Apr 03 2009
The Story of How Chris Left the Born-Again Christian World Behind
NOTE: I asked Chris to write up his story for my site. I know that he does not fit the mold of normal stories here at Ex-Mormon Stories (ie, he was never Mormon) but I thought that his story was a great example of life in the born-again Christian world, which, as you’ll see, is fairly close to the Mormon world in a lot of ways. So I hope y’all enjoy it!
As a child, I went to Sunday school most Sundays, and my family went to church about twice a month, and always on Christmas and Easter. My family prayed at most meals, always the same prayer, repeated in a monotone as fast my brothers and I could mutter it so we could get to the food. “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let this food to us be blessed. In Jesus name, Amen.” Other than that, you couldn’t really describe my family as “religious.”
Church was something that we went to because that’s just what you were expected to do. I’m not sure what my dad believes; in fact, I’m still not sure. If I had to pick who was the most spiritual in my family, I would have to say my mother. Especially after her mom died. She believes that Grandma is still watching us, and expresses herself when she’s upset by knocking over an angel figurine that sits on a shelf in her living room.
I went to a Lutheran church through most of my childhood, but we switched to the Methodist church when we moved when I was about thirteen. There I got involved in youth group, because when you’re the new kid in town with no friends, you’ll pretty much do anything to meet people. So every Wednesday night, I would go to this group and we would have devotionals and play games.
There were also the retreats. These are what got to me. I would be with all these people, adults and teenagers who loved God and Jesus. They were so free because of Him, so happy that they were forgiven! They pressed the idea on us that we are all sinners in God’s world, and the only way to avoid burning forever was to confess all your worldly sins to Christ, and accept him into your life as your personal Lord and Savior. Wow.
They pressed and pushed that point for the entire week. Looking back now, I can honestly say that it was a form of brainwashing. If anyone doesn’t know what I’m talking about, watch the movie Jesus Camp. Kids admitting to have being ‘saved’ when they were five years old. Like a five year old has any concept of what that means or even what eternal means. Sorry, I digress…
So, after being taught to believe that I, and everyone else in the world, was innately a sinner and going to hell, I asked Jesus to forgive my sins (though I didn’t really know what I had done wrong, besides the normal kid stuff, i.e. lying about homework, small fights at school). Now I was hooked. I started to teach Sunday school, I joined youth retreat planning committees, joined the church choir, read the entire Left Behind series…which, by the way, no young, impressionist teen should EVER read.
But, all through this, in the back of mind, I was scared to death. I was terrified that I didn’t really believe, and that I was going to burn in hell because of it. It kept me awake many nights, wondering about God, wondering if I was a ‘true believer,’ worrying about hell. I never told my parents or my family how much into religion I was, but at the same time, I worried about them. I worried because I was pretty sure that they hadn’t accepted Jesus, and they would burn in hell.
These thoughts tortured me for years, and there were times when I would re-affirm my faith, but I would still l worry constantly. At times I would think that there was no God, but then immediately in my head apologize to Him for my lack of faith, and then I would pray that he would lead my mind away from these blasphemous thoughts.
Once, while on a mission trip with the church, I confessed this to one of the counselors. He told me I needed to pray more, and read John, and I did that night in my sleeping bag with a flashlight. Again, I asked Jesus to forgive me and come into my life and guide me in what to do.
The next day, singing praise songs at one of our ‘sessions’ as they were called, I felt at peace, like it had finally happened. God and Jesus (or as my youth group invented, G-dog and lil’ J) had come into my life, and taken away all worry.
This lasted about a week. Then all my feelings of uncertainty came back. It’s very hard to explain. I doubted my religion, but at the same time, I knew if I doubted I would burn. But if I knew I was going to burn for doubting, didn’t that mean that I did believe? Needless to say, I was confused.
I had a friend in high school, who was a homosexual and a Wiccan. He was, and still is, also one of the kindest people I knew. Charity work, fundraising, volunteering, you name it. Today, in fact, he’s running for a student office in his college, Vice President I believe.
But I wondered, how can God let him burn in hell? He’s not a bad person, he just lives differently, but he’s no deviant, he doesn’t sacrifice children upon a fiery alter. Hell, he’d done more charity work on his own than I’d ever done through all my Christian groups! We would have discussions about religion all the time, never to serious, but he explained to me what he believed, and vice versa.
I can remember thinking, “I can believe he thinks all this bullshit actually works! Trying to summon the power of wind, earth, fire, water, and spirit, I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my life!”
I wish I had something more exciting to write about the next couple years, but it’s fairly simple. I finished my high school education, my faith weakening all the while. I still lived in denial, and told myself and everyone around me that I was a true believer. But once I moved away from home for college, I never found a church, telling myself that God knows I believe and I don’t have to go to church to prove it. Whenever I did hang around other believers, I found myself growing increasingly uncomfortable.
Then, someone I know, someone whose story all you people know, declared that she had left the LDS church, and was now an atheist. This certainly didn’t inspire me abandon my beliefs, it just made me realize that mine were never really there. I have now come to terms with the fact that I am also an atheist, though I haven’t told many people.
The people I’m closest to don’t know. I’m backwards that way. The people I’ve told, while they are friends, are not my closest friends. I haven’t told my family either because, even though they knew I was very involved in the church, they never really knew how deep I was. If they ever ask about my personal beliefs I’ll tell them, unashamed. I now appreciate the world for what it is. A natural set of coincidences that we, as Homo sapiens, were lucky enough to be a result of.
We are lucky to be here, and are fortunate to even have the ability and imagination to come up with such a thing as God. I now think that religion was the only way humankind could first try to explain the world. But, we live in a modern age, and we have better explanations, that make much more sense. People tend to think that atheists must be deeply depressed, “You mean you think that this is all there is?!?!” Actually, I found it very liberating when I faced the truth.
We live out our time, try to make it as enjoyable and as long as we can, then we die. I like to think that we can be good people just for the sake of it, not out of a fear of burning forever in a fiery pit. When the Lyoness asked me to write my story, I didn’t know if what I wrote would be good enough to put up anywhere, since it is mostly just about a kid confused about religion.
But as mundane as it may sound here, this was a huge trial of my life that took many years (ages thirteen through twenty - hey, maybe that was my seven years of “tribulation”) to work through. I’m glad I went through it though; it made me who I am today…a person finally at peace with myself and the world.
~Chris
Hi Chris.
Thanks for sharing your story. I envy people who have come to terms with the likelihood that this is all there is. It haunts me.
I came to the realization that I never really had faith either. If I had, I never would have had the fear that I’ve always had. What I had was never faith. It was hope.
I’d almost convince myself at times, but as you said, it never really lasts very long before all the confusion comes back again.
Now I feel little hope and that’s not a nice place to be in. Having said that though, it is nice to finally learn to appreciate each day and to see it as a gift.
Every day, every week, every month and every year is a gift.
Chris, just wanted to tell you again thank you for the post. I really appreciate it. I owe you one.
I have a book that I am going to review for this site that I think relates a lot to what you had to say - I think you’d enjoy that review. Watch for that soon (hopefully!)
Rainfeather, I think that it affects people differently. When I first faced the concept of there being nothing other than this life, it really scared me. That was very rough for me to wrap my mind around.
But since then, I have grown to appreciate the fact that if this is all there is to it, then I’d better not waste my time doing something I don’t believe in. When you believe in an afterlife, then there’s almost an escape route for you there, where you think, “I can make up for everything in the next life.” That is very prevalent in the Mormon belief system, where you are taught that you learn and progress after you die, until you eventually become a god or a goddess. So why try hard in this life when you have all of eternity to become perfect?
When you realize that when you die, that’s the end, there is no second chance, then you start to look at everything in a whole different light. And although it takes time to acclimate your mind to this, I think it can be done eventually.
No problem Lyoness. I enjoyed it. I don’t know if it was totally quality, but it felt good to write it out and look over it myself. I hope someone can read it and get something out of it!
I do have an LDS friend who is always waiting for the next life for her life to get better. It’s sad. No matter what you say to her, it’s almost like she’s just waiting to begin something better.
I was thinking earlier about cults. I used to get so upset when people called the Mormon Church a cult. I’d say, “It’s not a cult! It’s a church. Trust me. I know. I go there!” It bugged me so much.
But this morning, I was thinking that really, they’re all cults. Whether it’s Mormon, Evangelistic Christian, Catholic - it doesn’t matter.
It’s all the same. Indoctrinate them when they’re young. There’s the repetitive stuff - some sort of chanting, whether it’s in prayers, rituals, or hymns. There’s the fact that anyone showing signs of questioning is immediately surrounded, encouraged, or shunned if they don’t get the results the group wants.
And they all require some sort of deprogramming when you leave them. It’s all the same.
You probably don’t want to hear this nor will it change your mind since yours is firmly set, but I do not think you were ever saved. You never recieved salvation because if you had recieved it in full then you would not have lost it. My story is different because I wasn’t brought up in my faith God introduced it to me when I was the lowest I could ever have been. Raped as a child then bullied I found myself self harming, drinking heavily, smoking, doing drugs, witch craft, tarot cards, spiritualism and a week before my life turned round I was about to jump off a high building and kill myself. Fortunately I found Jesus and He set me free. You talk of having fear when you had Jesus all He has given me is peace and love. I have a personal relationship with Jesus and now I live every day to the full. I am a changed person and no longer do all those things I did before. All I have found is a peace that surpasses all understanding and I am no longer searching for the fulfillment I have found in Jesus. God bless you.
I don’t want to attack anyone personally, so I will just make this about religion in general. The Mormon Church is absolutely rampant with it. It’s the guilt trip.
Don’t have a strong-enough testimony? It must be your fault. You haven’t prayed enough, read your scriptures enough, worked hard enough. Whatever it is, it’s YOUR fault.
Questioning is not allowed. You’re guilted into staying in line and made to feel like a failure.
I hate this about religion. It’s why I left the Church before I even investigated it and realized that it was nothing more than a fraud. I was tired of not feeling very good about myself because my testimony wasn’t strong enough. I wondered why I was doing that to myself, so I left.
It takes guts to leave ones faith. No one doubts on purpose. They cry, they pray until their knees go numb, they study. No one gives up a testimony without a fight. But, in the end, when you’re met with nothing but silence from Heaven, and the facts are there in front of you, you have no choice. It’s either be a fraud, or be true to yourself. It’s the only way to be honest with God, if He’s even there, and with yourself.
Until someone can literally walk in the shoes of another person, which no one can actually do, no one has the right to judge them.
I just read this again to my husband it makes me feel so sad, but at the end of the day it’s your own personal choice. If you study scripture you find that a person doesn’t get to Heaven by works, but by justification through faith. If Salvation could be lost then isn’t it down to works to lose it? Salvation doesn’t come from works therefore it can’t be lost. I just question sensitively whether you have experienced God, really experienced Him because the Salvation experience brings freedom from fear and doubt not the opposite.
Ask a million born again Christian’s why they believe 99% of them will say because I have experienced God. Because He has made Himself known to me. The other 1 % try and gain theirself into Heaven through the best intentions, but works will never get them there cause if at the end of their lives they don’t know Jesus then there is nobody to stand in the courtroom of Heaven when God reads out the charges as Jesus is our brief we stand right with God. If in that court room you stand alone it’s because you’ve never known Him.
Please I pray make Jesus your brief today. Get to know Him now so you know Him then. Don’t stand in an empty court room facing God.
You say that you don’t believe that I was ever saved. Yet, to be saved, all I have to do is repent my sins to God and Christ, and ask him to forgive me and come into my heart–and believe it. Well, I did. The whole deal, I believed, I repented, and I asked for Christ to come into my life and lead it. Nothing changed for me. Like I said, while I was with the large groups of Christians, all praying and singing, yes I felt at peace. BUT, I realized…I get this feeling when I’m at a rock concert, surrounded by screaming fans, I get this feeling while I’m with my choir, all laughing and joking around. The peace I felt was purely due to the fact I was with people I liked, had things in common with, and cared about. It is only psychological. I’m glad that faith has led you to a better life, that’s wonderful. And the philosophy (for the most part) of Christianity is great, love one another, turn the other cheek, do not judge. And those are great tenets to live life by. But I think the notion of a higher being is nuttier than a pile of squirrel shit. This is a great quote I read online:
Seriously though. I think that humanity needed religion early on in order to explain the things we see around us and as a moral guide so we didn’t all kill each other. But I think that we as a species have moved beyond the need for that, and can start explaining our world with natural science, and treat each other decency because we all deserve a fair shake at life. We know murder is bad, cheating on someone when you told them you wouldn’t is bad. They don’t need to be sins for us to know that these are morally unacceptable. Sorry, I’m rambling again and have run outta steam, so I’m going to close here without a final point.
~CJ
Mickie, I have to say that since I did not grow up in the born-again Christian religion, and therefore have little knowledge of the rules and ideas of the religion, my contributions to this thread may not be wholly correct.
With that in mind, here goes:
First off, you say that if you read the scriptures, that you’ll find that you can only be saved by faith, not by works. Yet there are many religions (including the religion that I grew up in, Mormonism) who read those same scriptures and come away with the complete opposite philosophy: That faith only without works to back them up will not bring you salvation. There is a scripture in the Bible that the Mormons quote all the time: Faith without works is dead. I want to say that it’s in Acts, although I won’t bet the farm on it.
My point in that isn’t to get into a philosophical debate on the topic (as you’ll quickly see, my take on the situation is unique) but to simply point out that there have been many, many readings of the Bible, and almost as many interpretations of said Bible. One thing that drives me crazy is when someone says that their interpretation of the Bible is correct, because it almost always includes throwing out at least part of the teachings of the Bible (the ones that do not agree with their interpretation of the Bible.)
It isn’t that people are trying to ignore things in the Bible; it’s that the Bible contradicts itself on many different levels, and so it’s impossible to come to one universal agreement about everything, because even the Bible doesn’t agree with itself.
Okay, so on to my thoughts on works vs belief when it comes to salvation. You say that works cannot get you into heaven, only belief. And yet my own experience with belief is that it is work. I believed in God for the first 27 years of my life, and yet I often struggled with that belief. I would be thinking about whatever, and half-praying to God/thinking to myself about it, when suddenly a thought would pop into my head, “What if there is no God?” And then I’d apologize to God for my doubts, telling him that of course I believed he was there.
Belief is work. You are constantly having to shore up the doubts, convincing yourself that since everyone else believes, surely it must be true. It can be exhausting.
I have to seriously question the 99/1 split you mentioned above. After I left the Mormon Church, I told pretty much everyone I knew the truth. I was absolutely shocked by the amount of people who said, “You know what? I don’t believe either. I just go because of social/family pressures.”
People pretend to believe in things a lot stronger than they really do because there is social pressure to do so. If everyone else is saying, “Oh yes! I believe!” then you feel like you have to say it too.
And if you tell me that the only people who bow to social pressure and pretend to believe in something they don’t believe in belong to the LDS Church, and that nothing like this ever happens in the Christian world, I will laugh so hard I’ll split my stitches from my appendectomy I had when I was six. There is simply no way that the only people in the world with questions on the veracity of their religion all happen to be in the LDS Church. It simply is not possible.
So perhaps you think that the other born-again Christians you’ve interacted with believe as you do, when they are simply pretending because that’s the socially acceptable thing to do. You may not want to believe that, but I am telling you, coming from the other side and discussing religion (now that I’m out of it) with a wide variety of people: This is something I’d bet the farm on. Perhaps belief comes easily to you, but it seems that to most people, it does not.
I really appreciate Chris’ story because it reminded me so much of my life in the LDS Church. I too went on week-long camps with other believers and spent that week learning about our religion and strengthening my belief in that religion. I too had times (weeks, even) where I had a strong testimony and belief, and then it would fade away and I was back to where I began - I would mostly believe with flashes of doubt which I promptly squelched and apologized for.
Whoever says that belief is not work isn’t human. It is human nature to doubt something you’ve never seen or heard from. I have never once heard the voice of God, or saw him. What on earth would make me think he exists?
Turns out: Nothing.
I have been agnostic since last fall, when I left the Mormon Church, but I would classify myself as atheist now. I simply don’t see it. Why should I believe in a person/being who I have zero evidence actually exists? Isn’t that the definition of crazy?
I saw a quotation earlier today that went something like this:
Talking to God makes you religious. God talking to you makes you crazy.
Absolutely true, and when you think about it, absolutely nonsensical. If there truly was a God, then he’d be in our lives, talking and directly interacting with the people he loves. Why would he sit up on high and only act in mysterious ways so as to fool any thinking person into thinking he doesn’t exist? It logically makes no sense.
My own two cents.
The Lyoness
PS I just saw this over at Rocket Scientist’s website: “If you have to keep reminding yourself of a thing, perhaps it isn’t so.” Amen and amen.
I do admit though, if I did go back to religion, I would go to the one where the Son of God is born of a virgin, and foretold by a shining star. Who’s birth has always been celebrated in December, and was born in a manger. The Child who an evil king attempted to kill, but God told the parents to flee and hide the Child. Who began his ministry and was baptized around age 30, the baptizer tragically beheaded soon after. The one who was said to walk on water, cast demons out, heal the sick, and cure the blind, who was crucified, went to hell, but was resurrected on the third day! Yes, praise be to Horus, the Son of Osiris! What? Jesus? Fuck no! Are you nuts?