The Walls Are Closing In...

[Archangel]

I've been lurking on here for a while reading other people's stories, and keep coming back probably because of the encouragement I get from simply knowing that there are other people out there who share the same struggle with me. So many of these stories and testimonials are so dead-on with where I'm at and where I'm coming from, some almost identical to my own. So at last I feel compelled to put in my two cents so that maybe someone else out there will be able to relate to my own struggle and be helped along as well. Outside of my brother I don't think anyone I know has a clue about what's really going on, so here it goes...

 

I was born into an xtian family and although my parents weren't particularly dogmatic about it, I grew up going to an ultra-fundie Southern Baptist church (they went charismatic when I got to high school, but I stayed fundie Baptist). With that came the Sunday school and church on Sunday night and Wednesday night, and our church only had like 25 people, half of whom I was related to, but since I went since I was born it was just how it was; although I really never understood theologically what was going on, doubting any of it never seemed to cross my mind. I took piano lessons as a kid and by the time I was 12 was playing on Sunday mornings and would try to rock it out on the hymns (as much as that's possible!), not necessarily because I was worshiping god, but because it was loud and fun and everyone seemed to like it. But after a couple of years I for some reason began to become embarrassed about it and would hide in the restroom when the service was about to start (remember, 25 people, half of them family, hard to pull that one off). About the same time, the annual summer youth camps started to become awkward for me, not just socially, but when it came time to the super-emotional singing and evangelistic stuff I just didn't feel it; but became convinced it was because I was being "hard-hearted" and such an unrepentant sinner (especially when the minister would call us out for not raising hands and doing motions to silly songs), so the solution would be to give in and fake it and walk the aisle, and sure enough I would start crying (panic attacks?) when one of the adults would take me out to be "counseled". This went on every summer through my teen years, so basically every summer I would do what fundies call "rededicate you life to christ" for all the bad sinful stuff I did all year at school.

 

And come to think of it, I really didn't do a lot of bad stuff in middle and high school, probably because a) I was socially awkward and wasn't often invited to tag along for sinful stuff like meeting girls and beer, and I was scared to death of hell and all that. Plus, by the time I got to high school, I had a squeaky-clean image to protect, even if it meant total isolation and being a self-righteous prick to not do what all the "bad kids" were doing. So being a "Christian" became my identity, even though I knew zilch about the Bible despite being in church 3x a week. No wonder I had the personality of a brick.

 

Anyhow, I still kind of understood what sin was (what do fundies talk about the most eh?), and I became very self-deprecating whenever I thought I offended god by some stray thought, and so began the downward cycle of miserable repentance followed by the good feeling of forgiveness and back down again. I beat myself up mentally because that's what I was supposed to do if I was a good xtian, right? Don't you have to show true sorrow for sin and genuinely repent (at least until next time you did the same thing and needed more forgiveness even though jesus already forgave me for everything the first time I asked?) And now I wonder how I became bipolar...

 

Then came college, I moved far away and unsuspectingly landed at a very liberal college (I only went because I had a chance to play football, which lasted about a week). Having grown up such a sheltered fundie xtian I totally rejected everything about the college being so liberal and "ungodly" and once again withdrew from all the heathens I didn't want to associate with less I become tainted. (Looking back, they were the nicest nonjudgmental people I've ever met and couldv'e made some great friends; in fact I'd go back to that college in a heartbeat and do it all over right.) So I found a small pocket of faithful fundies that semester and joined them and transferred to the xtian college across town, started working with a youth group, "felt the call to ministry", still didn't know a thing about the Bible but didn't think I needed to because all I needed was to love Jesus, saw people praying in tongues for the first time, living "by the spirit", etc. Even in the middle of all of it something (my conscience perhaps) was telling me it wasn't real, and felt the urge to leave...and go back to my home state to go to a fundie Baptist college, which of course was no better. I tried right away to fit in with the self-righteous crowd, and did for a while, but then came a thunderbolt--Calvinism! So naturally, since I now had the "inside scoop" on the will of god, I had a brand new reason to isolate myself and be ultra-self-righteous and more judgmental of everyone around me. And the self-deprecation became self-hatred, because those Calvinist writers can bring it when it comes to repentance...quite a recipe for depression. On top of it, I began working summers at a Calvinist-run xtian camp, which would put me on an extreme spiritual high for the summer because I honestly didn't have time to think about sinning and everyone was so full of Calvinist talk and talking about the bible and dropping names like MacArthur and Piper and Spurgeon every waking moment, which naturally would set me up for a crash at the end of the summer. But I really loved working with the kids and made some great friends, and although we didn't cram salvation down the kids' throats ("god will save whom he will" after all), it would have been an even greater experience for me if there were no religious agenda at all. The last few summers I was on leadership staff and started having a problem with others on leadership staff who started using the bible to justify being real asses to everyone under them, so I basically turned on them and started hanging out with the younger staff and being cool with them and became even a bit rebellious toward the almighty camp power structure. That was about 5 years ago, and maybe it was then that I first started to think to myself that maybe it was all bogus after all.

 

So it began slowly, I lost interest in reading the bible and memorizing chapters of scripture like i did before, but would still severely beat myself up over it periodically because it was sinful to not be ultra-spiritual, right? I still went to a Calvinist church, which would give me a little spiritual high, and became friends with the pastor my last year in college, but slowly began even losing interest in church. In the middle of all this, a girl I really liked a lot, THE girl I thought, committed suicide; she was the most loving, kind, generous young lady I've ever known, and I thought that if anyone was a true xtian it was her. I basically blocked it out for a couple of years, but once I finally dealt with it I realized there's no way I could possibly make it fit theologically in any way shape or form. And I became skeptical and doubtful for the next couple of years, through graduation and into my first teaching job; however, I would still encounter guilt for being skeptical and doubtful, and became severely depressed. I finally broke down and sought help from my former pastor and some close Calvinist buddies and laid my heart bare to them...and they all told me that it was a "spiritual problem", that I need to seek god, repent, be more like jesus, mental issues are all fake and is just satan messing with me, etc. Talk about stabbing the heart of the wounded animal. Obviously, that plunged me even deeper into depression.

 

Then came my chance to redeem myself--I got a job at a wealthy xtian school in an affluent suburb, and thus still clung onto the hope that maybe it was just a spiritual funk that I would snap out of and get back up on that high I so craved (religion as a drug, eh). I even moved in with 3 other xtian buddies and everything was supposed to change...but nothing did; in fact, I began to feel so, I dunno, FAKE when it came to teaching from a "xtian perspective" (esp. history). I even taught a bible class and just had this gut feeling that it was all nonsense the entire time. I also coach sports and tried being the happy-jesus-"facing the giants"-scripture-quoting coach and it just felt so shallow and hokey and fake. But still, I got depressed because I couldn't pull it off and felt I was still a xtian and disappointing god (stopped reading the bible and going to church altogether)...until about halfway through this year.

 

Two things happened. First, at my xtian school there were a series of chapel sessions where nothing but fundie ignorance and emotional manipulation was spouted and force-fed to our young impressionable students, who were then coerced into making emotional "decisions", and it took everything within me to not scream at the top of my lungs and run out of there like the place was on fire. It really bothered me that their young minds were getting screwed up just like mine, and that it was not right on so many levels, especially when they are told not to question anything that someone says as long as they say it's from god...and then the school attempts to use that as a means to control everything our students do, down to the kind of damn socks they wear (god hates a rebellious spirit!). Second, I went to a psychiatrist for the first time for a screening session and was diagnosed as being bipolar, which I already had kind of figured out. But driving home, it hit me--it's religion. No way, I thought. Could it be? It was like an enormous weight was lifted from my shoulders, and the next few weeks were a bit of a blur as my mind tried to decompress and sift through a quarter-century of religious *stuff*. It was more than a crisis of faith, it was a liberation of my soul and mind. I've thought more clearly over the last two months than ever before. I actually feel...normal. I bought Hitchens' new book and read it in a day, and it struck a nerve which had always been carefully hidden and repressed, and stalwartly denied every time it had tried to expose itself earlier in my life because I was too afraid to think for myself.

 

So now I find myself at perhaps the biggest crossroads of my life, and although I'm pretty sure of the direction I'm going it's hard to not make that u-turn back to the security of everything you've ever known (i.e., Lot's wife looking back on Sodom and turning into a pile of salt, one of my old faves)--even though it has been abusive and shackling and has been bad for my mental health and has all but robbed me of all joy and purpose in life. Most of all I fear how it will affect relationships with people that I love--even though I feel so much more free to love them now, I fear that the famously "unconditional" xtian love we all know about will be withdrawn and myself cast out. People love me at my school, but I dread how many of them will turn into wolves when I say I'm leaving because I can't support the religious ideals of the school. I'm not back home much so maybe I can be more elusive with my ultra-conservative family, but sooner or later the conversation will come up. And my students? How I wish I could tell them everything! They still have time to escape the brainwashing, right? And the few close friends I have are all xtians. I just know I'm going to be proselytized all over again and I'm gonna hate it, but maybe in the end I'll still have a few people who don't disown me.

 

The coming weeks and months will be hard for me, but when it all goes down, I want to ask one question of those who become distraught about my spiritual state--if I really wasn't a xtian all along, does all the work and sacrifice and love for my friends and family and students suddenly become null and void if it wasn't "for jesus"? Has it all been in vain if I haven't fully believed some story about god's son being born of a virgin and being allowed by his father to be brutally murdered because it somehow wipes out anything wrong I've ever done? (Wow, that really sounds ridiculous now.) After all these years of faking it and convincing myself it was all real and saying all the right stuff to please the right people, I'm ready to be real, beginning with myself. I've gotten off the roller-coaster and have been free of the up and down self-hatred and repentance and spiritual highs for about two months now, and you know, I think I'm gonna be alright. In fact its kinda nice to actually feel like living life and being around people and not judging everyone for once, maybe I'll discover who I really am while I'm at it.

 

***

I'm sure there's a lot of stuff I'm leaving out or thoughts left disconnected...if anyone has actually read all the way through my ramblings down to here I'll honestly be surprised. But whether anyone reads it or not it's still always good to get your thoughts down on paper and to be able to share it with people you know won't judge you and to have that sense of release. Maybe someone will be encouraged, and by all means, give me your advice if you've already been through this before!

[Trev]

***

I'm sure there's a lot of stuff I'm leaving out or thoughts left disconnected...

 

Hello and welcome - yes, it it is easy to leave stuff out and thoughts disconnected. I am still sifting through stuff after being out of the church for five years, and have come to find this ability (or disability? lol) quite an asset after finding it a bit numbing and even debilitating for quite some time.

 

if anyone has actually read all the way through my ramblings down to here I'll honestly be surprised. But whether anyone reads it or not it's still always good to get your thoughts down on paper and to be able to share it with people you know won't judge you and to have that sense of release.

 

Yes, that is a good thing to do.

[ogilvy]

I've been lurking on here for a while reading other people's stories, and keep coming back probably because of the encouragement I get from simply knowing that there are other people out there who share the same struggle with me. So many of these stories and testimonials are so dead-on with where I'm at and where I'm coming from, some almost identical to my own. So at last I feel compelled to put in my two cents so that maybe someone else out there will be able to relate to my own struggle and be helped along as well. Outside of my brother I don't think anyone I know has a clue about what's really going on, so here it goes...

 

ITwo things happened. First, at my xtian school there were a series of chapel sessions where nothing but fundie ignorance and emotional manipulation was spouted and force-fed to our young impressionable students, who were then coerced into making emotional "decisions", and it took everything within me to not scream at the top of my lungs and run out of there like the place was on fire. It really bothered me that their young minds were getting screwed up just like mine, and that it was not right on so many levels, especially when they are told not to question anything that someone says as long as they say it's from god...and then the school attempts to use that as a means to control everything our students do, down to the kind of damn socks they wear (god hates a rebellious spirit!). Second, I went to a psychiatrist for the first time for a screening session and was diagnosed as being bipolar, which I already had kind of figured out. But driving home, it hit me--it's religion. No way, I thought. Could it be? It was like an enormous weight was lifted from my shoulders, and the next few weeks were a bit of a blur as my mind tried to decompress and sift through a quarter-century of religious *stuff*. It was more than a crisis of faith, it was a liberation of my soul and mind. I've thought more clearly over the last two months than ever before. I actually feel...normal. I bought Hitchens' new book and read it in a day, and it struck a nerve which had always been carefully hidden and repressed, and stalwartly denied every time it had tried to expose itself earlier in my life because I was too afraid to think for myself.

 

The coming weeks and months will be hard for me, but when it all goes down, I want to ask one question of those who become distraught about my spiritual state--if I really wasn't a xtian all along, does all the work and sacrifice and love for my friends and family and students suddenly become null and void if it wasn't "for jesus"? Has it all been in vain if I haven't fully believed some story about god's son being born of a virgin and being allowed by his father to be brutally murdered because it somehow wipes out anything wrong I've ever done? (Wow, that really sounds ridiculous now.) After all these years of faking it and convincing myself it was all real and saying all the right stuff to please the right people, I'm ready to be real, beginning with myself. I've gotten off the roller-coaster and have been free of the up and down self-hatred and repentance and spiritual highs for about two months now, and you know, I think I'm gonna be alright. In fact its kinda nice to actually feel like living life and being around people and not judging everyone for once, maybe I'll discover who I really am while I'm at it.

 

***

I'm sure there's a lot of stuff I'm leaving out or thoughts left disconnected...if anyone has actually read all the way through my ramblings down to here I'll honestly be surprised. But whether anyone reads it or not it's still always good to get your thoughts down on paper and to be able to share it with people you know won't judge you and to have that sense of release. Maybe someone will be encouraged, and by all means, give me your advice if you've already been through this before!

 

thanks for sharing your story. i have shared bits of mine in other threads but i think i'll have a go at briefly putting together my deconversion story here. mine is very recent also. actually, the story of Jesus dying for the sins of the world made perfect sense to me. in fact i'm still shocked that its probably not true.i dont even like to say its not true. i guess i still believe it. and i had no trouble with supernatural happenings, i mean, on God's part, not pentecostal so-called supernatural happenings. no, the thing that pulled me up was thinking about the cruelty of God. actually there were two things, that, and the fact that after trying for 20 years to live 'in the spirit', i had to admit that actually i truly wasnt, and it didnt look like i was getting any better at it, so what did that mean?

 

sitting through church began to be very draining. i didnt mean the words of the hymns i was singing, and i wondered if everyone else truly did. they didnt seem to be bothered about it, anyway. and i find myself feeling angry during the sermons because they were just boring. i though, if they were inspired by God, they should not be boring. i didnt like having to sit still and quiet in church for an hour and a quarter. it began to play on my mind, that i should be able to get up and walk out if i wanted, but i couldnt. soical pressure i guess. i have social phobia also.

 

over the years it had dawned on me that a lot of the time, what is taken as being bible doctrine, is people'sown ideas about the bible. i was ready to accept every word of the bible, but i didnt have to accept every word of what christians said.

 

since bringing out into the open my perception of God as being cruel, from what thte bible says, i've become more than ever convinced that christians are not really honest about the bible, i should say, a lot of christians, are not really honest, or dont look into the bible properly for themselves but just quote what others say, and thus, certain myths get perpetuated. those christians who have tried to 'help' me by explaining that we cant say God is cruel, God cannot be cruel, and we can't understand his ways but his ways are always good, dont realize that they've helped hammer the nails into the coffin for me, as far as rejecting christianity. because their answers dont hold water, and they make me realize that there is no satisfactory answer. they are kidding themselves. now i realize that maybe 80% of christianity as i see it practised, is not based on the bible really, but on wishful thinking.

 

one good thing that's come out of it is that, like you said, i appreciate people now without judging them. previously, like you, i felt i had to stand apart, and if i was around non christian people, they might be nice, but somehow something was missing, something not quite right about them, something coming between us. now i feel free to really appreciate all kinds of people, and other things also, like movies and music i used to avoid. for 20 years i didnt listen to secular radio for fear of being 'infulenced' by humanism. it feels good to be free to get interested in so many areas of life i had to avoid before. i read books again, after only having read christian literature for 20 years. i'm still surprised that i'm doing this. i dont know what i expect to happen to me, but so far its ok.

 

its Good Friday tomorrow, and still i dont have any inclination to mock Jesus. it still seems shocking to me to speak against Jesus. but i think God is cruel, and as i believe Jesus to be God, then Jesus must be cruel too. well, i havent got all this figured out yet. i was scared as to what would happen to me without my faith in God as the one looking after me, and the hope of going to heaven at the end. so far its ok though, i havent cracked up or anything. dunno whats going on really, but my eyes are open.

[upstarter]

I read it all with tears in my eyes. It's all so familiar. Damn them all for saying we were never really xtians. We did everything they told us to do, over and over and over. It's not our fault that it never fit!

 

Welcome. Take what strength you need from people here who've been there. That's why this site is here.

 

HUG,

 

Heather

[Eponymic]

Second, I went to a psychiatrist for the first time for a screening session and was diagnosed as being bipolar, which I already had kind of figured out.

 

Talk with Brother Jeff about this, he is bi-polar too and could be a lot of help to you.

 

So now I find myself at perhaps the biggest crossroads of my life, and although I'm pretty sure of the direction I'm going it's hard to not make that u-turn back to the security of everything you've ever known (i.e., Lot's wife looking back on Sodom and turning into a pile of salt, one of my old faves)--even though it has been abusive and shackling and has been bad for my mental health and has all but robbed me of all joy and purpose in life.

 

It's fantastic that you recognize this! That's the biggest step is to know that it has appeal, and yet be strong enough to know that the negatives out weigh the positives. That's the hardest part for most people who want to leave Christianity. And a big reason most don't. They either fear the seperation from all their friends & support network and/or the fear of pascal's wager- what if hell does really exist?

 

And my students? How I wish I could tell them everything! They still have time to escape the brainwashing, right? And the few close friends I have are all xtians. I just know I'm going to be proselytized all over again and I'm gonna hate it, but maybe in the end I'll still have a few people who don't disown me.

 

How I know this feeling. It is very valiant of you to hold your tongue though. Because they have to want it in order to accept the information. You can give them a little, but they truly have to ask for the rest. So it's actually better for you not to just be like a Christian and try to convert them.

In my mind at least.

 

But whether anyone reads it or not it's still always good to get your thoughts down on paper and to be able to share it with people you know won't judge you and to have that sense of release. Maybe someone will be encouraged, and by all means, give me your advice if you've already been through this before!

 

I'll take this back to what you said before. True friends don't drop you at a hat because you change religions or ideologies. They see the greater person in you and stick with you. That's one of the brilliant things that people who are ex-christians usually realize. You'll find a lot more open, caring relationships here that are truly bonded. Even between people who have never met, because they realize the importance of accepting people for who they are.

 

Best wishes to you on your journey!

[Archangel]

Thanks for the replies...

 

So I'm not the only one who absolutely dreads the thought of going to church. I got to the point where I was literally dragging myself against my own will, largely due to the guilt of not wanting to go, because if I don't want to go to church it must mean I don't love God and I'm backslidden and blah blah blah. I would go to one for a couple of months, get to the point where I couldn't go anymore and leave, find another one for a couple of months, etc. As my Calvinist streak began to fade I tried a variety of denominations (Presbyterian, Bible, Indie-Fundie, Methodist, Non-Denom, Baptist, you name it) but the result was always the same. No matter where I went, I often could go an entire service and leave without a single other person talking to me, or a conversation beyond "Hi, we're happy you're here, how are you? Good? Good!" I tried my hardest to just "focus on god" because church isn't a social event after all (but what's fellowship eh?) and that obviously didn't do anything to convince me of the bible or their words being absolute truth, much less having any intellectual value. Towards the end I had a short flirtation with the "emerging church" idea (snatched up Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz) and thought, hey, it's okay to hate going to church and I can be a freethinking "liberal xtian" and still save face by not having to leave the faith. I even oh-so-secretly went to a Unitarian church a couple of times, but ultimately still came to the conclusion that celebrating diversity of religious traditions is not the answer if they're ALL equally untrue (although I concede that some overarching philosophical ideas and proverbs and such that are taught in all religions have some merit; however none of it validates any of those religions as true). And plus, I would still be hanging onto xtianity...and for what reason? Hmmmm. So that phase was short-lived. The irony is...it's pretty nice to actually rest on Sundays now rather than forcing myself to go to church in order to keep myself from being struck by lightning by a god who's angry at my reluctance to willingly go and "freely" worship him.

 

A couple key things I left out previously...

Studying the Constitution (since I had to teach about it from a "xtian perspective") indirectly hooked me up with the Enlightenment ideas of freedom of conscience and such, and I started reading about Jefferson beyond the out-of-context quotes xtians always use to "prove" he really wanted a theocracy, and got familiar with Paine and Locke, et al. I also discovered that liberal talk radio actually existed. Needless to say my political ideas radically swung from right to left, and somehow it's all connected with my religious transition.

 

Also, as I briefly discussed earlier, death and tragedy really got the wheels turning. Before my friend's suicide one of my close cousins died, and half the family insisted he went to heaven while the other half was resigned to believe he went to hell because he didn't ever profess to be a xtian. I just ignored it and didn't want to deal with it, but deep down it was somehow upsetting at the time that people could be so casually sure that "yep, he's in hell". And this was on the heels of 9/11, with all the junk about killing in the name of religion, and then American xtian leaders turning around and pronouncing it as god's judgment on America for you-name-it (abortion, homosexuality, liberalism, etc.) really didn't sit right. And of course, being a good Calvinist, I had to reconcile everything with "it must have been god's will" and tried to wrap my mind around how he might have predestined them (islamic terrorists and innocent civilians) to die in order to show his glory by punishing them for not being predestined to willingly believe in him.

 

So even when I was deepest into xtianity and Calvinism there were some seeds of doubt, but I buried them under the fix-all of resigning everything to "god's will", and thus continued to deny my own freedom to think for several more years. And it almost drove me crazy. I wonder if there's any research out there on the connection between fundamentalist religion and mental illness...

 

More rambling sure to come soon...

 

*Oh yeah, I also went through the anti-secular music phase and dumped all my evil cd's like Bob Seger's Greatest Hits. After a few months I realized how much xtian music sucked musically and lyrically, so I told myself that god must have graciously given us clean forms of music and entertainment to better enrich the life he's given us to serve and worship him, so some secular music must be okay to help me be more thankful to god. And that's supposed to be normal!

[Comanche]

Welcome to the board! I hope it assists you as well as it has me so far.

 

Studying the Constitution (since I had to teach about it from a "xtian perspective") indirectly hooked me up with the Enlightenment ideas of freedom of conscience and such, and I started reading about Jefferson beyond the out-of-context quotes xtians always use to "prove" he really wanted a theocracy, and got familiar with Paine and Locke, et al. I also discovered that liberal talk radio actually existed. Needless to say my political ideas radically swung from right to left, and somehow it's all connected with my religious transition.

 

Since my deconversion, I've discovered that political ideals are almost directly linked with religion. Before I was an atheist, I was a gun-toting, patriotic conservative. Now I'm a liberal who has doubts about patriotism (though still happily gun-toting). I never knew that Jefferson was a deist before my deconversion. It didn't surprise me when I found out, though. Right-wing Christians probably wouldn't have been so keen on the First Amendment, or much else of America's founding documents.

 

Oh yeah, I also went through the anti-secular music phase and dumped all my evil cd's like Bob Seger's Greatest Hits. After a few months I realized how much xtian music sucked musically and lyrically, so I told myself that god must have graciously given us clean forms of music and entertainment to better enrich the life he's given us to serve and worship him, so some secular music must be okay to help me be more thankful to god. And that's supposed to be normal!

 

I think I'm the only person in Texas that didn't trash my Dixie Chicks CDs when the whole Bush thing happened. Even when I was a Christian I thought secular music was a lot better. I'll admit that I still have a soft spot for country, though. I have a friend who can't stand secular music though. It's rather amusing when you see it from an outside perspective.

 

By the way, you taught me something new. I didn't know Calvinism was still around. I've only ever heard about it in history books. Huh. Small world.

[pitchu]

Welcome.

 

At this site you can become disengaged at a pace that's right for you. Ex-C can be like a political caucus room, with everyone throwing out opinions at a fever pitch, or it can be like one of those big old clunky Lazy-Boy chairs, where you can doze in stupefaction, amid friendly company, when you need to.

[Archangel]

They either fear the seperation from all their friends & support network and/or the fear of pascal's wager- what if hell does really exist?

 

Ah, the "Pascal's Wager Nuclear Option", an old church camp favorite...every xtian has it in their arsenal just in case all scripture and logical argument fails and the spirit so leads them...

 

By the way, what is the definition of a "christian"? If I go by the trusty "someone who follows/pursues/loves jesus/god with all their heart", then I have to think about when I actually stopped being that, which has to be at least 3 years ago. It doesn't mean I stopped trying or stopped feeling guilty about not being the great xtian I and everyone else expected me to be. But I gather that for most everyone else here, it was also a slow process of going from a professing-but-not-wholeheartedly-following-jesus-xtian to complete renunciation of all you once professed to believe. Which leads me to ask, what about "examining the fruit", which is supposed to be the litmus test for xtians to determine if people are truly xtians or not? If everyone thinks I've been a good xtian and I've done everything out of love for jesus and to the glory of god and whatever and they pat me on the back all the time for the job I do and for being such a good person and such, and all the "good fruit" in their minds points to me loving/following jesus--what will they think when they find out I don't love/follow/believe in jesus and technically haven't all along?

 

My hope is that those people, after they're done calling me an infidel and apostate and praying for my soul and such, will look at the "fruit" and think about it long and hard. Maybe that will be my "testimony" to my students. Maybe they'll figure out that you can do good things and be a good person and think for themselves without having to pretend to be "jesus freaks". It could be years from now, but I'll be hopeful.

 

***

True, it's liberating to write this stuff out. Good thing I'm on spring break and have all this spare time.

[Eponymic]

By the way, what is the definition of a "christian"?

 

As far as I'm concerned, it's anyone who believes in the Biblical God, regardless of how thoroughly they believe in him. If they say they believe in him and follow the Bible, they're a Christian.

[Archangel]

A lot has happened since I last updated here back in March...

 

Without having to regurgitate a rather long post from then (see above), I have gone through a significant de-conversion over the last two to three years after growing up and beginning young adulthood as a christian, the last two years while I have been teaching in a christian school. Needless to say, this was quite a bizarre situation for me to be in...a conscience liberated from christianity, but a contract (and paycheck) still chained to it, and on top of that a close attachment to my students to make leaving even more difficult.

 

Things stayed in this sort of flux up until the point that my supervisors decided they were going to go after me for essentially not being a good enough christian (per their standards) and not fitting the mold of a christian school teacher (having my own ideas, teaching kids to think independently, having meaningful relationships with the kids, not being a "yes-man", etc.), and I already had a reputation for not putting up with their bullshit. Then they asked the magic question..."Where have you been going to church? You know your contract says...", and I just said I was in-between churches...my way of saying that I did not go to church for the last 8 months with no desire whatsoever to go back. I should have come clean at that point, but was still trying to both salvage my job, and also prove the point that the lack of points on my religious scorecard had no bearing on my ability to love my students and do my job.

 

However, this set off quite an internal conflict through the end of the school year and into the summer. And at some point I realized that continuing to not be honest with myself, my students, and even my unreasonable and overbearing supervisors, was only going to prolong this inner conflict, which for the last year had already driven me mad. I mean psychiatric evaluation and not sleeping mad. But at the same time, I was by no way ready to just announce that I am no longer a christian, because however selfish if may be on my part and wrong it may be on their part to disown me like they would, I knew it would bring an abrupt and likely permanent end to some very close friendships. (Keep in mind, this is not something I have even disclosed to my immediate family or even close friends, for the very same reason.)

 

Something had to give. I could not stay, but yet I could not go without a satisfactory cause that I could make public, and I would not allow myself to lie to my students. So I sucked it up and quit my job and gave just enough information ("could no longer support the mission of the school and the direction the administration was taking it") to both make it clear that there were major philosophical differences that I would discuss openly (which there were plenty of), and to not invite personal questions concerning religion. As much as I felt I had proven about religion being an unnecessary wedge (everyone just ASSUMED I was a good christian just like them and never suspected otherwise, save for my supervisors who knew I didn't pray before every class like I should), it would immediately be used against me by those very people to discredit everything I had done for that school and their children--simply because I don't believe in the same invisible being anymore. It's not like I went around talking about jesus and leading bible studies and pretending to be super-christian-role-model-guy telling everyone all the time I was on fire for jesus and all that...I was not a phony...I just did my job and was as honest and authentic as I could be and still earned everyones' respect without having to fake all that nonsense. What I'm saying is, I don't have some christian "persona" to protect out of my own pride, but I do have some valuable relationships that really mean a lot to me, whether we agree religiously or not. After being gone for some time, I would be much more okay with those people finding out one at a time at my discretion, rather than the circus of telling everyone at once on my way out the door and burning every bridge that exists.

 

So needless to say I was able to find a new job for the upcoming year in the public school system, and it is quite a relief to know that there will be no religious agenda and no expectation of me to brainwash anyone or abdicate my own conscience by submitting to any form of so-called spiritual authority. Sure, my students won't all be white, well-to-do and protestant, but that's not the real world anyhow, at least not the kind where I feel I belong.

 

Will I ever let my former students know? It's burning in me to tell them straight out, or to at least hint at it and let them figure it out, but it's still too soon. Maybe I can stay in touch with them until they get to college in the near future and explain it then, after they've hopefully had some time to experience the real world and are beginning to think for themselves. But it pains me to know they are still there and are going to be fed the same growth-stunting nonsense for another year with one fewer voice of reason to balance it out.

 

And go figure, the town I moved to has a church for about every 40 people in town, I'm not kidding! However, I already found a local freethinkers' meetup group and attended a meeting, so maybe I won't be so isolated here. I've come a long way and have been through a lot, but the idea of "coming out" when 99% of the people I'm close to are christians still honestly scares the hell out of me. I would love to hear any advice about that particular issue from anyone who has been here in their mid-20's. And if no one even reads all this rambling nonsense all the way through, it really doesn't bother me, it's therapeutic enough for me just to write it and let it out to someone.

 

Take care folks.

[Andy]

I had some teachers at my (catholic) high school that I now suspect weren't as religious as they were supposed to be. Just by some of the ideas they let slip in class. If you had any students that you think were the questioning, independent-thinking type, they might be glad to hear that about you. Maybe drop some hints and see how they react.

[Trev]

but the idea of "coming out" when 99% of the people I'm close to are christians still honestly scares the hell out of me. I would love to hear any advice about that particular issue from anyone who has been here in their mid-20's. And if no one even reads all this rambling nonsense all the way through, it really doesn't bother me, it's therapeutic enough for me just to write it and let it out to someone.

 

coming out as a non-Christian and an athiest was the first of many coming outs for me so I know where you're coming from. I have said this here many time before: when you come to the end of God, you come to the start of yourself.

[Archangel]

I almost forgot...I did manage to leave most of my small library of various christian theology books on the shelves in my classroom when I moved the rest of my stuff out. So far no one has asked about it. I did keep my half-dozen or so bibles, not sure why, maybe just for sentimental value. It bewilders me to now look at them, all the highlighting and notes I once made, hours and hours of reading and re-reading and checking cross-references and consulting commentaries...all in a coordinated effort to convince myself that it was all true, to keep my fragile little imaginary world intact. Christianity literally robbed me of a good chunk of my formative years of intellectual development in high school and college...I'm more than a little bitter. But I take some comfort in the fact that I know I sucked when it came to evangelizing, I just wasn't very good at emotional manipulation.

[ogilvy]

I almost forgot...I did manage to leave most of my small library of various christian theology books on the shelves in my classroom when I moved the rest of my stuff out. So far no one has asked about it. I did keep my half-dozen or so bibles, not sure why, maybe just for sentimental value. It bewilders me to now look at them, all the highlighting and notes I once made, hours and hours of reading and re-reading and checking cross-references and consulting commentaries...all in a coordinated effort to convince myself that it was all true, to keep my fragile little imaginary world intact. Christianity literally robbed me of a good chunk of my formative years of intellectual development in high school and college...I'm more than a little bitter. But I take some comfort in the fact that I know I sucked when it came to evangelizing, I just wasn't very good at emotional manipulation.

 

 

i dont know what to do with all my lovely Christian books i used to cherish so much. i put some out in the shed, but i still have some of my favorites in the bookshelf near my bed, along with ones i've started reading since deconverting, like Michael Connelly and John Grisham. its a strange collection of books now! i havent looked into the bible for a few months now, but its still there just in case. it does seem sacriligeous to just throw out a bible, dont know why.

[BiMamaFeminAtheist]

I almost forgot...I did manage to leave most of my small library of various christian theology books on the shelves in my classroom when I moved the rest of my stuff out. So far no one has asked about it. I did keep my half-dozen or so bibles, not sure why, maybe just for sentimental value. It bewilders me to now look at them, all the highlighting and notes I once made, hours and hours of reading and re-reading and checking cross-references and consulting commentaries...all in a coordinated effort to convince myself that it was all true, to keep my fragile little imaginary world intact. Christianity literally robbed me of a good chunk of my formative years of intellectual development in high school and college...I'm more than a little bitter. But I take some comfort in the fact that I know I sucked when it came to evangelizing, I just wasn't very good at emotional manipulation.

 

They may come in handy later for pointing out the "errancy" that is rampant in that piece of fiction

 

Welcome to the bright side!

[wonderer]

coming out as a non-Christian and an athiest was the first of many coming outs for me so I know where you're coming from. I have said this here many time before: when you come to the end of God, you come to the start of yourself.

 

Hi Trev and all. I haven't posted in a while, but from my perspective, it's not about coming to the end of God - it's about coming to the end of religion.

 

 

Rob

[Susanetal]

Archangel,

 

You said:

 

"Christianity literally robbed me of a good chunk of my formative years of intellectual development in high school and college...I'm more than a little bitter."

 

I know what you mean... it robbed me of half my life. I am now 38 and I sure do wish I had figured out years ago that xianity is a load of crap.

 

Thanks for sharing your story; it is truly so comforting to know that we're not alone!

 

Good luck in your new teaching position!

 

All the best,

Susan