Leaving My Christian Faith Behind
By “Owen”
As told to Cliff Williams
Edited by Cliff Williams from a recorded and transcribed conversation with “Owen” on May 20, 2024. “Owen” is a pseudonym.
My Life as a Christian
Owen was raised by his mother in a very non-faith home. “She was married four or five times and had a lot of abusive men in her life. They were in my life as well. To get me out of her hair in the summer, she sent me to a Christian camp.
“The first time I went there, I became a Christian. The next summer I became a Christian again. And then the next summer as well. I had no concept of what happened in between. They didn’t talk much about local church involvement. This was between ten and my sophomore year in high school.
“When I was a sophomore in high school, I asked a new friend whether he wanted to go see a movie with me. He said, ‘I don’t go to movies.’ I had never met anyone who didn’t go to movies, so I asked him why not. He said, ‘If Jesus was sitting next to me, would I want to be at that film?’
“I was deeply moved by that—a faith perspective actually having an influence on your whole life. I pursued him and became part of his world: an independent, premillenial, pretribulational, separated, soul-winning Baptist.
“Most of the high school students at the Baptist church I went to who went to college went to Bob Jones University, a very conservative Christian university. I went to a Christian college that was even more conservative.
“There I dated the person who has been my wife for more than forty years. I found her to be incredibly liberal. She wore pants when school was not in session, and she listened to rock and roll music sometimes. I couldn’t fathom that kind of evil. But I was smitten, and we got married the week after we graduated.
“During the next thirty-five years, I earned a Ph.D. and taught at four different Christian colleges, including the one I had graduated from. Each one was a little less conservative than the previous one. And I slowly moved toward becoming what is known in the Christian world as a left-leaning evangelical.
“I became pro LGBTQ pretty early on. I could not imagine that God would be so worked up about what two loving people were doing behind closed doors when there were twelve-year old girls who were being raped repeatedly in the sex-trafficking world. I became strongly anti-death penalty. I became committed to racial justice before that became a hot thing.
“I had wonderful experiences at the colleges I taught at. I never questioned the basic tenets of evangelicalism or theism. I thought I was going to be a teacher in a Christian college for the rest of my life.”
Beginning to Change
At the last Christian college Owen taught at, he was introduced to more left-leaning ideas. “Ironically, it was the Bible and theology department faculty who were the most liberal theologically. I resonated with the books they were reading—by Rachel Held Evans and Richard Rohr.
“Sometimes in my classes the question came up about how to address arguments from cults. I told them what I said whenever a Jehovah’s Witness or a Mormon came to the door: ‘Hey! I’d love to have a conversation with you. I tell you what. You tell me three or four articles or books you want me to read, and I’ll read them. I will give you just one and then we can get back together and discuss them.’
“I probably did that over a dozen times. And the answer was always the same: ‘No, we won’t be doing that.’ One time one of them said, ‘Jesus didn’t entertain the possibility he was wrong, so why should I?’
“I said to my classes, ‘Therein is the definition of a cult. You are so terrified of the opposite position that you never read what it has to say.’
“That embodies something I told my classes over and over: Unless you have considered the best the other side has to argue, you do not really understand your own side and you do not have a good reason to be passionate about your position.
“One of my children went to a Christian college. A year after he graduated, he said to me, ‘Dad, do you remember how you taught the basic elements of argumentation to us kids?’ I said, ‘Yes, I remember that. Was it weird?’ He said, ‘Yes, it was weird. But I learned a lot. You always said that until you’ve considered the best that the other side has to offer, you don’t have a rationale for being passionate about your side. And, Dad, here’s the deal. I’m an atheist now, a straight out atheist.’
“I was really sad to hear that.
“‘Let me ask you a question,’ my child continued. ‘Have you ever really done that with the existence of a supernatural, all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful being?’
“I said, ‘Yeah, I know what Richard Dawkins, the atheist, would say and things like that.’
“‘No. Have you ever read what Dawkins says in his own words? Or what Sam Harris, another atheist, says in his own words?’
“I looked at him and said, ‘No, I haven’t. And there’s no excuse for that. So I will.’
A Key Day
Owen spent several years reading and thinking. “Besides doing that, I talked with a number of my students who are atheists. I asked them how they dealt with it. They all said that they were not troubled by being atheists. That played a part in my journey toward atheism.
“There was a key day, though, in giving up my Christianity. Near the end of those years, about four or five years ago, I had lunch with the pastor of a fairly conservative church. He was also the Bible department faculty member who had gotten me to rethink certain of my Christian ideas.
“I said to him, ‘You and I are friends, so we can be honest with each other. Do you really believe there was a man who was fully God, who literally died a human death and literally rose from the dead three days later?’
“The pastor said, ‘I don’t know. I believe it happened, but no, I don’t think the preponderance of evidence goes that way. Here’s what I know. Every one of us in our human condition has to live out a narrative, a story. The Christian story, as I understand it, is the most beautiful narrative of all time. So I live it out.’
“I said, ‘You’re basically telling me this: You are in the matrix, and you might have taken the pill that makes you live in a fantasy world. But that’s okay with you. In other words, you might actually be in a cocoon being sucked on by a machine. But since it gives you dreams of everything going well, you are going to live in accordance with those dreams, even though they are just dreams.’
“He nodded.
“I thought that was incredible. Up until then, I had left most of my Christian worldview behind. On that day, I left it all behind. I self-identified as an agnostic. I had became convinced that the humanist, agnostic, atheist narrative was more compelling, much more compelling, than the Christian narrative. The quality of argument and ideas and reason on that side felt so much more attractive.
“I’m in a lot of deconstruction and atheist Facebook groups where people who have given up their Christian faith are going through horrific emotional trauma. I did not go through that to get where I’m at now. Becoming an agnostic felt wonderful.”
More Compelling
A number of considerations persuaded Owen to leave his Christian faith. “I came to believe that the Bible is a hot mess. It was written over many centuries, put together by emperors and others who had political agendas. It has so many contradictions, not to mention the Pauline versus Christ debates you hear a lot about.
“I don’t have to do some of the craziness Christians have to do with scripture: ‘You need to understand the context, or you need to understand the time in which it was written.’
“The other day someone said to me, ‘You just need to open the Bible and see what it says.’ I said, ‘Help me understand this. You are saying that the book is so clear that I will understand it if I just open it up. Yet it’s a book that has spawned seventeen thousand denominations, all of which claim to follow the book better than the other 16,999.’ And I said, ‘That’s the book I’m supposed to open up and it is magically going to tell me what I need to know??’ I cannot see how scripture could ever be a proof that Christianity is true.
“Anthropologists and sociologists tell us that there have been six thousand ways of worshiping. Christians believe that 5,999 are false. I take that one more step and say that all six thousand are false. My question is, How can you know that, out of those six thousand ways of worshiping, any one of them is the true way?
“I have looked at every single Christian theist versus atheist debate on YouTube. That took me months to get through. I’ve read apologetics books against Sam Harris. So don’t give me Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell and think you’re magically going to get to me.
“Some of the people who have been very compassionate and loving have said something to this effect: ‘I get it. With the whole Christian nationalism movement going on now, the MAGA movement in particular, some evangelicals have gotten very mean-spirited. I can understand why you’d want to leave the church.’
“I want them to understand that that’s insulting to me and to the thousands of people on the deconstructionist and atheist Facebook pages. It suggests I left Christianity because I was angry at other Christians. I left Christianity because I looked at the reasons to believe in the veracity of the Bible. I looked at the reasons to believe in a supernatural being who has the power to help someone with their driver’s test or to stop the Holocaust before six million people died. I looked at all that, and I said, ‘I don’t believe anymore.’
“I read where someone said, ‘I’m a Christ follower because of an event. I believe the resurrection happened. And because of that, I have no other option than to be a Christ follower.’ My story is, I get that. If I believed that someone literally rose from the dead, I would probably be a Christ follower as well. But I don’t. So I’m not.
“If you ask the average, everyday Christian about the veracity of Christianity, the first thing you’re going to get is answer to prayer. But, as a famous atheist once said, ‘Hey! I have a rock in my backyard. I ask it for things I want all the time. Sometimes it gives me what I ask for, and when it does I praise the rock for its kindness. Sometimes it doesn’t give me what I ask for. Then I tell the rock, ‘I’m sure you have a higher reason for that, a higher purpose.’ That’s my answer to the claim that answered prayer proves Christianity to be true.
“There is also the argument that God has spoken to me personally. I refer people who say this to the Netflix documentary that asks people in world religions, ‘Why are you Hindu? Why are you this, why are you that?’ The answer that people in every one of the religions gave was that God spoke to them.
“Religion, as I understand it, as I’ve read the best minds on both sides, started—this is not literal—when suddenly there was a really loud sound in the sky called thunder. We humans didn’t know why it happened. So we ascribed it to an all-powerful being. The human species has been using a deity to explain things it doesn’t understand for centuries, including what happens after death. For me, we’re past that.
“I get it that the unknown is scary. I totally understand that it is very fearful to think about what happens after we die. But I find an anthropological viewpoint about how religion began convincing.
“Some of my agnostic and atheist friends say that the only reason people want religion is to have power over others. Religion is essentially about having power over the flock. I disagree. It is certainly true that some religious people have abused their power. But it is not true that religion is about power. I know plenty of great Christ followers who are not that way.
“I used to buy Pascal’s Wager. If atheism is true, then there is no harm in being a Christian. But if Christianity is true and I’m an atheist, I’m in big trouble. Why take the risk? I don’t want to go to hell. But I don’t buy that anymore because there are six thousand major religions, and they all can use the same wager even though most of them have a different path to God.
“During COVID-19, 2020–2022, when I wasn’t working much, I spent hours every day thinking and reading about faith. It was as deep a dive as I could do. I wanted to get it right.”
Social Effects
Owen discovered that his Christian friends did not react well to his turn to atheism. “That was the biggest surprise for me. I have been astonished by the responses I have gotten. Some of my friends cut off our relationship. Some broke down and sobbed. One said that I must never have been a Christian to begin with, because, that person believed, once a Christian, always a Christian. Others gave me apologetics books that I read when I was in my twenties, including Evidence That Demands a Verdict. Even my left-leaning evangelical friends, whom I thought would be accepting, did not do well when I left the team.
“I used to have a best friend. We called each other once every ten days without fail for years. That stopped after he heard about me becoming a humanist.
“I have had to go into a theological worldview closet because not one of the people I have shared my new worldview with has handled it well. That makes me sad.
“I am in no way suggesting that my being in a worldview closet is anything like someone who has to be in the closet regarding sexual orientation. But I do understand that a tiny bit, because I want to be who I am. But I can’t. I can’t.
“I don’t expect Christians to rejoice with where I’m at. But I want them to understand that I too am on a journey and that where I’m at in my journey right now gives me a lot of fulfillment, and even hope.
“I now work at a secular university. Most of the people I work with, though, including my bosses, are conservative Christians. Actually, MAGA Christians. I have a pension at the university and only a few years left to work. I don’t want to lose my job, so I don’t say much about my new worldview.
“Only one person there knows, a kindred spirit who is married to a person of the same sex. We care about each other greatly. That person knows, but no one else where I work knows.
“When I was a Christian, it was my whole world, my whole friend group. Now that my Christian worldview is gone, all those friends are gone. I miss them.
“I do have one Christian friend. He used to be in the military, and he swears like a sailor. But he says, ‘You know, Owen, I don’t care what the eff you believe. I love you for you.’ We get together and talk. We’re sort of accountability partners.
“My elevator speech now is that life is hard, and we’re all trying to get through it. If Christianity works for you, that’s great. As long as what works for you is not harming other people, I’m good with that.
“Some people believe that religion is a crutch. I think it can be a crutch, but I don’t think it is inherently a crutch. If it provides understanding and clarity and helps someone to do better for others, I’m okay with that.
“I also don’t think religion inherently harms other people. There are a number of people in the humanist, agnostic, atheist world who believe religion is the root of all evil and want to get rid of it. That’s not my perspective at all.
“I’m very happy with where I’m at now. But it is a somewhat private world for me, because hardly anyone has been okay with my sharing with them that I no longer believe in an all knowing, all powerful God. So I am doing great quietly.
“Many of the people in the deconstruction and atheist Facebook groups I am in who have left Christianity have become estranged or have divorced their spouses. My wife, however, is on the same path I am on. I didn’t bring her to it. She brought herself. She asked to read the books I was reading, including Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. He has been very influential in the formation of my current worldview. My wife cannot, though, stop believing that there’s a supernatural, supreme being out there. And I’m fine with that. Overall, it has been a very sweet time for us, and we’re looking forward to growing old together.
“If I’m talking with a Christian who knows I am trying to get it right, and I know they are trying to get it right, and we’re willing to listen to the arguments on both sides, that’s completely fine with me.”
Living as an Atheist
Owen is happy living as an atheist. “Life is good for me. I’m happy with who I am, and I’m very okay with my perspective. I’m very comfortable with not believing.
“I am not going to church anymore. My wife isn’t either, except for Christmas and Easter for the kids.
“I now believe that this life is the only one there is. There is an expiration date. Because of that, I am going to enjoy every day. I am also going to do what I can to leave this world a better place for my children. Realizing that there isn’t anything after death has made me much more of a social justice advocate than I was back in my Christian days.
“One of my first emotional responses in my journey toward atheism was that I was sad that I never got to enjoy the truth and beauty of other perspectives. There are so many beautiful ideas in Judaism. There is so much beauty in the world of Buddhism. But when I was a Christian, you would never catch me reading a Buddhist book.
“Someone said to me, ‘At the end of the day, Christianity comes down to one question: “What does love require of me?” I can support that version of Christianity.
“I read someplace that a pastor who was preaching on the beatitudes was asked by someone in his church, ‘Where did you get those liberal ideas?’ The pastor replied, ‘Those are the words of Jesus.’ The person replied, ‘Well, they don’t work anymore. The whole turn-the-other-cheek and forgive seventy-times-seven thing just doesn’t work.’ I will proudly fight that kind of Christianity for the rest of my life.”
© 2024 by Cliff Williams