Missionary Kid Check-in Thread

[Llwellyn]

This thread is a space where missionary kids can come in and check in. Please share your experiences as a missionary kid and tell us about why and how you deconverted. Pastors kids can comment too!

 

I'll begin...

 

I grew up in a central African country where my parents have been working as missionaries for over thirty years. I personally spent more than fifteen years there, and now live in the United States. My parents translate the Bible into African languages, toward the end of converting Africans to the Christian religion.

 

I was a true believer until a year ago, when I deconverted. My deconversion was precipitated mostly by an intense anxiety about failure, imperfection, and divine punishment. All of a sudden I started thinking about the idea of divine punishment (hell) and started asking myself "Why exactly do I believe in this? What evidence is there that there is a 'Divine Penalty for the Violation of the Divine Law" that can be taken away only by believing in the Christian atonement?"

 

I realized that there really is no reason to believe such obscene things about God, such terror-inducing theology except the Bible itself, and there is no evidence connecting the Bible to an omnipotent being.

 

Basically, now I am convinced that the Bible is similar to a chain letter, warning of a risk that does not exist. I would regard it as a kind of malicious thought virus, except I know that many people who spread it are sincere and don't quite recognize it for what it is. if this is true, then my parents can be thought of as people who adapt the cognitve virus to be more potent, but adapting it to the thought system (language) of people who otherwise never would have been exposed to this pathology.

 

I've told my parents that I have left the religion, but they are convinced that I will return. I still love them a lot, and they love me, but they did wrong to me by teaching me this religion, and this will always mar our relationship henceforth.

 

What do you think?

[Guest Emerson]

I'm no pk kid, but I do have a friend in college whose parents were both missionaries. Basically, this girl and her older sister took care of the family and their two younger siblings. They made sure to cook, the other older sister took care of handy work around the home. The parents main focus was on the ministry, they've since moved back to the states and are living more of a normal life, but now I understand why missionary kids turn rebellious.

 

Thankfully my friend and her sister made sure to keep the family together, but its somewhat a little sad since they sort of had to grow up much quiker. I think that your parents thought what they did was "right" in teaching you xtianity. There's no handbook to parenting, every family is so different, and all the parenting books in the world can't apply to every situation or family.

 

And they love you after you told them that xtianity is bunk, I mean let's face it, a lot of parents shun their kids for rejecting xtianity. I know that your parents faith and being raised a xtiani isn't exactly what you wanted but parents aren't perfect. Let's cut our folks some slack. Your parents in their minds, did what they thought was right. I don't want to sound harsh but I hope you can understand why they did it.

[Jedah]

Wow, Its amazing that you could actually endure such an ordeal and still break free ! I have a "friend" that is extremely fundy who grew up in chile in a missionary trip. I try not to ever mention the bible around her because to her the simple thought that the bible may not hold truth to it is incomprehensible. Missionary kids go through a form of brainwashing that makes normal American family brainwashing look like nothing.

 

As for your parents being convinced that you will return, thats mostly just a vague hope of theirs. Ive heard the best thing to do is just wait it out and when your an adult and still have the same opinions, they will eventually ( hopefully ) accept that it has happened.

[Llwellyn]

Yeah, I'm really quite proud of myself for doing what I've done. It's like fighting AIDS and winning!

 

I no longer believe that there is any personal advantage to believing that God is a Trinity or that the way a person unites with God is my ruminating through the Biblical explanation of the meaning of the cross. I do, however, believe in a transcendent reality behind and beyond our experiences, and I can understand how one would think of this as a personal "mind" -- thus, I still believe in a God, however, it is the God Plato described and not the God the Bible describes.

 

None of my MK friends have deconverted. In fact, many of them have become missionaries themselves, including my older sister who is also now a missionary in Africa. The girl I went to prom with has now come out as a Lesbian, but even she still goes to church (albeit a liberal Anglican Church). One of my MK friends did commit suicide, though, which may be like a kind of deconversion. Several others have been hospitalized after trying to kill themselves, and quite a few others have been in psychiatric hospitals for various nervous disorders.

 

My sister is raising my baby Nephew in Africa, so mebbe I will have to help him deconvert one day? He is just so gosh darn cute!

[Guest Shiva H. Vishnu]

Stuff I don't feel like typing again.

[Guest Emerson]

Well just like you accept your new beliefs, let others accept theirs. We don't need to force our "enlightenment" against xtianity to those who don't want it. That's just as bad as when the xtians force their damn religion down our throats. Let's not be like them.

[Guest Shiva H. Vishnu]

Well just like you accept your new beliefs, let others accept theirs. We don't need to force our "enlightenment" against xtianity to those who don't want it. That's just as bad as when the xtians force their damn religion down our throats. Let's not be like them.

 

 

It's not exactly "just as bad". In order for it to be "just as bad" our message would have to be just as demonstrably fallacious. I hear alot of recent deconverts wanting to treat believers with kid gloves. We do them and ourselves a disservice if we do, IMHO.

 

Would you say the same if the belief in question concerned slavery?

[Guest Emerson]

You make a great point Shiva. Xtianity to a lot of us was slavery. I guess it would depend on the situation.

[Asimov]

Well just like you accept your new beliefs, let others accept theirs. We don't need to force our "enlightenment" against xtianity to those who don't want it. That's just as bad as when the xtians force their damn religion down our throats. Let's not be like them.

 

It's not bad to adhere to a logically defendable standpoint. I dont openly "evangelize" unless people bother me.

[Guest Shiva H. Vishnu]

Well just like you accept your new beliefs, let others accept theirs. We don't need to force our "enlightenment" against xtianity to those who don't want it. That's just as bad as when the xtians force their damn religion down our throats. Let's not be like them.

 

It's not bad to adhere to a logically defendable standpoint. I dont openly "evangelize" unless people bother me.

 

 

Shit, I don't know anyone who stands up on chairs in coffee houses to espouse their belief in atheism as I did my belief in Christianity. This issue wouldn't even be on anyone's radar if it weren't for the fact that most of us can't get through a week wighout hearing some christian rhetoric go unchallenged. I'm tired of living in a country where xtianity is the status quo and you can proudly bring up your religious beliefs in any public context, but having the balls to challenge those beliefs somehow makes you worse than the christians because you are against THEIR freedom. If THEIR freedom wasn't wrapped up in an ideology that seeks to deny freedom to others then WHO WOULD EVEN CARE!!!!