My Story - Intrinsic Dignity
The testimony of my deconversion is tied to my conversion story. Both events were planted in the same revelation – a conversation my mother had with me as a young boy. That conversation is etched deep, painfully deep, in my consciousness.
When I was five years old, Mom took me to my bedroom – just me and her – to tell me about God’s redemption story.
I remember the setting well. It was a late summer afternoon. We lived in a little house in Tacoma, Washington. A melancholy sunlight diffused through the white sheet curtains of the bedroom I shared with my older brother.
There, Mom told me about Hell. Because God hates sin – that is, disobedience – He prepared a place of eternal fire and torment called Hell. And when sinful people died, they went to Hell. It was God’s punishment for sin.
But God sent Jesus to this earth to die and bear that sin for anyone who believed Him and asked Jesus into their heart. Those who invited Jesus into their heart had the promise of heaven when they died; those who did not awaited Hell.
My older brother had asked Jesus into his heart. He was bound for heaven.
Mom left me in my bedroom to ponder her words. Mom wanted my conversion to be genuine, thoughtful and real.
So there I was, alone in my bedroom. I was terrified of a God who hated disobedience so much that He would condemn people to Hell. I felt abandoned and alienated. I pondered this terrible knowledge as the rays of late afternoon sunlight penetrated the white curtain sheets, illuminating the dusty air. The sunlight that once warmed me felt eery and horrible and cold. The sun’s rays represented the distant foreboding flickers of a hateful eternal fire waiting to torment the souls of the lost.
I stood there in that room all alone, condemned, diminished and stripped of all human dignity. God hated me for who I was. I was to learn, later, that I was made in God’s image and likeness. But that status counted for nothing. It was eclipsed by my sin, by the horror of my disobedience. Without submissive faith and repentant surrender, the fact that I bore God’s image and likeness would not keep me out of Hell.
That knowledge alienated me from my Mom. I could not help but think, after what Mom told me, that Mom hated me for my disobedience too. I was her flesh and blood. I bore my Mom’s image and likeness too. Yet all of that also counted for nothing, for Mom embraced without reservation or objection the doctrine that I – in my created, original state, in the form that Mom brought me into the world – was worthy of Hell.
I didn’t stay in my bedroom long. I went out to the kitchen and asked Mom to help me pray Jesus into my heart. And so I became a Christian.
But the alienation I felt on that eery summer afternoon stayed with me and never left. And although my parents did not subsequently emphasize Hell in their conversations, I never forgot it. (Child Evangelism Fellowship (see graphic above) is keen about reminding children about hell too, in much the same way). I could never forget something like that. It became the fearful cornerstone of my understanding of God.
That understanding was soon layered with countless stories from the Bible. Story after story emphasized the virtue of faithful obedience and/or the terrifying consequences of disobedience. I will never forget the melodious refrains we sang again and again: “Trust and obey, For there is no other way, To be happy in Jesus, But to trust and obey,” and “The B-I-B-L-E, That’s the book for me, I stand alone on the Word of God, The B-I-B-L-E!”
In my early to mid-teenage years, I was indoctrinated with, and drawn to, pre-millennial eschatology and the New Testament’s many passages about persecution and apostacy. I learned about the threats of communism, secular humanism, the New World Order, globalism, and liberalism. In my longing to be regarded valuable, worthwhile, and worthy, I dreamt of becoming a fierce defender of the faith. That dream, vision, and mission — encouraged and validated by those around me – shaped my sense of purpose and meaning for almost 20 years.
Also impressed deeply into my consciousness as a teenager was the evil of the natural self, reckoning one’s natural self crucified and buried with Christ, the conceit of self esteem, and the virtue of complete surrender to Christ. Life was to be guided by daily Bible devotions and soul-searching prayer. And so I devoted myself.
But I struggled with Christianity’s exclusive truth claims. At the age of 15, after several weeks of intense self-directed Bible study, I produced a 15-page apologetic single-spaced, typewritten treatise on why all are without excuse. My Dad made copies, and I distributed that tome to several of my high school classmates.
By the time I was 20, the apologetic I had produced – with its extremely dualistic view of people – proved unsatisfactory to me. From time to time, until I was about 33 years old, I periodically wrestled with Christianity’s exclusive truth claims. I read several deeply unsatisfactory apologetical works and repeatedly struggled – but never to my own satisfaction – to develop a more compassionate and sensitive context for those claims. Each time, the quest drove me to the brink of despair, the very same despair I felt as a five year old. The few minutes I was left, as a five year old, to ponder the thought of going to Hell, meant that I would forever identify with, and anguish over, the great mass of humanity heading toward Hell. Each of my apologetical quests failed because I cared, I grieved, and felt the pain, and all the apologetics only deepened my sense of alienation from God and the masses of unsaved humanity. After each failed quest, I gave up, buried myself in work or some other intellectual activity, and tried not to think about it for a while.
Much of my life has been beset by melancholy and mild to moderate depression. Counseled to immerse myself in yet more Bible study, prayer, and devotion, I did. I read the Bible every day devotionally, and the harsh dualistic passages of the Bible always cut me to the core. They made me ever more conscious of my sin and my intrinsic worthlessness. The countless hours I spent reciting, meditating on, and praying over passages about reckoning myself, with its evil desires, dead, crucified, and buried with Christ produced self-loathing, but no victory over my natural self. Also, the abundant life and overflowing joy that those same passages promised eluded me.
Just over three years ago, and despite the persistent but gentle urging of my wife, I stopped reading the Bible. Much of it made little sense, and much of what did make sense produced pain and despair. But we kept going to church, and for the most part I just tried not to think about theological matters.
Then, in December 2008, we adopted our son, Nathan, on the eve of his fifth birthday, from Ukraine. Very quickly, I bonded with Nathan and felt the deep, primal parental love to which most parents can relate, but which I had never felt or understood before. My love for Nathan is not dependent on his obedience or behavior, but goes to his very nature. I love Nathan for who he is, not for what he does, and not for any theological commitments he makes. Nathan is, from the inside out, beautiful and inestimably precious to me. His dignity is intrinsic, and I love Nathan much deeper than I could ever love myself.
As I interact with Nathan, and look into his eyes filled with a child’s deep trust, innocence, and secure sense of belonging, and as I respond to Nathan’s deep and fundamental need for love and affirmation, my thoughts often go back to my own childhood.
How could I possibly teach Nathan what the Bible teaches about God, Hell, the great divorce between the saved and the unsaved, and the evil of his intrinsic nature? It brings me to tears to even consider it. I tremble at the thought of Nathan loathing his natural self the way I loathed mine, or of Nathan experiencing the same deeply wounding sense of alienation, abandonment, and despair that Christianity’s sacred text produced in me.
I love Nathan. I also want to learn to love and value myself again.
I have come full circle. The very revelation Mom gave me as a five year old — the one that produced my panicked conversion — planted the seeds of my present deconversion.
And so, over the next many months – and maybe even years – I plan to write. I write to protest and prosecute the text that enslaved me. (But I plan to do it in a dignified, non-dismissive way.) I write in hopes of connecting with others wounded as I was. I hope that writing also helps me to heal from what I was taught. I write for Nathan. And I write for the great – and generally perplexed, unsympathetic and non-empathetic – crowd of Evangelicals that still surrounds me. I challenge them to reflect on what Christianity says about intrinsic dignity, and what, when standing before God’s judgment throne, does it count for? I challenge them to affirm my intrinsic dignity in spite of my unbelief; for I will continue to affirm theirs in spite of their belief.
Discussion
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This struck a chord with me. Although I don’t have children, I can only imagine how having a child really made things clear for you. And if you, in your supposed sinful state, could be compassionate, why could a perfect God not be? Yes, most former fundies know the argument that God is compassionate, but he is also holy and therefore cannot tolerate sin in his presence. Hogwash. It just doesn’t add up. He’s compassionate, but he’s more intolerant than compassionate, as evidenced by his willingness to throw his own kids in a Lake of Fire for eternity. Right. If “evil” exists, that has to fit the definition.
I wish you the best. I have a feeling that most of us will be recovering for the rest of our lives. These things taught in our formative years really leave their mark. But I’m struggling right along with you. I look forward to reading your written works. I–we—need it.
LH,
Thanks for your kind comments. I’ve written a few more things at a blog at intrinsicdignity.wordpress.com. It is amazing the impact a child can have. Nathan is so full of joy and excitement with life; when I was his age (six), I was already depressed, shamed, and self-doubting. I won’t teach Nathan a theology of self-doubt and self-hatred to rob him of his joy; on the contrary I want to learn to love life — and the moment — the way he does.
Great story. I found this site from a link on unreasonablefaith.com, which is a way of saying I’m an atheist. I was raised that way, sort of. But nothing has made me think more about spirituality than having a kid. Just the other day I explained the concept of hell & sin to my 9 year old son, taking the opportunity to point out that the torment of hell, to last for all the rest of time to ever exist, is created by a god who is supposed to love people. He was amazed & wondered how anyone could believe such a thing. I tell you – you want to hear christianity sound really stupid? Try explaining it to a smart, compassionate, & skeptical child.
Was I save or brain Washed not necessarily the truth, ATHEISM or Agnostic
What ever Lable you like http://www.amorian.org/2009/…/the-difference-between-atheism-and-deism/
Check out unieddeim.com or tvftm.com/
http://www.all-creatures.org/letters/20090407-cm.html
Wow! Truley, I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to come across this site!
I have been walking through the valley of the shadow of doubt, but honestly I really don’t think most people really don’t know or understand how to; A) Interpurt the Bible correctly. B) Not opperate out of a fear /punishment mentality.”Not that I don’t deal with that offten myself,’ C) Accept that God and love are always there for us!
I have to agree that some of the things that once converted my to the evangelical faith have actually disproved it’s self.
I’m also said to say the after much research I am said to say that most of what your avarage christian believe’s
are based up the on calculated human deceptive and partial thruths.
It’s just really sad that we still don’t realize that WE are the one’s that have the power to love or hate each other!
If we sin (make a bad choice) we did it to our selfs! But GOD is has created humans with free will, and is always sending postive love our way. We don’t have to earn it. We can choose to be IT!
It’s time we stop putting eachother down, and realize we have the power to lift eachother up.
We do not need to use our faith as a weapon!
Truthfully thought the human heart is fragile, and would do better to not be forced to believe that it is wicked.
I havne’t lost my faith in God, I’ve lost my faith in a furad!
I can ‘relate’ to the excellent recollection of the writer and his story growing-up immersed in evangelical culture.
I also admit to being ‘dogged’ my entire life by moderate depression but along with it, severe anxiety disorder requiring long-term, powerful prescription medication.
I recall the psychiatrist, whom I saw 3 times over 10 years, asking about my religious affiliation and taking note of it. He hadn’t asked too many questions but that one seemed significant to the doctor–who I noted was Jewish. I recall feeling the urge to defend my church at that point but he hadn’t said anything about it. He merely took note of the affiliation (I think I said Reformed Baptist or possibly fundamentalist Baptist) and offered no comment. The anxiety being looked into was ‘wreaking havoc’ on my life. The medication, which btw, eliminated the anxiety, would go on to create problems of its own. I wonder-no, I really should know for certain if the hell-fire, damnation, the rapture’s happening any-time teaching I was immersed in my entire life might possibly be the source of my anxiety. If so, the anxiety I had could not be classified as a “disorder” –it was altogether real and a reasonable reaction to the information I was living with and had re-inforced every week.
I’ll put it this way: If a man condemned to be hanged at dawn claims he’s suffering anxiety the night before, no psychiatrist would diagnose “anxiety disorder” on initial inquiry into his immediate circumstance. He’s stricken with anxiety for justified cause. There is no psychosis involved, no ‘disorder’.
For that reason, I don’t think I had psychosis. I was deeply traumatized by a pervasive and all embracing gloom that yelled “All will not be well in the end, you will die, you will have nothing good to look forward to, instead, what awaits you is sheer inexpressible terror and pain that will have no end”. This was the malignant foundation of my reason to-be and ego. I think I was scared silly and my entire life I’d been burying and repressing an accumulating fear. After years of this there’s no escaping the eventual unpleasant consequence. They should have probed and asked the questions that would’ve dug to the root of my anxiety-but it’d have been pointless. If they tried, I’d have sidetracked the therapy and protected my religion and church. The Gospel, as I knew it with the not so good news about hell, was sacred territory and I’d not have allowed anyone to trespass on it. If I allowed them-and they discerned the obvious-it’d have created a dilemma I was incapable of facing.
But-wasn’t I ‘saved’ from damnation and hell? Should I have not hung my concerns from the cross and covered myself in the atoning shed blood of Christ to plead my case on the awe-ful day of Judgement? That’s the way it was supposed to work. The problem is, I made or pretended I made this decision (I can’t recall which) when I was seven years old! My response to questions of salvation was that I was and had been a born-again Christian since I was 7 after I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and personal Saviour (sound familiar?) Evangelicals, I should add are divided on the question of children and babies who cannot make decisions and die prematurely. Some hard-core evangelicals contest such children are damned but most believe they have a place in heaven because they never had a chance to reject the gospel. Generally speaking, this applies to anyone up to about the age of 5 (!)-what they variously call the “age of accountability or discernment”, For this reason, children were bombarded with the fire and brimstone message as soon as they could understand English and knew what pain was–and what child doesn’t? Childhood conversions were accepted and encouraged-in fact adults used shameless emotional ploys to get children to accept Christ. Teenagers too. I recall the efforts of “Word of Life” personnel in my church to get conversions employing “the ends justify the means” approach-which meant they could use any pre-conceived deceptive ploy to induce a sensation for the need of Salvation, all that was required was an “I do” and your name, you were told, was entered into God’s Book of Life–but only if it was sincere..and only the recipient could know that-and deal with any doubt, if they were at all mindful, for the rest of their lives.
Does anyone see the problem here? Seven year olds are incapable of making legitimate decisions of this magnitude. The law doesn’t hold them to account for any misdeed until they’re 14-18 years of age (depending on jurisdiction). Instinctively knowing that, even as a 7 year old and later as a teenager and adult recalling the event, you might naturally doubt or entirely disbelieve your decision and you believe you are not saved and therefore, destined for hell.
But what about coming clean with all this and re-accepting Christ? Undoing it all and explaining you weren’t sincere was a genuine nuisance and upset-let alone embarrasing. In my case, it never happened, although it almost did on several occasions–I was “almost persuaded” countless times. But I was prevented from doing that because it involved a public display of walking the aisle or confronting the pastor –and the shock–”but–we always thought you were saved. You’ve been with us for 30 years” I could imagine it and I was absolutely repulsed at the thought. I am naturally introverted, I am not given to public displays of emotion.
An acquaintance of mine who had the same background as myself, reportedly ‘gave-in” and re-accepted J.C as his P.L.+S. at about 16 years of age. I saw no evidence of it and I only knew after hearing someone who was wasn’t afraid to talk about it express surprise and shock. For the rest of us, it was an unspoken event; an extremely disquieting situation made tolerable by the fact the youth group was so large, we could avoid interacting with the fellow until we discerned he was “safe” –in other words, we could sense he wasn’t about to get on our case and say “you guys were no different from me-are you sure you’re saved? We discerned, eventually, he was safe and all was back to normal. I suspect he probably had a mental collapse from fear of the approaching rapture and resigned himself to the required born again-again routine.
And that’s where I leave-off for now. Forgive me, please, for using this comment column as a platform to present my confession (of which this represents a small fraction) but the need was there and it’s time to begin a process of making my experience real–by putting words to it.
Hi Andrew,
In my opinion there is no need for you to apologize for using the comments section as a platform for your experiences. Both the original post and your story really touched me, seeing as I was in the heart of the Fundamentalist Christian movement for about four or five years of my life and currently live with a roommate who is from that very background.
The saddest thing to me is that many of them really have the desire to help people. Many of them have good intentions, but they refuse to see how their principles and set of beliefs/doctrines really have the capacity to hurt people in a very profound way.
Thank you very much for posting your stories/experiences.
Thanks for posting your story anonymous. One thing that persuaded me to leave the calvinist/baptist cult I was in is that I realized that I did NOT want my children under that pastor’s ministry. Then I had to ask myself that if I didn’t want my kids in it….why was I still in it? Then I had to deal with all of the fear indoctrinations that the leader makes sure you hear & OFTEN.
To hold on to our integrity we HAD to leave. If there is a ‘god’ it must see when someone HATES going to church & hear the mog (man-a-gawd) scream & yell at them over & over how “totally depraved” & “wretched” & ” unworthy” we all are. How we need to suffer, suffer, suffer, & sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice. Yet I looked around & saw the leader & those “true believers” as not being much different than people in the “world”.
For years, I put up with the abuse, but I didn’t want my kids to deal with the abuse that I had taken all of those years. I wanted them to have the freedom that was taken from me via the religious system & leader.
I did escape & my kids never joined. It’s been great to get out & over time I am becoming more & more free to be ME again.
That religion is very abusive & I hope that people eventually come to their senses & realize that it’s all a bunch of controlling & destructive nonsense.
Andrew, I think it’s fine you posted on your story here.
I can relate.