The Christian Mistake That Nearly Cost Me My Faith

In this episode of The Unseen Witness, I share a personal story about a mistake I made in my Christian walk. One that slowly pulled my faith away from Christ without me realizing it.

This is not a political episode.
It’s a reflection on faith, Scripture, identity, and what happens when Christianity becomes confused with culture rather than rooted in Christ Himself.

In this episode, we explore:

How easy it is to inherit beliefs without understanding them

Why Scripture, Church history, and the lives of the saints matter

What the Gospel actually asks of Christians

How faith can be distorted — and how it can be restored

This episode is for anyone who has ever struggled to reconcile belief with belonging, or felt distant from God while still calling themselves Christian.

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:03

Through your path of Christianity, do you feel like you care more about people, or do you feel like people become more of a nuisance to you? Do you feel like other peoples suffering is intertwined to your suffering? Or do you only care if that suffering belongs to you or something you're passionate about? Do you care? Do you believe that subconsciously you're smarter, better, more valuable than other people of society? Or do you believe that we're all meant to be equals? And instead of being hateful or judgmental, take it to God and pray for that person. The unseen witness. What's going on everyone? Most weeks on the Unseen Witness podcast, we talk about topics in regards to miracles, mysticism, saints, martyrs or anything like that, and their attachment to theology so that we can grow deeper and connect to our faith and reconnect to the wonders and the beauty of our faith. With all of that being said, today's episode will be a little bit different, but not in a way that I'm going to be changing by any means the format of the podcast, it's just this particular episode is going to be formatted differently. I think that this episode is going to give you a little bit of a closer insight to who I am, which I think is important if you're following my content and getting to know faith through me. But it's also going to serve as a lesson as to how I almost lost sight of what being in a relationship with Christ really is about, and what it continues to be about as I continue to learn and grow. Because every single day is a learning and growing process. No matter how deep you are into your faith. And so that is what this episode is going to be about in a way that helps you understand why the topics I cover are so important and dear to my heart, and also in way that can serve as a maybe guidance to those who here are also just renewing their faith or trying to grow closer with Christ. Because I've had a few people reach out to me who are like that, listening to the episodes, it's intrigued a part of them that has made them want to get closer to Christ, which makes me incredibly happy. And so I do think an episode like this is important to put out there, and I don't want you to get scared or worried. It's not going to be like an argument, a debate, It's none of that, actually. It it like I said, if you if you stay till the end, you will understand the, the full picture. And I think the full picture is important to understand this episode. It's just that I avoided doing this episode for a very long time, but I think that it is important to do so now. Something that y'all don't know that I don't think I've ever actually mentioned before, is that I come from a multi-cultural family and background. My father's family are Orthodox Christians, from Orthodox Catholic Christians from Bethlehem particularly they're Palestinian, and they migrated to Central America, around the 1920s. And that is where they established a home, in particular El Salvador. My mother's side of the family are Catholics, and they come from German and Austrian roots she met my father in Central America in El Salvador. And we moved to America when I was about six years old. And like many immigrant families, I believe in the early 90s we were taught to not stand out. You know, my siblings and I not stand out. Don't make a fuss, don't complicate things, blend in, you know, blend and blend and blend in. And that was a very common thing that I was told in my upbringing. Now, like I mentioned, right, we were told to blend in. And although we were Christian in our roots, but from both sides of my family come from Catholic beliefs or from, Orthodox Christian beliefs. Eventually we were led into non-denominational beliefs and so we became non-denominational Christians in America. We attended churches like Joel Osteen or we, Elevation Church, things like that were what our faith was made up off of. But as the years went on, we became very distant from our Christian faith. We didn't really read scripture. We didn't spend time with Christ. At one point we stopped attending church. And, with all of that being intertwined, we never truly understood our faith. Christianity was inherited. It was something that we were just born into. But as the siblings continued to grow, it was not a practice. If anyone asked us what we were, we would always be Christian, Christian, Christian. But none of us actually understood the theology or understood our faith or anything like that. And eventually through the through the years of growing up like that and blending in with the American culture and letting go of other cultures that we were raised with, we very much became broken as a family. And I subscribed to the ideology of New Age spirituality, which is where I stayed for about ten years, maybe less, but around a big chunk of my life experimenting with, New Age beliefs of, you know, tarot cards, crystals, chakras, things like that. That really led me into a place that continued to make me feel darker and darker and darker as time continued. And it put me in an extremely empty place. That also taught me the dangers of messing with things without God's protection. And we can share those stories in a different day. But I got to a very dark place in my life through that ideology, through that belief, I was left quite broken and lost, and therefore eventually what ended up happening. It was beautiful. But I grew this unexplained hunger to reattach to Christ and my Christian faith. But for some reason, despite never having any experience with the Catholic faith, I felt incredibly drawn to it. Now, at the time, we've never really attended a mass, never really practiced Christian faith because in the Middle Eastern culture, whatever the man of the homes faith is, is whatever your children are raised in. So that's why we never practice anything. Because even though my dad's grandparents and great grandparents were Catholic or Orthodox, and my mother's parents and my mother was Catholic, my father was Protestant, he became Protestant. And so we were raised under that belief, and I say raised under Protestant beliefs very loosely, because there was no theology or anything attached to it. But I felt very drawn to the Catholic faith. And so I explored and, you know, I told my mother that I wanted to see what it's about. And that's when I was introduced to an RCIA program or OCIA program. And it's essentially a program that teaches you a lot about your faith and the Catholic faith before you get baptized. Because I wasn't even actually baptized. And so I began that I begin that process now. Throughout that process, I started seeking my own avenues of getting to know Christ. And the best way to do that, you know, you would think is like YouTube or, big personalities online. And as someone who didn't understand the difference at all, even between Catholics or Protestants or anything like that, someone who called themselves a Christian and believed in Christ to me was the identification of someone I needed to learn from, and relate to. Now that combination alone is extremely dangerous, right? I am starved for this connection with Christ. I am seeking it actively in a way that I want to kind of rush the experience because I'm hungry. You know, when you're starving and you're hungry, whether spiritually or physically, you're going to rush to get something to end that discomfort and try to get that connection. So I sought out, like I said, these avenues that I shouldn't have been seeking out and in combination to that I have absolutely no knowledge of our early church fathers of Scripture, of, saints in their history or who even the people in the Scripture was as far as like the disciples or, any one you can think of that plays a big part, whether in the Old Testament or the New Testament. I could not tell you anything. So that combination is so is so extremely dangerous, because you're essentially going to latch on to anyone you think. Captivates the idea of Christianity. And if you don't know what the true roots of that faith are, then you are going to be easily and easily misguided. Easily misguided, for sure. And not just in this topic, but in general. A rule of thumb is the loudest voices, and the ones who have the most following and seem like to have the most credibility can come across as the most convincing. And so that is where the beginning to a horrible start for me began. A lot of the people that I followed were very confident in what they had to say, and and their alignment to it being Christian. And they were they had this confidence that, made them come across as very inspiring and very sure of themselves. And like I said, me not knowing anything, I was like, oh, that is extremely motivating and I need to listen to this person because they're speaking with authority. And come to find out which is a spoiler alert, like Christianity, like it's a forever learning journey with Christ that could never end. There is no end point until you pass and you've had your judgment day. Okay, but I didn't know that. And so I listened. Now here's the part where I think is really important as to what I mentioned earlier. Coming from multiple cultures, but being told to blend in at the young age of six years old, and not following along with any scripture or anything else, I the voices that were the loudest had this particular blend of Christianity that is politics, politics, nationalism, culture all intertwined with what they called Christianity. Right? And for someone who learned to blend and blend and blend in, it was kind of hard to pick out the red flags of what was being said, in attachment to Christ. But those ideologies were so normal to me that when they blended in with Christ from everything that I had heard and to keep my mouth shut and just blend, I was like, yeah, this, this makes sense. This makes total sense. Typically in my past, like, ever, I always had this identification of politics as both sides do things that are good and both sides do things that are bad. But I never resonated necessarily with any political party because I felt like there was no perfect system and that's why it's so weird to me that for me, as I begin listening to these voices, a lot of the Christians were hard core conservatives, and I started to adapt because I was, like, sucked into this vortex because I was seeking this content out. And you know how social media works, right? And so I was stuck into this vortex where I 100% believed the ideology that conservatism equaled Christianity, and that you could not be a good Christian if you are not a conservative. Yeah. That's the best way I can explain it. So I began listening to their ideas and their beliefs and how they attached it to Scripture. And again, they took Scripture out of context to justify the actions that were being stated. And both sides do this. Yet I was not able to identify that because I did not know the roots of the Scripture that they were using and in the context out of context, that they used it and made sense to someone who doesn't know the information that it actually meant as the scripture. Hopefully that makes sense. So these ideas became believable to me, to someone who was so incredibly naive and uninformed. Okay, yeah. So before I knew it, and I get so hesitant talking about this because now in the place that I'm at, I would lie to you if I told you I wasn't holding on to this sense of hypocrisy or shame when I'm so incredibly opposed to some of these ideas. A lot of these ideas that I believed were intertwined with Christianity. And so I remember, slowly but surely little by little, which I can identify now. But I couldn't at the time. My belief system became nationalism, which is so crazy. Nationalism disguised under the facade of Christianity. And it was full blown and I could not tell the difference. I mean, thankfully, I think I lived in that environment for only six months. But six months is a lot because imagine, I imagine I would have died during that time. Like, gosh, what would I be? What would I have told Christ like, I don't know. So this Christianity, quote unquote, Christianity was really just a disguise of tribal loyalty. And power and deceit for getting what you wanted, or getting a group of people to follow what you thought you wanted, or what your idea of this perfect nation was. Okay, but it's all still intertwined with like, power gimmicks and like, hatred and bigotry and it's all in there. But like, it's so well disguised for people who don't know doctrine that it like connects to these unresolved, sinful parts of you, that you think you're doing something right and it feels like it's something right because it allows you to live in this like sinful state where you can excuse your behavior. And so then you kind of subconsciously ignore those facts if that makes sense. I don't know what it does. So mind you, I'm I'm continuing down this path, with COIA and OCIA for my Catholic faith, something continues to be repeated in my face over and over and over again. They're discussing scripture. They're tying it in to church fathers. They're discussing saints and their history and, how much they cared for people and how far they went out, to help the poor or the ones that people who were displaced or immigrants. And I'm hearing these two sides of Christianity, and now I'm becoming completely confused. And I feel torn and I'm like, but all these people that I'm following who have so much authority are saying this, but then my faith, as I'm growing it through Catholicism and starting this journey of understanding church fathers and history and learning how the saints worked and all these things, and then actually spending time with Christ, which is like the most pivotal point. Going to the adoration room, praying the rosary and meditating on the mysteries of his crucifixion and all these things. Right. And and then learning Christ and how he taught and how he taught in parables and the lessons he taught, and how much he cared for people and how he didn't judge. And then but he was like, truthful. And he was firm in his truthfulness. And he wasn't just like someone that was pushed around. It's like this weird combination that both the left side and the right side tried to dismantle for their own personal gain. It's like this like match of just like ripping it apart and like, see who can get more gain from it, but like, completely just just forgetting that at the end of it, if you truly are a Christian, you care about the salvation of others. And so it dismantles this idea that either one, either side cares, right? So now I'm stuck in this like box where I'm so incredibly confused and torn because one side I'm learning these like nationalistic beliefs. And then as I go through my journey with Christ in Catholicism, I'm learning a completely different group of people of and how they acted and I felt so conflicted. Now add to the whole entire thing this conflict of my ethnicity being from Bethlehem, right? I have this group of like conservative thinkers who claim they're Christian, and we're telling you that if you don't stand in a particular narrative, then you are not a good Christian, which was so incredibly conflicting to someone like me where it's like, hi. Like my whole family from that area is Christian and, so many people there are so beautiful and and kind. And what do you mean I'm not supposed to care about, like, so many deaths of so many innocents? And if I do care, like, I'm not a good Christian and and then, you know, then I was looking into the Catholic ideology of those things. And it explains, like, every person, no matter what side of the spectrum you are, matters like despite your ethnicity, despite like your, your, your faith or your religion. Like every person is made in the image of God, every person matters and every person deserves dignity and respect and protection. And so it's you see this ball UNRAVELING where I'm like super torn and intertwined and then the shame comes in because as I as I start studying scripture and hanging out with Christ and truly understanding it, all of these ideas that I was so incredibly ignorant and loud, loud in, unravel. And that's where the shame comes in, right? Because and I'm like, wow. Like I genuinely associated these ideas with God, with Christ and boldly spoke out in favor of them without even understanding what the heck it was that I was speaking on. So as I continue spending time with Christ, you know, I learned that Scripture has layers. There's geographical layers there, historical levels, there are theological levels. They're the way that Christ speaks to you, as a sense of prayer, even just spending that time with him in Scripture and giving him that devotion within that you learn that Christ spoke to political realities without becoming a political leader. And he didn't have a side. It's only believes came from God and the purpose he had, and the care for all humanity and the salvation of all. Then you recognize that throughout every government or whatever or any position of power that's been in place, there's been so much persecution to the actual ideas in the actual believes and theology that go into the Christian faith and throughout that persecution, because persecution did exist. And you see that till this day, if you don't choose the cookie cutter direction that they expect you to choose, you are outcasted and you are the black sheep. You're shamed. And that persecution still exists in a more digital way that removes you from a community. But that's the same reality we had in our Christian history. It was just like a much bloodier, gruesome Christian history where, the church didn't survive in layers of being in power at all, they survived through layers of persecution and, being opposed by those in power. Actually, through that realization and that continuous realization, because I'm still unpacking scripture and I'm still learning our church history, you recognize that Christ's views does not fit in any empire. It has never fit perfectly into any empire. And the truth ness of our faith is you cannot pick and choose what it is that you desire to get you into, to get you into heaven and what you can forgive and what you cannot forgive based on your own likings. Because in that sense, you are making yourself God. I think that obviously leads me to my next point, that through that realization, I realized that, the Christian faith is not national. There's no nationalism that can be attached because it is a universal church. It is a universal belief. So that is a universal faith and belief. And we're all supposed to be Christian under the same umbrella. Then how does nationalism fit into that umbrella? How can you possibly have true Christian virtues and true Christian values if you are limiting Christian's beliefs and Christian's, virtues to nationalistic beliefs, as opposed to a universal belief where we're all supposed to be brothers and sisters to the relationship of Christ. And, you know, even Christ teaches that family, goes beyond blood. It actually goes into the obedience of God in Christ. And so how can we be obedient to the fullness of Christ and God? When we are segregating ourselves by nation and essentially creating these laws in the name of Christ that keep us all against each other and separated against each other and pinned against each other. And if you don't believe this, you're not a proper Christian. But in that sense, you are completely leaving out of people under a different nationality because you don't think that they are equal to. And so this whole concept of I'm pro, this, pro that essentially pins you against your brothers and sisters, and that is not to say that you can't call out the bad things that are happening. You should call out the bad things that are happening, but not in a way that you completely sector out a whole group of people and then shame them Even me, from my background. I don't believe that you should do that to either side. We are all human beings, right? And so, that is the issue with this nationalistic belief of Christianity, is that it will 100% for the purpose of what they're trying to obtain, pin you against your own brothers and sisters who bleed the same, who come from the same, like making if you truly believe in Christ. The paradox in the Kingdom of Christ is that it belongs to all cultures and it belongs to no culture. It is for everybody. And there is that they can't survive in a kingdom full of hatred and separation, to the degree of the separation that is being implemented even today, in the name of Christ. I had confused belonging to a country and its rules to belonging to Christ and His kingdom, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I don't know if I mentioned this earlier because I've rambled on, but I went to the adoration room today and I was studying, you know, Luke nine, I think it's one through six where he sends out the disciples and, you know, he tells them something. I'm obviously going to paraphrase because I don't know the Scripture word for word. I'm still learning. But he tells them to go out and evangelize, essentially. But he tells them not to stay anywhere where he is not welcomed. And that to me it was like this, like biggest reality that evangelization in this relationship that you're spreading through Christ comes from the witness of Christ. It doesn't come from this power, of implementing your power of Christ onto others. And so when you look at it in that and that way, you truly realize that, like even Christ and the way that he teaches, it's is never meant to impose. It's never been to be something of power. It was always supposed to be meant something out of witness, out of choice, out of, renovation of your heart and your soul. And that's where you run into this issue. I believe that when you try to conquer through distortion of the word, and you are not spreading the gospel, you're misleading people away from the truth ness of the gospel. And so that's why I think it's so incredibly important to explore outside of those things. It's important to understand your faith at its fullest level of layers and continue to. It's important to never believe that you think you know everything because you don't know everything. And to say that you know everything and to be so sure, I think is extremely misleading to us because we are human beings with a fallen nature and sometimes we may think we understand something, but it's just we don't we don't understand it to its fullest. So I think it's always very important to humble yourself and understand that this is where my understanding of Scripture and my relationship with Christ is now. And I have prayed on this, and I have spent time with Christ on this, and I'm continuing my journey on this with him, but always and forever. I'm going to state that I will not know anything until God continues to reveal it to me in the time that he wants, with my effort intertwined with that, because I it is my responsibility to seek him. It is my responsibility to spend time with him because he's never left. We leave him. Does that make sense? I think that's when the concept of my podcast, The Unseen Witness, was actually born. There was so much unraveling my brain had to do as I studied scripture, as I studied the saints, as I studied everything, I started to realize years and years and years of this brainwashing and idea like ideas that I had become accustomed to while rejecting my own identity. That separated me from the the the saints who were so willing to die for everything, die for everyone, protect everyone, protect the weak, protect the ones who were, being oppressed and that is something that became so foreign to me. And so that's where this podcast was kind of born. Understanding the Saints is super important. And there's also this thing culturally on both sides where they try to cancel you or shame you as if anyone has any power to condemn you but God. Right. But I think that's why I wanted to share this, as well as because I don't want to live in this like fear of being condemned by others. Because I shouldn't fear anyone. I really, honestly, I'm working on my only fear being like my judgment when it comes to Christ. And so there's this concept of like canceling people or whatever. But as you study, the saints and martyrs, you recognize, like their sinful nature. As you study scripture, you see, everyone Christ chose that was a sinner because everyone if you subscribe to Christ in Christianity, everyone, everyone is a sinner. Nobody is perfect. So the idea that you can condemn another person, or the idea that you can shame another person, is it's so far away from even the Christian values in its own. And so when you study saints, right, you understand their path, how some of them but very much disagreed with Christ. They didn't believe in Christ. They were even blasphemous to a certain degree. And then, they were sinners. Some of them had like lust issues. Some of them had financial issues. Some like financial in the sense that they were like gluttonous with their, greed, all kinds of things that you can think of, that you can find people that you relate to, and then you see the transformation that takes place in them because of Christ, and then they become a louder voice for others to not fall into the same trap. And so now I'm just rambling, but I basically spent this time that I'm still doing today, dismantling these things by spending time with these influences that actually made a difference, that actually cared about the values of Christianity and that has survived the same ideas as our early church fathers. So then I got to know I'm getting to know the early church fathers and the church history and everything Christians went through. And, you'll recognize that pattern of governments and authorities constantly trying to water down or remove Christian virtues and values. So yeah, this podcast was created because I think that there are many people out there like me, who are starved for death and starved for meaning, who can easily be misguided and misdirected. If you don't learn to recognize the virtues that truly stand for Christianity, that truly stand for Christ, that truly allow you to, build a relationship with God, and what better way to understand that through the history of sacred places, through the history of martyrs, to the history of saints, to the history of miracles and mysticism, where you can see God actively doing things through these peoples lives, who you would have never thought would have been chosen, like everyone has chosen. Everyone can be a tool for Christ like you just have to seek him out. I don't know if my episode makes sense, because again, I didn't script anything, but I made this episode simply to try to bring awareness to a mistake I made that I thought I was defending Christ wholeheartedly when I was actually actively, probably breaking his heart that I was attaching such hateful believes. To him in regards to, not seeing everyone as my brother and sister, not caring for every soul salvation and believing that there's some kind of border around salvation when in reality it's a universal church for for, for a reason. You know, faith at its core will make you more compassionate for people. Faith, at its core will make you more, humble. It'll make you feel like you're never certain, enough that you always stay humble. Everything you do when you find faith at its core, it is hard. A lot of people don't want to hear what you have to say. A lot of people want to fit you into a box, and when they can't pick a box to fit you in, they try to, I don't know what the word is in English, but they tried to cut off your inclusion to the world. I guess you can say, but you won't feel that as dark if you have that relationship with Christ. And when you have this relationship with the saints and Christ and, and, and, and Scripture, you actually start to feel like you're never alone. So, there is such beauty in actually connecting to the roots of it, but you will find yourself being a more caring human being. So sometimes even to a fault where like, it keeps you up at night, how much you care for people as opposed to nationalistic Christianity will make you just like sick and tired of your brothers and sisters, and it'll make you see you as superior, and you're going to think of people as less than you, and it's going to separate you and and think that others can be treated less humanly. Is that even a way to say anything? Does that make sense? I don't know if I'm making sense. I wish you could just answer me right away and I could correct it or not. But you can't because we're on a camera. Yeah. So I think that's where I'm gonna leave it. True faith. As you continue to grow closer to God, you will become compassionate for every group of people you can imagine, even people who insult you and hate you and don't want to see you do well, you might get like a tinge of pride come first, but then eventually, as you sit there and pray with that feeling, you take it to God. Then you're going to feel this compassion. So it's like, discernment can help you understand if you're going towards one direction. But the best question I can leave you with is Through your path of Christianity, do you feel like you care more about people, or do you feel like people become more of a nuisance to you? Do you feel like other peoples suffering is intertwined to your suffering? Or do you only care if that suffering belongs to you or something you're passionate about? Do you care? Do you believe that subconsciously you're smarter, better, more valuable than other people of society? Or do you believe that we're all meant to be equals? And instead of being hateful or judgmental, take it to God and pray for that person. It can be very eye opening. Just asking yourself those simple questions to realize where your heart posture is and if you're aligning those things with Christ, you can ask yourself, okay, where in Scripture did I learn that I should care for everyone? Where in Scripture did I learn that I only should care about my own problems and myself? And then we're all separate and we're not connected. If you start to dissect those questions, you can kind of see and find out whether you have fallen under the line of of a self-serving Christianity or of a Christianity that was always rooted in Christ, or the Christianity that has always taught you to care for everyone is one body. Or as a Christianity that has taught you to care for the salvation of everyone. So yeah, again, I'm still a learning Christian. I will forever always be a learning Christian. I'm forever in the journey with Christ. I'm forever at his mercy for him to reveal what I'm supposed to know when I'm supposed to reveal it. These episodes won't be common because I don't feel like I'm someone of, a position to make these episodes often. So yeah, next week we'll be back, God willing, with an episode on a saint or a sacred place or, you know, someone reached out to me, which I was very grateful for and had some episode suggestions. So I might cover one of those, I'm not sure. But next week will be back to normal. And yeah, thank you so much for staying with me and listening to me and getting to know a little bit about me and what inspired this podcast. And what inspired my faith. And. Yeah. So. Oh, and yeah, I don't think for probably anyone who's going to ask me, I don't think that you can fit into either sector if you're following the true faith of Christ. But that's just where I'm at right now. Maybe I'm wrong. It's just based on all my time with Christ. As of now, I don't imagine a world where either conservative movement or the liberal movement from the government is intertwined with the true definition of Christ and the outcome that Christ has for us. So yeah, that's all. I will leave you all with that. So that's going to be all for today. Super different. Yeah. Okay. May God bless you all. May the peace be with you all. And I will see you all next week. Hopefully. BYE.