I get this kind of thing a lot when I say I used to be a Christian. The nutshell reply is "oh you weren't a real Christian". I was. I believed in God, I believed in the risen, resurrected and soon-to-return Jesus. I spoke in tongues, I prophesied, I got "lost in the Spirit", etc. Yet because I didn't hear voices I must not have been a Christian. I spent years seeking God, I studied the Bible, listened to sermons online, bought teaching tapes, prayed in tongues for hours on many occasions. You must be one of those Christians who follow the "once saved, always saved" rule. Well, I
was a genuine Christian, now I'm an atheist.
Also, I've been through practically every denomination I care to - from Baptists all the way to Pentecostals and Word Of Faith and everything in between (including Episcopal and Catholic). One interesting thing, now that I think about it, and in answer to your speculation that I wasn't a genuine Christian, is that I had a lot of prophecies said over me during my Pentecostal/Charismatic days. Now, if I wasn't a real Christian and those prophesying over me
were actually speaking the words of God, then why didn't God tell me I was fake? That never happened. Instead I got stupid prophecies about my future and junk like that. None of it came true. None of the prophecies over my parents came true either. My mum still utters prophecies every so often, which all fail. My dad has gotten a bit cynical over the years though. Someone recently had a prophecy for him, which my mum got excited about, but my dad just brushed it off afterwards and said he doesn't really believe all that stuff anymore. I think he's finally floating down from the Charismatic clouds.
When I started having doubts about the Charismatic/Word of Faith movement I was fortunate enough to stumble across a good book called "
Post-charismatic". I was still a Christian around the time I read it, but was severely disillusioned with the Charismatic/Word of Faith movement.
Christians are far too quick to judge those who were once Christians but "left the fold". They see it as impossible why someone could go from believing to not believing. I would speculate that most "hardcore" atheists (or anti-theists if you prefer) alive today in Western countries were once hardcore theists/Christians. A lot of them give up their faith because of the behaviour of other Christians, or their disillusionment with their faith. I'm a combination of the two. I was disillusioned with both the church/Christian behaviour
and fed up of a faith that seemed so full of promise yet accomplished nothing.
Anyway, I've rambled on a bit, more than I intended. I really just wanted to address those who have the belief that those who abandon the Christian faith weren't Christians in the first place. It
is possible to be a
real Christian and then become an atheist. I read stories on it all the time. There's even a forum on the internet dedicated to ex-Christians and the stories are usually all the same. I'm not sure why some Christians believe that ex-Christians were never Christians in the first place - it must touch a nerve I guess, perhaps because they struggle with doubts of their own and fear that if they acknowledge those doubts they might fall away.