My Journey Out of Christianity

By G.M. Gates ~

It was the spring of 2003. I had broken up with my then girlfriend for what was, probably, the fifth or sixth time in the span of a year. The cause of the break up wasn't incompatibility, or even trivial matters. It was Evangelical Christianity.

I had been part of various Charismatic/Pentecostal ministries throughout my mid to late teens. When I was 15, I saw a man preach who claimed to receive messages from God for random people seated in the congregation. This is what's called the Word of Knowledge in Charismatic churches.

Being that I had been raised Baptist, this experience was completely new. And when the preacher spoke these messages, people would often become overwhelmed with emotion.

I went forward to become born again. A few days later, I was Baptized in the Holy Spirit, evidenced by speaking in tongues.

The next six years of my life would be a roller coaster of emotions. I would take the Great Commission literally. I would preach the gospel to everyone I met. And if i missed any opportunity to preach, I would spend an hour or two in prayer, asking God to forgive me for allowing people to go without hearing the gospel.

Between 2002 and 2003, I would end relationships with others I had considered "unequally yoked." My girlfriend at the time would feel the pain the most. I would break up with her, only to reunite with her a month or two later. I did this numerous times.

The reason for the break ups was because, people would often tell me that I had a gift of evangelism. And I couldn't enter the ministry if I was having sex outside of marriage. Yet, I wasn't emotionally or financially ready for marriage.

One day the thought crossed my mind, where I had wondered to myself, Am I hurting her for no reason? How do I know God is real?

I would end my relationship with Evangelical Christianity in 2004 – only to take a spiritual journey that would last for 17 years. During that time, I would practice paganism and Buddhism back and forth.

One day in January of 2021, I would hear an old worship song I used to love. And being that I was turning 40 that year, nostalgia kicked in. I began to have a midlife crisis.

I started to miss my old church friends. I was feeling lonely. So I started following Christianity again.

How do I know God is real? In May of that year, I enrolled in a Christian seminary to earn a MDiv. As I was going to school, I got a random idea to learn about the Old Testament from Jewish sources. I befriended some rabbis on Facebook and would learn of how the Christian Church butchered the Jewish Bible to promote their religion. They changed many verses and even added material that wasn't written in the original passages.

I wrestled with cognitive dissonance for a few months, only to withdraw from the seminary in July of 2021.

I followed Christianity faithfully from 1996 until 2003. But the pain of that life is still very real in 2022

A life without religion can be painful and lonely at times. But it's nowhere near the pain I endured years ago.

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

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~ A s a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as: Praying for forgiveness for sins Accepting Christ as Savior Frequently reading the Bible Memorizing Bible verses Being baptized (subject to church rules) Attending church services Partaking of the Lord’s Supper Tithing Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc. Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect fro

Search This Blog