Well It's A Bit More Than 25 Years, In Fact...

[25YearsLater]

I became a Christian on the 27th February 1980 at age 17, and it totally dominated my life until I was 25, when I gave it up and started my convalescence (about which more later).  

 

The echoes of the damage it did to me are still with me today, and although mostly I can look back at that time in a balanced way, it doesn't take much to trigger the feelings of bitterness and anger even now, when in a week's time I'll be 52.

 

I've registered here for three reasons I can think of:

 

Catharsis... I still seem to need that, annoying though it is after all this time.

 

Advice... I'm teaching science to the home-ed daughter of a close friend (the irony of who this is will become apparent), and the family are still Christian.  Teaching science has a lot to do with communicating the nature of reasoning and evidence, and I want to influence them if I can, to look again at their faith.  This raises questions of what is practical and indeed appropriate, and I'd welcome any suggestions that would help me pitch things in the right way.

 

... and if I can, to provide whatever insights I can, to help others with their journey away from Christianity.

 

I'd like to write this testimony in installments, if that's ok - and more as a conversation than a monologue.  I don't really know any ex-Christians (I know a few that have mellowed considerably, but that's not quite the same), so it would be good to get a perspective from others who have been on a similar journey to mine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ellinas]

Welcome.

 

Write as many installments as conversationally as you like.  Entirely up to you.

 

Your reasons for registering are as good as any.  As regards the "advice" point, to what extent do you rely upon that teaching as a source of income?  No point in rationalizing yourself into penury.  Also, what are your ties to teaching as a profession?  You don't want to give them any imagined cause to lodge a complaint.

 

Beyond that, I'll leave suggestions to those whose background is also in science, as that presumably is your intended vehicle for this enterprise.

 

I suspect your cathartic acts may prove valuable as insights, so you may well end up killing the proverbial birds of your other aims with the same metaphorical stone...

 

I look forward to reading more.

 

E.

[Bhim]

Hi 25YearsLater, great to meet you. I converted at 29, deconverted at 25, and I'm 30 now. We have a similar background, but as you've more experience at being an ex-Christian by far, so I'm not sure what advice I'm qualified to answer. I am a scientist though, and may have some thoughts on how you could approach science education when dealing with evangelicals.

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Welcome, 25 years later, I look forward to learning more about your story.  Input from people skilled in the sciences is always extra welcome

[25YearsLater]

Thanks for the welcome!  Just to be clear, I'm not a teacher by profession (I run a small software company), but I do love teaching - I have many years experience, tutoring one-to-one.  I studied Chemistry to PhD level, then went into computers, but science has always been my 'thing', and I've kept in touch with it over the years - these days I teach Maths, Physics and Chemistry up to A Level (A Levels are the public exams taken in England at age 18, and are the qualifications needed for university entrance).

 

So, rewinding the clock to age 17.  I grew up in a very loving, non-religious family.  I was academically pretty bright - top, or close to the top of my class in most subjects.  I had a Christian girlfriend, and she first got me thinking about Christianity by making no secret  of the fact that God was more important to her than I was, which dented my teenage ego somewhat.  At the time, I thought it was all a load of rubbish.  She evangelised me a little from time to time, but I always shot her down in flames (not very kindly, I might add), but somehow it still bugged me.

 

Then another Christian friend lent me a book.  Choose Freedom, it was called, by someone called Michael Green.  For reasons that to this day I don't really understand, somehow it resonated very strongly, and I had an intense feeling that what I'd been rejecting (and ridiculing) for some time was true. It resulted in quite an intense conversion experience, lots of tears, and I did the whole receiving Jesus thing.  This all took place in private - no one else was involved, and weirdly even my friend told me later that he'd just felt led to lend me the book at that time.  He was the most astonished of all when I told him I'd become a Christian.

 

I have to say, recalling that period does now make me feel slightly sick!

 

Overnight, I became an evangelical firebrand.  Born again, ha, no shit... I devoured the bible, and anything else I could find to read that would reinforce my new world view.  As you guys will know, there's no shortage of books talking of miracles, relationships with Jesus, etc, etc, and I read them all.

 

The Christian Union society at school was a fairly lukewarm affair, but within a few weeks, my friend and I had taken it by the scruff of its neck and turned it into a much more active centre for discussion and evangelism.  The Rapture was very fashionable at the time, and we were heavily into end-times, and made a right pain in the rear end of ourselves all over the school.  It was our mission!!  

 

At home, I met with intense opposition from my parents, who thought I'd gone completely mad and was throwing away my life.  Obviously I didn't see it that way - I'd realised the truth and so should everyone else.  Not to put too fine a point on it, I was insufferable.  And all the persecution (as I saw it) just made me even more determined.  So life at home became pretty grim - constant inquisitions, mostly from my mum, trying to find out what I was doing.  I tended to clam up, since no matter what I said, it always just made things worse.

 

Some months after my conversion, I started attending a charismatic church which fuelled the flames.  I loved it - like-minded people all on fire for Jesus.  I recall one particular evening church meeting, where lots of people were speaking in tongues, singing and waving their arms around - you know the kind of thing I'm sure - when I happened to turn round, and saw my mum at the back of the church, looking absolutely horrified.  Obviously, she now knew the awful truth about me, and all her worst fears were confirmed.  It must have been terrible for her, seeing her eldest son go so suddenly and spectacularly off the rails, but it was pretty stressful for me too.  

 

At home, life was hell; at school and at church it was fantastic - living every minute for Jesus, what could possibly be better?

 

And so things continued for about 15 months - school study was merely incidental to the Great Work, which was made even more intense when at some point along the way I got baptised in the spirit and started speaking in tongues.  My parents heard about that somehow, and I was required to give a demonstration!

 

On that toe-curling, cringe-worthy, hurl-inducing memory, I will take a break, and come back to it all later....

 

 

[Bhim]

It's interesting to hear from someone else whose parents disapproved of his Christianity. I grew up Hindu, so my parents were likewise dismayed by my conversion to Christianity. Most here speak of having to explain themselves to their parents, hide their lack of faith in Jesus from them, or otherwise disappoint them upon deconversion. But this isn't something I can really relate to. It'll certainly be interesting to know how your parents reacted when you left Jesus. Mine were surprisingly underwhelmed, but still happy I'd left.

[25YearsLater]

It'll certainly be interesting to know how your parents reacted when you left Jesus. 

 

Well I'm getting a little ahead of myself - but they were hugely relieved.  My mum in particular - and she's rarely missed an opportunity over the years when we've disagreed about something important, to say "Ah, but I was right then, and you were wrong!".

 

Gotta love her - I mostly smile these days and suck it up, even if she is wrong, which sadly happens more often these days as she gets older.  On the plus side, we have a pretty good relationship now.

 

She thought I shouldn't have married the person I married, and she was right about that too.  But I'll come to that.... 

[♦ nivek ♦]

Welcome to ExC 25YL,

 

We are about the same age and similar time "in" with our religious experiences. 

I came to ExC when it was mentioned in a spot I hang out. Derogatory and rather ugly, figured if "that place" made christobts
mad, it HAD to be  decent place. Well over a decade later still here, still learning.

Feel welcome here. One does not need to be newly deconverted, questioning survivor, or in need of anything. You will find a decent cross section of persons, many fellow travelers whom share your path.

kevinL

[Bedouin]

Welcome to Ex-C 25.  I'm looking forward to reading more about your experience. 

[RipVanWinkle]

Welcome to exchristian. I'm glad you are here. Rip

[TheSerpent]

Welcome to Ex-C, 25! Fascinating testimony, I look forward to reading more.

[VahnBlue]

Glad to have you here, 25! Hope you enjoy being here! =)

[TheHappyWarrior]

I'm glad to meet an ex-Christian who does not come at all from a Christian household/background since it is those converts whom the Christian community enjoy publicizing the most. I hope to read more of your account!  

[25YearsLater]

Please excuse the growing bitterness that will probably become evident in the next few posts.  To this day, my sadness and regret at the way I spent my most formative years still haunt me, and as I recall those memories, I realise that my anger and shame are only a little below the surface.  Still, we press on.

 

To my shame, as a result of my efforts, one of my closest friends at school also became a Christian.  As I mentioned earlier, I had become an evangelical firebrand, and a guy in my class that I hung out with and studied with was the nearest target.  Of course, since I had now seen the truth, he had to as well.  

 

So I never missed an opportunity to evangelise him.  Eventually, I wore him down, and he became a Christian too.  To this day, I deeply regret my influence.  He was best man at my wedding, and although I've lost touch with him somewhat, he's still a Christian.

 

The universe, however, is nothing if not ironic, and it is the most delicious irony that it was he who introduced me to a church in my university town that really sealed my doom.  But I'm getting a little ahead of myself....

 

Despite the fact that I spent most of my waking hours at school making a nuisance of myself for Jesus, somehow I managed to avoid completely fucking up my studies.  I finished my A Levels and got a place at the same university as my friend.  I took a year off, working in a lab, during which time I inadvertently lulled my parents into a false sense of optimism, since I was a lot less active as a Christian during that period.  

 

For although the intense efforts of my parents (mostly my mum, on whom it took a terrible toll), to deprogram me, had been unsuccessful, the process had nevertheless worn me down to the extent that I had withdrawn somewhat from things that put me into direct confrontation with them.  I spent a lot of time feeling very guilty about my lack of Christian enthusiasm, being ever-mindful of Revelation 3:15-16, but nevertheless worked hard, saved quite a bit of money, and went to uni.

 

And within two weeks, I met a girl (do I hear facepalms?).  And yes, she was a Christian.  We were both virgins, of course, and I shall skirt around the awkwardness of a moral imperative that prohibits extra-marital sex, and the guilt we shared, even though we didn't actually do the deed.  Nevertheless, three months later we were engaged, to all four parents' horror.  I didn't really work hard enough at my studies, but muddled through to the second year.

 

At which point, my friend from school came to me very excitedly one day, telling me about a local church he'd found.  I went along to a meeting, and to say it reignited my Christian zeal is like saying that it was a bit breezy on the day that Katrina came to town.

 

More later.  I need to go and vomit...

 

 

[Bhim]

It would seem that when you spend your college years being an evangelical, then this is a usual result.  Like you I managed to "avoid completely fucking up my studies," but the evangelicalism certainly didn't help.  In fact, being around other physics majors who were militantly atheistic probably turned me more fundamentalist.

 

I guess the one silver lining is that I never successfully converted anyone.

[25YearsLater]

So, my friend took me along to a meeting of this little church, there were only 30 people, and I absolutely loved it.  Choruses (worship songs) rather than hymns, it was charismatic, had a no-compromise belief in the bible, and a mission.  It was right up my street, especially the mission aspect.

 

It was very informal, and the leadership was somewhat ad-hoc.  However, it wasn't long before it became affiliated to a larger organisation, since it came under the 'covering' of a local 'apostle', one of a team of guys that managed similar churches.  They were inspiring preachers, and it was exciting to be a part of it all.  I soon believed that this was how churches were supposed to be - that God was restoring his kingdom on earth through us and other similar churches.  I didn't take much convincing, I have to say, since the style wasn't dissimilar to how the school CU had been, albeit on a much bigger scale.  Basically, I swallowed the Restorationist theology completely, which was backed up as always by inspirational literature.

 

I'll skip over most of my second undergraduate year - the church took up a lot of time, and I neglected my studies dreadfully.  But I believed I was doing God's work, and mostly I loved it.  The church grew rapidly, attracting a lot of like-minded students and disaffected churchgoers from other denominations.  

 

Then I was ill for the 2nd year exams, which I missed completely, although I was allowed to proceed to the 3rd year without them.  Strangely, God didn't heal me, and that the fact that I was exhausted mentally, trying to work for my degree, as well as being super-involved in the church, managed to escape me completely.  Nevertheless, a few weeks after I recovered from surgery, my fiancee and I got married, and shortly after that we were promoted to home group leaders, hosting a prayer and bible study group each week.  

 

For a while, church life was still mostly great.  Lots of fellowship with like-minded friends, a sense of belonging, the affirmation of being made a 'leader' with pastoral responsibility (aged 21, how ridiculous was that), it was a heady mixture.

 

Yet all wasn't quite right.  

 

I was more of an intellectual than nearly everyone around me in the church, and I was honest.  So although I desperately wanted to fit in, I couldn't bring myself to accept the accounts of minor miracles that were supposedly going on all around me.  The notion that we were supposed to believe that we were healed, despite the continuation of the symptoms, was always hard for me to swallow, and I started a 'keep it real' movement, which gradually marked me out as a bit of a maverick.

 

Nevertheless, I pressed on.  I scraped a good enough degree to stay on for a PhD, and neglected that in much the same way - doing just enough to get by, but not enough to do it justice.  Because now my mission had changed - it was to figure out, and fix, what I perceived to be going wrong in the church, as it got more and more structured, as the leadership grew more and more autocratic, and the church activities seemed to grow less and less about Jesus, and more and more about the management of a growing machine.  I seemed to be forever asking questions, and drawing attention to things that were wrong, and gradually grew more and more marginalised.

 

Eventually, the pastor decided that the Lord was saying that I should take a break from home group leadership.  It's pretty obvious now, of course, that my demotion was a punishment for my 'negativity' (being negative was one of the worst things you could be accused of).  But although I was disappointed, it was nevertheless a relief.  

 

For some reason, I was still invited to the leadership meetings, though, and that turned out to be remarkably fortunate....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ax345]

...I spent most of my waking hours at school making a nuisance of myself for Jesus...

This is one of my favorite quotes, ever.

 

Your story touches many similar points with my own, and I'm looking forward to reading more.

[25YearsLater]

The story so far - 

 

Age 17, no particular background in Christianity, I had become a Christian - the two main influences being my Christian girlfriend (and her older, cooler Christian friends), and a book lent to me by a good friend at school, who was already a Christian.  Somehow the salvation narrative resonated with my need for acceptance, and more or less overnight I believed what I had hitherto tended to ridicule.  Still can't quite figure it even today, but there it is.  Fanned by the flames of various Christian literature, and books like The Genesis Flood (early creationist literature, written largely before plate tectonics were well understood), I had become a believer, big time.

 

At university, I met a girl, and 18 months later got married; I'd got involved with a local church that was part of the House Church movement (I note it now has a new name), and initially found it very satisfying.  Gradually, though, it grew and became more organised,  with increasingly autocratic leadership.  I was liking it less and less, since I saw it slipping into the very denominationalism that it supposedly rejected.

 

Moving on - 

 

By the time I was two thirds of the way through my PhD, I'd been married three years; as a guitarist, I was in the church band, so I got to see first hand how the worship was stage-managed, and as a house-group leader, I was present at many leadership meetings where I got to see how the pastoral team operated - very like corporate management, I'd say now, with experience.

 

My faith hadn't changed, but more and more I was seeing the church leadership as manipulative managers, not the servants of the faithful, and I was liking the church less and less.

 

Tithes were a big thing in the church.  They paid the salary of the full-time leadership team, and money-raising rallies were a common feature.  One's faith was measured very much by the amount you felt 'led' to give - over and above the tithes, of course - and the Prosperity Gospel, although never preached overtly, had clearly influenced the thinking of the leaders.  There were all kinds of grand projects - all aimed at buying buildings, employing more full time Christian workers - effectively building the machinery of church.  Never providing for the poor and homeless, always lining the nest of those in charge.

 

As something of a maverick, I was demoted from house-group leadership, but was still invited to the leadership meetings.  At one such, I was party to a discussion of how one particular project that required a very large amount of money (hundreds of thousands of UK pounds) had been cancelled.  Fair enough, they'd made a mistake, and changed their plans.

 

However, not long after that, I attended a large meeting of some half dozen of the affiliated churches in the area.  It was a huge affair by UK standards - several thousand people, a big stage and sound system, and carefully rehearsed worship.  There was the usual singing, 'inspirational' preaching, and then came the fundraising part.

 

To my stunned amazement, the leaders that had only days before, announced at the leadership meeting that the big project had been cancelled, proceeded to stand up in front of thousands of people, and do the whole "please contribute to this work of God" thing - as if the project was still going ahead.  They raised thousands, as people filed up, apparently led by the spirit to give (often quite sacrificially) to the cancelled project.

 

Basically, it was a stage-managed, rabble-rousing, money-grubbing, lying, cheating, deceiving, stinking fundraiser - for a project that had been cancelled just days before.

 

I was completely stunned, shocked, pole-axed, gob-smacked, and flabbergasted by the brazenness of it all.  But the evidence of rottenness at the core of the organisation was incontrovertible.

 

I had been growing apart from the church for some time - but this was the last straw.  It was no longer "how can we leave" (since we had some very good friends in the church), it was "how can we stay".

 

In the next installment, I'll describe how I went to the pastor and challenged him about it, and how we left shortly after.

 

 

[Margee]

Welcome to ExC 25YL!!. Thank you so much for sharing your journey. I'm reading along and can relate to many things. You're a wonderful writer. You may not have any outside x-christian friends, but you have us now!! You have found a 'home' and 'safe place' of people who will understand you to the core. Looking forward to reading more of your story!  Keep posting!

 

Glad you are here with us!

 

Hug

[Llwellyn]

Great x-testimony -- looking forward to hearing more...  It's like you describing getting over an infection with a heavy-fever.  

 

[Jeff]

aww man I hate that stuff about the fundraising.  I sat in a leadership meeting where the families were referred to as "giving units".

Arghh!  why do I read this first thing in the AM???!!!  So angry!  (and yet so happy )

 

thanks again for writing

[25YearsLater]

I sat in a leadership meeting where the families were referred to as "giving units".

 

Sheesh.... how do these people live with themselves????

 

That is so utterly wrong on so many levels, including their own Christian so-called beliefs.  Presumably these people start off as well-meaning, and then turn into weasels over time.

 

Much like politicians I suppose.

[Merlin]

So I never missed an opportunity to evangelise him.  Eventually, I wore him down, and he became a Christian too.  To this day, I deeply regret my influence.  He was best man at my wedding, and although I've lost touch with him somewhat, he's still a Christian.

 

The universe, however, is nothing if not ironic, and it is the most delicious irony that it was he who introduced me to a church in my university town that really sealed my doom.  But I'm getting a little ahead of myself....

 

Welcome to Ex-C 25YL!   I'm really glad that you decided to join us.  I just finished reading all that you have shared with us so far, and I can't wait to read more.  I came from a background that is the exact opposite of yours.  My father was a popular minister, and I was supposed to follow in his footsteps.  Needless to say, I didn't end up walking down that dead-end road. 

 

Anyway, I too share a similar regret as it relates to a good friend I once had.  I was personally responsible for leading him back to god.  He is still a Christian, and he is now more radical in his beliefs than ever.  I fear that I have done him a huge injustice, and I can't help but feel guilty about it.  Sometimes, I just wish there was a way for me to undo the damage that I've done.  I know that throughout the course of my life I've influenced many people for Christianity, and I regret it now more than ever...

 

Please keep sharing more of your story.

[tothemorning]

Looks like we have travelled the same path my friend. I held on for so long...

[25YearsLater]

I had become a Christian with a fairly dramatic conversion at 17; I became a spirit-filled fundamentalist within a year, and radicalised a good few of the tepid Christians at school.  I then went on to university, where within two years I got engaged, married, joined a house-church, and was rapidly promoted to house-group leader.  However, as the church grew and became more into big, stage-managed meetings, and less into reality and honesty, I gradually became somewhat marginalised.  This grew steadily into full-on disaffection, but since we had some very good friends in the church, the idea of leaving never became reality.  

 

Then I discovered incontrovertible evidence of corruption amongst the leadership of the affiliated group of churches, and the landscape changed overnight.

 

Realising that the leadership had been blatantly lying to several thousand people, to raise a ton of money for a cancelled project, opened my eyes.  Finally I saw that the way the leadership operated could no longer be accounted for as the occasional mistakes of basically godly men with the hearts of servants that apostles, prophets and teachers were supposed to have.  

 

No, I finally saw them for what they were - scheming liars who were at best chronically deluded.  No doubt the money and the power had blinded them even if they had started out as well-meaning, but that of course is no excuse.  It was no longer a case of staying in the church for the sake of the friends we loved dearly - we could no longer remain within an organisation that was rotten at the core.

 

Of course, I gave the pastor of my immediate church the opportunity to respond to my allegations.  He had been at the same leadership meetings that I had attended, but perhaps he hadn't made the same connections I had.  So I made an appointment with him (and his wife - I wanted a witness), and I set out the case.

 

The pastor's wife was a great lady - honest, down to earth, and completely genuine.  As I set out the facts that her husband didn't deny, she was clearly shocked and angry at the deception I'd uncovered.  The pastor himself, however, was quite equivocal about it all, and said only that he'd look into the matter.  Nothing happened of course, and it rapidly became clear that it would be business as usual.

 

So we left the church, and I made sure that we did it in a very public way.  I wrote a long letter describing where I thought the church had gone astray in the years I'd been a member, and explained how the deception I'd uncovered was the final straw - we loved the people, but couldn't remain, since we did not support the leadership.

 

I sent the letter, by post, to about 30 of the families we knew the best, and some we knew less well, including of course the pastor and his wife, and attended no more of the meetings.  

 

We were out.

 

Over the next week or two, I was amazed at the replies to my letter - and the replies that never materialised.  It became clear that there was a great deal of discontent amongst the grass roots of the church membership, and several people that I hardly knew wrote back very supportively.  Others phoned, and there were some very heart-warming conversations.  A few said that we were wrong to leave.

 

On the other hand, there were several couples who we had thought we were quite close to, that completely ignored us, and we never heard from them again.  It really was a lesson in discovering who our friends were.

 

This must have been late 1987 or early 88 - almost eight years since I became a Christian.  Eight years of exhausting religious intensity, of distraction from real life, of dilution of energies, and a large scale distortion of what was one of the most formative periods in my life.  However, I had little time to dwell on it all - I had a PhD to finish.

 

As I've mentioned, I had neglected my studies dreadfully during my first degree, and again for the first two years of my research.  Suddenly, though, reality clicked into place, and I needed to work damn hard for the final year.  So from working a fairly pathetic five or six hours a day (and not at all on weekends, which was unheard of amongst my lab colleagues), spending the rest of the time on Christian activities, I was now working closer to 16 hours a day, six or seven days a week.  It was gruelling, but I was determined to salvage some success from the wreckage of the last few years.

 

As to Christianity, it's clear to me now that the process of deconversion had already started, but I still believed, despite the fact that deep down I knew that my life wasn't the wall-to-wall series of New Testament miracles that I had signed up for.  Nevertheless, I did make a few desultory attempts at finding another church.  I went to a few meetings but my heart wasn't in it.

 

So instead, I discovered Sunday mornings, with coffee, a newspaper, and a little time to think and relax.  I gradually realised that I had been a caged mouse, constantly running on a wheel.  Too busy to reflect, too pressurised into being what I was not, to think or feel anything clearly.

 

The hard work of my final year in the lab paid off - just.  I had enough results, and at the end of 1988 finished in the lab with all my writing up still to do, and moved back to London where I'd grown up, to start a new job in IT which would become my career.  The writing up would take most of my evenings and weekends for the next fifteen months. 

 

I was still a Christian, just about, but I had reclaimed my life.

 

As it turned out, the pain was far from over, but that will have to wait until the final instalment.  Thanks for reading this far.