It
seems strange that people like my wife and me with our upbringing and levels of
participation in the church would just up and leave the faith, doesn’t it?
Usually when I’d heard about other people leaving their faith it’s around the
time they leave home for the first time and go off to college or get out on
their own. It’s not usually people in their mid-thirties who’ve gotten married,
settled into a career and had kids. This, of course, has only served to
increase the level of shock that people close to us have felt.
It
wasn’t something we went looking for. There was no tragic event that made us
angry with God. There was no immoral behavior we wanted to engage in and needed
to find a way out so we could quiet our guilty consciences and happily pursue
it. There were no religious leaders in our church engaged in hypocritical
behavior that made us sour to Christianity. This has made it really hard for
people to categorize our apostasy. Several still continue to offer their
unsolicited guesses about our motives, fearing the obvious: that we simply
found the claims of Christianity to be false.
Up
until fairly recently I’ve believed the basic tenets of Christianity for as
long as I can remember. Growing up, there was never really any doubt that the
Christian god existed, that Jesus Christ lived and died and rose again, that
people had eternal souls that either went to heaven or hell after death, and
that the Protestant Bible was the word of God and was absolutely true. Church
attendance may have been sporadic at times, but the aforementioned doctrines
were always a given.
At
six years old on Easter Sunday, after viewing some sort of dramatic choir
presentation in a church, I had some kind of emotional reaction and began
sobbing uncontrollably where I sat. I don’t really remember much about it now,
quite frankly. I remember being really upset that Jesus had to suffer and die
and understanding that I was somehow responsible for that because of some stuff
I had done. I don’t recall if I prayed a prayer and asked Jesus into my heart
or not at the behest of some pastor or other adult, but I assume I did. The
details are fuzzy, but since we’re now 30 years removed from those events it
probably doesn’t matter.
Here’s a short explanation for those who may not know. I
used to believe the claims of Christianity. I don’t anymore. That’s probably
going to need to be unpacked a bit further since “Christianity” is such a
loaded word and often means different things to different people. Even the word
“believe” is probably going to present some difficulty for people [many
will say I never really believed]. For now, that’s an adequate enough way to
express things.
If you know me personally and you’re just now finding out about
this, depending on how well you know me, that information may be kind of
shocking. I suspect word has traveled well enough by now and that most people who
know me well have already heard either directly or through someone else. If you’re
just now finding out…surprise! I’m an apostate.
So what am I trying to do with this blog? Well, there are a
few things. For one, I’m mainly looking to record some of my reflections on 20+
years of active involvement in Christianity and share my thoughts about theology and the Bible. Also,
I’d like to have a place where I can present my side of the story. I’m sure some people have wondered things about me since they heard
about my “deconversion” from Christianity. Hopefully this will help clear some
things up. Additionally, I’m looking for this to be a repository I can point
people toward if or when they have specific questions for me about various
subjects. A final stated purpose is to challenge others who may have seen or
are beginning to see the cracks in Christian dogma and would just like to see what
another side has to say.
A word of warning: as Dan
Dennett says, “There is no polite way to suggest to someone that they have
devoted their life to a folly.” For many that’s exactly what I’m going to be
doing either directly or indirectly. If you are a committed Christian belonging
to a conservative, Evangelical denomination, you’re not going to like what I write
on this blog. You’re going to find it offensive and be quite put off by it. If
you’re a family member of mine who has strong views about religion, you’ll very
likely find it painful to read. But if you think you can handle it, stick
around.
Basically, this blog is just one guy’s attempt to explain
his departure from the Christian faith. As with most blogs, the narcissism will
be abundant and the posts will likely become less frequent over time. There will be
occasional attempts at humor; many of those attempts will fail and most will be
considered offensive. Feel free to comment, but know that the comments will be
moderated before they are published. This is, after all, my blog. Anonymous critical comments will be prejudged as cowardly,
but hey, don’t let that stop you.
