The first part of this series can be found here. This post is a bit longer than the others in the series, but it was hard to find a good breaking point.
After coming before the congregation and publicly repenting of allowing doubts to rock our faith, my wife and I weren’t happy with our situation, but we hoped it was going to lead to something better. We had avoided being withdrawn from, so we were hoping we could begin repairing our relationships with family, and in deciding to attend a different congregation, we could take a less public role in the services and keep our children out of the Bible classes without raising too much suspicion. We hadn’t wanted to mislead anyone about our beliefs — we were just trying to find a solution that both we and our families could live with. But we had one or two hurdles right at the beginning.
A couple of people from our old congregation didn’t like the way I had handled the public repentance. For one, my wife wasn’t present since two of our children were sick. My wife and I didn’t see a problem with that, since we were the kind of Christians that didn’t think women should speak during the service anyway — so even if she’d been there, it wouldn’t have changed much. Some of those same people were also disappointed that I didn’t get visibly upset when I went before the church. But my wife and I knew those were minor objections, so we weren’t too concerned about their traction with the congregation as a whole, and we were right about that — our confession/repentance was accepted.
The other issue that caused us some turbulence was our decision to leave our old congregation. I’ve already given our reasons for doing this — I knew I couldn’t go back to a public role in the congregation, so that would always shed doubts on the quality of my faith. And my wife and I were not comfortable sending our kids to Bible classes, which also would have raised a red flag with our former brethren. So our decision to leave was something we couldn’t compromise. Our families continued to ask us to come back to our old church, and we couldn’t tell them our real reasons for leaving.
Despite those hurdles, we followed through with our plan. Each service, we visited a different congregation (all church of Christ), and there are several in this area to choose from. We felt that if we could continue with our end of the deal, things would eventually get back to normal with our families. And at least with my dad, things looked good initially. He sent us a very nice letter following my public confession and stated that he felt we were on the right path. He said that he knew we weren’t 180 degrees away from our doubts, but he was sure that we would get there over time.
But in the end, our parents had difficulty giving us that time. They often wanted to know which congregations we were attending, but we refused to get into that with them. Of course, that made them wonder if we were going at all, which was unfortunate. But we knew if we told them where we were going and when, they would reach out through the network in an effort to keep tabs on us. We just weren’t comfortable with that. We didn’t want to be the Hester Prynne of every church we walked into. They also continually asked us to go back to our old congregation — something else we just weren’t going to do. I do sympathize with them a bit. They honestly believed our souls were in danger, and I understand why they would want to do whatever they could to correct that. But we had hoped after the way the previous 6 months had gone, they would take our repentance and continued church attendance as some small wins and let some time go by before pressuring us on other issues. Instead, the pressure in our families never had time to dissipate.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. We don’t do it in the typical fashion, where people dress up and sit around a dining room table. Instead, we get together with about 50 or 60 extended family members at a large, one-room cabin deep in the woods of central Alabama. My grandfather and one of my uncles (as well as a few other family members) built the cabin back in the 70’s, and we’ve used it for family get-togethers since. We ride 4-wheelers, take hikes in the woods, and sit around playing guitars, etc. It’s very informal, and it’s a lot of fun. The weekend after Thanksgiving was always fun too, because I always went camping with my dad, my grandfather, my brothers, and my best friend. I looked forward to it every year.
The day after Thanksgiving 2010, we all loaded up and went for our annual camping trip. I took my two daughters with me, who were 7 and 5 at the time, but my son stayed home with my wife, since he was only 20 months old. My wife’s parents invited her over that Friday to watch football, and everything went fine that morning. She went home during the afternoon to let our son take a nap, but her parents asked her to come back that evening. She had a feeling that they would end up discussing all the religious drama we’d been going through, but she agreed to come over anyway. And though I don’t believe in prophecy, my wife’s prediction did come true.
Her parents began by asking if things were any better for us, which was their way of asking if our faith had grown any over the last several weeks. My wife replied that things were about the same. So they asked if we believed, and my wife said that we had made the decision to believe. This is obviously an important distinction. But when we were still in the stage of expressing our doubts, a few people had told us that if we would just decide to believe, our faith would eventually return. So that was the narrative we had run with in an effort to avoid withdrawal. But my in-laws weren’t happy with that answer, so they began asking specifics: “Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Do you believe the Bible is inspired?” And my wife finally just decided to quit using politically correct answers and revert to complete honesty. So she answered, “No.”
The conversation ended in an argument, and my wife called me on her way home. I didn’t get great reception in the woods, but it was good enough to figure out that I was probably on my last camping trip. I didn’t have the heart to tell my dad, so I just tried to make the most of that last trip. That annual camping trip is absolutely one of the things I miss the most.
The next week or two contained many phone calls with family and friends from our old congregation. My wife and I continued to point out that we were still going to church every service, just as we had said we would. But it’s true that we had admitted to no longer believing any of the doctrines in Christianity, so our old congregation felt like they would have to withdraw from us.
Knowing that was coming, I had one more thing I needed to do. My dad’s parents still had no idea any of this was going on. They live about an hour away from me and are stalwart members of their congregation — my grandfather is one of the elders, in fact. So I knew they would hear about everything as soon as our withdrawal became official. So I took a day off work and called them to see if I could come eat lunch with them. They were thrilled to have me over, and we spent some time just visiting with one another. It killed me to have to tell them about it, but I knew it needed to come from me and not someone else. So I finally began telling them about the doubts I had been having, how they began, what I had done about it, and what things were finally coming to. It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. In some ways, it went better than I thought it would, but I imagine that was mostly due to their shock at what I was telling them. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that the withdrawal was imminent, but I did tell them it was getting to that point. I haven’t seen my grandmother since then, though my grandfather did come to see me about six months later. We talked for about an hour at a gas station near my house (many Christians in the church of Christ don’t feel like they can come in our house now), and I was able to explain my position a little better to him since the initial shock had long since worn off.
Anyway, our withdrawal was made official shortly after I visited my grandparents. We received a letter from our old congregation dated December 5, 2010, in which they informed us we had been withdrawn from. It had been six weeks since I had gone before the congregation with a public repentance. Here’s one of the paragraphs from the letter:
The statement you read in October to the congregation provided some hope that you both were making progress in the right direction. However, we have not seen fruits of repentance since that time — such as efforts to repair relationships and any tangible evidence that you have rejected the human wisdom and skepticism that you say “crept in” and damaged your faith.
I’m not sure how much progress they expected to see in six weeks, but at the same time, I’m glad they didn’t wait any longer. Once we had been officially withdrawn from, my wife and I were finally able to just let go of all the pretense and get on with our lives. We stopped going to church, which actually surprised some people. We had only been going in an effort to stave off withdrawal, but since that failed, we had no reason to continue. We were shocked that anyone was surprised by that.
My wife and I have also speculated that our families wanted the withdrawal to go into effect before Christmas in the hopes that we would come back before we missed out on all the festivities. But honestly, we’re just not that shallow. When we were Christians, our faith was sincere. We held to our convictions, not because they were convenient, but because we firmly believed them. When we left Christianity, we were no less sincere. And the lure of Christmas gifts and get-togethers was not enough to make us pretend belief in something we found to be false. We had tried to walk the thin line between appeasing our families and keeping our kids from being indoctrinated, and we just weren’t interested in trying anything like that again.
There’s a little more to tell, and I’ll start digging into that in the next post.
Finding Truth 
“Seems to me to be a value question, since it is assuming beyond verification that an Agency has complete authority and power.”
Just correcting myself,
The question “Does God exist?” Doesn’t assume anything.
Although, it is a value based question since the cause of existence is attributed to a god. By using the word god the question is attributing a personality making the question value based.
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unless what is meant by “god” is another way of saying the first cause of existence that is not personality based. if it is assumed that God is a Person then the question is value based.
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Nate, unkleE
Thanks for your answers 🙂
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“asking if an invisible king has authority is a value based question”
I’m sorry Ryan, I really don’t understand what you’re getting at here (in all these comments). “Does the invisible king exist?” is clearly a truth/fact question with a definite answer, whether we can ever know it or not.
Depending on how you define authority, your question can be either ….. If authority is what a person has power to exercise, it is clearly a truth/fact question (my tanks are better than your tanks), but if authority is what I accept, then it is subjective.
But whatever, the question “Does a God exist?” is clearly a question with a right and wrong answer, and science is not the best or only way to answer it. The question reduces to “Is there sufficient evidence for me to believe God exists?” and that too has a factual answer, though we each may make the assessment ourselves (and thereby be either right or wrong, whether we know it or not).
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Although I agree with Ryan on much of what he has said, I also think that “Does a god exist” is a factual question, not a values question. And I also agree that there is a correct answer to that question (at least there is depending on how you define a “god”), even if we are unable to determine with certainty what that answer is. And I think science is the best way to approach that question, since it’s the only way of figuring things out that includes a reality check.
Where I see the values questions coming in is more like “Given that I think the answer to “does a god exist” is probably _____, how should that affect how I live my life?
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“And I think science is the best way to approach that question”
How would you use science as the means of answering the question?
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Hi Guys, been watching this dialogue over the past few days – it’s becoming a re-run of Job’s comforters. Science, proof, intellectual evidence is never gonna convince Nate one way or the other, give up now, it will never happen. Nate it teetering on a fence, pulled between reason and a failed church system – it’s a see-saw. Nate, you know on some level that God is. It’s time to get out of this whole intellectualizing treadmill, is this dissection of the issue really necessary? is this gonna define the rest of your life? at some point all this talk will be over and you know it will be just you and God – no Job’s comforters and no hurtful church people … I say move on! Still your friend, Graeme
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Fair enough, I don’t think I used great examples
I still think though that we would have to define what we mean when asking if a god exists. I assume Unklee was referring to Christianity when he was asking this question, and if we mean a personal God then His attributes are based on values and emotions (i.e benevolence, jealousy, sadness ect.) What He values would be focused on someone or something (namely creation).
therefore I think this is a value based question because according to Christianity the Creator is not just a force but a Personal God that cares and is emotionally attached to His creation. if what is meant by “god” in the question is actually referring to a impersonal force that started everything then that is not value based.
But if that’s the case, why refer to this force as god? Why ask “does god exist?”
If someone who identifies as a Christian uses the word god in a question then I’m assuming they are also referring to a Personality that both feels and values. Otherwise why not just say force or first cause? Furthermore what God’s emotions and values are outlined in The Book so if such a question is asked I believe it’s a question with value (personal attributes) attached to it.
But I’m splitting hairs, I admit that 🙂
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That being said unkleE, I know I have a bad habit of jumping around when writing.
I really appreciate your patience with me, And thanks also for your respectful approach, I always enjoy and value what you have to share. I wish there were more people blogging with your good nature. def triggers some thoughts for me 🙂
I’ve got a few uni assignments to finish so I apologise if I don’t respond to anyone for a while. Thanks, it’s been thought provoking.
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Thanks Ryan, and best wishes with your assignments. Hopefully we’ll all still be here when you are done. : )
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Thanks for the comment, Graeme. Though if I gave the impression that science, proof, and evidence is meaningless to me, then I have really failed! This entire journey for me has been one of evidence. And while I don’t want to discount guys like unkleE, who believes he has evidence for his position, I personally haven’t seen evidence that would convince me God exists — especially the Christian god. So I’m afraid I have to disagree with your statement that I know “God is.” I don’t know that at all. I also tend to be a little amused when people say things like that — for instance, I wouldn’t presume to tell you that you know deep down God doesn’t exist. When you tell me you believe in him, I trust you. Please try to trust me too! 🙂
But thanks again for your comment. We may not agree on some issues, but I very much appreciate the genuine care behind your statements. Take care!
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Graeme: I wish I could say that amusement is the only emotion I have when people say things like “you know on some level that such and such is true”. While amusement is there, great frustration is there as well. I was told by Latter Day Saints that I really knew deep down that Mormonism was the truth and my pride was keeping me from admitting it – well turns out that I don’t believe that, and unless you are an LDS chances are you probably believe me when I say that. Why question Nate when he says he doesn’t believe God exists? I for one believe him when he says he doesn’t know if God is. This disbelief doesn’t nullify the fact that God truly could exist. Does your theology somehow force you to believe that every human on earth knows that God exists? Perhaps it does. Either way I agree with Nate that your comment is produced through genuine care, but I just think that the method you use may hurt more than help people to see the truth of your beliefs.
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Ok, my apologies, I certainly don’t believe that every human on the planet knows that God exists, I just can’t shake the thought that on some level Nate does – guess I’m wrong. I guess the idea of intellectually debating the existence of God seems a bit futile is all. cheers Graeme
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@unklee
““And I think science is the best way to approach that question”
How would you use science as the means of answering the question?”
That would depend on what sort of god is being claimed as true. If it’s one who, say, heals people who make a particular pilgrimage, we can test that. If it’s one who has given us a book that’s 100% literally true, we can test the claims given in the book. If it’s one who does not affect the physical world in any way other than by giving believers a “feeling in their heart”, then that’s harder to test (but whether such a god exists would hardly be relevant to our lives). Since there are so many shifting definitions of “god” out there, the believer making the claim that a god exists would need to be very specific about what they mean by “god” before we could figure out an appropriate way to look for evidence.
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Having been brought up in a very liberal thinking Christian family, reading some of your posts are a real eye-opener. I always thought such ultra-conservative religious views were things of ‘B’ movies.
Discussing aspects of Biblical innerancy, archeology and the historicity of Jesus with UnkleE on his site is strenuous enough to bring on severe headaches, but this business of family withdrawel is horrendous!
On the strength of your posts this level of Christian extremism appears little better than Islamic fundamentalism – that the CofC not only shuns but condemns other denominations is also cause for concern.
Your deconversion reads llike a novel: Escape From a Backwoods Cult (not implying anything derogatory about your family, Nate)
Comments by graeme astound me too, in as much as he is unable to grasp why you have deconverted and his tone suggests that he’s holding out that you might just be having some sort of minor breakdown and anytime soon you will have an epiphany.
*Shakes head.*
How many Christian denominations are there; 38,000 and counting? And only one Jesus, right? Was the bloke THAT much of an idiot those who chose Christianity couldn’t understand what he was on about?
Mind blowing.
I truely hope you reconcile with Dad and Mum.
Best of luck, mate.
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Graeme,
As a not totally neutral bystander, may I offer a couple of comments?
1. Perhaps you could better express your perception of Nate by saying you discern spiritual qualities in him? I think he might accept that.
2. Debating the existence of God is unimportant to some people, but important to others. For some, it is mostly an intellectual exercise, but to others it is deeply important. I happen to be in the latter category. I think it is important to recognise that different people come to faith or disbelief by different routes, not all by the same route that we find important.
Best wishes.
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ubi dubium
Thanks, I think that’s a very reasonable reply. My only quibble would be in your use of the term “science”. I define science as the scientific method of hypothesis, repeatable experiment or observation, test, new hypothesis etc, and I don’t think that can be fully applied to God …
heals people – Healings are not really repeatable, and it is impossible to know whether any claimed healing was God or spontaneous remission. But I do believe they can be tested to a certain point, in a probabilistic way, and I have investigated some healings in Healing miracles and God, and I am investigating more. I think there is sufficient evidence to say healing by God is probable in some cases.
a book that’s 100% literally true – This would be tested by history, not science. I don’t believe the Bible is 100% literally true, but I do believe it can be tested historically, and, again, I think the New Testament at least stands up on that level – see Are the gospels historical?
giving believers a “feeling in their heart” – I agree, this is the tricky one. Everything we know comes through our sense experience, but experiences and memory can be deceitful. It remains possible that God could give people certain knowledge that way, but equally possible that a person could imagine. I think people can only go with what they experience and seek external verification where they can. I disagree that such a God is irrelevant.
Thanks for your ideas.
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@UnkleE
“but I do believe it can be tested historically,”
May I ask how many errors/discrepancies you would consider acceptable before the New Testament doesn’t stand up and begins to fall down?
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If one is discussing the NT from a historical perspective, then I don’t think that is a meaningful question. Historians get whatever information they can, even from documents that contain much error, myth or propaganda – they don’t just throw evidence away. So it isn’t a binary case of either “standing up” or “falling down”.
Rather, the question is, can we get enough information about Jesus from the documents to form a reasonable picture of what he did and said, and therefore “who he was”? The scholars say we can, and they are generally agreed on the answers to those questions, although they disagree about many of the details at the edges.
If the historians found reason why that picture was no longer historically defensible, then that would be a new ballgame. But granted the information we now have, it is hard to see that happening – it would be like thinking that new science might disprove gravity.
Since my faith is based largely on the history, a change in the assessment of history might change my faith. But it is impossible to say unless the scholars change their minds on something important.
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“If one is discussing the NT from a historical perspective, then I don’t think that is a meaningful question”
LOL! Of course it is meaningful! It forms the basis for the bedrock of your faith for goodness sake.
Nazareth, Bethlehem, Pilate, the Roman Empire, Paul and the Epistles. How can these things NOT be meaningful? And how can none not consider them in an historical context?
This is cherry picking at its worst.
Nobody ever said, “Jesus from Meggido”.
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@UnkleE
“But it is impossible to say unless the scholars change their minds on something important.”
As you claim your faith is based on history first I was wondering,
1. if there was a consensus among non-christian scholars that enough doubt could be cast on the character of Jesus being an historical person would you be prepared to ditch your faith on the strength of this alone?
2. As you are hold a theology degree (?) how do seperate certain aspects of your secular viewpoint in these matters (which must surely recognise an alarming degree of biblical errency) with the apparant rationalality of the supernatural. Parting the Reed Sea (Moses), Ressurection etc?
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Akhenaten, it is really quite tedious to keep having to suggest, here, and on my own two blogs, that you read what I say, consider that I might actually mean what I say, and try to understand, before you jump to conclusions that often turn out to be quite erroneous. As here.
I meant exactly what I said. Please read carefully and take note before making the same comments yet again.
For me, my belief in Jesus is a two stage thing. First, I consider what the historians say – not just the historians who share my christian belief, but those who don’t – in fact, the leading historians in the field. And it is for these historians that your question would not be relevant. They do not see things in a binary way as the NT either standing up or falling down, but rather as containing more or less useful historical information. And that was what I was referring to when I said “If one is discussing the NT from a historical perspective”.
But secondly, knowing what the historians have concluded, I can then decide whether I believe that Jesus was who christians have always said he was. Some of the historians believe he was, some do not. I too believe he was. This belief is separate from historical considerations, though it is based on them.
Thus the NT is one of the “bedrocks” of my faith, but my faith is a personal decision that goes beyond the “assured results of modern historical study”.
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“1. if there was a consensus among non-christian scholars that enough doubt could be cast on the character of Jesus being an historical person would you be prepared to ditch your faith on the strength of this alone?”
I doubt it, but I don’t know, it is hypothetical. I have been a believer for 50 years, I have accumulated a lot of experience in living with Jesus, in seeing answers to prayer and answers to intellectual questions. I think I have sufficient reason to wait and see for a while whether the consensus of historical scholars could change again. This after all is what also happens in science, leading to the aphorism that science changes “one funeral at a time.
But the more important question is this. Since there hasn’t been any such magical change in the conclusions of the historical scholars, are you willing to accept it? You can read a summary of it at Is there really a consensus of scholars on historical facts about Jesus?
“2. As you are hold a theology degree (?) how do seperate certain aspects of your secular viewpoint in these matters (which must surely recognise an alarming degree of biblical errency) with the apparant rationalality of the supernatural. Parting the Reed Sea (Moses), Ressurection etc?”
I don’t consider there to be “an alarming degree of biblical errency”. I am a christian, so I don’t worry much about OT issues – scholars hold many different views from belief in its reliability to disbelief in it, and I remain somewhat agnostic about where the exact truth lies. But there are very few parts of the NT that need be seriously questioned. Certainly not the resurrection, for which there is very good evidence – see Was Jesus raised from the dead? If you don’t believe in God, or don’t believe Jesus was divine, then you have no real choice but to disbelieve in the resurrection, but if you believe both of those, then it is quite believable.
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How are you Unklee?
I just do not think there is enough NT scholarly evidence indicating the veracity of the resurrection. I am quite certain that NT scholarship has moved beyond questions of truth and factuality concerning the resurrection. They acknowledged it wasn’t true.
Although, even if the resurrection is true, I do not think that believing in Jesus necessarily means believing in God. In fact, the only commonality between Jesus and God is that they are both discussed in the bible. Jesus just much later. Of course, certain modes of theology claim Jesus was a god or the son of God, but most NT scholars think that is not what the NT really says or meant to say. My meandering point is that saying god does not exist; is not the same as saying Jesus did not exist or vice versa.
Strangely, I am in agreement with you about science being unable to answer certain questions. And history and philosophy being slightly different from science as fact-finders. So, this part of the comment is more of a general discussion piece.
The historical method, unlike the natural sciences, is concerned with establishing what has occurred in the past, as opposed to predicting what will happen in the future. Therefore historians cannot operate through repeated experimentation. A historical event is a one-time proposition. Historians cannot repeat the past.
Science, on the other hand, operates through repeated experimentation and observations. I won’t bore you with the details, but a very essential component of the scientific method is a hypothesis, as I am sure you all know. A hypothesis, unlike a historical speculation, must make predictions that can be tested. A hypothesis must be consistent with further observations and experiments, and the most valuable aspect of a hypothesis or a theory is its predictive power. If its predictions are accurate, they support the hypothesis; if they are inaccurate, they prove the hypothesis wrong. If a hypothesis continues to match observations and experiments, we have greater confidence it is correct, and it may come to be called a theory. Succinctly, repeated experimentation is indispensable to science.
The fundamental distinction between science and history are their methods. History cannot be repeated. Science must be repeated. Certainly, repeated experimentation strengthens science, but I don’t think the lack of repeated experimentation impoverishes historical knowledge and, I think, everyone would concur. Of course, history utilizes certain aspects of science like observation, scientific tools and realities, and progresses towards conclusions in a fashion similar to the scientific method, but that does not make history science. And it never will be science. Philosophy, for me, is similar to history–even though history is more evidence-based, at least serious historical study is–philosophy may employ definite aspects of science but it is, patently, not science and that does not make philosophy less significant.
For instance, look at the speculative philosophy of ancient Greece. These philosophers sought to develop logical explanations for simple observations and then followed the logic as far as possible. Democritus’ philosophical postulation on atoms, for example. Speculative philosophy did not involve verification. Philosophical predictions were made, but no actual experiment or observation was performed to see if those predictions were correct. The speculative philosophy of ancient Greece imparted knowledge of the natural world without the assistance of what we would now consider science. Wow! That is great! Was it completely correct? No, but it was valuable. If the question is: Is science preeminent in determining truths about the physical world? I would say, “Yes, without a doubt.” However, it is absurd to claim science has dispensed with philosophy, as Hawking and Mlodinow said.
The reason that science has not dispensed with philosophy is because an integral component of science is that only tangible objects and phenomena are studied. Obvious examples include heat and plants. Less obvious examples include magnetism and neutrons, although we cannot see or feel magnetism and neutrons we can construct instruments that detect them reliably. Having said that, there are certain concepts that are inappropriate for the scientific method like morality and ethics. Morality and ethics have no chemical composition, no mass, no magnetism, no polarization states–they are not tangible. Science can study, measure, analyze, and describe the factors that cause sexism or racism, but it cannot say whether these actions are wrong or right; moral or immoral.
Consider the issue of assisted dying. Incurable diseases, particularly in their final stages, can cause terrible pain and suffering, which may last for several months or years. And science has developed drugs that can arrest breathing so that a person dies painlessly. Science can even tell us the metabolic effects of using these drugs, but it cannot tell us whether it is right or wrong to use them to help a person die and avoid pain. That, my friends, is within the domain of ethical philosophy, even if it is just a personal ethical philosophy.
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Btw, Unklee I recycled the last bit of that comment from a previous comment on your blog lol.
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