The emperor is naked

sent in by Albert

I grew up with very little religion. My parents had had it forced down their throats and didn't want the same for my sister and me. So although I understood the basic framework of Christianity and we celebrated the holidays, we never went to church, prayed at the dinner table etc.

My wife on the other hand had been raised an Anglican all her life. Although I never cared much for the liturgies and rituals of her church (although I liked the music and hymns), I always enjoyed the sermons by the minister because they were insightful and related to everyday life rather than being some kind of esoteric high powered theology. Eventually the minister went back to Northern Ireland and was replaced by a pleasant but very boring fellow. Neither my wife nor I found this much to our liking and we attended church rarely after that.

A few years after that I attended the funeral of one of my colleagues and was really impressed by the minister from a local evangelical church so we decided to give his church a try. Now this church is one of those "seeker friendly" types which has adapted itself to the culture around it in order to recruit members. Initially it was rather exciting with the contemporary worship and the enthusiasm of the church members. Quite a contrast to the rather turgid environment of my previous Anglican church.

This environment of enthusiasm rubbed off on me and made me really start reading and getting into Christianity. So I started reading a variety of books, but guess what started my questioning? Amazon.com! How so you say? Well there's something over there called "reader reviews". So when you start reading that not all people think highly of the apologetics of someone like C.S. Lewis, it gets you thinking. To make a long story short, after three years of intense study the whole thing just fell apart. And when the best answer your pastor can give to tough but fair questions is "read your bible and I will pray for you", you realize the whole thing is nothing more than a shell game. In some ways I think my deconversion is especially relevant because I never really had any significant negative experiences the way some here have had, so my deconversion can't be blamed on "bad" christians etc. My wife has gone back to an Anglican church which she attends occasionally and I go with her on the holidays, it's fairly painless. We get along as well as ever.

At present I have not put any new metaphyscal labels on myself because none really seem to fit and furthermore I feel there is too much of that "us versus them" mentality in the world already. So that's my story. maybe not terribly fascinating but so be it.


Montreal
Quebec
Canada
25
45
Was: Anglican, Evangelical
Now: No labels please, they leave stains which are hard to wash out :-)
Joined: Because of wife
Left: I had questions, but they had no good answers
potterdoc13 at yahoo dot ca

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