Out of the Closet

By Lynn, the Agnostic Pastor ~

We usually think of coming out of the closet in terms of the gay rights movement. But, as agnostics and atheists, we too are trapped in a closet. I really want to be out and open. My very core is one of honesty and integrity and the life I'm living now, in the closet, causes me great distress. I long for the day when I can say the things I truly believe (or disbelieve in this case), post quotes on my Facebook and be who I am. I know there are numerous clergy who in the same position. They have walked the journey of questions to a place of freedom in the truth, but they are trapped behind the pulpit. ABC news aired a great piece on pastors who have walked away from the faith but not their pulpits. You can see it here:

My heart goes out to each of these pastors. They, like I, entered the ministry with a strong passion to help others find truth. I never believed that the truth I would find is that everything I was 'taught' to believe is false. I feel a little ashamed that I couldn't see it for so many years. Part of it has to do with the way we were brain-washed. The christian community begins teaching their beliefs from birth. As children, we believe everything our parents say to us. From Santa and the tooth fairy, to the stories found in the Bible, we accept it...hook, line and sinker. I can remember asking questions as a girl and being told that questioning is a sign of weak faith. We are supposed to accept God at his word, without doubt. Verses like Hebrews 11:1 were quoted to me,

"Now faith is the substance of things HOPED for, the evidence of things UNSEEN" So, basically your telling me that my faith has to be based on NOTHING. No substance, no evidence. I believed this for so long, half my life actually. Never looking past the pages of the Bible for answers. I'm ashamed to say that it never dawned on me to do any research into the claims of my faith.

Looking back, I wonder how I could have missed it! I accepted everything that I was 'taught' and even went one step further and taught it to my congregations as well. I've preached sermons denouncing evolution, atheism and questioning God. I've encouraged my flock to abstain from reading those 'godless books' because it might cause them to question their faith. What hogwash! We should read and study and research everything! I was so arrogant, thinking I had all the answers. Now I realize I was simply following the dogma without thinking for myself.

I want to be out of the closet. I want to share the truth with others. I have a feeling that my skills as a speaker and leader will be used to help pastors who are struggling with their faith as well. But first, I have to be honest with the world. I have an exit strategy. My plan is to finish my commitment to this congregation and then gracefully walk away. You may think that I'm being cowardly, but I don't want to bring undue hurt to my church members. They must walk their own path and come to their conclusions on their own. I know that I will lose friends. My entire life has been centered on the church. I'm not even sure I know how to interact with 'real people'. I am attempting to reach out into the agnostic/atheist community in my town, but I have to be careful that I don't 'out' myself before I'm ready.

You know, you can call me a tight-rope walker for now. All I want is to make it to the other side.

Comments

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~ S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden – Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not

Why I left the Canadian Reformed Church

By Chuck Eelhart ~ I was born into a believing family. The denomination is called Canadian Reformed Church . It is a Dutch Calvinistic Christian Church. My parents were Dutch immigrants to Canada in 1951. They had come from two slightly differing factions of the same Reformed faith in the Netherlands . Arriving unmarried in Canada they joined the slightly more conservative of the factions. It was a small group at first. Being far from Holland and strangers in a new country these young families found a strong bonding point in their church. Deutsch: Heidelberger Katechismus, Druck 1563 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I was born in 1955 the third of eventually 9 children. We lived in a small southern Ontario farming community of Fergus. Being young conservative and industrious the community of immigrants prospered. While they did mix and work in the community almost all of the social bonding was within the church group. Being of the first generation born here we had a foot in two

Search This Blog

Out of the Closet

Labels