sent in by Ben Milligan First of all, I want to thank the webmaster for putting a site together like this one where I can vent my story. Five years ago I would have shuddered if I came across a site such as this, and rightfully so considering what my upbringing initially instilled in me. Anything that isn't Christian, is of the "world", and therefore, of the devil. Fear was the most influential instrument convincing me as a child that there is no other whole truth except 'gods word' and christianity. That said, I'll draw the background... My family had been members of a charismatic-style, non-denominational church for several years even before I was born. All my earliest memories stem from the friends I had met through church. I was raised in church and it was imperative that I attended every Sunday. (At such a young age, however, personal choice is limited regardless of creed.) I was entered into a private christian pre-school, and

sent in by Frank Henry Pecenka How 14 years of religion almost destroyed my life. Testimony of Frank Pecenka, Canada Hi my name is Frank Pecenka and I have a testimony that 14 years within organized religion almost destroyed my life and my family. My wife and I started out with a sincere desire to know and to please God but something went terribly wrong over the years and in the end I turned my back on God, The Church and Organized Religion. I finally came to that place where I found that I was emotionally, spiritually and financially bankrupt having exhausted all of my resources trying to make my skewed faith work. I have come to the realization that the faith I had was in legalism and the formulas of men and their doctrines. Through much suffering, loss, adversity, pain and humiliation I discovered that I could not tip the hand of God and that my best efforts to adhere to the formulas and doctrines of men didn't matter one iota to God. The m

sent in by Jordan Hill I come from rational-minded, Pennsylvania protestants. My mother's father was an Episcopalean priest who happened to be homosexual. He integrated his church and was leading the push to allow women to join the clergy. We also suspect he was a Mason. My father's father was a brilliant Presbyterian preacher with a pHd in Middle Eastern religion. He deliberately sought out fundamentalist leaning congregations in an attempt to pull Christianity out of the fringes of lunacy. He is retired and now he spends his time working with congregations in Columbia trying to help the people who have been affected by the (US sponsered) guerrillas. As a child I loved Jesus and prayed every night before bed. I remember the crucifix in my Nana's house. I used to rub Jesus's bloody feet, feeling bad for his pain. As you can imagine, the brand of Christianity I was raised with made it easy to believe and to trust in the Christian God. So wh

sent in by Eric How religion ruined my childhood and what I did about it I stated out living on the north end of town in Huntsville Al. This was not the good end to say the least. I went to a mostly black public school. I was the only white kid in class and did not learn much there. It was a very bad environment or you would think. I guess my parents got sick of me getting beat up and not learning anything. My parents decided to enroll me into a private Baptists school when I was in the 2nd grade. That was the worst thing that they did for my. This school was also a big Baptist church. It was called heritage babtist church. It was somewhat of a compound. I started the there in the 2nd grade and left sometime in the middle of the 4th grade. I went to daycare there and would be in there before and after school. I stayed there all through out the summers attending vacation bible school. The whole time I was there it was like a bible boot camp. It was like going to chu

sent in by anonymous Spent most of my life as an agnostic, irreligious, or one who thinks maybe there is a God but had the Deist way of looking at it. I for one should had known better than to get involved with with any church but I found myself doing just that. My odessey began when I read on the importance of Christianity in Western philosophy and even some virulent atheists will admit it. The conservative philosopher George Santayana was both a practicing Catholic and an avowed atheist for instance. At the time I was into reading alot of Dostoevsky and was struck by his argument that to believe that God exists is essential because the fabric of society cannot hold without it. Gradually my mindset became that of a *cultural Christian apologist* though retained my skepticism. Then I decided to find a church and go through the motions... Always had been attracted to liturgical High Church ritual and settled attending a LCMS(Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) congr

sent in by anonymous I've devoured the information and the de-conversion stories on this website. I was born and raised an Evangelical Presbyterian. I was taught that the Bible was the inerrant rule and faith for our belief (that's how my last Presbyterian pastor began every sermon). I remember one morning in Sunday school when I was a little girl that our elderly Sunday School teacher, after relating the story of Adam and Eve, looked around at all of us and said "You girls need to be ashamed of what Eve did." I really did feel ashamed too! Later as a teen we moved from Texas to Missouri and my Mom felt my sister and I needed to attend a wealthier Presbyterian church in order to meet young men with more money so that we would marry and live happily ever after as rich, Presbyterian house wives. So we drove 40 minutes each way each Sunday morning for church and 40 minutes each way Sunday evening for Youth Group. (By the way, it didn't

sent in by Cierra -Christianity- I was raised a Baptist Christian, and at the age of 9, I was baptised(completely by choice). I was sincerly excited, and I truly did want to pursue a relationship with "Jesus Christ", and I wanted to receive the "Holy Spirit". And so that was my goal. I did eventually "receive the Holy Spirit", ...but a lot more things have happened before, AND after the experience... I wanted so much to receive the Holy Spirit...but my first attempt failed. I went to church, and prayed in a room with other young beleivers who had wanted to receive the "Holy Spirit" as well. A woman was here in the room with all of us, and told us to pray "Thank you Jesus", over and over and over. It's what I was doing, but nothing happened. I was dissappointed, and didn't know why I hadn't received the "Holy Spirit", and others in the room HAD. The lady told me to go back to the sanctuary, and

by Winston Note: The following may also be viewed online at either of the following two URL’s: http://www.thrivenet.com/schizo/stories/wwu.html http://www.angelfire.com/me2/mccl/ Dear All, Here is my story about how I became a Christian, what I went through later and how I finally got through and transcended my beliefs. I have shared a lot of personal things in this that I've never shared with anyone before. Originally I had not meant for it to be this long, so I apologize for that. But while I was writing it, I felt like I was reliving all those suppressed memories again and so lots of details came out of my mind that I had to write. Several times I had to stop and pause for a moment because those memories brought back a lot of overwhelming emotions and I felt on the verge of tears. But I'm glad that I finally wrote it all out cause I have been meaning to for a long time. It also felt therapeutic to me to write this all out too. I stayed up almost all n