Growing up in the South as a Roman Catholic, I was told more than once that I wasn’t really a Christian. I never fully understood why that was said to me, only that it was. I even had a teacher tell me that once. It became one of those things I learned to explain at a young age—the history, the differences, the reasons people believed that.
Looking back, it’s something I should have never been expected to explain at all.
Today, I am no longer a practicing Catholic. I simply consider myself a Christian. I don’t lean toward any one denomination, and a lot of that comes from years of being hurt, not just by the church itself, but by people who called themselves Christians and still managed to cut deeply with their words and actions.
If you were to search for a definition of Christianity, you would find countless answers. Different explanations. Different interpretations. Different emphases.
But at its most basic level, this is what I was taught—and what I still believe:
To be a Christian is to believe in Jesus.
To believe that He came, lived as a man, was crucified, buried, and rose again on the third day.
Everything else builds from there.
Christianity began as a sect within Judaism after the death of Jesus, as His disciples spread His teachings. Over time, as Gentiles were included, it began to separate. By the second century, that divide had taken shape, and by the fifth century, different branches had formed into what we now know as the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Catholic Church.
Centuries later, during the Reformation, Protestantism emerged, leading to even more denominations. Today, Christianity is often grouped into three main branches: Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy, along with other smaller traditions.
But at the core, all of it comes from the same place.
The same teachings.
The same beginning.
The differences came later—through interpretation, through disagreement, through people trying to understand and apply those teachings in different ways. Does that make one right and another wrong? That’s not for me to decide.
I left the Catholic Church for my own reasons—not because it was bad or wrong, but because it was no longer where I felt I needed to be.
I’ve attended other churches since then. Some felt welcoming. Others didn’t. There were places where I left feeling encouraged, and places where I left feeling more hurt than when I walked in.
In the end, I chose a church that fit me, not in the sense of comfort, but in the way it challenged me. A place where the message made me stop and think. Made me want to learn more.
A place that wasn’t focused on appearances or expectations, but on God.
A place where people checked in, not out of curiosity or gossip, but out of care. Where it was okay to admit I didn’t have everything figured out. Where it was okay to ask questions. Where it was okay to feel lost. Because the truth is, I think a lot of us feel that way more often than we admit.
Christianity, at its core, was never meant to be complicated.
It was meant to be about faith.
About believing.
About following Jesus.
Somewhere along the way, people added layers to it. Expectations. Divisions. Rules that sometimes made it harder to come to God instead of easier.
And for some, church became a place to avoid instead of a place to run toward.
But I don’t believe that’s what it was ever meant to be.