As a recovering evangelical Christian who now worships a Goddess, I hope you won’t mind if I share a few thoughts on your post.

You mention that, as an autistic person, it’s either all or nothing with you. It’s important to realize that “Christianity” is a mental construct, an artificial lens for perceiving and interacting with God. The core principle (that appears to be honored more in the breach rather than the observance) is the personal relationship with Jesus.

You may know this already; but, according to Google, for the first several centuries of the church, the idea that the unsaved were doomed to everlasting torment was only one of several views. If you dispense with that, you dispense with much of the horror promulgated “in Jesus’ Name.”

Have you had any direct experience, any spiritual encounter of which you were aware? You see, that is what has convinced me of a couple of things: first, that God is real; and, second, that He doesn’t only manifest Himself in Christianity – even St. Paul admits this, in Romans.

On the other side, I have had a few direct experiences of spiritual evil, so I can tell you that it exists, as well. And, given that it does exist, it is obvious that it would focus particular attention on the actual experience of God in Christianity (or any other context), because it always seeks to corrupt and defile anything good. Thus, the church ends up being an amalgam of good and corruption – of which the wheat and tares of the parable are an example, I suppose.

So, I would say, as an all-or-nothing sort of person, be careful to avoid throwing the baby out with the bath. This is a problem for non-autistic people, so it must be especially difficult for you. Nevertheless, it is, on its face, unwise, whether one is autistic or not. Do your best to hold onto the good while throwing the bad away – because good there is. For myself, I have held onto my relationship with Jesus, something He had more to do with preserving than I did, I must admit. My basis for doing so is not as much the Bible, or anything from the Christian context, but from the testimony of a Kali-worshipping Hindu saint named Ramakrishna, who had his own encounter with Jesus. I consider his testimony more highly than the testimony of most others, because it is real.

I celebrate your freedom from bondage.