Some time a while back I wrote a letter to a "friend" who lost his faith in the God of American Evangelical Christianity, specifically the ideas proposed by Conservative Middle Class Suburban churches and schools. I found the man's main reason somewhat legitimate given his intense struggle with pain (i.e. on-set blindness and other various semi-catastrophic experiences) in his life. His other reasons were less than convincing since he was unable to see past the arrogance of his scientific philosophical foundations and its necessity of empirical proof to legitimize God's existence. Not to mention his uniformed understandings of how one's philosophical foundations affect the way he reads his bible. In this case, he could not reconcile a literal reading of Genesis with "objective" science. Other theological questions still haunted him.
And, today I came across another story of "de-conversion."
I am quite fascinated by stories like that previous one and this new one.
Both of these stories have a few things in common that I think are worth noting.
The first is that both of these men have close ties with the "evangelical" world of American Christianity. This is a world where more is made about one's conversion experience than one's pursuit of the Christian faith and Christian God. So conversion is hyped up and knowledge and doctrine and thinking are under-valued. George says it well himself, "I went to a week long camp where the gospel was packaged and delivered with great polish and skillful delivery, which was designed for maximum emotional impact." Here people are told to give their lives over to God as a sort of pious "self-dedication." It seems that both of these men had that experience at one point in their life. Interestingly enough, most people who have these experiences (myself included) are desperately mistaken about the future of their Christian life post the "life dedication" event. Most have high hopes about the success of their social life and influence, about the spiritual vitality of the coming days, about the success of their sinless living, about the certainty of their decisions to come. After all, the thought is, "I committed my life to Christ, that's all I need to do, right?" This is a particular form or American Revivalism. This is not Christianity
Second, both experienced hurtful "crisis" events. In the first case a sickness, in the second case a rocky marriage relationship. Both men seem to fail to understand the down-right nastiness of living in a world broken by sin's powerful weight. Neither can reconcile a Creator who is said to be "good" but who also allows untold suffering and hurt. If you read both posts closely you begin to see the seeds of doubt from the beginning. Seeds of doubt that snuff out faith. One ancient sage once said, "I believe that unless I do believe I shall not understand."
Third, both men tie themselves to a strict/literal reading of Scripture, especially Genesis 1-11. Neither man can allow for Genesis 1-11 to be literal, and since, in their mind, the only way to read those portions of Scripture is in fact literally, the entire system is suspect, if not plainly false. Science- objective, unfalsifiable, inerrant science cannot lead us astray, because after all, the facts are the facts. The problem here is not with Scripture. Again, the problem is the assumptions of the modern mind in reading ancient history and story-telling. A brief survey of ancient, medieval, and modern Christian history will demonstrate that this type of hermeneutic (literal) is not the only way to read those portions of Scripture. Can you be a Christian and not believe the hermeneutic of six "literal" days? Of course you can. The Scriptures as "text-book" is a very recent Western Rationalistic way of reading the Bible.
Any way, these are three general observations that I have made, others can be made, and maybe I am forcing some things. I believe both of these men have left the faith, not because they are sure of their decisions, but because the systems they adopted in their "coming to faith" were less than satisfactory for the requirement of our modern day thirst for absolute certainty. Where's the faith in that? There isn't any.
And, today I came across another story of "de-conversion."
I am quite fascinated by stories like that previous one and this new one.
Both of these stories have a few things in common that I think are worth noting.
The first is that both of these men have close ties with the "evangelical" world of American Christianity. This is a world where more is made about one's conversion experience than one's pursuit of the Christian faith and Christian God. So conversion is hyped up and knowledge and doctrine and thinking are under-valued. George says it well himself, "I went to a week long camp where the gospel was packaged and delivered with great polish and skillful delivery, which was designed for maximum emotional impact." Here people are told to give their lives over to God as a sort of pious "self-dedication." It seems that both of these men had that experience at one point in their life. Interestingly enough, most people who have these experiences (myself included) are desperately mistaken about the future of their Christian life post the "life dedication" event. Most have high hopes about the success of their social life and influence, about the spiritual vitality of the coming days, about the success of their sinless living, about the certainty of their decisions to come. After all, the thought is, "I committed my life to Christ, that's all I need to do, right?" This is a particular form or American Revivalism. This is not Christianity
Second, both experienced hurtful "crisis" events. In the first case a sickness, in the second case a rocky marriage relationship. Both men seem to fail to understand the down-right nastiness of living in a world broken by sin's powerful weight. Neither can reconcile a Creator who is said to be "good" but who also allows untold suffering and hurt. If you read both posts closely you begin to see the seeds of doubt from the beginning. Seeds of doubt that snuff out faith. One ancient sage once said, "I believe that unless I do believe I shall not understand."
Third, both men tie themselves to a strict/literal reading of Scripture, especially Genesis 1-11. Neither man can allow for Genesis 1-11 to be literal, and since, in their mind, the only way to read those portions of Scripture is in fact literally, the entire system is suspect, if not plainly false. Science- objective, unfalsifiable, inerrant science cannot lead us astray, because after all, the facts are the facts. The problem here is not with Scripture. Again, the problem is the assumptions of the modern mind in reading ancient history and story-telling. A brief survey of ancient, medieval, and modern Christian history will demonstrate that this type of hermeneutic (literal) is not the only way to read those portions of Scripture. Can you be a Christian and not believe the hermeneutic of six "literal" days? Of course you can. The Scriptures as "text-book" is a very recent Western Rationalistic way of reading the Bible.
Any way, these are three general observations that I have made, others can be made, and maybe I am forcing some things. I believe both of these men have left the faith, not because they are sure of their decisions, but because the systems they adopted in their "coming to faith" were less than satisfactory for the requirement of our modern day thirst for absolute certainty. Where's the faith in that? There isn't any.