By Positivist ~ W ell, I loathe admitting it, but they are right: I lost my faith because I didn’t “do” Christianity right. I didn’t go to the right church. Now, I realize that my upbringing in the Presbyterian and Christian Reformed churches was way off base, which is why upon receiving my driver’s license I began attending a Pentecostal church —you know, where God “shows up” each week, and where the promises of God were apples on a tree and I merely had to pick them! I was a charismatic believer into middle age, increasingly overcoming the niggling doubts that plagued me. I realize now that this charismatic belief system was wrong. I probably should have instead attended a Vineyard church , a house church, no church, or a Presbyterian church…and if so, I’d still be a believer. But alas, I didn’t do these things. I thought I was following God’s leading in my life as to where I fellowshipped and worshipped, but I was wrong. I did it wrong. I didn’t go to Just The Right Church....

By Positivist ~ Important: I am not looking for sympathy here. Please don't dish that out, or empty platitudes. This is not a sob story but a point of discussion. Childless Millionaire and a Poor Woman Blessed with Children (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) R ecently a friend, upon learning of our ongoing struggle with infertility, gasped in horror, "I would DIE without my kids!" Realizing the moment she uttered those words that perhaps they were not helpful to my pain, she stopped short and looked at me strangely. The conversation changed direction abruptly at that point. This topic is not popular. Now, several friends have dealt with infertility by extracting from the clenched fist of God that which they feel is due them, with an equally wide range of methods as results. We are one of the few folks out there who believed in the sovereignty of God and his perfect, loving plan for our prayer-filled lives. We have finally concluded that God has nothing to do with fe...

By Klym ~ A fter almost five years of deconverting from Christianity, I can now look back and recognize that this religion is totally based on a fear of death. I can remember as a young child being terrified of death---and all because of the doctrine of hell and salvation. Now that I can see it clearly for what it is, and think about it logically and without fear, the whole idea of needing to be "saved" from death just crumbles to dust. For ancient mankind, the world must have been a very scary place. It's still pretty dang scary today, as a matter of fact. I think that religions sprung up as an attempt to control the uncontrollable. The scariest thing in life IS death, because it takes our loved ones away from us and hurts so deeply that we scramble to make some sort of sense of it. The idea of an afterlife where everything is made right and just then becomes extremely appealing. This will sound strange to many of you, but it was a defining moment in my life, s...

By Positivist ~ I am not angry as I emerge from the debris of a super-fundamental Pentecostal charismatic Word of Faith life. The main reason for my lack of anger, I think, is that I can’t blame anyone but myself for staying tied up in this mindset as long as I did. Image via Wikipedia Surfing ex-christian.net today I stumbled upon http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/21830-phases-of-deconversion/ , in which “Hammurabi” articulates commonly observed phases in deconversions posted on this site. Being acquainted with the transtheoretical (stages of change) model , Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief , and my own experience in deconversion, I was curious about Hammurabi’s perceptions on the phases of deconversion. Phase 4, according to this theory, is anger. What concerns me, and has for some time, is my apparent lack of anger as I emerge from fundy-land. Is my anger perhaps niggling just under the surface, like an abscess waiting to explode? Do I have an unresolved anger problem that I’m ...

By Positivist ~ I am new to exchristian.net , and I have to admit it has become a lifeline to me in this final phase of my transition from fundamentalist, charismatic believer to agnostic atheist. Here is my story. Image via Wikipedia I grew up in a Christian home and from a very young age I was obsessed with Truth. I remember when I was six years old I started reading my dad's theology books, in between bouts of reading Little House on the Prairie and Nancy Drew. I also remember having an intense fear of end times. I was fairly certain, even at that young age, that I would end up in a concentration camp one day for being a Christian. I carried this fear with me all the way into my twenties, and it is this fear that cause me to make some very big decisions in the most unnatural ways. After all, we were told at all church and youth meetings, “You are the generation!” I made career and education decisions based on my eschatological views, rather than on personal attributes, ab...