Why I Wrote Straight to Hell

Sometimes telling the truth costs everything. But hiding it can cost even more.

Straight to Hell is my story of what happens when you trade your true self for acceptance—and the long, winding road to reclaiming it. It’s about walking away from certainty to face questions that can’t be answered neatly. It’s about faith deconstruction, surviving religious trauma, carrying the weight of shame and exile, and discovering that healing and hope are still possible. Most of all, it’s a hand extended to anyone who has ever been told they don’t belong.

The Cost of Hiding Who You Are

I wrote Straight to Hell to tell the truth about what it really costs to trade authenticity for acceptance. For years, I believed love had to be earned by becoming someone else—someone I could never truly be. Like so many LGBTQ people raised in conservative religious (and non-religious) environments, I became fluent in the art of hiding, wearing a mask so convincing that even I began to mistake it for my own face.

I can still see myself in the pulpit on Sunday mornings—tie knotted tight, smile fixed in place, delivering words I prayed would save me, while inside, the truth pressed against my ribs, terrified of breaking free. That kind of hiding extracts a steep price, and it wasn’t mine alone to pay. My wife, my children, and so many others I loved carried the weight of my concealment, even if they didn’t know its full name.

The toll was measured in broken relationships, a life in ruins, and a self I could barely recognize. We all lost something in those years—pieces of trust, of connection, of joy. But naming the loss was the first step toward healing, the moment the long, tender, and often messy work of reclaiming my truth began.

Straight to Hell is the story of that price—and of what it takes to finally come home to yourself.

Starting Honest Conversations with People of Faith

I wrote this book to invite honest, unflinching dialogue with people of faith about how rigid fundamentalism can crush those who cannot conform. Nothing in these pages is meant as an attack on the church or religion itself. My story is not about tearing down faith—it’s about telling the truth of what happens when grace is replaced with judgment, and belonging is made conditional.

I know this from both sides—first as the man sitting in the pews silently drowning, and later as the Evangelical pastor preaching sermons I hoped would somehow save my own soul. I’ve seen the damage done when religion demands conformity over compassion, doctrine over dignity.

My hope is that Straight to Hell will become a meeting place where believers, non-believers, ex-evangelicals, and the spiritually wounded can speak without fear, listen without defense, and perhaps find a way forward together.

Pleading for Compassion and Openness

I wrote this book to plead with our families and communities for something simple, yet often so hard to give: understanding, compassion, and openness. We don’t have to see eye to eye on every point of theology to stand heart to heart on the value of another person’s life.

I’ve seen what happens when love comes with fine print—when acceptance is dangled like a reward for compliance. It fractures trust, it teaches shame, and it leaves people wandering in the cold without a place to belong.

But I’ve also seen what happens when someone—anyone—opens their arms instead of pointing a finger. When a parent says, “You are mine, no matter what.” When a friend listens without trying to fix. When a church says, “You still have a seat at the table.” That kind of love doesn’t just change a life—it can save it.

Naming the Reality of Religious Trauma

I wrote this book to name and expose what trauma truly feels like—especially the kind forged in rejection, shame, and spiritual abuse. Religious trauma isn’t just an idea to be debated in a classroom or on social media. It’s a lived reality that rewires the nervous system, distorts relationships, and erodes self-worth.

It settles deep in the body, tightening the chest, quickening the breath, and coloring every decision with fear of being cast out again. It follows you into conversations, into love, into the mirror. It whispers lies about who you are and what you deserve until those lies sound like your own thoughts.

In telling my story, I wanted to give words to the silent ache so many carry. I wanted to hold it up to the light, to name it without flinching—because when we can name something, we can begin to heal it.

Testifying That Healing Is Possible

I wrote this book to testify that healing—slow, sacred, and sometimes achingly lonely—is absolutely possible, whether or not you ever return to religious faith or receive the acceptance you once longed for. Wholeness doesn’t require you to step back into the space where the harm happened or place yourself again in the hands that once withheld love.

I’ve learned that beauty can grow in the cracks, in the places where you thought nothing living could take root. That life after spiritual abuse and community rejection can be more than survival—it can be rich and vibrant, full of moments you once thought you’d never taste again.

It can be laughter around a table you built yourself. It can be love that asks nothing in return. It can be a sense of home—not because you were invited back, but because you claimed it for yourself. Healing can be joyful, grounded, and free.

Reaching Back for the Wounded and the Exiled

And finally, I wrote this book to reach back for the wounded, the silenced, the exiled. I see you. I was you. I know what it’s like to stand outside the circle you once belonged to, watching the light and warmth from a distance, wondering if you’ll ever be welcomed back—or if you even want to be.

You are not alone. You never were. Your worth was never up for debate—no matter who tried to convince you otherwise, no matter what was thundered from a pulpit, no matter how far you’ve been pushed to the margins.

Nothing—no church, no family, no theology—has the power to change that. The truth is, you belong here, in the wide and wild space where love is not rationed and acceptance is not earned. And if no one has ever said it to you before, let me say it now: you are enough, exactly as you are.

If any part of my story resonates with you, I hope you’ll come back here—to my website, to this blog, to the conversations we’ll keep having. In the weeks ahead, I’ll be sharing more reflections, behind-the-scenes glimpses into Straight to Hell, and episodes of my upcoming podcast, Straight to Hell: A Psychospiritual Journey.

My hope is that this space becomes a kind of home for those who are searching, questioning, healing, or simply needing to hear, “You’re not alone.”

I’d be honored to walk this road with you.

Your Brother,

John the Exile