Why I Am No Longer a Christian (2003)
Ruminations on a spiritual journey out of and into the material world
Kendall Hobbs


http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/hobbs.html

I have found it a rare occurrence to come across a Christian evangelist (living in the United States, evangelists are almost always Christian) who does not have serious misunderstandings of my beliefs and the reasons for them. Typically, they approach me thinking that if only I would read the Bible with an open mind, or be open to God, or experience God the way they have, I would certainly understand. Or, when they hear that I'm a former Christian, they typically conclude that I must not have been a real Christian, that I was not taught the true understanding of God, or that there must have been some sort of tragedy to make me angry at God. Or perhaps I am just an evil person and I have chosen to serve evil. Or they believe that no one can really be an atheist, that deep down I must know God exists, and rather than actually not believing that God exists I must be actively rejecting God and all He stands for. But in doing so, they fail to address me. They are not talking to me, but to their misunderstanding of me. So my hope is that this essay will give Christians, and theists in general, a better understanding of how at least one former theist came to be a former theist.

This is also for anyone who has had, or especially for anyone who is currently going through, a deconversion process, to have a story of someone else who has gone through it. Having gone through it myself, I know it can be an emotionally and psychologically painful process, but I can say that, for me at least, the rewards of my journey have been more than worth it.
My Life as a Christian

I suppose you can call this my "extimony," a term which I should explain for those who may be unfamiliar with the brand of evangelical Christianity in which I was involved. Among the evangelical crowd, having a "born-again" experience of admitting to God that you are a sinner, asking for his forgiveness which he offers through the sacrificial death of Jesus, and inviting God into your life to "create you anew" is crucial: if you have not had such an experience, if you have not so invited Jesus into your heart, you have not truly been "saved," i.e., you are not a real Christian. As the label "evangelical" implies, evangelical Christians also take evangelism very seriously (as in the "Great Commission" at the end of Matthew instructing Jesus's followers to go to all the world and preach the gospel). To evangelize involves "witnessing" to others, i.e., telling them the gospel message, the story (as they understand and interpret it, anyway) of God, Jesus, Heaven and Hell, salvation, etc. One's "testimony," i.e., one's own personal story of one's born-again experience and subsequent relationship with Jesus and of what God has done in one's life, features prominently in witnessing. Thus, as one who used to give my testimony when witnessing to others about how I became a Christian, I call the story of how I became an ex-Christian "my extimony."

So, by "no longer a Christian," I mean specifically no longer a born-again, Bible-believing, evangelical, Protestant Christian. But if you are a Catholic, Anglican, Mormon, or some other form of Christian--or even a Muslim, Hindu, or whatever else--before you conclude too quickly that I was just involved in the wrong religion and that your own "One True Religion" (tm) is safe from my critique, think carefully about how some of my general critiques of evangelical Christianity may likely apply to your religion, e.g., the question of the existence of a theistic god in the first place. Also think about how some of my specific critiques of evangelical Christianity can be easily modified to apply to your religious views, e.g., problems with interpreting and defending your "Holy Book(s)" and your interpretations of them.

And before I relate how I became an ex-Christian, I should say how I became a Christian in the first place. In brief, I grew up with it. My parents took me to church, and I believed and accepted what I was taught. But, really, it wasn't so simple as that. My born-again experience occurred when I was eight years old. I can still recall the conversation I had with my mother when she laid out the Gospel for me. The story made sense to me, I accepted it, and, as the next step was explained to me, I invited Jesus into my heart and pledged to serve him with my life, to follow his lead. Even now I recall the special feeling I had then, a feeling of everything falling into place and making sense, a feeling of inner strength and happiness and enthusiasm, a feeling of belonging, of having a place, of knowing who and why I was. It was a feeling, as was explained to me, of the presence of God. I felt God in me.

Sure, I was just eight years old, and I was accepting what my mother was telling me. But I really did accept it for myself. Just accepting whatever my parents (or anyone) said just on their say-so was not the way I typically operated. For as long as I remember, I've always wanted, and looked for, reasons for a claim, an expectation, a command. I've always been one to think about the whys behind the way things are. It should have been expected that I would eventually study philosophy in college and graduate school.

Also, though I was just eight and the emotions I felt at the time were quite immature relative to what adolescents and adults experience, what I felt was a big deal for me at that age. After all, when you feel the presence of God, that's a pretty big feeling at any age. I experienced it to the depth and extent my limited emotional capabilities allowed. In fact, the experience itself significantly enhanced and shaped my emotional capabilities. Before my born-again experience, I was without an overarching theme for my life, a general understanding that could encompass my life and experiences and make sense of it as a whole. I was just living. But Christianity gave me a reason for it all, a way to understand it all, not just something specific in life but the whole thing.

To some extent, I later sort of regretted having become a Christian so young, at least in one respect. As a teenager, I was very impressed by the powerful testimonies of adults who found God at a later age, after having experienced the misery and depths of a sinful, selfish life of rebellion against God and then having been redeemed from those depths by a loving God who recreated them into his joyful children to lead powerful, meaningful, fulfilled lives in service to him. I guess I had a touch of "testimony envy," finding myself wishing a bit that I had that sort of deeply-moving testimony that so obviously demonstrated God's love and power to those who did not yet know him. But I was even more grateful that God had spared me from having to experience those sorts of depths before he redeemed me.

And I did have what I believed to be powerful evidence of God's working in my life. Not having to have gone through such negative experiences was one. As I was taught, we as Christians should live our lives such that others could see the power of Christ in us. Having, as a Christian, been able to avoid those miserable depths should be evidence to others that there was another way available to them, that life can be better, it can have meaning and purpose and fulfillment.

Another among many convincers for me was what happened as a result of my father getting transferred when I was thirteen. Junior high school is not a good age to be uprooted from one location and planted somewhere else where the friendships and cliques had already been established, especially for an introverted person who already felt out of step with his peers in the first place. Added to that, I was a Southern boy from Georgia moving to a rather preppy and exclusive part of Connecticut. Further, I had been all set to transfer to a private Christian school the next year. I could not understand what God was doing.

But when we got where we were going, I began to understand. It took a while to realize it, but things were working out for me much better than I was fearing they might. The church we left, the one I had known my whole life, was decent enough for me, but there were not a lot of kids my age and I did not really fit in with them, and they were not all that serious about their faith. Our new church, however, had a lot of kids my age, and in fact many more around my age than any other age. Those of us around my age were sort of a "pig in a python" growing up in that church. Also, I fit in well with the group, at least by my standards of "fitting in." And, plenty of them were serious about their faith. It was definitely a time of spiritual growth for me. Along with them, I went through the ups and downs of adolescence as well as of Christian faith, continuing to learn more about my faith and growing as a Christian, seeking what God wanted for my life. At times I felt distant from God, but he always brought me back to himself. Looking back on it, going to a public school that had high academic standards, and going there with a good group of Christian friends who were serious about their faith and who could help me as I also helped them navigate the dangers and temptations of "the world" helped me grow in ways that I didn't think would have been possible in a more sheltered environment. It seemed obvious to me that God was working in my life, and that he knew what he was doing with me, that he could be trusted to lead me.

Continue here: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/hobbs.html

so you mean that this Huxley guy is still around.