My Struggle And Deconversion

[nostikquest]

Hi all. I'll give you my story of going through Christianity and coming out of it. I'll try to give the short version (probably won't quite succeed though):

 

I was raised as a Catholic and even went to a Catholic school. I didn't like it and begged my parents to go to a Christian school in 6th grade. That is where I said the "sinners prayer" and was originally converted. I was also really into music at the time especially hard rock and was told that that was "the devil's music" and when I was 13 I was accused of bringing a demon into a church for wearing a Guns N Roses shirt. This of course caused turmoil in my mind and I left the Christian path for the first time only to reenter briefly for a year when I was like 16-17. I was involved in a youth group and in the summer of 1994 I went to my first Christian youth camp. Every day and night they held Chapel services and strange things began to happen. People would pass out, others including the adult leaders would start yelling out a bunch of gibberish. I asked what was going on and the passing out was referred to as being "slain in the spirit" and the gibberish was "speaking in tongues." I tried to take my part. They gathered around me yelling out in tongues with their hands on me and I wouldn't not pass out like the rest of the youth. I felt like I wasn't special in god's eyes like everyone else and that is why he didn't touch me with his spirit. I again left Christianity.

 

It didn't end there though. When I was 21 I was playing bass in a local hard rock band and our lead guitarist became a Christian and decided to try to convert the rest of us. At first I refused to go to church and he got so mad at me we didn't speak for 2 weeks. Then he comes up to me again and basically said "you need to read this book!" He handed me a book titled "A Divine Revelation of Hell" by Mary Baxter. I took it home and read it and as gullible as I was back then, I believed it and started going to church. This time through I actually took Christianity seriously. It was a word-of-faith church, if you know who Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, and other preachers who tell you what you want to hear and then take all your cash in the end you'll know what I'm talking about. I left for college but still commuted to this church. But, soon after I ran into my neighbors at college who told me that I was on the wrong path. They told me I needed to be baptized in the name of Jesus (The name of the father, son, and holy spirit apparently is invalid for baptism), thou shall readth only the King James Version, cut my hair, blah blah blah. They showed me what the Bible says about things and I started going to their church which was a United Pentacostal Church. They were quite strict and very male dominant. They also believed that if one didn't pray in tongues at least once that they weren't saved. So, basically I was on my way to hell because I never prayed in tongues. Eventually me and a few other people were ex-communicated from that church because we couldn't find a clear Bible passage that said "those who speak not in tongues shall have their part in the lake of fire which burnth with fire and brimstone." However, one of the guys that got kicked out formed his own church and it was even stricter. I felt condemned for everything. If I went 56 mph in a 55 zone I was in sin (no exaggeration). Even Christian heavy metal was consider evil (of course the pastor and his wife got to enjoy their Ray Boltz and Carmen). I went through a tough break up, got back into secular music and was ex-commuted from this church for "idolizing" music. I even asked my best friend who attended this church and who also asked me for money a few days earlier to go have lunch, but he refused because the pastor told him to not eat with me.

 

Ok, you'd think I would have had enough by now, but no, the fear of hell was strong within and I would do whatever it takes to escape (except for give up my music...wait, I did eventually do that further along). I came back home from college and ran into some Christians who were trying to start a band and a ministry so I got involved with that. I was trying to "win souls" left and right. I became the minister of music at my church, started writing my own magazine, and was very involved. I was working my way to becoming a full time minister. My minister in music phase ended when my wife and I went through a financially difficult time and couldn't afford to tithe (give 10% of our income to the church as defined by modern day Christianity). The pastor drew me to the side and asked why, I gave him a study I wrote up on tithing and why I believe that we aren't Biblically obligated to tithe. He came to me that night and told me that if I showed anyone that study he would throw me out of church, so we quietly left. I still held on to my zeal and continued to write the magazine and hand it out for free, I would set it in laundry mats, send it to people, even had a website where all the articles could be read at no charge. Winning souls was more important than charging money.

 

It was spring of 2006 and things were going good. I had a bunch of Christian friends, our son was just born, we had a church and I was playing in a Christian band and we recorded a demo, my fourth issue of my magazine was just about done. Then things started hitting one by one. Our daughter had a kidney problem and it was bad. We prayed for her and took her to be x-rayed and all that. We were told that it looks like there is nothing wrong. It was our first experience of a true miracle. We were so happy and went home and told everyone how god healed our daughter. Then a few weeks later the doctor calls and told us that she looked at the X-rays and our daughter has degree-5 reflux in her kidney, the worse, and that she would need surgery. This brought us down a little, but we were strong in our faith and tried to justify it in our minds. A few weeks later an injury is found on our son. We do not know what from, we thought maybe a birth injury. Well, we took him to the hospital and next thing we know Child Protective is involved and accused us of intentionally injuring him and takes both of our kids and puts them in foster care, so after that they went to my parents. We thought this was just a test of our faith. NExt thing I know I'm getting kicked out of the band over a disagreement with the bass player on what songs to keep. My parents are now beside themselves raising two kids at their age and are fighting with us constantly. Finances were draining to the point that I had to declare bankruptsy. My wife and I prayed and prayed, but felt like we were praying to a void. Then our best friend at the time told us "God told me to not be friends for now, you need to learn to make him your all and all and not seek our support." Her house was the place were all our friends would hang out and do Bible studies. My wife and I were left in the dust. We left the church.

 

I'm not saying what a horrible thing it was to have all this stuff happen to us. It was actually one of the greatest and that because that is when I started to question Christianity. I set aside my magazine. It was a dark period where the light would slowly seep through. I started off questioning how a loving god could send people to be tormented for eternity. I was very angry and bitter and prayed for help with my bitterness. I read a book called "Bait of Satan" to help me, but the bitterness didn't go. For months my mind was in torment. I started going to anti-Bible websites trying to figure out what went wrong. I started to realize that the god of the Old Testament was actually very cruel. I wondered why an all powerful god needed a blood sacrifice to forgive someone. It didn't make sense. I turned to Satan for help, but none came. I became interested in Gnosticism finally. This was late 2007. My wife and I did go back to church around this time for about a month but I couldn't worship god. I just felt empty and didn't want to be there. My wife eventaully felt the same and we both left. Thoughout 2008 the bitterness started to subside and I wasn't feeling such a void. In the spring of 2008 we got full custody of our kids back and our new case worker and co-parent seemed to believe that we were not guilty. I was still grasping onto strands of Christianity and began to suffer from post traumatic stress where I would jump out of bed in the middle of the night because I felt like I was dying and the fear of hell haunted me. By mid-2009 I fully rejected Christianity and became a Pagan and eventually more specifically an Eclectic Wiccan. I have personally felt more at peace with myself than I have ever. The fear of hell is still slowly subsiding and hopefully one day will be gone.

 

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask or send me a message. I probably have left a lot out but I didn't want to bore everyone. Thank you for reading:) Hopefully I'll be posting more here in the future.

[Dagan]

That's quite a story! Welcome here.

 

I have a question -- was your daughter ever healed? How old was your son when he was taken away? What's your relationship like now with your kids?

[nostikquest]

Good questions. Our daughter ended up having surgery toward the end of 2006 and has had no problems with her kidneys since thankfully.

 

Our son was 3 weeks old when he was taken.

 

Our relationship with our kids is good for the most part. I think we have had a little more difficulty with our son because he spent almost 2 years with my parents and for a while he seemed to view them as his parents. It took him a while to adjust when he came back to live with us. Things have improved a lot since when they first moved back in.

[Vixentrox]

Welcome to the site. Hope you find what you need here.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Welcome nostikquest! Your life sounds so familiar. I've seen your story played out many times in the lives of others in the church. The weird ways that church treats people, and how they keep the money coming in by twisting scriptures to guilt it out of people. And then they wrap it all in some pseudo-spiritual language, like when your friend abandoned you so god could be your "all in all".

 

If I went 56 mph in a 55 zone I was in sin (no exaggeration).

And I always end up behind them... I've started assuming that people that drive this way are believers. I did it myself when I was a believer.

 

Anyway, I'm really glad you found peace, and got your kids back! There are other Pagans on the forums here, and I lean that way myself though I haven't really settled on anything yet.