Some people say that anger and rebellion must be involved. I've read emails addressed to my husband along these lines supposing that something bad must have happened in order for us to walk away from our faith. Something bad did happen, but it served more as a catalyst rather than a reason to walk away. The bad happening caused me to search sincerely for a better relationship with God. After about two years, I realized I would never find what I was looking for. Outright anger and rebellion weren’t emotions which I experienced. Instead, my emotional responses tended more towards loss, sorrow, pain, and the type of anger that initially accompanies grief.
Any attempt to argue me back into faith probably won‘t work. I spent over two years evaluating and reasoning different avenues of my faith. At some point towards the end of that time I realized my worldview had changed considerably. The change had come systematically and deliberately.
People may suppose that I never was a Christian to begin with. They can do that if they like in order to ease their own consciences, but I know better. I was very sincere during most of my “walk with Jesus”. It was only towards the end (maybe the last 10 years or so) that I realized “maturity in Christ” didn’t necessarily insure a better, happier, more stable life. Life is difficult for everyone no matter what a person believes.
Studying the origins of the Bible helped me accept it for what it was, an ancient religious text written somewhere between 1,700 and 2,500 years ago by men who lived in a very superstitious world and were certainly influenced by religions which existed prior to theirs.
Dr. Ruth Tucker listed reasons why people leave their faith in a speech given some years ago:
1) the study of science & philosophy
2) the sense of absence of any caring God
3) the critical examination of the scriptures
4) disappointment in God
5) the hypocrisy of Christians
6) the perception of a dogmatic anti-feminist and anti-homosexual stance of fundamentalist Christianity
In my case, I’d list in order of effect #2, #5, and #3. Once I put the Bible into proper perspective, #1 opened up to me and I realized that my faith was already behind me. It wasn’t something I set out to do. I was simply trying to make sense of life.
