How Did I Once Believe Like This!?

By Ex Baptist Pastor ~

I suppose this would be a rant. I want to come back and properly introduce myself, but this has been running through my head and I just want to get it out there.

I'm a former Baptist pastor of the neo-Calvinist strain. Not to long ago my former co-pastor and I were emailing back and forth as he tried to keep me from leaving the faith.

Image by Jack Batchelor via Flickr

One of the things we talked about was how I'd only recently learned that my step-daughter had been molested by her biological father six years ago during her last visit with him. This happened at the same time as my wife and I were being baptized and joining the church.

I asked him why God, who is supposedly sovereign, ordained this to happen and then kept it from us for so many years?

He said he didn't know, but that he was thankful that God had stopped it before her father went any further.

I asked him if I should thank God that he'd only let her be molested a little? Is that what he was saying?

He then told me only Jesus had the hope my daughter needed.

I asked him again: You mean the Jesus who let her, or even decreed that she be, molested in the first place? What kind of twisted thinking was that?

How could she ever trust a God who let it happen in the first place?

How could I? Or my wife? At the same time we were "getting right" with God he goes ahead and does this? And then for six years we pray for the safety of our kids and all the time damage has already been done - but it's kept from us? And we should trust him why?

At one point I believed just like that. Scary.