"Autobiography of a Died-Again Christian"

by leavingwt 61 Replies latest jw friends

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  leavingwt

  I enjoyed a number of the points in this essay.

  Dr. Jaco Gericke's Deconversion Story: "Autobiography of a 'Died-Again' Christian

  <snippets>

  It was a little late in the day, however, when I realised that studying theology can be a downright dangerous business for any believer. You go into it full of romanticised and naive ideas of what it is all about. You enter thinking you know quite a bit about the Bible, only to discover that you were grossly overestimating yourself on this matter. You expect to be spiritually fed, only to discover that all is not as it seems.

  . . .

  I used to hear stories of people who started their studies as Christians and left it as atheists. I used to laugh at those impossible fictions. After all, as a sound and orthodox reformed theologian, I genuinely believed in the endurance of the saints and the impossibility of a true Christian losing faith. Becoming an atheist was the last thing that could happen to me, a true Christian, especially from studying the Bible. It was simply a preposterous and inconceivable notion. But somewhere along the way something happened. Something went horribly and frighteningly wrong. Today I no longer laugh at those stories. To be sure, I have become a character in my own impossible horror story. I would like to cry but there is no more tears left to do so. Now I am not even post-modem. I am nothing. I cannot be labelled. I have no mentors. I have no heroes. All scholarship seems like a game without any capital T Truths, any real progress or telos.

  . . .

  http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2009/12/dr-jaco-gerickes-deconversion-story.html
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  bohm

  interesting story. I would have liked it if he had given some specific details of what problems, areas of research he ran into when he studied theology that became impossible to overcome from an appolectic perspective.
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  PSacramento

  I think that when we go looking to the bible for the answers to our "spiritual" questions and we go believing that not only is the answer there but it must be the answer I want it to be and we go believing the bible to be infalliable, one of two things will happen:

  We become atheists or we see things they way we want to see them to "protect" oursevles from what may be a truth we are not ready to learn yet.
• 

  Chalam

  Hi LWT,

  Don't know if you saw this?

  Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath Pt. 1 of 15

  Dawkins is in fine form, excellent debate and exchange in uncut form too :)

  Alister McGrath answers well from my Christian perspective, save possibly the issue of human suffering which Dawkins returns to on a few occasions.

  Anyhow, highly recommended and a nice perspective from an ex-Atheist, now a born again Christian.

  Blessings,

  Stephen
• 

  Sad emo

  Been there, done that - but remained a Christian lol!

  He struggled with all the things I struggled with - where the OT fits into ANE culture, religion etc. It really is an eye-opener to the uninitiated - indeed it is frightening.

  From reading the account, I think the difference between him and me is that I was prepared to shift/accomodate the 'new' information - whereas he admits to being very conservative and unable to cope with a Bible which now appeared to be no longer 'inerrant' as well as other liberal doctrines.

  I guess it depends on how much one depends on the written pages to support your beliefs. If you have a shaky foundation, you're bound to run into trouble eventually.
• 

  lovelylil2

  I agree with sad emo. I went through a similiar realization about my christian beliefs after leaving the WT especially. however, since I was open to change my previously held beliefs, I was able to keep my faith intact. Many Christians do realize the bible has a lot of allegories not to be taken literal but that they do teach literal truths useful even for our day. For a true fundy, this may be intolerable to deal with and since he cannot view the bible as being anything but totally literal, he is not open to changing his views.

  It is sad really for anyone to loose the entirety of their belief system practically overnight, no matter what their belief system is, and then to not have anything to replace it. Kind of what happens to a lot of ex JWs I think. Peace, Lilly
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  Satanus

  I also died, again. I lost my bible belief after a few years outside the wt. I grieved that loss a lot more than the wt loss. Fortunately, i had picked up some spiritual practice from the pentacostals, and i leraned a few more from a few books. So, even though biblegod was found to be dead/nonexistent, there was still the spiritual aspect.

  S
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  goldensky

  What an interesting link, Leavingwt! I'm printing it out so I can take my time reading it without my eyes itching. I too wish he had given details about what shook his faith to that degree. Thanks a lot for sharing it with us.
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  leavingwt

  I have enjoyed your comments. Thank you.

  Two of you have asked about the "details" of what shook this gentleman's faith. I don't know. The material at the link indicates that it's the 'Appendix' to his dissertation. So, I guess there are more details, but I don't know if they're available online, etc.

  However, there are many of ex-believers on this forum that would be happy to share their stories, if you were to start a thread and ask them. Many of these ex-believers took months and years to study the matter before arriving at their conclusions.
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  PSacramento

  Thanks for that link Chalam.