A man stood alone in the wilderness, down on his knees in prayer. He had left the temple behind to find God in quiet solitude, because the temple had become a place that worshiped God with their lips but not with their hearts. That same man gathered misfits and outcasts, meeting them in their homes, by the well, or in the sea. He taught them that they had direct access to God because God had come down; He stood among them. Everywhere he went, he met the needs of the people he encountered. He fed, he healed, he restored. He loved.
That man was Jesus. And when he died, he returned again, sharing the good news of his gospel with the same misfits and outcasts who had journeyed with him in the wilderness, and told them to spread the word. Sin is defeated. The Holy Spirit has come. The vail has torn. God is among us for good.
That was supposed to be the joy of the gospel—that we now had direct access to God without fear. We were free to explore God’s nature experientially. God was no longer a far-off deity but was rather a faithful friend. His Spirit indwelled us and we could ask questions and receive answers, having faith that in Spirit and in Christ Jesus we had guidance and protection that wouldn’t lead us astray.
But somewhere along the way, that gospel got distorted.
From Church Orphan to Christian Mystic
I left the church for good around the 2016 election. Having already begun to feel out of place there as a bisexual woman who loved the LGBTQIA community, the appearance of Donald Trump and MAGA on the scene was all I needed to push me right out of the building. It wasn’t that I felt that the MAGA movement had turned the church into something it never was. It was that MAGA had made many Christians feel safe to finally reveal what they always had been.
The last nearly ten years have been a difficult but rewarding road of finding my own way in a faith that I believed in, but no longer felt a part of. I coined the term church orphan (or, if I didn’t coin it, I was the first person I knew of to use it) and began connecting with other church orphans like me. I learned that there were a lot of us — disappointed and disenchanted with a church that seemed to have lost sight of the gospel right under our noses. We were under no illusion that the church had, until now, been a beacon of goodness and righteousness. The Crusades, the violence against women done under Christian patriarchy, and the theological justification of slavery all taught us that Christianity can be dangerous and cruel. But we did believe, at least until then, that the church was—at the individual level—made up of good people who generally wanted to do God’s will. When we learned that the people in the pews with us had been hiding deep-seated sexist, racist, and nationalistic views that they finally felt free to shout from the rooftops, that was the last straw. So, we found each other and did the best we could with the community we had.
I went down a long road of trying different ways to experience my faith. Having not yet deconstructed a lot of the fear-based dogma I’d been taught at church, I didn’t feel free to explore alternative labels or philosophies and still call myself a Christian. But I knew one thing for certain: the gospel is the gospel. It is unchanging, and it is the truth that all Christianity is founded upon. After quite a bit of soul searching, and finding the deconstruction community on TikTok, I learned that if I kept the gospel at the center while I went about my wanderings, I’d not be led astray.
I studied Buddhism, Hinduism, and yogic practices. I learned about how to meditate, how to use crystals and herbs to heal the body, and how to balance my chakras. I visited the Akashic Records and asked questions that had haunted me for years. I prayed to Jesus and the Holy Spirit to show me what is true.
Where I landed was on a term I had never heard of before: Christian mysticism. The name startled me at first—even in spite of all the spiritual reading I’d been doing. Mysticism, as I’d been told in church, was heresy. But the more I read, the more I realized that this view of the Christian faith was the closest thing to the gospel I’d ever heard. It was the gospel embodied. And it felt like home.
The Way in the Wilderness (tenants of Christian mysticism)
The oddest thing about discovering Christian mysticism is realizing that, to me, it seemed like the most honest expression of what Christianity was meant to be. Let me lay out some of the beliefs of Christian mysticism for you and see if you feel the same:
- Union with God is the goal. Christian mystics believe that spirituality is about experiencing God, not just believing the right things.
- The inner life is sacred. While many modern Christian denominations seem to focus primarily on one’s external behaviors and the performance of righteousness, Christian mystics focus on a relationship with God that is contemplative, prayerful, and inward. While church attendance is seen as something that can help with one’s transformation, Christian mystics believe that church can also be deeply flawed (let’s not forget the centuries of systemic harm done by the Christian church, which continues today), and that attending church is not a requirement for salvation or sanctification.
- Love is the highest law. Christ was the ultimate expression of God’s unconditional and sacrificial love, and we as Christians are called to live out that principle through leading a life of love and generosity.
- Transformation is central. Through direct and unfearful communion with God, a soul will begin to transform to be more like Christ. This is the fruit of the spirit as described in scripture. Whereas mainstream Christianity often prioritizes dogmatic or ritualistic behaviors that can lead to spiritual stagnation, Christian mystics believe in experiencing God, and evolving through the process of getting to know Him better.
- Christ is the archetype of the union we can have with God. When Jesus came to Earth, he exemplified what direct communion with God looks like. We are meant to follow His example, believing that we have the same access to God that He had.
- Scripture is sacred, but not inerrant. Christian mystics believe the Bible is holy, sacred, and God-breathed—it is how God revealed Himself to us. However, they also tend to hold a non-inerrant view of the Bible. All scripture must be critically analyzed through the lens of what Jesus revealed during His time on Earth.
- Mystery is embraced over certainty. Christian mystics hold a non-dualistic mindset that allows for one’s views and understanding of God and of self to evolve over time. While Christian mystics do hold some things as undeniable truths — such as the death and resurrection of Jesus and the substitutionary sanctification of sin through His death — they tend to see most Christian concepts as ideas to be contemplated, not debated.
The Path to Transformation
My discovery of Christian mysticism felt like the most real and transformative moment of my spiritual journey. For me, there was an aha moment where I realized that these concepts were things I had believed all along, but that the modern corporate church had convinced me were wrong. Despite all the lessons I learned about the freedom of the gospel in Sunday school as a kid, the church had managed to put me back in chains of shame, legalism, and self-righteousness. And as I read that sentence again, I realize what an odd contradiction I seemed to always hold in my mainstream Christian days: that I could be so inwardly full of shame and self-hatred, and also so outwardly self-righteous and judgmental.
I still struggle with those negative things because, frankly, I think they’re human. I feel ashamed sometimes. I feel judgmental sometimes. The difference between who I am since discovering Christian mysticism and before it is that I finally don’t go to a building every week to have those feelings reinforced. I do have Christian community, though I find it with other Christian mystics — both in my real life and in books. I do not attend a physical church anymore, but I commune with God so much more than I did when I felt like I could only find the true God inside of a building. I meet with God in nature, in contemplation, in prayer, in meditation. I meet Him while practicing yoga, while doing breathwork, while exercising my body. I meet with Him through the Holy Spirit who indwells me—who, despite the attempts of the corporate church to convince me otherwise—is loving and powerful enough to correct me when I am going astray and to convict me when necessary.
I am sovereign, yet still in supplication to a God worth submitting to, because I no longer accept the notion that I am too flawed, too filthy, too sinful to approach Him on my own. I am learning. I am evolving. I am becoming a better person. And all it took was leaving the church to find the true and living gospel that the church has seemed to have forgotten.
Do I want you to become a Christian mystic? No, not necessarily. What I would like you to do is recognize the freedom you have in Christ: the freedom to ask the hard questions, to look for answers outside of the Bible (or even outside of Christianity), to say, “I don’t know.” I’d like for you to trust yourself, and the Holy Spirit within you, to help you discern the truth as you explore. If there is anything we must accept as true as Christians, it is that God is loving enough to handle your hard questions, powerful enough to keep you close to Him, and kind enough to welcome you back if you go astray for a time. God is bigger than the small version of Him that the corporate church has tried to portray in order to put more power in their own hands.
Trust yourself; and trust Him too.
Amber Wardell is a doctor of psychology and author who speaks on women’s issues related to marriage, motherhood, and mental health. Subscribe to the free newsletter to get exclusive content delivered to your inbox and to never miss an upload.
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