The first Friday of April 2012, I came to a decision.
I remember that I had pulled over on my way to the grocery store. I had almost made this decision a couple times before, only to shrink back when I wondered how family and friends would react. I knew that there would be many questions people would want answered, and I had to be ready for that, as well. I knew that I would make people angry, sad, and hurt. And I knew, knowing my personality, that I would not be able to keep quiet. As a Christian I was always very intentional about engaging in discourse with people who disagreed with my views, and I knew I would probably do the same thing, to a major extent, as an ex-Christian as well.
That night, though, I realized there was no good reason for me to believe Christianity was true. People didn’t need a Savior; they needed validation from flesh and blood human beings. The Gospels were indisputably unreliable, and the resurrection of Jesus was ridiculous nonsense to me by that time. The God of the Old Testament was a monster. Hell scared people and there was no reason to think it even existed. And so on, and so on, and so on. Every pillar in Christianity that I had believed for years had, over the past few years, been clearly shown to be indefensible. And the divide between what I was increasingly suspecting in my mind and my everyday activities as a Christian was taking its toll on my psychological health — as someone who wanted to make a positive difference in people’s lives in an honest way, Christianity became more and more intolerable for me.
I tried, for awhile, to check out mystical/emergent/progressive Christianity. But every time it referenced the Bible, I got sick to my stomach, because I knew that the Bible said many very disturbing things that I could not, in good conscience, support. I was unwilling to support one part of the Bible when I thought the verse right next to it was dangerous. And if I was picking and choosing what I liked and what I didn’t like, anyway, what did I need the Bible for? It was better to just do away with it; I was interested in Truth.
I remember that, at 12 years old, I made a heartfelt commitment to Jesus Christ. Although most Christians will insist that I never was a Christian because I eventually left, to me, that felt real. After I made that commitment, I felt that I had lost the old self, the sinner, and become a new creation. I was all smiles. My life seemed to have a new light in it.
That day, at 12, when I died for Jesus felt awesome, but the supposed new life he gave me began to fade, however, over time. At first, I noticed that there were Christians in denominations outside of mine who had dubious salvation status, and that widened my picture of Christianity and gave me doubts about my own denominations. Then, as time went on, I discovered different religions, different ways of thought, and different people that the Bible said were sinners. I knew from getting to know them that it was far more complicated than that, and I grew increasingly impatient with the caricatures of non-Christian people that were painted in the Bible and in the church that glossed over the deeper personhood of those individuals. Including and, eventually, especially atheists, who I had to admit frequently had some decent points that Christians ignored by trying to give them a bad reputation.
What I saw in other people’s lives caused me to re-examine Christianity. I did not leave because other people seemed like decent human beings — although that did drive up the stakes, as I wanted to be sure whether they were going to hell or not. I get the sense that many Christians view Christianity as a buffet, where you can choose from several different definitions of hell or heaven or morality that suit you. That wasn’t my case — I wanted to know if hell actually existed; I wished to know what was true, not just get validation on I wished to believe.
Because of that, I increasingly developed more compassion for the fundamentalists in the church. They got a bad rap, the street preachers, but, then again, they were actually doing things that the Bible said to do. I think that many Christians heap abuse on street preachers to distance themselves from them, but almost every time I have seen a Christian and a street preacher talk, the street preacher seems to have more scriptural support, even though they may come across as more heartless in viewpoint…but if you get beyond the caricature, you can see that they are frequently trapped in a lie that tears their hearts apart, and their presence on the street is them crying out in their own love and pain. And talking to them as a Christian, trying to convince them to change, showed me that these were individuals who put their reputations on the line because they really loved me and did not want me to go to hell, and they were doing this in spite of progressive Christians, atheists, and…well, a culture in general that regularly insulted them.
I wanted to now for sure whether or not hell existed so that I could help people I really cared about. And if it did not exist, I did not want to lie to people and say that it did, because I saw that as hurting and frightening people unnecessarily. If the Bible wasn’t true, and Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead, I was going to reject Christianity strongly, because it was unnecessarily creating divisions in people and lying to people by virtue of the book so much of it was based on.
Anyway, long story short, this evening, after several years of deep thought, experiences, and struggle, along with frequent prayer requests for doubt, and a week before I was scheduled to lead a weekly video series Bible study on apologetics, I had come to a breaking point. I realized I could not teach the series on apologetics I was scheduled to teach, and I had to drop out somehow. Teaching it would be dishonest, as I honestly found, at that moment, that I didn’t believe any of it anymore, and it would be way too hard for me to uphold something that was so clearly false to me.
So I sent a text to the person who set up the schedule and said I wouldn’t be able to teach.
At that moment, at the age of 28, Jesus died for me, and that 12 year old self I buried so that the new me could live for God began to come back, and I’ve been rediscovering myself and who I am. Yes, there were relationships that changed in difficult ways, as I anticipated. But there were more wonderful things that took me by surprise. For example, I’ve discovered a bigger heart for people than I thought I’d have as an atheist; I always thought atheists were belligerant and angry and didn’t care as a Christian, and now I knew that they are angry, oftentimes, because they care. It’s been beautiful to know I did not need God to have a heart for people — in fact, not having God has helped me love people more easily than before. I’m also ravenously curious, I want to explore things and gain new knowledge about the world around me. I like asking questions and not being told to “just believe” within certain parameters. I like starting conversations with people from different faiths. I enjoy not having to check a 2000 year old book for my stance on any issues, anymore. I really like the new friends I’ve made, the smiles I’ve discovered, and even the occasional tears I’ve encountered. I have enjoyed being honest, not having to hold back — the freedom of stating where I’m coming from without worrying what some powerful being thinks. I like not looking at people as if they are hell bound.
So today, Good Friday, is a bit of a celebration for me. Jesus died for me that day three years ago and has stayed dead since, and I’m happy about that, because that means that I don’t have to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow him, or that I have to live for Jesus because my “old self” is dead. The fact that Jesus is dead has allowed me to discover countless beautiful ways that I am alive, and it has brought people around me back to life in beautiful, wonderful, amazing ways that would not have been remotely possible had not Jesus died for me so that I could discover my life, and live it more abundantly.
*sigh*
Goddamn.