pandora Posted May 21, 2006 Share Posted May 21, 2006 One of Johnny Smith's reminded me of something I am curious about. When you were doubting and/or just about to leave the church, did any of you ever go to a trusted pastor, minister, or discipler? I remember when I was doubting the Independent Christian Church's baptism doctrine, I went to the head pastor, whom I admired very much. His answer was very discouraging, but also very eye opening for me. No, I was not yet saved because I hadn't gotten immersed. I would not be saved until then. My Catholic baptism was meaningless and I was living in disobedience to God. Okay, I thought, I can handle that.... but he really thinks I am NOT saved and that I would go to Hell. I thought that was so ridiculous that I never went to that church again. I was only a freshman in college, so I didn't totally deconvert for a couple years after that, but I searched for a more liberal church after that. I don't know why I didn't go to anyone when I was deconverting... partly, I didn't know any pastor well enough to do so, and secondly, I knew that nothing they could say would bring me back. I knew what they would say, and I already had an answer for anything they could bring up. I did read Strobel's books and some C.S. Lewis, but those didn't help. What have been your experiences? Were pastors helpful, or did they seem hopeless that you could have faith again? How did they react? Did they seem to really care about you at all? I'm just really curious... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted May 21, 2006 Share Posted May 21, 2006 What have been your experiences? Were pastors helpful, or did they seem hopeless that you could have faith again? How did they react? Did they seem to really care about you at all? I'm just really curious... I never went to my priests when I was Catholic, much less when I left it If I wanted their opinions on something, I'd ask - and probably only in the confessional. I was one of those Xians who never brought up anything with my clergy - relying on constant spiritual guidance is too much like thinking by proxy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evergreen Posted May 21, 2006 Share Posted May 21, 2006 I didn't. I really did want to talk to my former Sunday School teacher, though. She's a lovely person, and is very kind and warm, and I felt that I could have trusted her, but I was too afraid to tell anyone about my doubts and questions. I remember feeling that there were no satisfactory answers to be had, anyway. Hmm... I wonder, if I had talked with her, and she had been able to give me some answers, would I have tried harder to remain a Christian? Another reason I didn't want to talk to her was that I was afraid that if it came to me telling her that I couldn't be Christian anymore, that somehow my family would find out, because I wouldn't be able to pretend in front of her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted May 21, 2006 Share Posted May 21, 2006 Hmm... I wonder, if I had talked with her, and she had been able to give me some answers, would I have tried harder to remain a Christian? That's a big part of it. It'd be like trying to get over crack and discussing my dissatisfaction with the narcotic with a crack dealer first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyous1 Posted May 22, 2006 Share Posted May 22, 2006 I did try, but the priests in the Twin Cities were preoccupied with damage control at the time. A local priest had recently committed suicide after being charged with murdering two parishoners to cover up his pedophilia. None of them really had time to worry about my soul, I guess, they were busy preaching about forgiveness, asking us to pray for the priest's soul, comforting each other (I can only imagine what that entails). My parish priest didn't have time to return my calls or meet with me. He had time to attend his buddy's funeral though. Turns out they were classmates at seminary. Just as well, they hurried my deconversion along. If any of the dozen priests I tried to talk to had shown any real compassion for me I might have tried to stick it out another year. Instead, I'm free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bongo Posted May 22, 2006 Share Posted May 22, 2006 A long time ago, ten years or so, I talked to my pastor about my doubts and how I doubted I was a xtian anymore. His argument came down to, "You're not lost. Jesus loves you. It's so easy, why fight him?" Glorious images of heaven, a welcoming embrace from the classic caucasian Jesus himself, and eternal peace -- all to be had for only stopping the fight--swayed me to stick with it some more. I cannot talk to him now about my doubts. It would expose me as an apostate, and he would have to kick me out. This would only be a bad thing because I'm not ready to tell the family yet about being an X. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoustonHorn Posted May 22, 2006 Share Posted May 22, 2006 I don't think I would talk to one of my previous pastors. The only one I would really trust to have the conversation with (the one that married my wife and me) moved to another church several hours away so that's kinda out. Plus I haven't talked to him in 3 or 4 years. My most recent pastor is at such a big church that we were all assigned a deacon to talk to. Without getting too deep into it, there were issues outside of the church that kept me from talking to the deacon we were assigned. Nothing bad, but it would have been awkward. The church I've been to most recently is even bigger and I don't know anybody well enough to talk to them about it. Plus, I haven't been going most Sundays. What I have found helps is forums. Here is a good place to talk, but I've also found a lot of help on a Christian forum. There are several people there that have tried to help me work through a few questions I have. And there has been very little of the traditional Christion answers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DanInPA Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 I did try, but the priests in the Twin Cities were preoccupied with damage control at the time. A local priest had recently committed suicide after being charged with murdering two parishoners to cover up his pedophilia. None of them really had time to worry about my soul, I guess, they were busy preaching about forgiveness, asking us to pray for the priest's soul, comforting each other (I can only imagine what that entails). I'm free. Hooray for Joyous1!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexandrian Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 I did, extensively. I talked with several Priests who I highly respected(and still do respect)- of whom all had a deep knowledge of Catholic philosophy and theology. I talked also with some other highly religious (and intelligent) Catholics who I was friends with. I talked with them about several reasons I could think of why the Catholic faith was incorrect. I listened to their counterarguments, and spoke with them several time. I tried to give them every chance to give compelling arguments that Christianity is indeed the true religion- but all of them fell short. None of them gave answers which adressed the issue I brought up. See, the way I looked at it when I was religious was that God could not justly punish someone who tried their best to know the truth and live a moral life- after all, how could it be right to damn a Jewish Rabbi and holy man(for instance) who rejected the arguments for Christ, but yet did the best he could to practice his faith? I did figure God could more justly punish someone who did not adequately seek the truth and the right way to live. So, I gave the Christian arguments every opportunity to prevail. I prayed earnestly for God to show me the way, and had others pray for me. I did this for months, honestly seeking a way I could accept Christianity. But in the end, I could not. The more I examined the issue, the more I became convinced that the arguments against Christianity were much stronger then the arguments for, and that it was irrational to accept Christianity. I now no longer accept the Christian faith, but I feel more sure about the Christian God's nonexistance then I ever did about his existance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notasheep Posted May 23, 2006 Share Posted May 23, 2006 Nope. Knew it would be pointless. Going to church, once I started having questions, just accellerated my loss of faith. The problem of evil/suffering was a major factor, and I remember being eager to hear a particular sermon on the book of Job. And sitting in the pew, getting pissed off, thinking, "that's it? that's your answer?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Helmet Posted May 24, 2006 Share Posted May 24, 2006 Right around my point-of-no-return in my deconversion I was camping with some friends and I talked about how I think I couldn't make sense of my faith anymore with one of them. The best he could come up with was in the 'pray and god will make it right' type of response. Needless to say that didn't help me much (thankfully). It's the closest thing I ever asked to real-life councilling but I had many discussions with both christian and non-christian during my deconversion. I don't think I would have have the guts of going to my pastor or some other people. I know them too well, they're not the kind of people you can just speak with and forget about it, I know I'd have them on my back for the next months with prayer circles and all that crap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Purple Posted May 24, 2006 Share Posted May 24, 2006 What have been your experiences? Were pastors helpful, or did they seem hopeless that you could have faith again? How did they react? Did they seem to really care about you at all? I'm just really curious... I went after the fact. He was great, to my face. Later that day he told my husband to put me out of the house. Jerk wad. I spoke a lot to others I knew, but although my husband and I were very active in our church, the Pastor never really seemed to want to have to talk to us, so, I didn't. :: shrug :: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Faery Posted May 25, 2006 Share Posted May 25, 2006 No. I just asked xians questions and went to different xian forums, which helped a lot in many ways, but eventually I did leave. When I did, my real life xian friends pretty much wrote me off. So I've had to start over friendship wise, since I surrounded myself with xians. Its why I post so much here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuroikaze Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 No. I just asked xians questions and went to different xian forums, which helped a lot in many ways, but eventually I did leave. When I did, my real life xian friends pretty much wrote me off. So I've had to start over friendship wise, since I surrounded myself with xians. Its why I post so much here. I've been there, I never talk to my friends from college anymore Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SweetSouthernHeretic Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 One of Johnny Smith's reminded me of something I am curious about. When you were doubting and/or just about to leave the church, did any of you ever go to a trusted pastor, minister, or discipler? <snip> I didn't go to a trusted preacher... an unknown preacher came to me. My last stop on the Christianity train was the Boston Movement (a.k.a. International Churches of Christ; discipling ministries; Crossroads movement) and when my mom found out about it, she called a traditional church of Christ preacher and asked me to meet with her and the preacher to "hear the other side" of things. I agreed to do it. What I remember most about that conversation was the preacher indignantly saying, "do you know they (Boston folks) believe we (traditional COC'ers) are going to hell?" I joined "the movement" anyway... best thing that ever happened to me, because more than any other nutty group I've been involved with, I'd say the ICoC is directly responsible for my deconversion from Christianity as a whole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greasemonkey Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 This thread brings back some weird memories for me. Being the baptist preachers kid made things a bit more complicated, and I had doubts starting to creep in when I was about 16 or so. I was such an utterly miserable kid in the emotional sense; my dad moved us around every consecutive two years and always to extremely small towns thoughout my entire childhood. I wasn't very well adjusted socially, which can be a bad thing in a large town; but coupled with being a bit of a nerd in a small hic-town in west Texas fresh from Missouri, it was pretty devastating. I prayed and prayed and prayed that people would start liking me. Kind of ironic that I got semi-popular in by senior year merely because I pretty well had started learning to just not give a shit anymore. But I digress. My dad wasn't very approachable with problems; his solution to EVERYTHING was "let's pray about it." I guess when the doubts really started to sink in hard at one point, I talked to my older sister about it. It was really a pretty nice talk (even if it was just platitudes for the most part), and probably put off "total deconversion" for a few years. When I moved out to go to college is when it all really fell apart; but by that time I needed a shrink more than a preacher. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosa Mystica Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 I went to a priest a few months before my deconversion was complete. I told him I had a hard time believing Catholicism. He asked if I believed in God. I said I did (I still do). He then asked if I believed in "God's love". Knowing what I knew about the Christian system already, I said, "I'm not too sure about *that*". He then gave me some explanation of how God's love is different from human love, or some other weak-sounding argument that I can't recall to this day. I know I wanted to be convinced, but I had already been unable to love- or be loved by- the Christian God for over a year at that point. So no, the priest's counsel couldn't convince me that his god was loving. A few months after this discussion, I'd reached a point where I knew *nothing* he could say would convince me that his religion was true. I'll give him one thing: he was kind to me, and didn't say I was destined for Hell or anything like that. He seemed to think I was a good person, despite my doubts. Methinks he wasn't all that devout a Catholic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megara Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 I never really "went to" a pastor/minister/whatever. I had some close friends that just so happened to be pastors, children of pastors, counselors, et cetera, that I just decided to tell that I was going through a deconversion and they just went into preach mode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dra_Mucd_Uha Posted July 1, 2006 Share Posted July 1, 2006 I didn't talk to anyone. I have considered talking to my pastor just to see what he would say in reply to my objections. I want to tell my dad because he and I are somewhat close, and I think he should know. But as far as church leaders go, I haven't told anyone. I wasn't very well adjusted socially... I prayed and prayed and prayed that people would start liking me. Kind of ironic that I got semi-popular in by senior year merely because I pretty well had started learning to just not give a shit anymore. You and I both. Only recently have I developed the I-don't-give-a-shit attitude, and it works well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FriedVillageGuts Posted July 2, 2006 Share Posted July 2, 2006 Since I was a pastor I found I could talk to myself quite a lot (kept getting odd looks from people when I did that though ) Seriously though, I didn't really talk to any of my pastor friends/former colleagues until I was sure of where I was heading, though I did talk to a lot of my Christian friends through that time - they were a more liberal bunch so I didn't get too much of the "sorry you're going to hell" thing. Wouldn't have made it through if my wife hadn't been so understanding though, we talked through everything (she's really quite the woman). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kellyb Posted July 3, 2006 Share Posted July 3, 2006 No. I'd never really had any luck getting advice from pastors about anything, even when I was sure Christianity was the truth. Plus, it was a realization one day that Christianity very well might be just another brainwashing cult that snowballed into total deconversion, so once I started toying with that idea, I knew I was more or less on my own weighing the pros and cons of that theory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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