, politician, or even yourself.
Some key ones:
Straw Man → Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack.
False Dilemma (Either/Or Thinking) → "It’s either Jesus or eternal damnation."
Appeal to Authority → "This is true because the Bible/Pastor says so."
Circular Reasoning → "The Bible is true because it says it’s true."
No True Scotsman → "Real Christians wouldn’t act like that."
Step 2: Read About How Science Works
Since evangelicalism often rejected evolution, cosmology, and basic scientific reasoning, you might have gaps here. Start with something approachable, like:
A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (accessible, fun science writing).
Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne (if you missed out on learning evolution).
The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan (scientific skepticism 101).
Step 3: Learn How to Spot Bias and Misinformation
How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler (classic guide to analytical reading).
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (how biases shape our thinking).
Watch YouTube channels like CrashCourse Philosophy, SciShow, and PBS Idea Channel.
Step 4: Engage in Slow, Thoughtful Conversations
Practice analyzing arguments in conversations without jumping to defend or reject.
Ask open-ended questions (instead of debating).
Notice when emotions take over your reasoning.
Final Thoughts: Learning to Think as a Free Person
Coming out of evangelicalism means you’re learning to think for yourself in a way that was never encouraged before. This is hard because:
You don’t have a pre-packaged framework anymore.
Evangelicalism gave you certainty and answers. Now, you’re left with real inquiry.
That can feel terrifying—but it’s also freeing.
You’re having to build intellectual self-trust.
It’s okay to get things wrong. You’re learning how to learn.
Give yourself permission to be in process.
It’s okay to feel grief.
You lost years of development in areas like critical thinking, curiosity, and openness.
But you’re here now, and that’s what matters.
This process will take patience—but you’re reclaiming your mind, your agency, and your right to explore reality on your own terms.
