Assessing My Christian Experience

In a recent comment thread, the question was raised regarding my own Christian experience. If you are a Christian apologist looking to interact with someone who has deconverted from Christianity, one of the fundamental points you want to establish is that something was amiss about the deconvert's Christian experience. "True" Christians who are supposedly filled with the Holy Spirit and who dwell in an authentic loving living relationship with their Lord and Saviour Jesus cannot just walk away, right?!?

I claim to have experienced Christianity to its fullest from every angle possible. I felt that I had intimacy with the Christian God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I studied and believed the Bible cover to cover. I lived in close community with other Christians. My faith matured. I had experiences which I thought should be attributed to God. I prayed. I chose my wife primarily based on our shared Christian faith. I shared and defended the Christian faith to others…agnostics, atheists, etc. I took very, very difficult stands on Christian moral issues in opposition sometimes to family and friends, and even resigned a steady, good-paying job over a Christian view. I was urged on multiple occasions by different people throughout my Christian experience to become a pastor, youth pastor, bible study leader, deacon, missionary, etc. I was trusted. The Christians around me “experientially knew” that I was a real Christian full of faith.

So I do not accept now and will likely never accept the attempts by any conversational friend or foe to suggest that the reason I am not a Christian now is that I never was one or was an incomplete or immature one. This is simply not the case. So, if you want to discredit me or if you want to win an argument with me, you are going to have to come up with another angle.

Free to Think

This is an excerpt from a recent email to my Dad:

It was roughly 10 years ago when I "got serious" about my Christian faith. During these 10 years, I have had varying degrees of doubt for various lengths of time about various related issues. But I was always pretty good at concealing all of that, and of course, I had bought the line that I should wrestle doubtful thoughts out of my head by praying more and reading the Bible or Christian books more.

But the doubts don't just quit, and over time, they have become more sophisticated and harder to avoid. And frankly, I recently realized that I'm not really wanting to avoid the doubts. I want to actually think through "issues", and maybe even have some sense of objectivity. I don't want to "condition" myself to only approach things from a Christian set of presuppositions. I want to feel like I'm being honest with myself.

I've recognized that faith is essentially a resolution to be certain about things which cannot be known with certainty. I no longer have that resolve.