MY CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY
I am at least a fourth generation Christian, brought up in a Christian home and for more than 30 years followed Jesus Christ. My parents, grandparents and great grandparents were committed Christians. It may go further back than that.
I guess you could say I was well and truly indoctrinated from an early age. I grew up accepting without a doubt what was taught to me by my parents and Sunday school teachers.
I took everything at face value and didn’t question. All though there was very little to question as you are only given the positive picture. My parents were pretty good parents as far as parents go. Sure they had their flaws, but were always genuine. And I guess the one thing that really encouraged me to continue my walk as a Christian was the fact that with them, what you saw was what you got. They acted no differently at church than they did at home. They were genuine believers. There was no putting on a “church face” when they went to church, they were just who they were and they did what they believed God wanted them to do and that was to raise me in a Christian environment.
My fondest childhood memories involved church family camps and activities, going to youth group. I had some great experiences and ended up with some awesome friendships.
I was around 7 years old when I first gave my life to God, becoming a born again Christian, although rededicated my life to him later on in my teens. My parents attended open Brethren churches around that time and I also remember a Baptist church in there at one point. I was taught you must be born again and I genuinely accepted Christ as my saviour. I considered myself a new creation in God. Throughout my early life I continued to believe without question, accepting what my parents and Sunday school teachers taught me.
I only ever had two bad experiences in the church as a kid. Both at Christian kid's camps. (not the family ones)
One when I was seven at a Boy's Rally camp where the leaders had their own private cabins and we were on our own at nights. I had another boy threaten me with a pocketknife. Fortunately a little later a leader overhead him from outside and pulled him out of the room and he had to stay in the leader's cabin that night.
The second was at the Christian kid's camp in Ngāruawāhia (which still exists today) when I was ten where I was put in a cabin with 11-year-old boys who were all obsessed with sex and constantly talking about it. One leader in another cabin was getting them to play strip-spin-the-bottle. Other leaders knew it was happening but did nothing about it. Bullies were running rampant because many times we were unsupervised, and the leaders were in prayer meetings and stuff like that. It was a horrible experience, and it put me off kid's camps. Until I attended my first actual school camp at the age of twelve and found it to be so much fun! All my school ones after that were fun.
Why were the Christian kids camps the ones that were such horrible experiences and the school ones not? I could never understand that!
Despite those two negative experiences it never affected my faith. However it wasn't until I was 16 that I truly took the bull by the horns as it were, and became proactive in my faith.
We were in a Pentecostal church in Te Aroha and it was a time when I truly felt that I was being challenged by God. Jesus was ALIVE in my life. I always felt challenged by God to be a better person and be more like Christ. I took the step of Baptism and really believed I was being touched by God when I came out of that water. Prophecies were made over my life and I can well remember the one where God said I would be an example to other teenagers and that Christ would use me for his glory.
A short while later the church leadership approached me asking if I would like to take on a leadership role at a Children's Bible Crusades camp those holidays. It was a huge responsibility to be given and quite intimidating. Then I reminded myself of a sermon that had been preached that you should take every opportunity you get to do something for the lord, so I said yes. There I was at a Children’s Bible Crusade’s camp being called Uncle Richard by kids only 4 years younger than me. At that camp I received a “word of wisdom” from a fellow Christian leader, that God had so much bigger things in store for me. It was an exciting time.
I completely believed I was in a relationship with God.
The following year I left home and I started attending the Royal Oak Baptist church in Auckland. I was starting to find church fun and exciting. I was getting involved in the worship and youth group activities. I continued to attend CBC camps as a leader. At the age of 20, I moved to Ellerslie and started to go to Panmure Baptist where I was offered the opportunity to teach Sunday School, which I welcomed with open arms. At this point I truly believed that children’s ministries was where God wanted me. God WAS using me for bigger things, but even bigger things were yet to come.
At my places of work I was open about my Christianity and occasionally talked to non-Christians about Christ, which being an introvert was very difficult for me. I preferred to live by example and be a friend to non-believers. I never compromised my principles and did my best to set an example as a responsible Christian especially when it came to after work functions. I can still remember being there once while a joint got passed around by my work mates, but I refused to partake. My non-Christian friends were mainly respectful of my Christian beliefs, but my closest friends were always fellow believers.
My young adult years were probably the best years I had as a Christian. My memories of the churches I went to and the people I met were always good. I never had any bad experiences as an adult with fellow Christians or church leadership. Christian camps as a young adult were awesome.
My faith strengthened even more in 1990, despite being out of work. I had been praying hard that God would bring a Christian woman into my life. The message I got from God was “Seek ye first my kingdom”. So I made an extra effort to spend regular time in prayer and bible study. I began to attend a weekly prayer meeting with my uncle – a genuine believer, with great faith and a heart for God. Most of the time, it was just the two of us at the prayer meeting, but we never missed a week and they were great times of drawing closer to God. I learnt so much from my uncle. He became like a mentor. With him, I learnt much about the gifts of the holy spirit.
I ended up joining him on a Friday night outreach in Glen Innes, which he had spearheaded through the Elim church which another uncle was the head of. It was aimed at reaching street kids. I even contributed finances to its operation. It gave street kids a place to come and hang out, play pool, table tennis and other games… as well as hear the gospel. I even got to do a little preach on the odd occasion which was something new and terrifying for me. Standing in front of a bunch of street kids, giving a brief five-ten-minute message.
Throughout that year I continued to seek God.
As 1990 drew to a close (I was 22), I really felt God was saying I’d meet my future wife that Christmas at the big Youth For Christ camp -Summer Harvest In fact I was going to two camps that Christmas Holidays. One was Summer Harvest and then a few days after that, a Children's Bible Crusade camp as a leader. If God was going to bring me a potential wife, it was going to be at Summer Harvest, because there were never women my age at the CBC camp. I was so convinced God was telling me I was going to meet her at the youth camp. I stood firm in faith truly believing God had spoken to me.
As was always the case with me, I was able to strike up brief conversations with young women my age but could never follow up afterwards! So it was the same at Summer Harvest. And the place was so huge and there were so many people, finding those same women again to talk to wasn't very practical.
So imagine my despair when at the end of the camp I had not met my future wife. In fact, I hadn’t really gotten to know any new women at all. What a let down!
I attended the kid’s camp, feeling downhearted and questioning that I'd really heard from God at all, but lo and behold there was a very attractive woman there my own age working in the kitchen.
We hit it off immediately.
I praised God because of it, believing that he had sent her. Ok, so he didn’t bring her to me at Summer Harvest, but he was just testing my faith. His plan all along was to bring her to me at the kid’s camp, the place I least expected to find her AND the most appropriate because that was where my ministry lay. Of course she would be in the same ministry! Hallelujah! Anything is possible with God. He’d taught me a valuable lesson about trusting him and an overall message of seeking first the Kingdom of God and only THEN will all these things be added to you.
She fitted perfectly. I had a mental list of everything I wanted in a woman and she fitted EVERY SINGLE one. I even asked God that he confirm she was the one early on by allowing things to move quickly. I didn’t want to have to be wondering for weeks and even months on end whether she was the one.
Three months later we were engaged to be married.
I started to attend her church: Bays Christian Fellowship in Auckland, led by Peter Mortlock (and his wife Bev), one of the most inspiring and charismatic pastors I’d ever come across. It blew me away how the “Holy Spirit” moved in that church. I remember us arriving late one day for church and we arrived in the middle of worship. We were immediately hit by what we believed was the Holy Spirit. Of course now I see that as more of an atmospheric thing that you get in a warm building, with a loud band playing and hundreds of people singing and rejoicing. Good vibrations. That sort of stuff.
That church is now known as City Impact Church and even has its own TV program. The church counselled us and they agreed with that God was leading us to be married.
However, we were to learn eventually that this was not a match made in heaven and it wasn’t destined to last till death do us part. We learned that the so-called three-strand-cord is more easily broken than what the bible claims!
At first things were fantastic between the two of us. The church made us both Children Church teachers and our relationship was very strong but a year into it and she had an affair. We worked through it though. I was always taught to forgive so I did. Nevertheless, things were never the same again, because once trust is broken it’s very difficult to rebuild. But we stayed together because we believed that’s what God required of us. Forgive and move on.
We moved to Hamilton in 1994 and had our first child. We started attending the Eastside Apostolic Church where shortly after I was offered a role in children’s ministries in their Very Early Teens program.
However, God STILL had bigger plans in store for me. Shortly after that I was removed from the program due to the fact that I had been asked to lead an adult Cell group instead. I had moved from children’s ministries to adult leadership. But that was only the start. Shortly after that I was being offered major roles in the big budget stage shows the church was putting on, including key roles in their annual Christmas Drive Through. On top of that I was also given the opportunity to study for my Bachelor in Info Technology degree. I now also had two wonderful kids.
This was definitely not a source of pride mind you. I still did not feel worthy. I wondered just how effective I was as a cell group leader. And for that matter doubted I was even a great husband and father. I still felt that I was far from being the ideal man God required of me, however I believed God’s grace and his blessings were upon me. There was no doubt in my mind about that!
Come the end of the 90s, alas our marriage began to fall apart. My wife was still not faithful and we had drifted apart over the years. Things had become stale and there was just no way I could trust her anymore. In 2002, after 11 years of marriage, we broke up after she decided she wanted to start seeing another guy.
Did I blame God? No, although I certainly questioned “Why?” for a while, especially considering the bible promise we had over our marriage that a three-string-cord is not easily broken. However you can’t blame God for something like that. Our marriage is our responsibility.
MY DECONVERSION STORY - THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF MY FAITH
It was about this time I started doing my degree (in 1997) that I began to learn critical thinking skills. You can’t get a degree without doing that. You have to “learn to learn”, not just rely on the teachings of your tutors and teachers. This opened up a whole new world for me when it came to bible study too.
For years before that I had believed everything church leaders told me. If it was preached in a sermon or it was explained from the bible, it had to be true, right? Even when someone preached one thing and then later on someone preached something different, I generally went with the latest thing taught. I went through several different denominations of churches, with different focuses.
Once I started to learn to think for myself, I started to allow myself to challenge those teachings from the pulpit. Did those words really line up with scripture? Did I really go along with what the preacher was saying?. I started to realise that it was ok to disagree with what I was hearing and to have my own opinions. This most certainly was a reason I was given cell groups to run. Church leadership and other Christians believed I had biblical wisdom and that I was being guided by the Holy Spirit. .
But as I became more critical in my thinking, it also brought with it a lot of issues. How to deal with the apparent contradictions in the bible. How to deal with the horrible parts of the bible that the church normally glossed over. How to answer the difficult questions that you sometimes heard asked. Even if I had a question in my mind, somewhere along the line I would find an answer, at least a half decent answer, until a better one came along. That’s the way it is with Christians. You find an answer that seems ok, stick with it, defend it for all its worth and discard it as soon as you find a better answer. But now I was asking myself questions that had never been asked before.
In my early 20s (late 80s) I had been into the end times Eschatology. I, like many people, were convinced that Christ was going to return soon and that the Tribulation was eminent. All the propheces in the bible about the end times were lining up like never before!
It didn’t seem absurd to me that 2000 years is a hell of a long time to wait, especially when Christ claimed in the bible that he would be returning soon. In fact, I went along with the argument that a thousand years was like a day to God, so really he had only been gone two days. I also went along with the distorted belief that when Christ said he would return in the lifetime of those witnessing the crucifixion, that he was really talking about the lifetime of the Israeli nation. I went along with those people who claimed that it was all just a matter of mistranslation. (Funny that God would allow his word to be mistranslated so horrendously).
My love affair with end times teachings only lasted a few years though, because I quickly learnt that none of the things these so-called end time prophets like Hal Lindsey were preaching, ever happened. In New Zealand, we had an evangelist called Barry Smith who wrote a novel called “Warning.” This was followed up a short time later by “Second Warning,” which was in turn followed up by “Final Warning.” He changed the titles after that, but I think book four should have been called "More idle threats". I guess he made a lot of money out of it, which was probably his main goal.
I was also hearing prophesies from pastors of churches and other evangelists how the world was on the verge of a great revival. In the early 90s, one well known NZ evangelist named Trevor Yaxley, who I had met personally, a man I very much respected at the time, even started a campaign called “Rise up” which was believed to be the start of something huge when it came to revival. However it never eventuated into anything apart from convincing people to sell their cars and other property to fund Lifeway Ministries.
All the time I was hearing about how God was about to do a great work in the church I was in, or the city I was in. But nothing ever eventuated. I heard stories about demons being cast out of people (particularly in the 80s). Miraculous healings taking place at meetings (particularly overseas in remote places), resurrections, the now exposed scam of peoples legs growing to the right size, yada yada yada. BUT NONE OF THAT STUFF WAS HAPPENING IN MY CHURCH! Nor any churches I visited!
As I experienced more of life and opened myself up to other viewpoints, my beliefs were challenged even more. In the late 90s I investigated Preterism, seeing a whole new way of looking at bible prophecies. Were futurists completely wrong?? I never came to a conclusion one way or another and decided just to trust in God and do what I was doing, ie… be the best Christian I could be now.
Around that time I also became involved in a direct marketing business, seeing disturbing similarities between it and the church. It made me see that the Christian church was very much like a direct marketing business, except with different terminologies. Direct marketing businesses were just a secular version of church, which showed me that a lot of what I saw in Christianity as special was not all that special.
In the early 2000s, I started to become cynical. Even asked for prayer over it and had one leader chuckle and say "We all get cynical from time to time." I thought to myself., "Not me. In all these years I've never been cynical about Jesus"
Even though I was becoming cynical I remember a few years later testifying to a fellow Christian that Christ had done so much in my life that there was no way I could ever doubt him. I now see that as my “famous last words” when it came to my faith.
As I got into my 30s, a few years after my marriage ended, I got to the point where I realised I wasn’t hearing from God. And when I thought about the things in my life that convinced me Christ was real, I realised I hadn’t seen many of those things in years. A few things from around 10 years earlier had been enough to keep my faith going so strong for so long.
I thoroughly believe the biggest thing that woke me up about Christianity was the Internet. When you step into the Internet, visit chat rooms and message boards and get involved in discussions you can no longer avoid those challenging arguments, you were able to avoid when you lived in your safe little Christian bubble, surrounded by your Christian friends. You can’t avoid the contradictions in doctrine, you can’t avoid the absurdities of the bible. You are forced to face up to the huge holes in logic and major plot holes in bible stories. Your feeble little arguments that convinced you and your fellow Christians often don’t hold water with sceptics.
Around 2006, (38yrs) I stopped going to church. Mainly because I was so fed up with all the BS. Being a cell group leader I'd seen that God was doing nothing in people's lives. And I was seeing that many people in the church were simply playing a game. Putting on a facade.
They were all living in a fantasy world and so was I!
From there I went through a harrowing 5 year period where I regularly cried out to God for help. For something. A fresh touch. A feeling of his presence. But I got nothing. Not even the standard thing that Christians get when they are at low points in their life... yeah, you got it. The phone call from a Christian friend who claims God laid them on their heart. Never got one. Nothing at all.
The crickets chirped. I sought and didn't find. A cast all my cares on God and got no response.
MY DECONVERSION STORY - FROM CHRISTIANITY TO DEISM
During the start of that five year period, I did a lot of soul searching and questioning of scripture and even God himself. I came to the conclusion that God (if he really does exist and created the world) set systems in place and pretty much sits back and lets things run their course. There is no divine intervention, there is no guidance and opening and closing of doors. No holy spirit. NO RELATIONSHIP! I had in effect gone from a Christian belief to a Deist belief. It was not a choice and it was not an act of rebellion. To me it was the only conclusion I could come to because I just wasn’t willing to accept there could be no God.
I came to conclude that if you win the lottery it’s luck, not because God decided to bless you financially (otherwise only Christians would win lotteries). If you are an innocent victim in a car crash and end up in a wheel chair for the rest of your life, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, not because God had some higher purpose and needed you to be a paraplegic. Not every birth is planned by God as the bible says, otherwise why would people be able to take fertility drugs and have multiple births? I also thought about natural disasters. If you get caught in an earthquake, it’s not because God decided to punish the citizens of a city, it’s because that’s the way he created the Earth… plates shift sometimes and earthquakes happen.
I came to the inescapable conclusion that the bible wasn’t the infallible word of God, it couldn’t be. Anyone who thinks it is hasn’t studied their bible properly or is kidding themselves.
I have realized that the stories we read; especially in the OT were simply the view of the people at the time and some may have been fictional and never meant to be taken as literal history, even if the characters in them were real people who really existed. The writers thought every bad thing that happened to them was God’s wrath - curses... punishments. They believed God killed people or made them lose battles because of evil that was done. They believed that God told them to execute people for the minor sins they committed. They believed he told them to invade other countries and even take sex slaves amongst the female virgins. But really, did God tell them to do those things or was it just what they believed in their hearts and minds, led by their own personal desires? Were they just simple humans who thought they were doing God’s bidding like every other religious nut job on the planet?
I realised that you can believe anything you like and back it up with scripture, which is why there are thousands of denominations and cults. I’ve seen it in every church with every Christian. There’s always a scripture and there’s always another scripture that indicates something different. It’s like a card game. I present a scripture and you present a contrary one and act like you’ve just trumped me.
MY DECONVERSION STORY - FROM DEISM TO AGNOSTISISM
I went from Deist to Agnostic around 2008 (40 yrs). I began to realise there was no reason to even believe in a distant God and that I was only holding onto the remnants of my Christian faith, which has been shown to be a fantasy and a delusion. I was beginning to see that the universe, and the way the world was, does not require any God. I was seeing that more and more of what I once attributed to “Goddidit” had other more likely and believable causes.
But I still continued to cry out to God for help. Still getting nothing. Two years. Not even a Christian friend calling me. And I even went searching for some from my past who I respected. Couldn't track them down.
Chirp, chirp, chirp of the crickets.
And I continued to question. To search for truth.
I began to realise that I had been looking at evolution completely wrong. I had been looking at it through a creationist mindset which gave me a distorted view of it. We are here as a RESULT of our environment, not DESPITE our environment. The story is about a planet and the life that resulted from it, not a story about humans and how they came to be here. Evolution has no plan and no goal. We are the INEVITABLE outcome of it.
I still don’t claim to be an expert on it, far from it, but I can see that it makes far more sense than Creation. I can watch a science program now and when they talk about Evolution and its effects, it makes perfect sense and I think WOW, of course! I never realised that before! I can now understand a lot about the world around us without all the shucking and jiving that comes with Apologetics. God’s so-called creation is not all wonderful and not all pretty. We just have to accept it for what it is and make the best of it.
Come 2011 (43 yrs), I finally came to peace regarding being an agnostic. It wasn't something I wanted to be and it was certainly not a choice I made. It was an inescapable realisation that I had been living in a Christian delusion. Over the course of about 5 years I had worked through the denial, the fear of Hell, the heartbreak of losing my faith and finally the anger. I’d worked through all those stages and started to enjoy life without the need for an imaginary deity.
I realise i was still just as moral and decent as I ever was although no longer felt the need to beat myself up over my human nature. I still had the same conscience and was still just as compassionate. I am way more accepting of the differences of people than I used to be. My life is far richer than what it was as a Christian.
MY DECONVERSION STORY - FROM AGNOSTISISM TO ATHEISM
Shortly after that I realised I wasn't just an agnostic anymore. I was an Atheist, because the evidence is just way too overwhelming that there is no God. I never thought I’d ever say I was an Atheist, but Agnostic just didn't cut it, because I could see no convincing evidence of anything supernatural in this world. Everything seems to have natural causes. There are way too many scam artists pretending to be faith healers, psychics, etc. None of it can be shown to be real. For me to believe in a God now I would have to have proof. There’s no way I will waste another moment of my life on a God that can’t be shown to exist or refuses to show me he exists.
After over thirty years of Christianity and now nearing twenty years as an Ex-Christian, it is obvious to me that it is no different to any other religion on the planet. I was brought up in a Christian home because I was born in New Zealand, to parents who were themselves born into Christian homes by parents who were also born into Christian homes. If I had been born in Saudi Arabia, I’d have been a devout Muslim instead. That’s the reality of the situation.
Humans have an inherent need to believe in the supernatural and higher powers and as we can see all around the world, people will believe all sorts of crazy stuff due to the way the human brain works. They will die for all sorts of absurdities. For me now, scripture alone will never convince me that the Bible God is real. Now only reason and evidence or some really amazing indisputable miracle can possibly achieve that.
I now consider myself a scientific naturalist.
There is so much more I could write about my walk. My journey into Christianity and then through to atheism. I've tried to write a book of my life but trying to get the right balance where it would be interesting to read is a difficult one. Especially considering I've never really gone through the harrowing journey other people have. I had a mainly healthy upbringing in a loving family and never really strayed. Never got into drugs or crime or any bad scene. Even now, twenty years after losing my faith. Maybe my life just wouldn't be interesting enough.
But maybe we'll see. Maybe I will get my full story out there one day. Although maybe nobody would be interested in it.
100+ Reasons I no longer believe
People often ask me what was the main reason you no longer believe? There is no main reason. There's many reasons though so I have created this web page here that goes into them: