de-conversion

78 Comments Add your own

• 1. writerdd  |  April 7, 2008 at 11:41 am

  That’s a great list and I agree with most of them. Here are two more:

  I stopped going to church and didn’t become a prostitute or drug addict as I was told I would if I “backslid”.

  I read other things besides the Bible, including a lot of science books, and the other books made more sense.

  Plus, I would revise #6 to say:

  The God depicted in the Bible is NOT loving, merciful, good, just, etc.

• 2. karen  |  April 7, 2008 at 1:00 pm

  Nice job, Leo. Thanks for doing this - it’s a keeper.

• 3. Quester  |  April 7, 2008 at 1:50 pm

  *Applause*.

  er- what’s with 14?

• 4. GoDamn  |  April 7, 2008 at 2:10 pm

  Im guesing 14 was intentional? Coming right after ‘its a mystery’. Heh Heh, good one.

• 5. Anonymous  |  April 7, 2008 at 3:10 pm

  #14 = ???

• 6. mysteryofiniquity  |  April 7, 2008 at 3:54 pm

  How about:

  “No matter how much money I give to churches, preachers, or prosperity-gospel ministers, I’m never blessed with abundant health, wealth, or prosperity other than what I work my ass off for.”

• 7. LeoPardus  |  April 7, 2008 at 4:26 pm

  Well 14 was a boo boo. But it has now garnered such interesting speculation……

  I think I’ll be updating this list soon though as there are already a couple new ones. I’ll fix the numbering then.

  OR…. I could just leave it as it is and insist that the meaning of it is “a mystery”. or that it can only be “spiritually perceived”.

• 8. ED  |  April 7, 2008 at 6:51 pm

  Original sin, The notion that 6000 years ago, being omniscient, God, chose a man, Adam, to be the federal head of all humanity, knowing that he would fall, and that all of mankind would be born with a predisposition towards sin; that these creatures, born with a proclivity to sin, due to Adam’s transgression, would act in accordance with their fallen nature, and as a result would be tortured and tormented forever and ever, and that the church would call this just. There is absolutely no way that an omni-benevolent being, came up with that nonsense.

• 9. Rose / Intergalactic Hussy  |  April 7, 2008 at 6:51 pm

  Great points everyone!

  I don’t know of a good one to add, but I feel like saying this here anyway:
  I was raised Jewish, where Heaven and Hell are thought to be distance and/or closeness to/from god. And no one ever talks about Hell at all anyway. Heaven isn’t even mentioned all that much.

  As a young child, I was certain that Heaven and Hell were myths, something campy and cliche people said for fun or to ease mental hardships. I would say things like “I don’t know about god, but as well all know Heaven and Hell are bullshit”, not even considering or realizing for a moment that people really believed such things and would take offense. Kids say the darnedest things!

  I just felt the desire to add my little story, showing that ones who are brought up without faith (at least in certain areas), have no problem saying calling them out.

  Well, after this, I do have one to say:

  Where is Heaven & Hell, anyway? Now that we know the Earth is round, is Hell no longer below but at the Earth’s core?

• 10. Jersey  |  April 7, 2008 at 7:48 pm

  I just woke up and smelt the coffee and realized that I was living without religion regardless.

  Plus, 8, 9, 13, 19 (only in DC rather than NYC), and 20 hit me best.

• 11. gmcfly  |  April 7, 2008 at 9:14 pm

  How about this: To be a good Christian you must continually defer your own judgment to that of a book as interpreted by your church.

  In college I learned about Stanley Milgram’s experiment and how good people are led to do terrible things if they defer their judgment to others. If you add in 3 and 7, you can see how I quickly lost my appetite for any religion (as well as religion-like organizations).

  Oh, and the whole antigay thing was personally offensive. I guess you might call this, “Christians’ preoccupation with stuff that’s none of their business.”

• 12. Kim  |  April 7, 2008 at 10:44 pm

  47. I had sex for the first time and then I knew I’d been lied to.

• 13. The Apostate  |  April 7, 2008 at 10:46 pm

  How about that the core of Christianity is a rejection of the Jewish tradition, not the fulfillment that it declares to be, and the history of this Christian religion has only proved to be an overtly anti-semitic one.

• 14. George  |  April 8, 2008 at 3:15 am

  OK, I got one…

  How about… They are all hypocrites in the church… no one is living what they are preaching… Wait… neither am I… hmmm… God must not be real.

• 15. HeIsSailing  |  April 8, 2008 at 7:01 am

  Intergalactic Hussy sez:
  “Where is Heaven & Hell, anyway? Now that we know the Earth is round, is Hell no longer below but at the Earth’s core?”

  Believe it or not, questions like this helped my de-conversion. When I was a kid, Heaven and Hell were still thought to be literally, up there for heaven and down there hell. I remember speculation that Heaven was somewhere on the other side of Jupiter, or someplace like that.

  Well as technology and space exploration and observation continued, and we have discovered more and more about what is ‘up there’, I don’t think there is a single denomination left that still teaches that Heaven is ‘up there’ (I know I am wrong, I am sure there are some, but I am un-aware of them). Most now slip into weird language from science fiction novels, stuff about Heaven being in another parallel dimension, a ’spiritual realm’, or some other alternate reality.

  Just observing for myself how science and understanding forced Christian thinking to change so fast on this subject, and into something so contrived to boot, showed me that Christians were frankly making this stuff up as they went along. And yeah, I bought it hook line and sinker too.

  Hell, on the other hand is still routinely taught to be in the center of the earth or the center of a star.

• 16. bipolar2  |  April 8, 2008 at 12:23 pm

  ** You want autonomy — to become who you are **

  Becoming-who-you-are or “individuation” (to use Jung’s terminology) is the goal of personal growth. It cannot occur without self-doubt or without doubting authority and authority figures.

  When you’ve made a “leap of faith” into hyper-religious space there is no return except by self-assertion, and doubt is just a form of it.

  It’s not surprising that even attempting to leave a near-eastern religious culture which demands ’subordination’ or ’submission’ to someone else’s interpretation of an alleged “will of god” adversely affects the psychological well-being of the so-called apostate.

  You’d rather emulate defiant Prometheus and not submissive Jesus. The hero labors, struggles, succeeds, or dies trying; but throughout remains human.

  bipolar2

• 17. exevangel  |  April 8, 2008 at 4:25 pm

  I realized my parents lied to me about everything else too.

  Question everything!

• 18. Journeyman  |  April 9, 2008 at 8:46 am

  Socrates!

• 19. Frreal  |  April 9, 2008 at 10:34 am

  I learned the books of the Bible were written by and assembled by MEN who also chose not to include some books because MEN decided they did not satisfy their agenda despite the fact that the excluded books are referenced by the included books.

  The Lost Books of the Bible

  The Johannine Comma.

  Sargon of Akkaad

  Iron Chariots

  Hills of foreskins and talking snakes and donkeys.

  The overwhelming LACK of archaeological or written evidence to prove the flood, the Exodus, the plagues, Sodom and Gomorrah, Solomon and his great wealth, Herod and the killing of first borns but the escape of John the Baptist, Herod and the census, the telephone game played by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the errors in the geneology of Jesus, the Easter Challenge, the absence of any account concerning the dead rising and walking around following the death of Jesus.

  The fact that of all the ways God could communicate with me he chooses to have other people to tell me that God told them to tell me he exists. He writes a book like all the other religions before and after him.

  ……… Just as it would be if Man invented God.

  God has healed all sorts of ailments and even brought the dead back to life on occasion. All ailments even cancer or blindness have been healed naturally at one time or another. Yet throughout history God has never regrown an amputated limb.
  ……….. Just as it would be if Man invented God.

  God decides to save ALL of Mankind. Unfortunately God only saves the people that Christians try to save. The spread of Christianity coincidentally coincides with the devolopment of trade routes, war victories and sea worthy ships.

  ……… Just as it would be if Man invented God.

• 20. George  |  April 9, 2008 at 9:45 pm

  Frreal,

  Did you actually write: “The overwhelming LACK of archaeological or written evidence”.

  ROTFL….

• 21. Longing for Holiday  |  April 9, 2008 at 11:02 pm

  I came from a non Christian home and came to faith independently of the family (as did my husband). Even though we both have found our faith intellectually plausible (the “mystery” argument for Biblical antimonies works for me considering we don’t really know what happens beyond four dimensions), it’s really the experience of God that made both of us know something had changed. That included a sense of God’s presence not there before and changes in our motivations and behavior that we seemed supernatural. This is what interests me with those of you who contribute to this blog: have any of you had what felt like a real experience of God and still walked away from the faith. I already know some of you will say yes (because I have seen it happen), but I wonder if it is harder to do so having had an experience. Just curious. I subscribe to this blog because it’s a good way to keep me intellectually honest… And I’m curious (I only know one long time Christian who’s walked away… mostly its been folks either brought up in Christian homes and it faith was assumed or fairly new adherents who really never got it.)

• 22. Quester  |  April 9, 2008 at 11:18 pm

  Oh yes, Longing, I had many, many experiences of what felt like God’s presence and God’s miracles in my life. Then I had nine years of not feeling any presence or witnessing any miracles during which I came to doubt my interpretations of the earlier experiences and then eventually found “intellectual reasons” to doubt God’s existence entirely (mostly in scripture).

  I still hold onto hope that I will feel God’s presence again, as many on this site hoped for years (and in some cases, decades).

• 23. Longing for Holiday  |  April 10, 2008 at 11:50 pm

  I can’t imagine waiting for decades to hear from God again. That makes me so sad.

• 24. LeoPardus  |  April 11, 2008 at 12:05 am

  Longing:

  have any of you had what felt like a real experience of God and still walked away from the faith

  I think that I have. But then “felt like” is the critical term there. Just because I “felt like” I experienced something, doesn’t mean I actually did. I mean the Mormons are supposed to experience the “burning in the bosom” as part of their assurance. But is psychosomatic heartburn really the thing to base your faith on?

  If you want, I can point you to my story. It’s not too long. It may help you to get some feel for how I left/lost the faith after so many years. Others hereabouts also have put their stories online. They will be glad to point you to them if you wish.

  Thank you for taking the time to ask and try to understand us. It is truly refreshing.

• 25. Rachel  |  April 11, 2008 at 12:17 am

  Leo, I’m curious about your story if you wouldn’t mind posting a link.

• 26. LeoPardus  |  April 11, 2008 at 1:54 am

  Rachel: (and of course anyone else)

  Here’s the link: http://de-conversion.org/news.php?readmore=19

• 27. Longing for Holiday  |  April 11, 2008 at 8:18 am

  Leo: Thanks for calling me “refreshing!” And for posting your link. The folks I’ve known to “de-convert” either never really committed (in my opinion) or had really icky Christina family upbringings. I’ve had the pleasure of being aquainted most of my Christian life with balanced, mature, THINKING Christians, which, of course, encouraged my faith. I’ve not run into really thinking folks (like you all obviously are) who have left the faith, but one. (And I am still in shock with this person’s walk way. I NEVER saw it coming… ) So I am curious. Once in a while, I do a version of Pascal’s wager and I think to myself, “what if I die and find out this was all not true?” And then I think, oh, well, I still had a good life as a result of living as if it was. But, frankly, it’s more than just a feeling (and I know what you mean about feelings like the burning bosom… the plague of many churches, too), it’s something like a very deep knowing. But, still, it’s always good to question oneself (don’t I sound high minded. Hah!). If any of you out there is open to hearing a very rational defense of the faith (it doesn’t cover every point you’ve mentioned above, nor every argument, tho), I HIGHLY recommend Tim Keller’s The Reason for God (reasonforgod.com). It’s been on NYT bestseller list for weeks. By the way, I think that when so-called Christians attack you all or give unwanted advice (like I just did?), it shows not a strong faith, but a weak one, a faith that feels the need to defend God. That’s the last thing He needs from us humans…

• 28. Longing for Holiday  |  April 11, 2008 at 8:19 am

  away, not way

• 29. Longing for Holiday  |  April 11, 2008 at 8:28 am

  Oh one more thing.

  I just put up post called Ten Questions I’ll Ask God When I See Him
  http://lpkalal.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/ten-questions-ill-ask-god-when-i-see-him/

  I’m sure you all could add some good questions in the comments. I had a dream last night that this post went viral and that I made it to the front of wordpress. No joke!

  Help me get famous and visit!!

• 30. Rachel  |  April 11, 2008 at 9:30 pm

  I noticed that LfH mentioned Pascal’s wager and I know that has gotten some flak on this blog, so I just thought I would mention that Pascal didn’t “wager” himself into becoming a Christian. He had some sort of mystical experience and used the wager after the fact to explain why being a Christian was reasonable.

• 31. karen  |  April 12, 2008 at 12:24 am

  . I’ve not run into really thinking folks (like you all obviously are) who have left the faith, but one.

  Welcome, Longing, and thanks for the kind and respectful tone of your posts. We don’t always get that from Christians (I’m thinking it’s about 60/40 attack dogs vs friendly questioners?) and we appreciate it when we see it.

  Leo has just in the past couple of weeks posted some entries you might be interested in reading (if you haven’t already) on the topic of how and why we left the faith, as well as how some Christians “spin” our decisions for us.

• 32. Dan  |  April 12, 2008 at 1:06 am

  I find it impossible to believe in God whom in the biblical story created Jesus of Nazerath. Even if I did - I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. Consider, for instance, would you toss your own son in a lake of fire?

  Dan

• 33. Longing for Holiday  |  April 12, 2008 at 6:03 pm

  Well, I believe that when he tossed His son up on the cross, He tossed Himself up there. One of the mysteries of the Trinity. He has suffered with us.

• 34. Longing for Holiday  |  April 12, 2008 at 6:24 pm

  Leo: Just read your story. Thanks.

  Two interesting points for me. One, you talked about the widespread Calvinism in the evy/fundy church. Funny, but we Calvinists see it as widespread Arminianism in the evy/fundy chruch, and also do our best to distance ourselves from the term fundy (based NOT on what it originally meant, adherence to the fundamentals, but on the current association with lambastic legalism). We pride ourselves on being the “intellectual” wing of conservative Christianity, the logical ones… And it’s from this camp that I”ve heard of more folks migrating to the Orthodox position.

  Re prayer (now, I know this will sound like a circular argument, but here goes), as a “Calvinist” (I really don’t like that term, cause it seems I follow a man, not view God in a certain way), I sometimes have a hard time asking for God to do something, because, really, He’s going to do what He’s going to do. Which would explain the studies you mentioned - we can’t really persuade God to change HIs mind. I ‘ve come to see prayer much less as a To Do list for God to accomplish, as it is a time of fellowship between two friends. A time to express my inner thoughts and to draw close to Him. A time to hear what He is up to. And unanswered prayers for me are more about finding out what He is up to (by virtue of the answer) than in getting what I want. I have experienced a sense of Him putting a prayer on my heart and seeing it answered, but that isn’t the norm.

  A nice point of emphasizing the sovereignty of God, FYI, is that we believe that just only God converts or reconverts. We can be instruments, but not means. So it takes all the pressure off of trying to persuade someone one way or the other. Maybe that’s why I can come off less fanatical than others… Plus, I can’t get why someone still convinced of the reality of Jesus would even think that nastiness would drive someone back to His arms!! It’s love that does it, if anything.

• 35. LeoPardus  |  April 12, 2008 at 6:29 pm

  Longing:

  I am still in shock with this person’s walk way. I NEVER saw it coming

  Nor did anyone see mine coming. Including me up to less than half a year of it happening.

  Once in a while, I do a version of Pascal’s wager and I think to myself, “what if I die and find out this was all not true?” And then I think, oh, well, I still had a good life as a result of living as if it was.

  And that’s really good too. Have you read the “de-conversion wager” up near the top of this blog? That’s where I’m coming from nowadays.

  If any of you out there is open to hearing a very rational defense of the faith

  No offense, but I was a Christian apologist. I’ve read more of that stuff than most people even know exists. It’s not apologetics that I’m lacking. It’s reality. A real, demonstrable deity whose absence does not need explaining.

  I think that when so-called Christians attack you all or give unwanted advice (like I just did?), it shows not a strong faith, but a weak one

  You’ve offered everything you’ve said with kindness, humility and an effort to be kind and understanding. It would be hard to really take offense at that. And you are dead right about the attack dogs. They are weak and very insecure.

• 36. Longing for Holiday  |  April 12, 2008 at 6:37 pm

  Karen: I read the list. I heartlily disagree wth most of it. However there were 3-4 that said the same thing differently and I would say I sort of agree: I do think that some folks who “de-convert” never were Christians in the sense that God never really entered their lives. That’s not a judgment on the person, just an explanation of why they could walk away. And I am saying that from the position of one who had a rather stunning conversion (over time, but stunning nevertheless in that as an 8 year old, I walked in to a faith that for years my family ridiculed) and a strong sense of God doing something. That experience — so real — so affected the trajectory of my life, that I can’t imagine walking away. So it seems logical to assume that the only person who could walk away, must never had that experience.

  HOWEVER, I know of two people who had such an experience and DID walk away. After many many years, and a life that was as far away from Christian ethics as one could go, one of these people returned to the faith and is now a full time missionary overseas. The other was a very very close friend of mine with whom I shared deep discussions of God. This person has walked away to the extent of turning to another religion and commiting adultery. When I spoke to this person recently, it was like speaking to another person from who I once knew. What does that mean? I don’t know. But another option (than that the person never became a Christian) was that such a person is on sort of a sabbatical from God. Quester mentioned he hangs onto the hope of feeling God’s presence again. I hope you all don’t mind that I pray that for you, that if indeed for some inexplicable reason, God has removed that sense of His presence, or let the line out too far, that He would graciously reel you back in. To do otherwise would be hypocrisy on my part.

• 37. Rachel  |  April 12, 2008 at 7:35 pm

  It’s not apologetics that I’m lacking. It’s reality. A real, demonstrable deity whose absence does not need explaining.

  Leo,

  I hear ya. I really do. It makes me think of Mother Theresa’s 50 year crisis of faith. I read one commentator who talked about how she had prayed to know Christ in his sufferings and had gotten more than she bargained for. Because as we know, the very worst of Christ’s suffering was his abandonment on the cross. I think the very worst of the human experience is the silence of God, and Christ’s cry of abandonment was his protest against suffering and separation from God. That’s the only way I can make sense out of that theologically. But there are times when I feel very much like I’m flailing in the wind.

• 38. Longing for Holiday  |  April 12, 2008 at 9:38 pm

  Leo: Actually, while Tim’s book is an apologetic, it’s more, too. It sounds like you were in a healthy church for some time, wtih good teaching. My time at Redeemer under Tim was like that. One of the things I liked about his teaching and the book is that it goes beyond apologetics (and, fyi, he takes a presuppositional approach); he also gives just amazing examples of God at work. I basically came from him dealing with the same issues over and over again with New York semi-intellectual cynics (I say semi-intellectual because I think Boston is more purely intellectual…).

  Leo and Rachel: I think I told Quester this on his blog, but I have two friends (both very involved in ministry) who are struggling with doubts and not feeling God’s presence. For both of them, they hang by Peter’s words: Where shall we go, for you have the gift of eternal life. They want more, but that’s all they have now.

  Frankly, I’d rather hear you guys talk honestly about these issues than for people to be so out of touch with themselves (as am I?? sometimes I wonder) that they just spout stuff they never question.

• 39. Longing for Holiday  |  April 12, 2008 at 9:40 pm

  I meant “It (the book) basically came…”

  I wish I could edit comments after the fact…

• 40. LeoPardus  |  April 12, 2008 at 11:28 pm

  Longing:

  we Calvinists see it as widespread Arminianism in the evy/fundy chruc

  I don’t really know what percentages of Calvinism/Arminianism you would find in the fundy churches. I suspect that you’d probably find a lot of mixes of both. (No, that isn’t sensible. It’s none the less what I’d expect.)

  We pride ourselves on being the “intellectual” wing of conservative Christianity, the logical ones

  They do have a bit of that reputation. Until you meet the Orthodox.

  And it’s from this camp that I”ve heard of more folks migrating to the Orthodox position.

  From Calvinism to Eastern Orthodoxy? I have seen that, but all the Calvinists-turned-Orthodox I know rejected Calvinism before, or at the time of, their conversion.

  I do think that some folks who “de-convert” never were Christians in the sense that God never really entered their lives.

  Well, I would agree with this in that there is no God to do such entering.

  they hang by Peter’s words: Where shall we go, for you have the gift of eternal life.

  I hung onto that too. Then I finally accepted that there is only one life. Eternity isn’t something I need concern myself with.

  [Tim] takes a presuppositional approach

  Then he’s doomed before he starts. Presuppositionalism is breaking the rules, or more accurately just refusing to even acknowledge that there are rules that govern thinking and logic.

• 41. Longing for Holiday  |  April 12, 2008 at 11:46 pm

  Leo:
  ‘Spalin that last comment. I don’t understand…

  Tiim’s stuff sure sounds reasoned and logical to me, but I guess you’d have to read it to see if you agree or not. (I can’t imagine you’d do that for the sake of this discussion, but you could check out his recent Q&A at Google: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Kxup3OS5ZhQ. There are also youtube videos from Berkeley and MIT Q&As from his book tour.)

• 42. LeoPardus  |  April 13, 2008 at 12:10 am

  Longing:

  To explain the comment I will first set forth a definition of the basis of presuppositional apologetics. (Cut/Pasted for elsewhere)

  “The key feature of presuppositional apologetics is that the apologist must assume the truth of the supernatural revelation contained in the Bible (that is, the Christian worldview), both prior to the apologetic exercise and as the result of it.

  THAT is intellectual bankruptcy. Start with your conclusion; use it as a given in your arguments, and make sure that everything takes you back to that presumed conclusion. The simplest, common term for it is circular reasoning.

  If you use that sort of idiocy, then there is nothing to stop me from arguing in rebuttal like so:
  There is no god.
  We know this a priori
  Since then there is no god, it is clear that there can be no god, therefore there is no god, so your religious beliefs are erroneous.

  If I now take the above idiocy and add several thousand words to it (in order to hide its vapidity) and publish it in a book, it is still just plain idiocy.

  So why does Keller or van Til or Piper or any other presuppositionalist deserve anything other than complete dismissal for playing apologetic shell games? Especially when there isn’t a pea under any of the shells.

• 43. Longing for Holiday  |  April 13, 2008 at 12:16 am

  I ‘m not smart enough to respond to that! What I know he does, however, is help folks see that very point of view re god (if he exists or not) requires faith.

  FYI, the Google video is cut off, so it seems. The Berkely one is not.

• 44. Longing for Holiday  |  April 13, 2008 at 12:17 am

  every, not very

  Sigh my typos

• 45. Longing for Holiday  |  April 13, 2008 at 12:18 am

  Also, if I misprepresented Tim to the point that he comes off as an idiot, I am sorry. It is best that you check him out first hand before coming to that conclusion. He always seemed logical and reasoned to me!

• 46. LeoPardus  |  April 13, 2008 at 12:37 am

  You’re easily smart enough to see that you cannot first assume a conclusion is true, then use that assumption to construct a logical argument that leads back to the conclusion you assumed in the first place.

  As for Tim being an idiot,… I’ve met a lot of intelligent people who argue presuppositinally, and not just about God. People use presuppositional “logic” to argue for atheism, theism, conservatism, global warming, lower taxes, how to yodel, and just about everything. But is is “illegal” just the same.

  The argument that I put in post 42 was just a very simple example of how silly it is. It’s obvious because I stripped away all the confounding verbiage that people love to put around their presuppositionalism, that allows them to think that it is actually a valid argument.

  So the take home on any presuppositionalist is that he/she is hopeless from the get-go. They are using an argumentative or logical method that is WRONG. And no amount of “sounding logical” can change that.

• 47. Longing for Holiday  |  April 13, 2008 at 12:51 am

  Well, maybe that’s not what he is doing (arguing presuppositionally…). I’ll have to think about it. It doesn’t seem that he starts with a conclusion. (oh, and the google video is working if you are interested…).

  Off to bed. My head hurts!

• 48. karen  |  April 13, 2008 at 2:43 pm

  I do think that some folks who “de-convert” never were Christians in the sense that God never really entered their lives.

  Longing, please don’t take offense, but who are you to assume something so deeply personal and subjective about a stranger? If they SAY god entered their lives and they truly believed and had a relationship with Jesus for umpteen decades, is there an honest response required of you other than to take their words at face value?

  You see, it seems extremely arrogant to me to make sweeping assumptions about other people - whether we think we know them or whether they are complete ciphers to us. As you mentioned, you were shocked by your friend’s deconversion and you never saw it coming. How then would you know the state of someone’s religious beliefs (or lack thereof) whom you’ve never met?

  That’s not a judgment on the person, just an explanation of why they could walk away.

  But why do you need to concoct an explanation that makes sense to you? Why not just say, “Wow, I don’t understand this person’s decision, and I can’t imagine making it myself, but if I’m to be respectful I must accept their life story as they tell it.”

  Richard alludes to this very point in this morning’s post, “Why Doesn’t God Make Things Clearer?”

  There didn’t have to be a good guy and a bad guy. Just two humans disagreeing. There is nothing unusual about this; we see it and take it for granted everyday. (I have since come to believe that it is this, this dichotomous, black-and-white thinking, that is the heart of fundamentalism, not the particular beliefs. But that is another essay.)

  Being able to accept that someone can validly disagree with your point of view without having to make up an explanation that validates your own point of view is tough, but I think it’s an important step to maturity in discussion with people outside your own circle of thinkers.

• 49. The Apostate  |  April 13, 2008 at 4:11 pm

  I do think that some folks who “de-convert” never were Christians in the sense that God never really entered their lives.

  I don’t think you are really a Christian.

  Now how does that feel?

• 50. Zoe  |  April 13, 2008 at 5:56 pm

  I remember working in the church nursery oh so many years ago. One of the co-workers more mature in age and supposed wisdom, inquired of my personal testimony.

  I shared with her my acceptance of Christ. When I was finished she told me I couldn’t be a Christian if I did it in the context of my past denomination. Those people aren’t Christians. If I were you, I’d question my salvation.

  Here I had just shared my personal and intimate born-again experience and she completely ignored it, casting it and me aside.

  I can only imagine if I had asked her for her testimony and then discounted her words what a tongue lashing I would have received.

  I never could understand that even within Christianity itself, it’s not uncommon for them to call their own, heretics, carnal, or never saved in the first place. As a deconvert, it doesn’t shock me at all when someone tosses my testimony and experience aside, because it happened all the time when I was a Christian.

• 51. LeoPardus  |  April 13, 2008 at 6:37 pm

  Zoe:

  I’ve seen/heard that so much. Sickening. One thing I really like with the EOC is that they just aren’t like that. Their official position, which I can almost quote, runs like, “We take no position on the state anyone’s salvation. While we hold that the EOC has the fullest revelation of God’s truth, we cannot know how He, in His grace, may reveal Himself to others.”

• 52. Longing for Holiday  |  April 14, 2008 at 12:54 pm

  I am telling you all what in one’s mind is a logical explanation. From the Christian perspective: there are really two choices logically: either the person wasn’t a Christian or the person was and is temporarily not feeling like it for whatever reason. That is not a judgment. That is logic.

  Leo of course adds the outside of Christian perspective which is that if there is no God, then this is a moot point; Christianity is a figment of some peoples’ imagination (in the sense that Chrstiainity says Jesus is God) and no one is or is not a Christian since there is no god to follow. So a De-convert is aware of reality, and professed Christians are not. We who say we are Christians are deceived or living a lie. That’s another logical way to look at it. And I have to consider that (given that that is a possibility), that I am not a Christian either (since it’s a logical impossiblity to follow a god who does not exist) and I am deluding myself.

  The only thing that felt bad Apostate, was the feeling I was being yelled at for what I thought was a logical discussion and honest sharing. I am not (as others have said) blaming you all and saying you are naughty bad ex-Christians, that you have done something sinful and walkedaway from God. Who am I to say that? I am simply laying out the logical conclusions that have come to my mind. And I appreciate Leo’s having laid out another logical conclusion that I hadn’t considered.

  Leo suggests that since there is no God, then of course no one who deconverts was ever a Christian, since no one can follow a God who doesn’t exist.

• 53. LeoPardus  |  April 14, 2008 at 1:17 pm

  Longing:

  Pretty well laid out. And you definitely got what I was saying.

  FWIW I don’t think anyone is yelling at you. Folks here think that any idea should be challenged. Sometimes we challenge bluntly. It’s just to see if an idea (and the person who holds the idea) can take hard testing. No one is immune to this testing either. [I don't agree with a lot of folks hereabouts on homosexuality. When that is a topic of conversation, I get plenty challenged.] So don’t take it personally. This is only a test……..

  Now directly to something you said in post 52:
  From the Christian perspective: there are really two choices logically: either the person wasn’t a Christian or the person was and is temporarily not feeling like it

  One error here. It should start out, “From the Calvinist perspective….”

  Don’t conflate Calvinism with Christianity. The former is only one viewpoint within the latter.

• 54. Longing for Holiday  |  April 14, 2008 at 4:50 pm

  Leo:

  I KNEW you would catch that (Christian vs. Calvinist), but if you think about it, even if one were to take the other (you can “lose” salvation) point of view, what does it mean if you leave the faith? You’d either be temporarily on hold (coming back one day) or you’d be someone who walked away permanently (there’s not necessarily any coming back since there’s no eternal security guaranteed). What is a person who walked away permanently, then? Someone who decided that the original decision wasn’t valid for some reason, then wouldn’t it put that person in one of your categories? (which is similar to not ever having been a Christian since the term Christian is no longer valid…).

• 55. Gregg  |  April 14, 2008 at 4:53 pm

  This is an interesting discussion. And following Leo’s point in #53, I wonder if we could reconcile some of our divergent views by looking at how a Calvinist approach deals with truth (and Truth)?

  Here’s what I’m getting at: Calvinism is “hard and fast” about one’s absolute position before God and how one got there—one is either saved or not, and this by God alone (grace, like a good box of chocolates, is “irresistible”). The noteworthy point is that Calvin focused on seeing things from God’s perspective. But what makes for interesting speculation (or theology) does not often make for tenable epistemology (or experience). So, following Richard Rorty, we (and Calvin) lack the epistemic “skyhook” necessary to take us up to where we can see things from God’s perspective.

  More to the point, the problem (as I see it) comes not so much from Calvin’s perspective but from what over-emphasis on the perspective forces its adherents to ignore . And what is ignored? Not our absolute situation, but our experiential, existential situation . That is, Calvin focuses on (absolute) Truth and, by and large, dismisses personal truth (call it “truth-for-me”). In other words, experience (what happens to me, how I interpret it, and how I integrate this into my own story) matters. A lot.

  So it seems to me that we can resolve (though not solve) the dispute here by differentiating Calvin’s Truth from truth-for-me (tfm). So while I can understand and agree that Longing is focusing on Truth (as she logically, following Calvin, understands it—not said pejoratively), I am rather persuaded by Karen’s point. We have to accept the de-convert’s own story (his/her “tfm”). And further, one not only cannot know whether another was or was not a Christian (even the relatively audacious St. Paul is timid on this one: see 1 Cor 4:1-5), I think this is actually beside the point. Because we seek not some absolute state-of-affairs after-death but a real, living, here-and-now relationship. Or at least that’s my game.

  And that takes us back to Leo’s #1 point (initial article): the problem of God not “showing up.” However it may be done, I wager that solving this issue require experiencing and understanding this Truth on a human level, though not as the truth of Sovereignty (see my comments on this in Comment #68, http://de-conversion.com/2008/04/09/go-ahead-blow-away-my-free-will/#comment-18501).

  Rather, I believe that Truth and tfm must intersect (such that God “shows up” in ways that I can understand, experience, and feel while yet being bigger than me—the God I meet must really be God ). But the result of this intersection must not only be the possibility of my tfm being confirmed (because I know some true things), critiqued, and ultimately expanded by something greater (sovereignty). No, instead this intersection must take place in the experiential context which somehow communicates a love that loves me as much as and beyond how I love myself (both confirming and surpassing my self-love).

  I think, at the end of the day, God must show Godself as “more,” and this “more” is a chiefly a matter of truth an love.

• 56. karen  |  April 14, 2008 at 4:56 pm

  I am telling you all what in one’s mind is a logical explanation. From the Christian perspective: there are really two choices logically: either the person wasn’t a Christian or the person was and is temporarily not feeling like it for whatever reason. That is not a judgment. That is logic.

  Sorry, but that is a judgment which comes from your own theological corner, not from “logic” per se. Logic would consider many different possibilities, such as “maybe I don’t rightly understand what’s going on here so I should suspend drawing any conclusions”‘; or “maybe I’m not interpreting scripture correctly and there are many other ways of viewing this”; or “maybe god doesn’t care so much whether one claims allegiance to any particular theological beliefs at all.”

  Be careful about putting a very narrow mindset on and calling it “the Christian perspective.” That may be the fundamentalist perspective, or the Calvinist perspective, but your black-and-white dichotomy (they were never true Christians or they’re backsliders) does not reflect the far larger world of moderate and liberal Christianity.

• 57. LeoPardus  |  April 14, 2008 at 7:14 pm

  Longing:

  Someone who decided that the original decision wasn’t valid for some reason… is similar to not ever having been a Christian since the term Christian is no longer valid…

  The noun “Christian” would remain valid because it means (in this case), “one who believes in and practices the Christian faith”.

  So in my case, I believed and practiced for 25 years. I was a Christian. Now I do not believe or practice. I am no longer a Christian.

  BUT, if we use another definition (like unto what you are working with), “one who is saved, or in a state of grace, or accepted by God, or has eternal life”, then we run into an intractable problem. Namely, how do we know who is in such a state. Those are all things that only God could know.

  So, using Calvinist standards, you can never know if anyone, even yourself, is a Christian.

  After all, you cannot know but that you may really NOT be a Christian (Calvinist def.), and one day you will leave the faith/church/etc and live the rest of your life a Hindu.

  AND, for all you know, I may be the real Christian (Calvinist def.) in this exchange. For how do you know but that one day I may return to the fold and live my life out as a priest?

  That’s one of the BIG problems with Calvinism’s “logic”. It’s circular. You can never KNOW where you stand. You know what that amounts to right? Eternal insecurity.

• 58. Adrian  |  April 15, 2008 at 5:06 pm

  One of my first blogs was on the dichotomy between the vengeful, wrathful God of the Old Testament and the loving, parental and forgiving God of the New Testament. Somewhere during the process of writing that blog, I realized how silly even discussing the differences seemed. I didn’t really believe in either of them, although I sort of missed believing in the paternal Father figure. I have settled on the idea of the Great Initiator God who really could care less about humainty and just provided the spark for the creation of the uni/multiverse. I call it the Big Bang God. It’s really just a holdover from my childhood and my upbringing, but it’s proving to be the most difficult to dispense.

• 59. Adrian  |  April 15, 2008 at 5:19 pm

  BTW, has anybody got an explanation for the “Ineffability of God’ issue? I always hit a wall with this.

  It goes something like this: Man cannot know the will of God.
  God’s will is spelled out in the Bible.
  Men wrote the Bible by God’s will.
  So, if Man cannot know the will (or mind, as some say) of God, how the hell could Man have written it down as a representation of His will? That’s like a stenographer being deaf and blind and typing War and Peace just by guessing what Dostoyvsky (sic) wanted to say. There is NO evidence given to the stenographer of what has been said. Basically, over a billion people on earth are following a doctrine that may or may not be what God wanted them to follow.

  Two words: Crap Shoot

• 60. Longing for Holiday  |  April 17, 2008 at 12:17 am

  I tell you, there are some smart folks in this comment section. I think I’d like to sit down with some of you and just listen. I’ve learned alot… and gotten confused, too!

  Anyway, yes, Leo: eternal insecurity could be a problem. Then there’s that assurance deal. And the evidence over time. That “sense” (of course, which could be heartburn!) and the changes (of course, which happen to everyone) are part of my evidence. But, I may die and find out it was all a fable. Still, there’s that Jesus guy. He just seems like He was something (and I really sense I know Him… oops, there goes that feeling.)

  Regarding presuppositional apologetics. My husband (a pastor) and I talked about this (he’s going to come here and check all this out soon) and we both had heard your explanaton of what it is, but we’ve seen it used more to reveal the unwitting presuppositions others hold. I think that’s how Keller uses it in his book, more than what you describe.

  Finally, I am truly sorry I so hastily used words that were categories of understanding to me but may have hurt others. I HATE upsetting people. Is it fair to say this: people who are no longer Christians (or who are thinking of deconverting) will either 1) exit Christianity permanently or 2) return at some point.

  I haven’t looked around this site too much, but am curious. You call it resources for skeptical, deconverting… Are any of these resources those that could help the person return to Christianity if they want to find a reason to return (i.e., wanted to address their skepticism)? If not, I’ll be glad to offer myself as such a resource (not that I’ll prove to be helpful, but I wanted to make the offer).

• 61. Slapdash  |  April 17, 2008 at 6:56 am

  Longing for Holiday,

  Why should this website include resources to help people return to Christianity? If I wanted to return to it, I have scads of friends, family, members, and church connections in real life to turn to. The whole point, and joy, of this site is that there are *so* *few* resources to help people who are struggling, asking questions, deconverting. Resources for returning to the faith are not generally unrepresented in the world, or on the ‘net.

  Apart from that, it strikes me as a strange offer: do websites intended to bolster faith offer resources to help people who just might want to leave the faith?

• 62. HeIsSailing  |  April 17, 2008 at 9:36 am

  LongingForHoliday:
  “Are any of these resources those that could help the person return to Christianity if they want to find a reason to return (i.e., wanted to address their skepticism)? ”

  There is a regular bunch of Christians who visit this site and sometimes debate our reasoning for leaving the Faith (and they are welcome to do so). That is about the only resource here for returning to Christianity. I don’t visit this site as often as I used to - I used to be a regular contributor of articles. But the resources mentioned here is mostly just a sense of community for us apostates, doubters and skeptics. Upon first losing our faith, we are often very confused and bewildered. Sometimes we have spouses who are just as confused at our lose of faith. Many of us have approached our pastor or priest with our doubts and are very dissatisfied with the results.

  Some of us have been threatened divorce, and Christian churches are not equipped to handle this problem. Some of us have been shunned and treated very poorly by our old Christian communities and have nowhere else to turn. Some of us are even pastors who are terrified of confronting our congregations with our doubts and losing our only means of livelihood.

  The resource that this site has provided for me is a reassurance that I am not alone, and I am not crazy, and yes indeed - and confirmation that I DID have good reasons for leaving Christianity. There are many apostates in the church who are just afraid to speak up.

• 63. Gregg  |  April 17, 2008 at 11:07 am

  Slapdash,

  You wrote “Why should this website include resources to help people return to Christianity? If I wanted to return to it, I have scads of friends, family, members, and church connections in real life to turn to. . . . Resources for returning to the faith are not generally unrepresented in the world, or on the ‘net.”

  I beg do differ, or at least to re-define.

  Bound up with any notion of returning to Christianity is why one left in the first place. And one of the few consistent themes I have read across so many entries on this site is that people left Christianity because they realized that something about it was false. In other words, a departure of this nature is always a movement from less truth to more truth: “decon’s” are truth-seekers (and truth-finders)!

  If this is the case, then I’m not sure how your comments apply. Because any notion of return to Christianity will always be intimately related to the truth we have found (I call it truth-for-me). I will never reject this truth-for-me, but will always seek more of. By corollary, any legitimate return to Christianity must confirm—not deny—this valuable truth-for-me that I have acquired.

  But this is just the thing that my “friends, family, members, and church connections” didn’t have: if they had them, I may not have left. And further, because what an authentic return to Christianity needs is a new way of conceptualizing the faith (and a new, living experience of God), I actually know of no resources on the ‘net that offer this.

  Those who have left Christianity have done so, it seems to me, for a desire for more truth. So if there are resources for living better, those resources begin with truth-for-me. And if there are possibilities (for those who have left) to return to Christianity, I believe that this return can begin only where Christianity’s (absolute) Truth intersects with this truth-for-me.

• 64. LeoPardus  |  April 17, 2008 at 11:20 am

  On returning to the faith, I just don’t see it as a problem. Just start going back to church. Whether it’s where you were before, or a new one. People will be happy to have you. If it’s your old church, folks will be so glad that “the Lord brought you back”. If it’s a new church, they will be happy that you “saw the errors of your old confession”, and “found your way through the wilderness of unbelief” to finally get to “the true faith”. [Of course those are only approximate responses. In reality you'd get more variety. Including some who would be suspicious of your "return".]

  Frankly what would any “resource for returning” be? Just walk back in and pick up your hymnal.

• 65. Tim  |  April 17, 2008 at 12:50 pm

  Excuse me for hopping in like this, mid-debate, but I understand exactly what Gregg’s saying here. For example, if I were an Evolutionist Christian trying to convince a Creationist Christian to think like I do, then that’s the example of “more truth” in terms of scientific research, understanding fallacies that I have found in Creationism, and so on.

  However, for me to argue the other way, from Evolution to Creationism, you’re going to have to provide resources that provide “more convincing truth” than what is presented from science. The only way that tends to happen in the current culture is by discounting science as biased heresy (or putting hands over your ears and screaming, so you drown out the noise from the scientists), not by providing more fundamentally sound science.

  Where the ID movement gained a bit of traction, was by suggesting to “truth seekers” that there was, in fact, better science to be found than what had been presented in the Creation/Evolution debate. Unfortunately, when you peel away the jargon that comes along with ID, you end up finding Creationism wrapped up in different clothing.

  I don’t really have any recommendations, other than to continue to pursue the truth, even if it means discarding things that I’ve long-held to be true. Even so, I’ll posit that, short of any “Matrix-like” reality layered on top of reality, there is almost certainly objective reality and absolute truth, even if no humans are ever able to figure it out.

  Edging toward absolute truth, tirelessly pursuing it (in a manner akin to my blog entry about trying to determine the exact nature of Pi, but always ending up at an approximation) is for me, part and parcel to the journey. If I ever come to the place where I think I’ve got it all figured out (for me, much less anyone else), I probably need my head examined. - Tim

• 66. Gregg  |  April 17, 2008 at 12:56 pm

  Sorry, Leo, I’m not sure I’m understanding you. Are you saying that you left Christianity because you had a “perception” that it was not correct, or perhaps because your “preference” was for something less organized (agnosticism or atheism, for example)? I think not.

  So why are you reducing the notion of returning to Christianity to the “perceptions” of church-goers? How can you ignore the fact (you would call it that, wouldn’t you?) that your beef was that you found that Christianity was not true? And if it is not true, then how on earth can you return to it unless a) you magically re-construe your attachment to truth (or truth-for-me, as I call it) into a mere “perception” or a “preference”, or b) the (absolute) Truth of Christianity somehow is both confirmed by and confirms my truth, truth-for-me.

  On my point a), above, I am incredulous that a “de-con” such as yourself would be willing to sacrifice the truth that you’ve found (for it is truth: you call your very list of reasons for deconverting real in the sense of “true”).

  So its not (nor ever has been) about how people would feel about or respond to someone coming back to Christianity, but about whether such a return is possible and, if so, under what conditions. And that is my point b). And pretty clearly, by your own admission (it is a fairly lengthy list that you’ve drawn up in this article, above), this is about waaay more than “pick[ing] up your hymnal.”

  Unless the leopard has changed his spots.

• 67. Gregg  |  April 17, 2008 at 1:16 pm

  Thanks for your comments on moving towards “more truth,” Tim. So yes, I want to moving towards a fuller and fuller conception of the real, but to do so I think that we need to broaden our conception of reality. In other words, I want to consider truth as understanding “reality” as meaning both the true (versus false) and the actual (as the current state-of-affairs, versus the possible [as what may be]).

  I’ve written more about this in entry entry #32 (http://de-conversion.com/2008/04/13/god-and-the-irs-part-ii/). So while I agree that we want to find out more truth (like more and more decimal values of Pi), yet truth is greater than scientific truth: beauty and love have a relationship to truth.

• 68. Anonymous  |  April 17, 2008 at 1:17 pm

  The reasons why some peolpe leave the faith is because they feel that Christianity is wrong. I say that it is okay to feel that way because you are right. But just because there are some questionable parts or people in a religion, does that mean that you should give up on it? Of course not! Life is filled with mysteries, and so is religion, every religion, and it is up to us to make the best use of it we can.

• 69. Anonymous  |  April 17, 2008 at 1:31 pm

  God is loving, but people often corrupt the real image of God. This comes from the quote “Man adds fear to God’s message.” Its seems like atheists believe in a God of wrath and judgment, seeing that many of them use false messages from God from the Bible. In this world, no one wants to see a loving and nonjudging God. If they saw the real God, athiests wouldn’t try to disprove Christianity and Christians would have no way or means of controlling others. As for proving that God exists, I cannot answer that or prove that to you. It is up to you to look inside yourselves to find the unique experience and meaning that God has to you.

• 70. LeoPardus  |  April 17, 2008 at 2:27 pm

  Its seems like atheists believe in a God of wrath and judgment,

  One of the sillier statements I’ve seen in a while.

• 71. LeoPardus  |  April 17, 2008 at 2:37 pm

  Gregg:

  Are you saying that you left Christianity because you had a “perception” that it was not correct

  I left because I am reasonably certain that there is no god.

  So why are you reducing the notion of returning to Christianity to the “perceptions” of church-goers?

  I’m not. I simply don’t see what anyone thinks “resources for returning to the faith” are. If you come to believe the faith is true, then go back to church. What resource do you need for that?

  As for me returning (and some others here too), it would require God showing up in a clear and unmistakable way. If that happened then I would be convinced that my current position is wrong (i.e. untrue). I would then return fully to the faith. (Unless of course God showed up and said that some other faith was the way to go.)

  Unless the leopard has changed his spots.

  There’s an article around here where you can see my icon rendered much larger. As you’ll see, I can’t change my spots….. ’cause I’m a melanistic leopard.

• 72. karen  |  April 17, 2008 at 3:02 pm

  I’m not. I simply don’t see what anyone thinks “resources for returning to the faith” are. If you come to believe the faith is true, then go back to church. What resource do you need for that?

  I agree. No church would turn away a prodigal son or daughter who came in asking to rejoin the fellowship after a deconversion. To the contrary, the “backslider” would likely be given the spotlight for their testimony at the next worship service or prayer meeting! There’s nothing more juicy for a fundy or evangelical congregation than hearing a repentant sinner.

  Not to mention there are umpteen million Christian websites, blogs and forums online, and they represent the spectrum from the most conservative fundamentalist belief to the most far-out liberal New Age-style Christian hybrid.

  Why would we need to duplicate any of that here on a site that is aimed specifically at supporting and encouraging deconverts?

• 73. Longing for Holiday  |  April 17, 2008 at 7:39 pm

  WOW. You can understand why when I said
  I’ll be glad to offer myself as such a resource
  
  that I also said “not that I’ll prove to be helpful…”

  (and maybe you should change the name to “Support for those….”

  I am sure there would be many in churches who would welcome you back to the faith, but I imagine (from what some of you said) that those are the same people who helped render Christianity “not truth” by their actions and/or words.

  I would also imagine there are folks here, who while they are moving toward de-conversion, aren’t sure they really want to go, but are wavering. And you guys are such a smart crowd that not many Christians could really address your concerns. So, if you went back to the church, it wouldn’t be because the majority of those sitting in pews could speak to your concerns. Having said that, I realize in retrospect how unhumble it might have been to make an offer - like I could answer the questions myself. HA! The best I can do is sort of follow some of your discussions!! Maybe the most I could do is listen and pray (to a God who may or may not exist!). So, the offer still stands!

• 74. Longing for Holiday  |  April 17, 2008 at 7:40 pm

  I don’t know how to undo italics and have no idea where that smiley face came from.

• 75. Gregg  |  April 17, 2008 at 8:28 pm

  Hi Leo,

  I’m more than a bit confused. You seem to be saying one thing and then contradicting it—let me show you what I mean.

  In the first instance, you write, “I simply don’t see what anyone thinks ‘resources for returning to the faith’ are. If you come to believe the faith is true, then go back to church. What resource do you need for that?”

  In the second instance, you write, “As for me returning (and some others here too), it would require God showing up in a clear and unmistakable way. If that happened then I would be convinced that my current position is wrong (i.e. untrue). I would then return fully to the faith.”

  Here’s the problem I see with these two quotes. On the one hand, then, we agree that it is not a matter of preference, but of truth (or truth as far as I can perceive it: truth-for-me). But this means that one must feel pretty sure about one’s decision—worldviews are, by their nature, all-involving and thus giving one up in favour of another is never done lightly: it’s a painful process (as your bio in “Hello, my name is…” points to, I think).

  On the other hand, however, believing that “the faith is true” would require this “true” faith being other than what one had before—for I know that certain important things about this old faith are false. Yet how do we bridge the gap? I suggest that we can only do so by having more resources than our Christian pasts’ provided.

  And what are the resources, then?

  First, the most important follows from your comment about God “showing up.” So while I agree that this must be “unmistakable,” yet if God is a subject to be related to (and not an object to be grasped) then surely God should have some say in what manner God will “show up” (my wife has certain views on what how she will—and will not—participate in a discussion on contentious issues, which is her right: should not God be permitted similar rights?).

  But second, this of course is predicated on just who this God is. And here again, we need newresources in order to construe God in a new way. For example, as you have noted, Calvinism is enormously problematic. And further, as you replied to me): “Gregg: Sounds like we are on the same page. We need a God who answers not with words, but with God-self. Words to that effect are just what I’m about.” Yet how this may happen (i.e., how God answers with God-self and not with words) is not (or at least not in my experience) discussed and formulated in a viable way in churches. So the resources also include better ways of conceptualizing (and exegeting—so my comments on N. T. Wright) who God is.

  And third, the “clear and unmistakable way” in which we want God to show up (for here again I agree with you) must be intimately related (maybe even must “follow from”?) the preceding two points: a) how God may show up based on b) who God is. And this relationship, as I have tried to show elsewhere (#’s 10, 14, 18, etc.), must relate to who I am. So when I say that it was as clear as “sky-writing” that I was in love with my wife, I’m not saying that it was actually sky-writing (or that anyone else would necessarily view it as such). But it was overwhelmingly clear to me—it was true for me. Better formulating the relationship between Truth and truth-for-me then also seems essential.

  In the end, knowledge is personal knowledge, intimately related to what I have experienced and how I interpret it. So we need resources to construe more productively this relation, whence I have been focusing elsewhere on the relationship between my story and the biblical story (above, #’s 10, 14, 18, etc.). And it is in these three areas that resources are needed, because they aren’t to be found in churches—at least the ones I’ve been a part of.

• 76. Gregg  |  April 17, 2008 at 9:11 pm

  Oops! Seems like my links directly to particular comments didn’t work.

  In order, they are: Go Ahead, Blow away my Free Will #’s 51 and 75; God and the IRS (part II); If Christians are Wrong # 16.

• 77. James  |  April 23, 2008 at 5:06 pm

  I got sick of not feeling any better after going to confession.

• 78. LeoPardus  |  April 23, 2008 at 7:01 pm

  I got sick of not feeling any better after going to confession.

  Hey! Someone else who’s been through this. Hi James.

  I’m guessing you were in the Catholic church. Mine was Orthodox. (Actually I still go there, but I no longer believe, and I sure don’t do confession.)

  Most of the folks where I go are converts to Orthodoxy. I remember a number of them telling me how the felt “freed” or “cleansed” after their first confession. (I’ve also heard lifelong O’s and C’s say this sort of thing.) I did two confessions, and they were big nothings. I couldn’t even make any sense out of it from a Biblical perspective. I mean if God forgives when I tell Him my sins, and the Bible says he does, what the hell good does it do to have a priest hear my sins and tell me God forgave them?

  Anyway I just did two confessions, saw how empty it was, and said, “Forget it. God can forgive me and the priest can find other things to do.” Later of course I realized that there was no God to forgive me (or to sin against for that matter.)

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