June 28, 2006
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This is the story of my deconversion. Call it a testimony or whatever you will. I posted this on Ex-Christian.net and received several comments and encouragements. This sums up my life to this point.
My deconversion story
Where do I begin? I had my Christian testimony all nice and neatly packaged, and I had it all well-rehearsed. I’ve been free for about a year-and-a-half now, and while I have shared my story with many people, it is still not nearly as nice and neat as my sixteen years as a Christian.
I was raised in a Southern Baptist home. My mom has been a staunch conservative from the day she was born, though my dad had a period of time when he was a liberal (now he strongly refutes any liberal ideas, going out of his way to attack liberalism sometimes). My parents took me to church, read me stories from the Bible, and even had me memorize Bible passages starting at a very young age. I have always been seen as intelligent and gifted, and could memorize Bible passages pretty easily. When I was seven, our church had a revival the week before Easter. It was during that time that I felt “the tug of the Holy Spirit,” and though I came forward Thursday night at the revival, the preacher wanted to make sure that my feelings were genuine. That night after the service my mom sat down with me and talked with me about it, and I prayed to ask Jesus into my heart. I came forward for my public profession of faith on Easter Sunday itself, and was baptized by immersion two weeks later. My parents were so happy.
We lived in Utah when I was saved, and a couple of years later we moved to Missouri so my dad could pursue his doctorate. We quickly got involved in a church in the city we lived in. My mom is a pianist, and the church just happened to be looking for a pianist. She accepted the position and would end up being the church pianist until we moved away eleven years later. My dad started teaching Sunday School. By this time his political beliefs were already starting to change. He had voted for Carter, Mondale, and Dukakis, but was finally starting to turn conservative. In the 1992 election he voted for Perot, and for Republicans every election after that. As his turn to conservative became more apparent, so did his teaching material. It didn’t take long before other church members came to view him as the resident fundamentalist.
I was in their shadow for many years until I was old enough to join the youth group. During the summer after eighth grade, our youth group went on a mission trip around the state, performing a series of dramatic sketches designed to be a witnessing tool. While on that trip, I underwent some radical changes (for many years I would label them as God working in my life), even going so far as to telling the youth minister that I felt called into some kind of ministry. I was a completely different person after that trip. As I grew older, many parents of other kids in the youth group saw me as a role model, always complimenting my maturity and confessing that they wish their kids acted more like me. I was starting to become very active in youth activities and around the church in general, and everyone in the church liked me.
When I was a senior in high school, there was a guy from a ministry organization who came to our church and told us about an idea called cell groups. A “cell group” was a group of teenagers who got together and talked about issues affecting their lives. These groups were led by the teens themselves, and were designed to be a comfortable setting in which we could share the Gospel. When the groups reached a consistent fifteen members in size, they would split into two groups and continue to grow. This would ensure the group was never too large to fit in a person’s home. I jumped at the opportunity, and told my youth minister that I wanted to be a cell group leader. The guy who presented it to us overheard me, and he said that I was the kind of person he had in mind when he thought of a good leader. For that year, I literally devoted my life to leading that group. I would pore over material for hours thinking of a good topic to present to the group, as well as how to present it. I diligently called the members of our group every week to see how they were doing and remind them of that week’s meeting. I had a buddy that I had known ever since he had moved to Missouri, and I knew he wasn’t a Christian. Neither one of us had a brother, so he and I had basically become brothers, and I was concerned for his salvation. I persuaded him to come to a group meeting, and during that meeting he prayed to accept Jesus into his life. I was so excited that I couldn’t even sleep at all that night.
Eventually I graduated from high school, and that summer I went to a Christian camp and “surrendered” to the pastoral ministry, planning to devote my life to the spreading of their poison. I had also been accepted to a Christian college, and so after that summer I moved away to the Bible Belt. My very first year of college was extremely rough. During the fall semester I lost one grandfather to bone cancer, and during the spring semester I lost the other to leukemia. I was on antidepressants and was seeing a counselor for a few months, and it took me awhile before I was finally able to move on. In the spring semester I met an attractive young woman who was a music major (the same degree my mom had) and she and I hit it off. We ended up having several classes together before she decided to major in nursing instead and transferred out of the college. We were still dating and saw each other on a regular basis, though. My father was offered a teaching position in the history department in that college starting the next fall and he decided to take it. This was a great event for me, as I no longer had to pay any tuition (which was nice considering I ended up being in college for a total of five years). However, it did mean that I was back under his shadow.
I don’t know exactly when my doubts started. I know I had had questions when I was in high school, but I just pushed them away because I was comfortable with my Christianity and didn’t like where they were taking me. I do know that I started to have some serious struggles with my faith during my first three semesters in college, which were the semesters I lived in the dorm. After my first semester sophomore year, I decided that living at home would be a much better deal for my pocket book. While I lived there I became more active in church and also more active in college activities, and my doubts were pushed back down for a little while. It was also during this time that I proposed to my girlfriend and she accepted, and we set a date to get married after I was out of college. I lived with my parents for two-and-a-half years, and then I moved into an apartment with three of my college friends. All of a sudden my doubts came screaming back to the surface, and a few months later I realized I no longer believed any of it.
I stopped going to church, except when my fiancee came to town to visit because I didn’t want to scare her. I started to withdraw from many activities at the Baptist college, and I just become much more reserved all around. I had no idea how to break the news to them, because I knew it would cause some serious ripples. Plus, since I was also under my father’s shadow, it was only going to make the situation even worse. I finally got to the point when I couldn’t take it anymore. The wedding was six months away, and I knew it would be a mistake to marry a staunch Christian when I no longer believed any of it. She came up to visit one weekend, and I decided I could no longer act like the Christian I was not, so I didn’t go to church. When she asked me why, I told her the truth. She ran off and cried for over an hour, and my mom came in and yelled at me for making her cry. When it came time to take her home, she told me that she knew I was confused, but I needed to continue going to church because that was where the answers were. When I asked about us, she said that she wanted to give me some time to sort things out (in other words, she was just going to wait until I came around).
A couple of weeks later she called me in the middle of my busiest and most stressful day of the week. When I answered, she said she needed to know if I still wanted to get married or not (not the conversation I wanted to have right at that moment). We cried on the phone together for about an hour, after which we mutually decided it would be best to call off the wedding. I broke the news to my mom, and she basically just shrugged me off (she was still bitter about my deconversion). I went home, pulled out my pocket knife and wrote a suicide letter. If it hadn’t been for one of my roommates coming home right then, I probably would have killed myself. Throughout the next year my life proceeded to get even worse. Many of my friends from the Christian school now shunned me, and my mom pleaded with me many times to “come back to the fold.” During that semester I also had a lady in a big truck cause $1,000 in damage to my car, I had to quit a job, and I had to drop the accounting major I had been working on for my entire college tenure. Upon graduation, it took me two months before I could find a job because I didn’t have much experience other than a college degree. I also started drinking and using a very large library of profanity.
I wish I could tell you that everything is all fine and dandy right now, but the truth is that I have wanted to kill myself every day since I came out in the open. It is not because I think it was a wrong decision (in fact, quite to the contrary), it is because of the way my life went to shit right after it happened. My mom still takes every opportunity she can to try and re-convert me, often using condescension and manipulation to try and win me back. I have lost several more friends since then, as I have become very open about my beliefs. I have a blog where I post anti-Christian arguments all the time, and some of them just can’t take the heat. Yet in the midst of all of this, I have never regretted my decision to leave Christianity. While life has been miserable since then, it is much better than the life I had as a Christian, when I was being suffocated by Christian dogma.
Comments (10)
Lunch.
You and me.
Its time.
Email me your phone number: adam@nltl.org
Hey bro, interesting stuff here, but I have a couple questions.
You’re making Christians seem like the enemy. I’m not a Christian, but Christians are definately not my enemy. There is a peaceful coexistence man, and everybody needs to find it. If you have something against Christians because you believe they hate you, then maybe you should stop making it seem that you hate them. There’s a philosophy called Buddhism, and they call that Karma.
this is how I see it. Chrisitianity, as with any religion, has it’s parts that are very give or take, ex. Jesus Christ died for your sins and is the son of god. You can choose to believe that or not, or remain undecisive. But the essence of Christianity is not Jesus himself being the son of god, but what Jesus taught. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, whoever, told us that love for everyone is the only way, and if you give love, you shall receive. And I agree, there are many Christians (and muslims, buddhists, Jews, whoever as well) who are too caught up in the social aspect of church, that they forget about the actual purpose. Because religion is a personal thing. You shouldn’t beleive something because you were told so, but becuase you have experienced it. Some people experience Jesus entering their hearts, and that is a very personal intimate thing, not to be confused with going to church and casting out people who say they haven’t accepted Jesus. Religion can’t be forced, it must be found. You have to search for it. And no two people’s are alike.
This is why you shouldn’t let other people tell you how to live your life. You have to decide that yourself. By letting these people (who sound very judgemental) judge you like this, you are letting yourself believe that they are correct in saying you’re wrong. You have to believe in yourself, and others will do so. But you can’t be at war with them because they see you as different, becuase we’re all different. That is why Jesus and Mohamed and anyone else said, You have to love one another. We must accept that we all are different, but that connot make us hate them, we must love. I think it was Jesus who said to love your enemy, and maybe that’s what you need to do, instead of downing them online. Sure, they may down you, but does that make it right? Maybe if you don’t down them, you will set a good example. Just say, I’m GSmith, I am who I am, I think what i think. We may disagree, but I still love you all, and maybe you should do the same and let me be myself.
A friend of minne said, “You’ve gotta be yourself…who else are ya gonna be?” Be yourself, and don’t concern yourself with these people who aren’t being themselves, because it is bringing you down, man. You can love them, but htey are going to have to get out of their mindset and learn to be themselves too, in order to return your love. And when you find yourself, you may be surprised. You might be Christian, Buddhist, Agnostic (like myself), or something that has never been categorized before, but you must accept that it is who you are, not what you are. If you truly believe that Christ died for you, then you can forget about all of the bad things you say happened in the Bible, becuase apparently, Christ died for them too. That’s the point. And if you don’t believe that Jesus was the son of god, which I don’t really believe, you can look at it like this: Jesus dies for something. He died to show us that he was willing to sacrifice his life for the sake of us loving one another. He was persecuted, much like you are now, but he never stopped being himself, and was killed for it. But he was not killed and forgotten. Because he died for love, his message of love is still remembered today. It’s much like Dr. King getting killed, he isnow remembered as a martyr for love, or any Buddhist monk setting themselves on fire to prove the point that war is wrong. Don’t kill yourself. Because if you did, then what message of love are you making them remember?
hope to hear from ya soon man.
thanks for telling your story, i appreciate it.
… as he holds a bottle of whiskey to drown out his sorrows
*hugs* I’m sorry.
I’m not going to bug you every post you have dude, i just wanted to say that I’m sorry you’re surrounded by condescending Christians who seem to be manipulative and very discouraging. That is not how Christ lived and that is not how he “converted” people. He simply loved them and met what needs they…needed, for lack of a better term. He didn’t guilt them into anything.
I hope you meet some Christ-like Christians someday man and I appreciate your openness.
Pax.
Aatrus is right. Why do you believe that Christianity is evil? The heinous stories told in the bible were told to set an example of evil, not to say that it is right.
You say your life has been ruined by Evil Christians, but I believe it is you who ruined your own life by separating yourself from those who love you, no matter what religion.
It seems that the rationality you have found is not helping. You’re too grounded in reality. If you could secure yourself to accept the unrealities of existence, then you would much more carefree.
If you have only found few answers, then you are not doen searching, man. You’re giving up and being stubborn. When you try and find yourself, you can’t set rules. You have to be open to any possibility, because ANYTHING is possible, no matter what rationality may say. People say things are impossible because they haven’t happened, not because they cannot happen. We can never know if something is able to happen, so impossibilty is ridiculous. To say that you KNOW anything is ridiculous. That’s why people must believe. To know something is to say that it is a universal truth, but that doesn’t exist as we know, so everything you think you know, you only believe.
If life has no purpose, then life has no meaning, and if life has no meaning, then why are you worrying about what you’re “supposed” to do anyway? You have to creat your own purpose. If you don’t then you are nothing, because you have no purpose, therefore no meaning, therefore, you are nothing. “Man is NOTHING but what he makes of himself” Jean-Paul Sartre.
That sucks, your old friends and family disown you, but do they make you who YOU are? No. That responsibilty is left up to YOU and only YOU. Many times, those who love you will stop loving you, but does that mean that you are any close to non-existence? No, as long as you have security in being YOURSELF. You’re putting value in the wrong places man. Loved ones and family are the same as possessions. They have no value. Is a man with no friends less of a person that the man with many friends? No. They both are individual human beings. That is where the security lies. Be yourself, no matter what anyone tells you, but also, you must be sure of yourself in order to be happy with who you are. Who are You? Are yourself, or are you something that others want you to be? It sounds like you are too caught up in worrying about what people want you to be, but you and they must understand that that is NOT who YOU ARE. You have to be yourself. Ask yourself: When am I not yourself? You can ALWAYS be yourself. If you ever feel depressed or angry, it is because your SELF is being threatened. You think that because you put value into unvaluable things, which sacrificed your own self worth. The only thing you can put value in is into your own individuality, because that can never be taken away. In this world, you may have to hide it, but it is always there, you just have find WHO YOU ARE. So, when the word is weighing down on you, think about how many of the things bothering you are unvaluable, and therefore, unreal. Money, Love, Work, Fear of Death, all these things are not real. They have no true value. They do not make you who you are. So, if these things are taken away, then why the hell are you feeling worthless…you’ve lost no value. You think you have because you are caught up in the unreal value of these things. I’ve seen it before in others and myself. I don’t put MY meaning into thse things, because only I control MY meaning, and that power is the most powerful thing imaginable. That power is where you find peace.
Later man,
hope to hear from you soon
-Casey
Interesting story of deconversion. I do wonder something; why exactly did you give up? I mean, you say that you gave up because you didn’t believe but why did you stop believing? You say you had doubts but my question is, what were your doubts? Why were you afraid of sharing them? “I know I had had questions when I was in high school, but I just pushed them away because I was comfortable with my Christianity and didn’t like where they were taking me.” That should have given you more reason to ask those questions.
During your college experience, you lost two people in your family that I am assuming you were close to; you also mention you were talking to a counselor and taking meds. Then, you had stopped? Did the counselor approve of this. or did you decide you were through? Just curious. Also, you mention your move from on campus life to being back home with your parents. After moving in with them, you loaded yourself up to the max at school and at church; wow. The pressure must have caused some anxiety which causes depression (or maybe you were already depressed and the anxiety added to it?) I remember when you and I attempted to start meeting for prayer. You had been very busy and so had I, so we stopped. But if I remember right you were fairly streesed out, even then.
I think you were engaged not too long afterward, unless it was before. You and Jessica being apart from each other wasn’t easy on you, and you had a full plate. Thus, it added more stress. Then, you move out to live with friends; while being loaded with activities from church and school. My opinion is that you must have became overloaded with things because you were working, going to school 18 credit hours, had school and church activities, and the roommates to keep up with; double wow.
In all of this stress, anxiety built to an all time high; possibly causing you to be so wore out that you gave up energy in one or several areas. Like, homework, or one of the many activities. I’m sure your grades slipped at this time and your doubts about Christianity flustered before your eyes; an easy target at this time. And of course, ironically, you succeed in giving up something that meant a lot to you because you didn’t “feel” as though you believed any more.
I may not be 100% dead on about this, but as far as I can tell, this is the course of events based on the data you provided; please correct me if I’m wrong.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t have questioned Christianity, I think you definitely should have ask the question you had on your mind. Who knows, you could have found an answer. It is possible you would not have liked the answers; it is even likely that you would have had your reason to give up the faith based on the answer. But you neglected to share your doubts; you shunned yourself as a Christian first, believing that others would have seen you as a heritic for the questions you needed to ask. If they honestly were that way, then you were with the wrong flock.
I agree with Casey, you seem to make Christianity the enemy. Maybe you didn’t realise that you attacked Christianity before you even gave it up. When you allowed yourself to believe that you were an outcast because of your doubts, you also allowed yourself to give in to the idea that Christians were not supposed to ever have doubts. Thus, making Christians the enemy because they could not accept you for who you were, even though they said they would.
I’m not advocating that you HAVE to return to Christianity; but I think you are wise in rereading the Bible and you should probably ask questions of Christians as they arise. I hope you could find some one or serval people that could assist you with that endeavor. My hope would be that you would, at the very least, change your attitude towards the religion and at least be at peace with it; whether you return or not.
I undoubtedly have written a long message but one final comment; I hope that you find the answers you for which you are seeking. I also hope that whatever you decide you will be content with the decision you have made, even if others aren’t. I also want you to know that I still support you in your decisions and am always your friend.
Joe
Fair enough rebuttle. I’m gonna do the best I can to present this information to someone with more knowledge. I will submit with your identity as anonymous. I think the questions you ask are very valid questions; not a-typical for people who have a doubt about the faith. As I said, I’m not pushing anything; I just wanna help. I’m not educated anough in the Bible (by my standards) to answer your questions without tons of research that has already been done.
It can’t be helped that some “Christians” don’t respond with love. The ones who shunned you did not show you the love of Christ, and those that still love you don’t do so in spite of the faith; they genuinely love you, or I hope they do. It would be sad to think that some have remained to try and reconvert you while not truly loving you. Meaning, that as they show you love, should you choose to come back to the fold, they should be ready, but their main purpose should not be to attempt to force you back.
Those who look at you with pity or contempt still haven’t shown you the love that truly exists. It is unfortunate when one falls away from the fold and feels such rejection. I wish that you could have been there talking to the man I talked to when I doubted. Yes, I had a lot of doubts; most of them about whther God truly exists or not. Whether or not He could ever love pawn scum like me. But the man I talked to helped me without condemnation, he showed me love like no other “Christian” had before that time. At least, if anything, you could have know that someone truly cared for you that was in the fold.
I will email those questions out tonight. I’m not sure how long it will take to get a reply. But I hope that you will at least allow me to ask for you, on behalf of you. Even if you don’t want me to, I suppose I wouldn’t mind knowing these answers myself. I hope you will. Maybe you still crave an answer to your questions. And as I said, maybe you’ll get answers that will help you refute Christianity more. With all of my heart, I hope the answers are clear and giv eyou satisfaction in the decision you make after reading them.
I still think you’re a great person and truly love you like a brother.
Joe
Maybe it isn’t you that has changed, but Christianity or the form that you are familar with has changed? Everything that you were taught, might seem to not be “walked”?
None-the-less, my heart goes out to you. God knows, if all Christians were honest, they would also admit having times of doubt. We all do, that’s what faith is all about. Anyway, I pray that God reveals Himself to you and you receive His grace in full measure.
Peace