It feels good to be able think again
By Pam27 ~
I have been coming to this site for about a year now and I decided to try to write down my de-conversion story. Before I begin, I would like to express my gratitude to those of you who post stories and comments here regularly. I look forward to my ex-Christian.net fix almost every day. Our culture is saturated in the Christian mindset and sometimes I feel like I’m struggling to keep from being sucked under by quicksand. This site is a great support for me.
I became a Christian as a teen-ager in the mid-70s during the height of the Jesus Movement, during a “Jesus Festival.” My life was wrapped up for years in attending Jesus festivals and Christian rock concerts, as well as church. I was not raised with any religion and had very little church experience. Because of that, it all seemed new and exciting to me.
I married a fellow Christian within a few years of my conversion. We have two grown children. My husband is still a Christian and I’m not going to lie and say that it isn’t a source of tension in our relationship. But we’ve been together for 30 years and we’re both working very hard to keep our marriage on level ground.
There were many reasons I left. One is that I found that my non-Christian friends and acquaintances were consistently nicer and more accepting than my Christian friends. Also, as my children grew older they asked many questions I couldn’t answer without knowing deep down that I didn’t really believe anymore in the “right” answers. Neither of them is Christian, by the way. I became increasingly uncomfortable with many of the church’s teachings, and the uneasiness I felt continued to build up over the years. But it still took me 27 years to finally walk away for good.
I have heard others on this site compare their break from belief to a long and nasty divorce. It was certainly that way for me. I can remember waking up on Sunday morning determined to go to church and give it one more try. I would get in the shower and begin to cry and fall apart. I just knew that I could never go back there, it was over for me, and I was lost for a long time.
One day I found a copy of Bishop Spong’s book “Jesus for the Non-Religious” at a yard sale. I bought it and it ended up being one of the best two dollars I ever spent. As I read it, it was the first time I realized that maybe I wasn’t alone in having such grave doubts about Christianity and its teachings. I bought several of the books in the bibliography and devoured them, and they in turn lead me to other books. I also eventually stumbled onto this site and a couple of ex-Christian blogs which I have been following.
When you are involved with a controlling cult, you have been taught over and over not to trust your own judgment and to hand over all your thinking to those in authority. It takes a long time to win back your right to your own mind.
I’m happy to be finally free. It feels good to be able think again.
I became a Christian as a teen-ager in the mid-70s during the height of the Jesus Movement, during a “Jesus Festival.” My life was wrapped up for years in attending Jesus festivals and Christian rock concerts, as well as church. I was not raised with any religion and had very little church experience. Because of that, it all seemed new and exciting to me.
I married a fellow Christian within a few years of my conversion. We have two grown children. My husband is still a Christian and I’m not going to lie and say that it isn’t a source of tension in our relationship. But we’ve been together for 30 years and we’re both working very hard to keep our marriage on level ground.
There were many reasons I left. One is that I found that my non-Christian friends and acquaintances were consistently nicer and more accepting than my Christian friends. Also, as my children grew older they asked many questions I couldn’t answer without knowing deep down that I didn’t really believe anymore in the “right” answers. Neither of them is Christian, by the way. I became increasingly uncomfortable with many of the church’s teachings, and the uneasiness I felt continued to build up over the years. But it still took me 27 years to finally walk away for good.
I have heard others on this site compare their break from belief to a long and nasty divorce. It was certainly that way for me. I can remember waking up on Sunday morning determined to go to church and give it one more try. I would get in the shower and begin to cry and fall apart. I just knew that I could never go back there, it was over for me, and I was lost for a long time.
One day I found a copy of Bishop Spong’s book “Jesus for the Non-Religious” at a yard sale. I bought it and it ended up being one of the best two dollars I ever spent. As I read it, it was the first time I realized that maybe I wasn’t alone in having such grave doubts about Christianity and its teachings. I bought several of the books in the bibliography and devoured them, and they in turn lead me to other books. I also eventually stumbled onto this site and a couple of ex-Christian blogs which I have been following.
When you are involved with a controlling cult, you have been taught over and over not to trust your own judgment and to hand over all your thinking to those in authority. It takes a long time to win back your right to your own mind.
I’m happy to be finally free. It feels good to be able think again.
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