I was just wondering. You all know that I am a sold out Christian, and I was just wondering how many people on this website have ever been involved in the Christian faith and have left it.
In my experience regarding ExChristians, I have seen that a lot of the most strident evangelical atheists used to be the most "sold out" of Christians before. I'm just saying, I think there is a correlation there worthy of consideration.
For fun, describe yourself while you were a Christian and tell me how your life has improved since leaving Christianity. Describe your theology as a Christian as well.
While I dislike labels and don't like to call myself anything as I strive for a more inclusive approach, I'll say I left Christianity as a set system of doctrines and theologies and self-identifications because I found myself increasingly having all of that not resonating with me, nor helpful to me in my growth. In fact it hindered and failed to support my spiritual growth, holding me back and dragging me down in its confusion. I did not, as some like to use the term "deconvert", but rather I see it as simply outgrowing it as a system, and considering the majority of the way Christianity is structured and taught, that pretty much left me an "ExChristian". I disidentified with the mythic-literal, radical dualism, anti-intellectual, political-conservatism of what defines most of Western Evangelical Christianity in U.S.. I also found little connection with the more modest mainstream churches, not because of any offense at them, but just simply because it lacked any real substance for me on a spiritual path.
As an active Christian in the day I threw myself wholeheartedly into it, perhaps you could use the term I was "sold out" as you claim for yourself. I had found myself part of the Pentecostal form of Christianity, seeking to reconnect with and grown in God experientially as well as theologically. I had had a profound spiritual awakening experience prior to joining that church, and felt that after a couple years of seeking a religious home for myself these people had "the answers" I was seeking for. I threw myself into it, soaking up all their teaching and practices like a thirsty sponge. I became a walking concordance, being able to quote any scripture chapter and verse. I felt "called" to go into the ministry and enrolled in Bible college. I helped bring people into the church, preached and taught, and graduated top of my class with a degree in theology.
But during my last couple years of college that deep internal spiritual Core was finding itself increasingly unable to integrate the theologies that we were being taught was "God's word". Intellectually I tried to believe what was being taught because it was "written" in the Bible, and that we were taught that we should not trust the heart, that the heart was "deceitfully wicked", and all that that I hear fundamentalist Christians still cite today to reject and suppress their own inner voices. This set up a certain pressure, like trying to push a balloon full of air underneath the water. The God being presented to me to "believe in", and worse, to teach others about, was not what agreed with my heart as it knew God, with the heart. It was not a matter of a lustful heart, but a heart of peace and truth and love which had previously touched the very face of God. But as this conflict of the heart versus theology waged on in private, as my reasoning and intellectual mind grew I began to see the very theological underpinnings of their religious structures was deeply flawed.
Cracks in the foundations of their beliefs, theologies, ideologies, political leanings, and all of it began to appear and weaken the whole structure itself. After I graduate college and was slated to return to my home church as an assistant pastor to begin my path as an ordained minister, I was now so deeply conflicted that I had to resolve this. Since I had the headspace outside of school now, I sat down with many volumes of works (this is pre-Internet days, BTW), and by candlelight (kidding, we had lightbulbs in that day), I went for a deepdive to resolve this one way or the other. I was a bit fearful because of course we were taught that to doubt God was to risk hell, of course. But I told myself, and God, that if I am wrong I will be judged by my sincerity, as I could not in all good conscience use my gifts and abilities to persuade others to devote their lives to something I had such grave misgivings about. Thus began the collapse of the structure, and four months later I wrote my pastor a 66 page letter explaining the details of why I could not support the ministry of that church organization. I never heard back from any of them.
After some other experiments in other forms of Christianity I found no real connection at that spiritual heart level, and I became more or less, "homeless" as it were. I never doubted God's existence, since the core of my very being was rooted in a very direct experience of "God". It was the core of my being, the nuclear reactor that powered everything in the system, so to speak. That is beyond question still the very same today, but the major difference being I have been able to find a way to "free God" as it were from the shackles of religion, finding "God" in all religions and in no religion. It's gets a little complicated to explain all that easily as there are many miles of road travelled to describe in order to being to convey what that structure looks like. But the underlying point is that for me, for who I am, that Core inside me is now able to grow and thrive and transform my whole being into the "image of itself', to use such familiar language.
I'll stop here with one saying I came up with years ago, which is something that I've heard very many people who have left Christianity resonate with when I say it. In a twist of great irony I used to say, "I feel more a Christian now that I'm not one, then I ever did when I was one". There's a reason for this. Because we have no God threatening us to "love, or else". It's not a self-facing, self-preserving act, which it is and was in Christianity. We have no reason to love, other than love is a better way. Our reward, is life itself. Freedom. Freedom from fear. Freedom to live. Freedom to love. Freedom to become.
I hope your "sold-out" Christianity is willing to go the same distance in being "sold out".
For me it took it to walking away from the religion itself and climb that mountain on foot alone.
