Letters From LeaversLetters From Leavers | Letters From Leavers

My Ongoing Journey

PhilB74 — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:00:16 +0000

Greeting readers. I’d like to share my personal experience. I don’t know if it will be of much assistance to anyone but I still feel it’s the right thing to do. I was born into a family where my Mum was a lapsed Catholic and my Dad was atheist and militantly so. I was not given religious instruction for the first few years of my life until I started school My parents were both from England but had come to live in Ireland for work reasons. I was initially sent to a Catholic school but got moved to a Church of Ireland school after being bullied by much older kids for being English. I developed some curiosity for religious things after seeing a partial quote from Job 19:25 on the Church wall. “I know that my redeemer liveth” was the quote. I also remember finding a book on Missionaries on the bookshelf and bringing it to my parents to ask them what it was about. My Mum tried to explain Christianity but my Dad exploded saying ‘I don’t want my son taught that s**t’. Shortly after my Mum starting taking us to Mass and I made my first communion [...]

Why I may go…

Elshredder — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 07:00:11 +0000

Well….church is all I’ve ever known. Its what i was good at, besides school, but ill get to that later. I grew up in a church family who attended because of the moral values church gives, which are honestly fantastic values in all seriousness. I can safely and legitimately say that they have shaped me in being the contributing person to society I am. I quickly got involved with my older brother in the church. He stopped attending at about Junior High though i kept going. I kind of ignored his desire to no longer be at church and kept on going devoutly like the little 6th grader i was. As i got to junior high, i started facing actual trials, like all young men do. For the most part i covered it up and let it just be its thing, because id go to church and church would make it all better so i could do it all over again. But i was on student leadership, so i continued to lead this double life at my church. As a freshman in highschool i tried to start all over again. I confessed my horrible double life to my pastor and [...]

Why I No Longer Attend Church

gnilrets — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 07:00:58 +0000

I attended church for 35 years following my genuine profession of faith in Jesus Christ at the age of 14. A public profession of faith in Christ is the “right of passage” into the church biblically speaking, so it’s required. Every organization has membership requirements, procedures, etc. That’s what the church is. It’s an organization and is structured like any other. Organizations are set up to collectively meet a community’s needs. If a public need is being met, the organization survives and usually grows. If the organization no longer meets a public need, it will cease to exist. The church has, as an organization, survived for a very long time because it has met and still meets certain public needs. I, for example, stayed in the church organization for a long time because I believed it was meeting my needs in certain ways, needs I couldn’t meet in any other way, (or so I believed.) I think that’s why people attend faithfully or don’t attend. It’s all about fulfilling our needs and whether we believe church attendance is doing that for us or not. When we believe we need something, like membership in a particular organization, we stay with it, [...]

Never mind the BS

Exit Stage Left — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 07:00:43 +0000

I write this believing that somebody else will eventually read it and find it helpful. It has been almost 2 years since I left the church that I was involved with. I am still in the process of detoxing, getting some of the remaining poison out of my system, but it seems I am well on the way to being healed. I was in an evangelical church for 4 years, the last in a succession of wanderings. I served as a musician, and unofficial counsellor/elder/mentor in some parts of the fellowship. I left the church because of many things. In particular,the one person that was capable of rescuing the place had been pushed out by the leadership. I heard God say “If he goes, you go”. The place had a history of meddling, control, kneecapping, the congregation wandering in circles, and never getting anywhere. When I left, I sent an email to some of my friends describing how i felt, an excerpt below: “I look forward to fellowship without chaos, confusion,a new vision every week, the feeling that we are wandering in circles,and being conned….this truly has been a decision made sadly and not lightly, in haste or anger. My [...]

Dear Deity or Deities

spartacandream — Sun, 08 May 2011 07:00:58 +0000

When I deconverted, I was full of emotions. My entire worldview was turned on its head. It was such a change, that it’s like waking up tomorrow, and realizing that gravity never existed, despite it being central to how you thought the world worked. I was lied to growing up; but it wasn’t the fault of those who lied to me, they were just continuing the same cycle of lies that they were taught, and themselves thought it to be true. Without question. Perhaps you do exist, but couldn’t reach my demands to prove your existence. Perhaps you do exist, but aren’t omnipotent, so for some reason you’re unable to prove you exist. Or maybe you are the universe? Or maybe you don’t exist? How can I or anyone know? Do you really want people to believe in you? Why does it seem like it wouldn’t matter to you? I don’t care if those reading this letter know I exist, or believe that I’m a real person. Even if I created them. And why would you want me to believe so bad? I’m sure you have bigger fish to fry. What am I to a really powerful supreme being? Whether [...]

Will Never Play Church Again

isabel — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:39:17 +0000

Not sure where to begin with my story but I am glad I get to share it. I and my young daughters were a part of a church for 10 years. I was evangelized by my brother outside of the church. When I was ready he brought me into the church. It was new and exciting for me. I was officially a born again Christian. My first few years were heaven but then it began to collapse. I became more aware of the gray line, clicks, favoritism, gossip, and the cover-ups that seem to plague so many “churches”. The church I was a member of encouraged me to become a good student of the word but they lacked living it. During those 10 years I became very heavily involved in ministry. I joined youth ministry, attended women’s fellowships, became a Sunday school teacher and towards the last few years I joined the choir. I’m not sure where things began to fall apart for me but I guess it was when “church” became more of a club. It was great to know and be fed the word of God but the church I was surrounded by the real church which the [...]

adapt, adjust, survive

soultosqeeze — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 07:37:17 +0000

Since I was born my parents were in the full-time ministry and lead a church that we were apart of since I was a baby. When your a preachers kid, theres not a whole lot of choice in the path your life will take. While my parents never verbally said “you have to live the life a christian”, being so immersed in the life of the church and so sheltered from the real world around me dictated the way I would go. I took to the life of a “disciple” as soon as I was old enough to comprehend it. I went to a non-denominational christian church that stressed the inerrancy of the bible, and how every person must give full devotion to its words. The members of the church (and myself) read our bibles daily, came to all church meetings, and spent most of our time with only our friends from church. The relationships I had in the church were deep, meaningful, and brought help to my life as a christian. I gave myself fully to the work of God. With aspirations to become a minister I read the entire bible numerous times, memorizing scripture. I tried hard to convey to [...]

Dear Baptist Christianity

spartacandream — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:31:37 +0000

Dear Baptist Christianity, You told me that you were the only way, that the Baptist Christian religion was the way to God, and heaven. All other paths lead to hell, or so you told me. You told me that I needed to take your version of “interpretation of the Bible”‘s word for it, on faith, without evidence for it; Alongside mounting evidence, filling entire libraries, against it and the credibility of the Bible itself. I tried to take your word for it, as you did tell me the devil was trying to lead me astray; But blind faith doesn’t come so easy for me as for others. You say belief is a choice, but for me, it’s never been one. You said we are all born sinners, since the day Eve ate from that old tree, cursing us all. It was all our fault, not God’s. He told us not to, and Eve disobeyed. We brought this fallen nature upon ourselves. Or so you said. You also said: - Don’t question your faith, as the devil will lead you astray. Yet what choice did I have? The devil never spoke to me, nor lead me in any direction. The voice [...]

I believe in God but not in the Bible

emergentcoach — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:38:57 +0000

I had a Damascus Road type conversion experience when I was 18. I began attending the high school Christian Club, was baptized in a Baptist church less than a year later. While finishing my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I was the leader of a Christian parachurch organization and was responsible for leading weekly bible studies, prayer meetings, outreaches, discipleship and special events (concerts, films, etc). I lead a short-term missions team overseas while in graduate school and then decided to work part-time in environmental consulting and attend Seminary full-time. Shortly after finishing a 1-year graduate program in Biblical Studies (Multnomah Biblical Seminary), I lived overseas in southeast Asia as a science teacher and Resident Director (Dorm Parent) at a Christian International school for over 3 years. I have been married 16 years to a wonderful woman and have 2 beautiful children…and I no longer believe the bible is the literal inspired words of God. Let me clarify, with some examples: I don’t believe that God drowned the inhabitants of planet earth with a flood, and at the same time saved Noah and his family inside a large ark. It’s a story. In fact, I NEVER believed this story to be [...]

A Second Wind of Grace

Euodia — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:38:46 +0000

Why did I leave the institutional church? How much time do you have? Some factors: a bone-deep sense of weariness. Frustration. A yearning for something more substantive, authentic, and relevant. Burn-out. Boredom. Cliques. Performance-based churchianity. Lock-step-it-is. “Old boys clubs.” Rote routines. Feeling like a round peg being squashed into a pre-fabricated, artificial square hole. Disrespect. The main reasons my husband and I left the (institutional) church revolved around the use (misuse?) of money, curious institutional priorities and perspectives, a weariness related to apparently endless gender restrictions and “glass ceilings,” and – for want of a better term – “ingrownitis.” Money was a big deal in the church we left. Position, prestige and “power” (in a hierarchical sense) were often linked to money. Church members who were well-to-do mattered; those who weren’t, didn’t. All elder board members were known to drop large checks in the offering plate each week, and were hefty contributors to the church building fund. Material wealth seemed to superseded spiritual and scriptural qualifications elder board membership. Also, we couldn’t reconcile the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on building programs and salaries when tangible, physical needs of church members and the surrounding community were routinely neglected and [...]