After 26 Years -- No Longer a Christian

[Soft Rains]

I would like to hear any reactions to my experience:

• My parents are missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Asia, where they have been working for at least as long as I have been alive -- translating the Bible into indigineous languages . I lived there with them for my entire life, up until college. During this time, I attended Christian elementary and high school. I attended a religious college, whose name you would recognize as a theologically orthodox, and biblically based kind of place.

1. Throughout my life, I have been a "model" Christian if such a model exists -- I've prayed the "sinner's prayer" that you will see in a tract. I've asked Christ into my heart and prayed with sincerity that he would be my master, saviour, Lord and friend. I've walked in obedience, rarely lying, and never stealing, cheating, fornicating, etc. I've attended church almost every Sunday for my entire life, and have been part of countless small groups and Bible studies (even led some).

Anyway, within the past six months, I have undergone a profound religious transformation, doing things and saying things I would NEVER have expected from myself. I used to sort of look down my nose with sympathy, bemusement and pity on people who said the things I am about to say...

Basically, I have left the Christian religion. This came as a result of me thinking long and hard about what Christians say about God, humanity, our relationship, and justice. I just graduated from law school and work with a judge, so theories of justice, and the nature of justice loom quite large in my mind.


I believe in a holy, righteous, and just God. I believe that perfect justice offsets sin in the only way that sin can be offset -- by bringing the sinner to repentance, restitution and self-abasing love. I do not believe that God's holiness consists in matching sin in this life with punishment (retributive suffering) in the next. Set the smallest cruel word I've said on one side of a scale, and set an eternity of the most severe punishment on the other side, and the cruel word will never be "matched" or "undone," and a God of perfect justice and holiness is not satisfied or satiated with pain -- either mine or Christ's. Sorrow and confession and self-abasing love will make up for the evil word; suffering will not.


Sin and suffering are not natural opposites; the opposite of evil is good, not suffering; the opposite of sin is not suffering, but righteousness. The path across the gulf that divides right from wrong is not the fire, but repentance.


This simple thought (that sin and retributive suffering are incommensurable) works itself out in a million different ways, some notable ones are (and ones that definitively remove me from Christianity):


1. There is no eternal hell where humans suffer eternally, but there is a judgment and a type of purgatory where God brings us to repentance.


2. Humans don't deserve retributive suffering at the hands of God, and God's perfect justice and absolute righteousness would not require it.


3. I don't believe that Christ "died for my sins" in the sense of taking the just punishment upon himself in my place. I don't believe in vicarious sacrifice, substitutionary atonement, or ideas of this sort. (This belief throws me WAY out of the Christian circle).


I'm going to throw myself on God and trust him with all of my heart as I embark on this journey he has set me on, but I have to face up to the fact that I am no longer a Christian. I submit myself to him, and I ask him to guide me in truth. As for the Bible, I regard it as a "best effort" to know God and his will -- it is a man-made document wherein people try to encounter God (as I am) and then write about the experience. There is certainly valuable insights there, but I am not afraid to "tweak" them so to speak. Likewise, all theological developments in the Christian faith (the Trinity, the subsitutionary atonement, Augustinian's works, Aquinas's works, Calvinism, Protestantism, etc.) are "best efforts" -- but still "human efforts."


I respect Christianity, but I don't quite believe it anymore. I don't see myself as "rebelling" against God, but trying to come to know him better.


Please give me the privilege of your thoughts!

 

[Silent Enigma]

Well it does seem odd that you still have "Calvinist" as your faith icon.

So in other words what you've basically said is that your legal theories trump the bible in regards to understanding justice and forgiveness with God. Also I think that there has got to be more to it than what you've presented here, regarding your transformation.

That being said, I don't want to sound rude, but people think up fancy reasons why they're right and the bible's not every day. I mean really, I have no valid objective reason to believe anything you've said (regarding religion) and it is most likely that your religious/legal theories will die with you. It's not logically sound at all, unless you presuppose an unholy deity, or that your righteousness is more than filthy rags.

I get the impression that you thought very highly of yourself and your "almost-sinless" life, and perhaps concluded along the way that it would be just so darn mean of God to pass judgment on a fine chap like you had you not been a Christian. But that's just me reading between the lines.

Take it for what you will.

 

[Soft Rains]

Well, there is a lot of "raw material" in the Bible to draw all sorts of thoughts, theories, and beliefs about God, man, and how we relate. I do not regard my beliefs as being any less "biblical" than orthodox beliefs, although they are certainly not "Christian" in the sense currently used.

To hi-light a small example of aspects of the Bible that brought me to my view, consider that Jesus was fully God, with all of the attributes of God, including his holiness. When Jesus brought his holiness to bear on humans, he convicted them of sin, and brought them to repentance and healing. His holiness didn't consist in his intolerance of humans or efforts to inflict pain as a response to human disorder, but rather consisted in restoring order where there was sin.

In other words, I don't think my beliefs are contrary to the Bible, taken as a whole, but are certainly contrary to a thousand foolish doctrines.

I certainly believe in a holy deity. And 'our God is a consuming fire.' It is the nature of God so terribly pure that it destroys all that is not pure as fire. He will have purity.

Where I think Christianity has gone wrong is to suppose that when God encounters human evil God's holiness/righteousness/purity/perfection is satiated or satisfied by human pain (Christ's or the sinner's). God tells us to be holy as he is holy, and righteous as he is righteous.

 

[Soft Rains]

Read Robert Ingersoll and George MacDonald if you want to put the nails in the coffin of your adherence to the religion of Christianity. So much of Christianity is a made-up interpretation of the Scriptures, layers upon layers of commentary, speculation, hypothesis, and conjecture. It is to the point that we cannot even know what a reader of the Scriptures for the first time would make of the text, because before our eyes we have the scales of Calvinism, Dualism, Legalism, Zoroastrianism and superstition. The great criminals of the Christian faith are Paul of Tarsus, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards.

Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about "salvation by faith;" that they do not even hint at the doctrine of the atonement, and are as silent as empty tombs as to the necessity of believing anything to secure happiness in this world or another.

 

[Soft Rains]

It is impossible to conceive of anything more utterly absurd as the atonement. A man steals, and then sacrifices a dove, or gives a lamb to a priest. His crime remains the same. He need not kill something. Let him give back the thing stolen, and in future live an honest life. A man slanders his neighbor and then kills an ox. What has that to do with the slander. Let him take back his slander, make all the reparation that he can, and let the ox alone. There is no sense in sacrifice, never was and never will be. Make restitution, reparation, undo the wrong and you need shed no blood.

 

[Silent Enigma]

... It is to the point that we cannot even know what a reader of the Scriptures for the first time would make of the text, because before our eyes we have the scales of Calvinism, Dualism, Legalism, Zoroastrianism and superstition.

Well, for me I went from atheism to Christianity, and had little in the way of religious teaching or bible study. It was something I avoided up to the point of reading it for myself. Altho I don't know if that would count for you as...

The great criminals of the Christian faith are Paul of Tarsus, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards.

... you consider Paul a "criminal of the Christian faith." And I would consider his writings an integral part of understanding the new covenant. According to that logic, why not refer to Jesus as a "criminal of the faith" whenever he contradicts what one thinks?

Matthew, Mark and Luke say nothing about "salvation by faith;"

We'll conveniently throw John out, shall we? Anyway...

Mark 16:15-16
15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
NKJV

you also said...

that they do not even hint at the doctrine of the atonement,

??? Jesus often made reference to the OT laws regarding sacrifices, which at their core are part of an atonement-based theology. You puzzle me.

and are as silent as empty tombs as to the necessity of believing anything to secure happiness in this world or another.

Luke 8:12-13
12 Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
NKJV

And also the Mark one quoted earlier. Unless, of course, you're going to go and throw out Mark chapter 16.... but you wouldn't do that now.

At any rate, it seems odd that you would make reference to the bible or Jesus at all in regards to your beliefs. But I guess if you're going to pick and choose, hey, why not.

 

[Sketcher]

You're thinking in terms of justice on earth, in making restitution to your fellow man. With God, it's different. Sin is missing the standard, and if you miss the standard, you cannot be with God. Sacrifice is the way to erase this error, making you "good enough" in God's eyes again. Jesus made His sacrifice on behalf of us all, so if we accept it, we are declared good enough.

What I think you are missing is how radically evil sin is and how radically holy God is. Our tainted humanity perverts our understanding of sin, so you see a white lie as no big deal.

 

[Silent Enigma]

Yeah twisted, that's the crux of it. But I'm sure he's heard all this before. I think that there's more to this story than he's letting on, to be honest.

 

[aeroz19]

What I think you are missing is how radically evil sin is and how radically holy God is. Our tainted humanity perverts our understanding of sin, so you see a white lie as no big deal.

How and why is a white lie evil enough that it deserves eternal punishment?

Lets say I hold your hand down on a hot plate for one minute. Is that equal punishment for the crime?

In addition, why do I need to punish your white lie with a hot plate? What am I trying to accomplish? Make you never do it again? Teach you that a hot plate burn is as bad as a white lie?

What would hell do? It can't have the purpose of correction, for there are no more chances. Its only purpose would be to return upon the offender the equal weight of his/her crimes during life. But still, how can that be equal. Explain that one to me.

I am beginning to think that hell doesn't exist.

 

[aeroz19]

So in other words what you've basically said is that your legal theories trump the bible in regards to understanding justice and forgiveness with God. Also I think that there has got to be more to it than what you've presented here, regarding your transformation.

That's exactly what she is saying.

However, we have to admit that the heliocentric model did trump any literalist claims concerning the geocentric model in the Bible. And that was a valid one.

 

[Soft Rains]

Yeah twisted, that's the crux of it. But I'm sure he's heard all this before. I think that there's more to this story than he's letting on, to be honest.

As for the whole story, you've basically seen the beginning and the end of it...

What better is the world, what better is the sinner, what better is God, what better is the truth, that the sinner should suffer—continue suffering to all eternity? Would there be less sin in the universe? Would there be any making-up for sin? What setting-right would come of the sinner’s suffering?

Punishment, deserved suffering, is no equipoise to sin. It is no use laying it in the other scale. It will not move it a hair’s breadth. Suffering weighs nothing at all against sin. It is not of the same kind, not under the same laws, any more than mind and matter.

This is why I doubt the theory of substitutionary suffering. As much as I would like to believe, it defies (my) comprehension what righteousness has to do with the infliction of pain. Can someone explain this?

 

[Soft Rains]

What I think you are missing is how radically evil sin is and how radically holy God is. Our tainted humanity perverts our understanding of sin, so you see a white lie as no big deal.

I can understand how you could come to think this about me, Twistedsketch, but this is not how I feel. I agree that sin is radically evil in God's sight. God is a totally pure, perfect, and holy God and sin is a "big deal." Sin has a moral aspect, and when I sin against my brother, I sin against the Father of us both. I regard the smallest sin as infinitely loathsome.

A white lie is an eternally evil thing. But how can suffering and pain -- either mine or Christ's -- make up for the white lie? How can God's holiness be gratified by a sinner in agony?

Nothing but God in my heart can cleanse me from the evil that uttered it. Sorrow and confession and self-abasing love will make up for the white lie. Justice can be reached if I learn to loathe it, to hate it, to shrink from it with an eternal avoidance. Repentance, restitution, confession, prayer for forgiveness, righteous dealing thereafter, is the sole possible, the only true make-up for sin.

 

[Iollain]

I would like to hear any reactions to my experience:

• My parents are missionaries with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Asia, where they have been working for at least as long as I have been alive -- translating the Bible into indigineous languages . I lived there with them for my entire life, up until college. During this time, I attended Christian elementary and high school. I attended a religious college, whose name you would recognize as a theologically orthodox, and biblically based kind of place.

1. Throughout my life, I have been a "model" Christian if such a model exists -- I've prayed the "sinner's prayer" that you will see in a tract. I've asked Christ into my heart and prayed with sincerity that he would be my master, saviour, Lord and friend. I've walked in obedience, rarely lying, and never stealing, cheating, fornicating, etc. I've attended church almost every Sunday for my entire life, and have been part of countless small groups and Bible studies (even led some).

Anyway, within the past six months, I have undergone a profound religious transformation, doing things and saying things I would NEVER have expected from myself. I used to sort of look down my nose with sympathy, bemusement and pity on people who said the things I am about to say...

Basically, I have left the Christian religion. This came as a result of me thinking long and hard about what Christians say about God, humanity, our relationship, and justice. I just graduated from law school and work with a judge, so theories of justice, and the nature of justice loom quite large in my mind.


I believe in a holy, righteous, and just God. I believe that perfect justice offsets sin in the only way that sin can be offset -- by bringing the sinner to repentance, restitution and self-abasing love. I do not believe that God's holiness consists in matching sin in this life with punishment (retributive suffering) in the next. Set the smallest cruel word I've said on one side of a scale, and set an eternity of the most severe punishment on the other side, and the cruel word will never be "matched" or "undone," and a God of perfect justice and holiness is not satisfied or satiated with pain -- either mine or Christ's. Sorrow and confession and self-abasing love will make up for the evil word; suffering will not.


Sin and suffering are not natural opposites; the opposite of evil is good, not suffering; the opposite of sin is not suffering, but righteousness. The path across the gulf that divides right from wrong is not the fire, but repentance.


This simple thought (that sin and retributive suffering are incommensurable) works itself out in a million different ways, some notable ones are (and ones that definitively remove me from Christianity):


1. There is no eternal hell where humans suffer eternally, but there is a judgment and a type of purgatory where God brings us to repentance.


2. Humans don't deserve retributive suffering at the hands of God, and God's perfect justice and absolute righteousness would not require it.


3. I don't believe that Christ "died for my sins" in the sense of taking the just punishment upon himself in my place. I don't believe in vicarious sacrifice, substitutionary atonement, or ideas of this sort. (This belief throws me WAY out of the Christian circle).


I'm going to throw myself on God and trust him with all of my heart as I embark on this journey he has set me on, but I have to face up to the fact that I am no longer a Christian. I submit myself to him, and I ask him to guide me in truth. As for the Bible, I regard it as a "best effort" to know God and his will -- it is a man-made document wherein people try to encounter God (as I am) and then write about the experience. There is certainly valuable insights there, but I am not afraid to "tweak" them so to speak. Likewise, all theological developments in the Christian faith (the Trinity, the subsitutionary atonement, Augustinian's works, Aquinas's works, Calvinism, Protestantism, etc.) are "best efforts" -- but still "human efforts."


I respect Christianity, but I don't quite believe it anymore. I don't see myself as "rebelling" against God, but trying to come to know him better.


Please give me the privilege of your thoughts!

I don't think you are rebelling against God, i think God has thrown you out of the nest so you can find your wings, don't worry He will catch you.

 

[mystery4]

What better is the world, what better is the sinner, what better is God, what better is the truth, that the sinner should suffer—continue suffering to all eternity? Would there be less sin in the universe? Would there be any making-up for sin? What setting-right would come of the sinner’s suffering?



From my understanding, you have a problem with the whole sin/judgement issue. It does not matter whether we tell an outright lie or a white lie, both are sin and sin to God is despicable. But He does know that while we are on this earth we are still going to sin so he gave us Jesus.



I do not believe that a sinner will suffer for all eternity. For example, Sodom and Gomorrah, they were sposed to be burned forever. And the Bible does say that it was an example of the punishment to come. But is there anywhere on earth that we can honestly say is still burning and say it is Sodom and Gomorrah? Therefore if its an example does it not mean that the effects are forever, not that it will burn forever?



2 Peter 2:4-6 - 4 For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven other persons, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomor'rah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example to those who were to be ungodly



Jude 1:5-7 - 5 Now I desire to remind you, though you were once for all fully informed, that he who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day; 7 just as Sodom and Gomor'rah and the surrounding cities, which likewise acted immorally and indulged in unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.



Once all sin has been destroyed, the people left over are the ones who didn't want to sin, but because of their sinful nature found they were constantly at war within themselves as to what they should or should not do. Therefore there will be no more sin until someone decides to break God's eternal law or to put themselves above God.



Before going to heaven, because of our sinfulness we are separated from God. No human is able to look at God because were we to do so, we would die. This isn't beause God wants us to but because His purity would be too much for us and we would choose to die rather than to face Him. Not even Moses was considered worthy enough to look at God's face. The only way we can be joined back to God again is if we accept the gift of Jesus and become a friend to Him.



Exodus 33:20 - But," he said, "you cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live."

Exodus 33:23 - then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen."














Rom 3:10 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands, no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside, together they have gone wrong; no one does good, not even one." 13 "Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive." "The venom of asps is under their lips."...20 For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; 23 since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; 26 it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus...28 For we hold that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised through their faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

 

[mystery4]

Remember that if you truly want to know God again (which is what I'm assuming considering you've posted this in the struggles of non christians) then God will reveal Himself to you so you may have a better understanding of him. At least you are still willing to acknowledge Him. I know of many people who have left mainstream Christianity because they didn't believe or agree with alot of the teachings they gave. Mind you they are still Christian.

So long as you want to know Jesus and his truth then follow it to the best of your knowledge or ability, then I don't think you need fear at least being condemned anyway, for Paul does say that for those who are in Christ Jesus there is now no condemnation.

Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Hopefully this may have helped, if you want to discuss things further with me because I may have misunderstood what you were saying or want to ask me questions on anything I've said then feel free to PM me. God Bless everyone.

 

[aeroz19]

Every religion has some common themes, and one of these is the belief that "the gods" need restitution for our transgressions, and this usually involves death and/or blood. In pagan religions it was child sacrafice. In Christianity it was animal sacrafice.

Why do we believe that "the gods" are angry and require restitution? And why does the restitution involve blood and/or death? What's the blood and death all about? I don't get it.

 

[aeroz19]

How can God's holiness be gratified by a sinner in agony?

You didn't answer that one.

 

[Tree Sap]

This has got me thinking? What does the Bible teach about God's holiness?

 

[Tree Sap]

What exactly is it that mainstream Christianity teaches about these matters?

 

[Jatopian]

You know, were I not a Christian, I would have some very different opinions on some issues.
However, I recognize that only God has the authority to make the rules. You may not like them, but that alone gives you no authority to disobey them. Placing your opinions, formed with limited knowledge and intelligence, over those of one who is infinitely benign, intelligent, and omniscient, is the height of arrogance.
Surely your parents can tell you that Pride caused the downfall of Satan, as it will yours if you do not turn from this path.