“Losing my religion. Why I recently walked away from Christianity.” – A Response From a Christian

You may have noticed all the attention that the above mentioned blog post got a few days ago. I want to respond to it because I hear these sorts of reasons for rejecting Christianity all the time. I’d like to know what you think about what I say, so please leave some comments if you are so inclined.

I feel bad for people who write articles, songs, or blogs like this because they tout themselves as being so rational and thoughtful but as you’ll see in a moment, they make blunders that prove they haven’t really thought things through very well. I gave you the link to this blog post in my opening sentence. I can only quote bits and pieces, but I encourage you to look at it in it’s entirety.

Here are some points from the “Top 20 List” of the things that led to my rejection of Christianity.

A Few Things We Know We Don’t Know

Here is his first major blunder. In point #9 he says

“The authors of much of the Bible are unknown. And of these unknown authors, the men who wrote the gospels likely never even met Jesus considering they were written 40-70 years after his death. A far cry from reliable testimony.”

The first mistake is that he says the authors are unknown, and then he tells all sorts of stuff about these authors that we know nothing about! He knows that 1) they are men, 2) they never met Jesus, 3) the approximate date that they wrote their letters, etc.

Now which is it, do we know something about them or not? As you can see, his argument refutes itself. He puts all his money on the fact that we don’t know anything about these authors, and then he gives us a list of things that we know about them. On the one hand, 2000 years of Christians know nothing, but somehow this obscure blog writer knows these historical details. It is certainly worth asking ourselves why we should be listening to this blog writer. How does he know that people who claimed to know Jesus never really knew him?

A Conspiracy Behind Every Interpretation? Even This One?

Here is his second major blunder. Many of his 20 points are objections to the stuff we find in the Bible – God killing people, sending them to hell, etc. Basically, he sits down, reads the Bible, comes to a conclusion about what it means and then objects to it. He is doing the job of interpretation. So far so good. Then he makes a mistake that is fatal to his argument. In point #11 he claims that

“The Bible is open to interpretation. Everyone interprets it in the way that suits them best or serves their purposes.”

So now he has just admitted that he interpreted the Bible in a way that suits his own purpose of leaving Christianity! Once again his own argument can be used against him.

There are two types of people in this world – Christians, non–Christians and me.

You’ll notice that several of his points deal with the way that Christians seem to act in evil ways. He lists all of our horrific acts and hypocritical sins – promotion of hatred and persecution, theft, lying and molestation of young children. Ok, fine. But then!!! He actually says,

“Christians are not at all ethically or morally different from non-Christians.”

What??? He has admitted that there are two types of people in this world – Christians and non-Christians (or perhaps, religious people and non-religious people). Then he shows how bad Christians are, and admits that non-Christians are no better. Where does this leave himself? He has just admitted that evil Christians are not at all ethically different than himself! Did he really want to admit this?

Once again, his own argument is used against himself! Look, I didn’t write this stuff because I wanted to be mean. But this guy clearly didn’t think things through before he put finger to keyboard. I can tell by most of his 20 points that he lacks understanding as to what Christianity is. Apparently, nobody has been able to explain it to him very well (or maybe they did and he wasn’t willing to listen).

The first several points that he deals with criticize the sorts of things that we see God doing as recorded in the Bible. I won’t comment on those points. But notice that he’s basically saying, “I don’t know why God does this stuff, it doesn’t make sense, so I’m outta here!”

This is what worries me though. Why couldn’t his church/family teach him good, authentic, healthy Christianity? Why is he so theologically dull that he can’t even answer some of his own objections? What has happened to the Church that people walk away from Christianity never having even known the basics? How did we become such a cultural embarrassment? I have some of my own answers to these questions. Most of all, I think that Christians have adopted a philosophy that belongs to somebody else.

Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered.

~ C.S. Lewis