I
wrote this sometimes in 2015, as a conversation with my high school
friend, Becky. Becky served as a missionary to Cameroon. In this
article, I try to illustrate the process and significant development
in my deconversion from Evangelical Christianity.
Foreward:
Conversionism
is the central theme of being an Evangelical Christian. I was born
into a Christian family in Taiwan, and this Christian religion is not
of my own choosing. When I was a child, I was baptized in the
church, and sent to Sunday school every Sunday. I learned about God
and Christ our Lord through reading the Holy Scriptures. And as we
moved to Canada in my teens, this faith deepened her influence in my
life. At the age of 16, I was converted again through the influence
of Charismatic/Pentacostal teaching at my Christian school in
Vancouver, BC. As a result, I was convinced that I needed to be re
baptized again, since now I am “saved.” Evangelical faith works
exceptionally well for those who are dispossessed, cut off from their
culture. I was one. I was unable to go back to Taiwan in those days
due to military service in Taiwan. I stayed in a foreign land, and a
foreign culture. All my siblings became new converts to this faith,
which is more regimented than my previous Presbyterian faith. This
new found faith constantly was fed us in the Christian school we
attended, and re-enforced through chapels, five times a week,
Wednesday night prayer meetings and three services on Sunday: morning
and evening service, and mid day Chinese Sunday School. I memorized
King James Bible, in chapters (one chapter per month), and my
curriculum was built around this Holy Bible. My fundamentalism was
fed throughout my Christian school education, a rejection of
modernity, science, and evolution. I suspect this is why most of us
are indifferent when scientists tell us climate is changing and the
world as we know is coming to an end. We knew it, because we were
expecting to be delivered through Rapture, and the rest will be
punished as ungodly and burnt. We have a ticket out of this
predicament through Jesus whom we trust.
My sister died with this faith in God, and my brother is still a believer. Their worldview has no place to turn, they are believers in this faith that kept them bound, feared and whenever they ventured out, they are assured that this world is a bad bad world, with God's wrath, and if they had forsaken their faith, God would severely punish them.
Fortunately, my education did not end there. My Christian school teachers at Glad Tidings Temple of Vancouver kept on telling us not to attend college (university in Canada) because of secularism and humanism. They warned that we would lose out faith and be tempted. My high school diploma was useless from their school anyways, since my church school was not accredited and no one in Canada would recognize it. It was luck when I found out that I could transfer to another Christian school in Alberta, and that school, Prairie High School was accredited by the province. I would be forever grateful to teachers such as Mr. Gerry Unger my high school teacher and others that I had attained proficiency to attend college. Still, my crazy ideas were fed and self-contained that even though I went through some of the best schools in the world, their teaching did not touch my fundamentalism. I attended these schools: University of Calgary as a General Studies, and University of Toronto as a human biology major, and Dentistry at University of Kentucky and Harvard. None of these studies touched my faith in God and Christ our Lord. In the end of my studies, I considered either to go through seminary or to become a Jesuit. My theological studies were more important to me than my regular life.
So why did I become an apostate and a normal person? I met my wife at the end of my dental school year, and she is from a normal Christian family (mainliner, what we consider as Liberal mainline denomination), and her faith is not just in the Bible, but grounded in humanity, kindness and acceptance, and in the world. She has a wonderful education at Wayland High School in Wayland, Massachusetts and MIT. She read extensively and her views were much more tolerant and kind. She did not try to change me, gradually, I came to my own errs. Deconversion is a painful event, my world did not come apart overnight. It went down with an initial shock, a rejection from my father to my relationship, and gradually, stepping out of this religious fundamentalist tract, and got myself tossed into the tempest of fear, anger and anxiety, this time on the high seas of freedom. I turned to others and read Kierkegaard, and he helps me with the concept of courage and subjectivity. Truth, he says, is a subjective event. In his words, truth is subjectivity. It is what you experience and do with it that matters. Doctrines and churches are ossified beings, but truth experienced is most powerful. It defines a person. I was going through the motions of new venture, and on one hand expecting God to strike me down and others, losing an identity, a deep rooted faith that defined me, up to this moment.
Deconversion is a painful event, for awhile I was quite depressed, and then attacked by anxiety and thoughts of damnation. Slowly, I read other writers and learned of their stories, people like former American missionary Daniel Everett, scholars like Bart D Ehrman, his lectures and debates on suffering really helped me. His humanity came through when he addressed the Freedom from Religion forum, he says to them, patience, kindness and goodness is better than confronting a person of fundamentalist faith. He is humble enough to admit he is an agnostic, not an atheist. This is huge for me. Last but not the least, theologian Llyod Geering really helped me to come to an earth based faith. He deconstructed my three tier universe (eg heaven, earth and hell), and deconstructed the afterlife as a new theory not found in the biblical tradition. Jesus according to him, is a very good teacher, but he too suffered mortality, and he may still be buried somewhere in Palestine. Love, is what is most important, and for him God becomes the concepts we held most treasured, ideas of integrity, kindness, and goodness. For him, that is God. Christianity does not have to be theistic, and this is evident in little book “Christianity without God.” To live here and now, or the meaning of the Latin word “secula” has finally set in for me. He taught me to put my faith in the world, a structure far greater than I. I gradually became an earth based believer, having to retain some of my Christian faith but through the lens of humanity and this world. I no longer have this fear of damnation in the afterlife. There is no afterlife, I live moment by moment, here and now. I accept the impossible, I no longer have a three tier universe.
It is then I realize that I have come to a full circle. I am what I was before I became an Evangelical-Fundamentalist. I am just a mortal, a human being.
I wrote a few things here to reflect on my journey, and often it is not a complete story, but simply an attempt to capture what this faith meant to me and how I finally made an escape. I was the lucky one, my sister died with it, and my parents and brother are still bound by the holy rollers, the Charismatic teaching. I am free, and I raise a normal family thanks to my wife. On Sundays I worship God in the back yard gardening, with chickens and all things beautiful. I have finally come home. This world is beautiful, and mysterious, and most of all, my home in which I shall be buried when my journey comes to an end.
My sister died with this faith in God, and my brother is still a believer. Their worldview has no place to turn, they are believers in this faith that kept them bound, feared and whenever they ventured out, they are assured that this world is a bad bad world, with God's wrath, and if they had forsaken their faith, God would severely punish them.
Fortunately, my education did not end there. My Christian school teachers at Glad Tidings Temple of Vancouver kept on telling us not to attend college (university in Canada) because of secularism and humanism. They warned that we would lose out faith and be tempted. My high school diploma was useless from their school anyways, since my church school was not accredited and no one in Canada would recognize it. It was luck when I found out that I could transfer to another Christian school in Alberta, and that school, Prairie High School was accredited by the province. I would be forever grateful to teachers such as Mr. Gerry Unger my high school teacher and others that I had attained proficiency to attend college. Still, my crazy ideas were fed and self-contained that even though I went through some of the best schools in the world, their teaching did not touch my fundamentalism. I attended these schools: University of Calgary as a General Studies, and University of Toronto as a human biology major, and Dentistry at University of Kentucky and Harvard. None of these studies touched my faith in God and Christ our Lord. In the end of my studies, I considered either to go through seminary or to become a Jesuit. My theological studies were more important to me than my regular life.
So why did I become an apostate and a normal person? I met my wife at the end of my dental school year, and she is from a normal Christian family (mainliner, what we consider as Liberal mainline denomination), and her faith is not just in the Bible, but grounded in humanity, kindness and acceptance, and in the world. She has a wonderful education at Wayland High School in Wayland, Massachusetts and MIT. She read extensively and her views were much more tolerant and kind. She did not try to change me, gradually, I came to my own errs. Deconversion is a painful event, my world did not come apart overnight. It went down with an initial shock, a rejection from my father to my relationship, and gradually, stepping out of this religious fundamentalist tract, and got myself tossed into the tempest of fear, anger and anxiety, this time on the high seas of freedom. I turned to others and read Kierkegaard, and he helps me with the concept of courage and subjectivity. Truth, he says, is a subjective event. In his words, truth is subjectivity. It is what you experience and do with it that matters. Doctrines and churches are ossified beings, but truth experienced is most powerful. It defines a person. I was going through the motions of new venture, and on one hand expecting God to strike me down and others, losing an identity, a deep rooted faith that defined me, up to this moment.
Deconversion is a painful event, for awhile I was quite depressed, and then attacked by anxiety and thoughts of damnation. Slowly, I read other writers and learned of their stories, people like former American missionary Daniel Everett, scholars like Bart D Ehrman, his lectures and debates on suffering really helped me. His humanity came through when he addressed the Freedom from Religion forum, he says to them, patience, kindness and goodness is better than confronting a person of fundamentalist faith. He is humble enough to admit he is an agnostic, not an atheist. This is huge for me. Last but not the least, theologian Llyod Geering really helped me to come to an earth based faith. He deconstructed my three tier universe (eg heaven, earth and hell), and deconstructed the afterlife as a new theory not found in the biblical tradition. Jesus according to him, is a very good teacher, but he too suffered mortality, and he may still be buried somewhere in Palestine. Love, is what is most important, and for him God becomes the concepts we held most treasured, ideas of integrity, kindness, and goodness. For him, that is God. Christianity does not have to be theistic, and this is evident in little book “Christianity without God.” To live here and now, or the meaning of the Latin word “secula” has finally set in for me. He taught me to put my faith in the world, a structure far greater than I. I gradually became an earth based believer, having to retain some of my Christian faith but through the lens of humanity and this world. I no longer have this fear of damnation in the afterlife. There is no afterlife, I live moment by moment, here and now. I accept the impossible, I no longer have a three tier universe.
It is then I realize that I have come to a full circle. I am what I was before I became an Evangelical-Fundamentalist. I am just a mortal, a human being.
I wrote a few things here to reflect on my journey, and often it is not a complete story, but simply an attempt to capture what this faith meant to me and how I finally made an escape. I was the lucky one, my sister died with it, and my parents and brother are still bound by the holy rollers, the Charismatic teaching. I am free, and I raise a normal family thanks to my wife. On Sundays I worship God in the back yard gardening, with chickens and all things beautiful. I have finally come home. This world is beautiful, and mysterious, and most of all, my home in which I shall be buried when my journey comes to an end.
A
Reflection on my Fundamentalist Faith:
I
think my problem with Evangelical Christianity is not the people, but
its internal cohesive and close-minded teaching. At times, it lacks
integrity. But what bothers me most is the lack of touch with
reality, especially when facing life as it unfolds.
My
own deconversion occurs slowly after I began my university training.
In 1987, I move to Toronto, and was enrolled at the University of
Toronto as a science major. Part of the requirement at the Faculty
of Arts and Science, was to take a few course in humanity. I looked
at the courses offered, and found some interesting courses in
religion. So, I took two courses, one in Biblical Hebrew, and the
other one in 'Early Christian Writing.' It turns out that this
course eventually had the most impact on me. It introduces me to
historical-critical method to study the bible. So far, my
Evangelical-Fundamentalist training uses 'grammatical-critical
method' which lacks historical integrity. We were taught that Bible
is the inerrant revelation of God. Whenever there are conflicts in
the Bible against science of archaeology, we were taught to disregard
scientists, and trust Holy Scriptures. Of course, we were in a
'bubble' if you could imagine this. Everyone around us in my
Christian school believes whole-heartedly in this. At my high
school, Prairie High School, we were at the centre of this defense of
Christianity, and assaults by modernity. At that time, I did not
realize it, but now I see the hand of “God” in it, why it was
important to take these courses. Hebrew allows me to read Genesis
text, without having someone to interpret it for me. And over the
next few decades, I could slowly see my own errors. I would mention
here, that my Biblical Hebrew professor uses 'documentary hypothesis'
which had no impact on me at the time. Even thinking about it, this
was not how I deconverted. I simply refused to listen to the textual
evidence at the time, blaming it on liberalism and her assaults on my
faith. But, I am getting ahead of myself.
In
this class I came into contact, for the first time, with Documentary
Hypothesis. And the Early Christian Writings taught me the redaction
technique and other tools which eventually allowed me to see that
biblical authors were human beings trying to answer life's difficult
questions, including why this Yaweh failed to rescue his people and
eventual exile of Israelite. I also learned that many books in the
New Testament have questionable authorship.
But
I did not stop being a Christian. I live my life as if there is an
Evangelical God. When I was in school, I constantly prepared for the
day that I will head for the seminary and become a biblical scholar,
possibly to retranslate bible passages into Chinese. My studies at
the university level, had no impact on me, I still believed what I
was taught, and I continued to function as a fundamentalist. It was
my church involvement that taught me otherwise. I suffered a
tremendous traumatic experience at my local CMA church in 1988. I
was serving as a Sunday School teacher at the Scarborough Chinese
Alliance Church. It was traumatic enough that admitted my defeat,
that I could not make any meaningful changes in these ardent
fundamentalist children, that their parents and the whole church was
going in the direction I rejected. It was during the time when Rev
Wing Lee was the lead pastor, and he had conceived a church planting
program of 'ten years – ten churches'. My Sunday School department
was chaotic to say the least, and we were outmaneuvered by this
mindless expansion. These children had no interest in the suffering
of other people in the third world countries, and my efforts to
introduce this into the Sunday School curriculum failed. Everyone
was excited about church growth, as if that is the answer Evangelical
Christianity needs. I was thoroughly defeated by this form of
Christian capitalism, I was resounding defeated, and I admitted it
and retreated from this form of church. I have never looked back
since. I went back to what I despised the most, the liberal mainline
denomination, in this case, my own Taiwanese Presbyterian root. I
took up the responsibility to teach Sunday School, and was involved
in her Youth program, I still toed the line, reading my Bible and AW
Tozer.
In
1991, I was admitted to Harvard to study dentistry. It was here, my
study at Harvard began my deconversion in a realistic way. I came
into contact with scholarships of the 18th century, and took up an
interest in Syriac Christianity. By comparing these forms of
Christianity, I came to realize that my fundamentalism may not be on
the solid footing that I thought I had. I came to see that my faith
had evolved through history, that slowly things changed as they were
needed both in doctrines and practices. For me, this especially
questions my own belief in the concept of sin and salvation. In the
Roman Catholic Church and Protestant churches, I was taught humans
inherited the 'original sin' which came from Adam and Eve. In the
Syriac churches, I learned that this Augustinian teaching is entirely
missing. Baptism was necessary for the washing of this original sin
in the Roman Churches, whereas, this is not so in the Eastern Syriac
churches. Their saint, St Theodore of Mopsuetia, taught otherwise.
And this and other minor differences in Christology set them apart,
which in recent years they have begun the process of reconciliation.
In Dyophysite's teaching, Christ has two natures, whereas
Monophysites taught Christ only possesses one unique nature,
inseparable. In the successive church councils, especially the
Council of Ephesus, 431 AD, St Nestorius was falsely accused of
heretical teaching of two natures, separable by their manifestations.
Much of these man made distinction led me to believe that my faith
has undergone a process of development. This would begin to open my
eyes to the doctrine of inerrancy, which was developed in opposition
to modernity in the late 1800's. This has not touched my inerrancy
belief in the scripture during that time, however.
I
also came to see the inconsistency of Christian behaviours,
particularly in the greed of Evangelical Christianity (CMA churches,
and my own folks). I was always told that we ought to look to Jesus
and not men, and men will always fail. That is what kept me sane
since I firmly believed in the new life - conversion theory fed to me
by my EV friends and churches. But I do not see that life changing
event real nor permanent. It was at the excitement of the moment and
slowly but surely people are the same before and after that life
changing event, if they were terrible folks before their conversion,
they remain terrible afterwards. If they were nice folks, they remain
nice. There is little that seems to transcend their humanity. But I
still held on. I did not change because of what I saw in the
churches.
Then
life events brought me to a place I did not want to go. When I met
my wife, I was certain this is the one that God sent. When my
parents found out about her, they told me not to get too serious. I
was told that I need to look for money and other things. Both wife
and I came from similar Taiwanese Presbyterian background, our great
grand parents went to the same Taiwanese seminary in the 1800s, and
knew each other, and she has no qualms about me dropping dentistry
and study theology. My folks pull the god thing and the 5th
commandment, and began their oppression. They began by intimidating
me, and then they turned up the volume, I was yelled and screamed at
for about a few minutes. After that, I saw the writing on the wall.
There would come a time that my father would move in with me and
personally cut off my relationship with Lillian my girl friend. I
had to make a choice, so I did. I dropped my theological research
and seminary application, found work. I found work in the 'slums' of
Lowell, MA, where I was paid minimal wages. I had to commute three
hours from Boston to work. I had not given up, but when my shoulder
began to bother me, I found work in Boston's Chinatown. Afterwards,
I tried to open a practice, and my father sabotaged me, by asking my
cousin not to lend me the money. So, as my last resort, I found a
dental practice on the Cape (Cape Cod, MA), and I borrowed the entire
amount, of course when my father found out, he came and served as a
guarantor. I am not thankful of him nor the financial trouble I
became involved with my family afterwards. But I am getting ahead of
myself. Indeed I have been working since.
Through
these series of events, I began to doubt my relationship with God is
real, or helpful. That God is not there when I call, and that we
ought to fend for ourselves. The more I read the bible, Kierkegaard,
and others, the more I realized that truth is subjective. That is,
what we were taught as objective truth in the Evangelical circle, is
not true at all. Truth must be experienced, and courage is what we
need.
After
getting married, I held on to what little left of my Evangelical
Christianity, when I had time, I spent hours translating biblical
passages of Isaiah and Psalms, using Latin and Syriac, plus
Septuagint, (LXX) as my guide.
I
still had the utmost reverence for God and Christ our Lord, and the
last part of my journey began when Tim Mackenzie visited my and our
President Dr Jon Ohlhauser asked me to join the board at my alma
mater, Prairie Bible Institute in Three Hills, Alberta, Canada (I
came from one of the schools there, Prairie High School). That was my
last coffin nail. I saw that not only Christians claim of moral
superiority is not real, but they deceived themselves by mixing
capitalism with faith, wanting to aimlessly expand their earthly
empire. Indeed PBI is such a head quarter, and their main office
building began to take shape and looked like a mega church, such as
Willow Creek Community Church. All through that experience, I
stubbornly held onto the last straw that God is there, that he
answers prayers, and called for patience. But I began to see that
this inconsistency, that this is ever so common in the Christian
communities. It is actually the norm. Human beings are going to
behave what they are, after centuries of evolutionary changes.
Germans (like Ohlhauser) are trained to be precised, mechanistic and
absolute. That is what their environment make them into this.
Americans are always going to have a bit of capitalism in their
religion, because this is their free market economy. And while faith
can cover some of this inconsistency, but it cannot change people.
Predators are the same before and after their conversion event,
Pedophiles continues to damage kids before and after their
conversions. Power hunger church leaders are the same before and
after their conversion event.
At
this point I began to read John Shelby Spong, Lloyd Geering and Bart
D Ehrman. They helped to dismantle my last faith in a personal God.
That God is a tribal God made by Jews in exile. That God is not
there. and he is silent. That God died on the cross, rotted in the
common grave with thieves. That God has nothing to do with human
suffering. Our prayers go up in vain, and God replies in silence.
This silence of God is really where I am. I was a mere mortal trying
to follow the ways of God, and trying to be filial pious and a good
son. Had I not step out of this mode of personal belief, had I
merely prayed, I am certain that my fate would be that the same as my
brother who suffered tremendously at the hands of my parents.
Indeed, his wife is not of his choosing, and he has been in this
personal hell for sometimes now.
Suffering is not the topic of this essay. But I would like to say a few words about it. I came to see justice of God, theodicy, this way. That we Christians were taught God answers prayers and is powerful and mighty, and is about to act on behalf of his followers. Indeed, we were taught to look up to the hills and seek the God where the help comes to his followers. As it turns out in my case, it was not so. Prayers and piety did not help me, it would have done me a lot of harm had I just prayed and seek God on this marriage matter. That was how my brother Andrew struggled, to much of his current suffering. I would have suffered in vain, had I waited 'for the Lord' and waited in prayers. This form of piety did not help me, and God did not come to my aid. I had to step out. God is silent in all my suffering. All my anxiety, fear, trauma, and worse of all, of vain hope. Suffering has a personal theme in my journey, as I follow Christ. I no longer pray to this God who does not answer prayers. Or sanctioned my parents for doing what they did to me. I don't think this God is real. At that moment, my God died.
Suffering is not the topic of this essay. But I would like to say a few words about it. I came to see justice of God, theodicy, this way. That we Christians were taught God answers prayers and is powerful and mighty, and is about to act on behalf of his followers. Indeed, we were taught to look up to the hills and seek the God where the help comes to his followers. As it turns out in my case, it was not so. Prayers and piety did not help me, it would have done me a lot of harm had I just prayed and seek God on this marriage matter. That was how my brother Andrew struggled, to much of his current suffering. I would have suffered in vain, had I waited 'for the Lord' and waited in prayers. This form of piety did not help me, and God did not come to my aid. I had to step out. God is silent in all my suffering. All my anxiety, fear, trauma, and worse of all, of vain hope. Suffering has a personal theme in my journey, as I follow Christ. I no longer pray to this God who does not answer prayers. Or sanctioned my parents for doing what they did to me. I don't think this God is real. At that moment, my God died.
In
time, I also learned that Scriptures are human products, and are out
dated, with horrible things and practices, such as genocides,
slavery, rape, homophobia and promotes misogyny, etc. I began to
treat scriptures carefully concerning its claims. I no longer trust
it as the inerrant words of God. Seeing this allows me to appreciate
Jesus of God, that he was a human, that he had human father (s), and
that he died in the hate of his Roman occupiers with the blessings of
his kinsmen. He was betrayed, much like I was betrayed by my
Evangelical faith and its people.
Resolution:
Resolution:
This
journey is not my own choosing. It is painful to know that I am
mortal, and I have a limited amount of time on this earth. Since I
no longer have the hope of eternal life, I treasure each day. I know
someday I shall be no more. I became more obsessed about death and
the end of existence. I came to terms with it, I had to, after my
sister died in 2016 and my dad in 2017. I no longer wait, if I felt
I need to do something. Every day is a gift and a joy. I got rid of
those people that did me a lot of harm, the Chang family from my
wife's side, for example. I even got rid of my leased electric
vehicle, since I have to make more runs off Cape to pick up my mom at
the airport. This year (2018), I flew to Vancouver to do my mother's
birthday, and in that short amount of time, even made it to Smithers,
BC to see my high school biology teacher Mr Gerry Unger and his wife
Dea. I even found time to see my old friend Bernice. In the past, I
would not have done things like these. These things carry a more
urgent tone today for me, I am reminded daily to 'seize the day' and
to live extraordinary lives. I have only limited amount of time, now
that I got the notion of eternal life out of the way.
I
came to realize that living is a beautiful thing, and so I choose
living here and now, I choose my family and I have returned and found
my faith in this world. I know what other Evangelical Christians
think of me. That I have erred and became an apostate. However,
through it all, I still consider myself a Christian. I am still
fascinated with Jesus the man, and his teaching resonates with me.
For this is what I am, and this is my name. I'd just no longer trust
in the afterlife, or prayers, or my Evangelical God. I am what I
considered as a non-theistic Christian. In that, I put my faith in
this solid ground, 'this terrestrial ball, the earth'. As theologian
Lloyd Geering taught me in his series of lectures, that if I were
ever to lose my faith, I would put my faith in the world, after all,
the world is greater than I, and I may add, this is the earth
nourishes me, was here before I was born and shall continue to do so,
after long I was gone.
In time, other than working as a small town dentist, I became a small organic farmer, raising a family of seven, with lots of chickens, organic produce, and most of all, a great variety of garlic. I worship garlic, and worship nature, her beauty and mystery. I live my life as if there is a god, and by the teaching of Jesus. I no longer live or die by my former Evangelical faith. Bible is a collections of stories, and ancient cosmology. St Paul's letters in the New Testament are not authoritative, and many of them were forgeries done in the name of St Paul. I do not have a personal God, if there is a God at all, that would be love. Love is what gives me meaning in this world, and love is what binds us to each other. I ponder on the matters of faith often, how I was young and taken in, and how I was used by this Evangelical-fundamentalist faith, and to their rejection of modernity. How I was taught to render everything I have to their cause, to the detriment of my own person. How I was imprisoned by this foreign faith, and for the last few years, I barely escaped. I am still much the same person, before and after I de-converted. I do not lie, cheat, or take things from others. I do not hate those people who are still Evangelicals, these are family. They are deluded, many of them are good honest folks. Many of them will suffer the same abuse I endured, silently. I have pity on them. Many of them will die in agony, with cancer, praying in vain. Many will see their children desert this faith, and became hopeless and struggle in vain to pass on this faith. This world is fair, and for that I am most grateful. My life here and now, and no more. This is something to be thankful, that I escaped tyranny of faith, and now I am free. I might be bitter, but in all and all, I am thoroughly grateful to be alive, and for whatever time I have left, I am going to spend it wisely, and to love humanity. That is my faith, and this is my on-going journey. I am a Christian, for that is my name and in this way I shall die, and be no more.
In time, other than working as a small town dentist, I became a small organic farmer, raising a family of seven, with lots of chickens, organic produce, and most of all, a great variety of garlic. I worship garlic, and worship nature, her beauty and mystery. I live my life as if there is a god, and by the teaching of Jesus. I no longer live or die by my former Evangelical faith. Bible is a collections of stories, and ancient cosmology. St Paul's letters in the New Testament are not authoritative, and many of them were forgeries done in the name of St Paul. I do not have a personal God, if there is a God at all, that would be love. Love is what gives me meaning in this world, and love is what binds us to each other. I ponder on the matters of faith often, how I was young and taken in, and how I was used by this Evangelical-fundamentalist faith, and to their rejection of modernity. How I was taught to render everything I have to their cause, to the detriment of my own person. How I was imprisoned by this foreign faith, and for the last few years, I barely escaped. I am still much the same person, before and after I de-converted. I do not lie, cheat, or take things from others. I do not hate those people who are still Evangelicals, these are family. They are deluded, many of them are good honest folks. Many of them will suffer the same abuse I endured, silently. I have pity on them. Many of them will die in agony, with cancer, praying in vain. Many will see their children desert this faith, and became hopeless and struggle in vain to pass on this faith. This world is fair, and for that I am most grateful. My life here and now, and no more. This is something to be thankful, that I escaped tyranny of faith, and now I am free. I might be bitter, but in all and all, I am thoroughly grateful to be alive, and for whatever time I have left, I am going to spend it wisely, and to love humanity. That is my faith, and this is my on-going journey. I am a Christian, for that is my name and in this way I shall die, and be no more.
Hope
this provides some interesting reading, in case you often wonder why
I derive this radical views about God and Christ our Lord, the Jesus
who becomes a God. Jesus is God, for me. And now I worship
garlic.
