Deconversion stories from The Skeptical Review

These stories are taken from letters to The Skeptical Review. The "Editor's Notes" are reflections by Farrell Till.
You can download all of The Skeptical Review for easy off-line reading and searching via The Pilate Project.

• Anon describes her complete immersion in Christianity and how it did not fulfill its promises.

• Bob Hypes This former Church-of-Christ preacher attended Cincinnati Bible Seminary and study led him to leave Christianity.

• Ransom L. Webster had been a fundamentalist preacher for 20 years and now "shudder[s] at those days and the amount of energy spent leading so many people astray." Like many others, study led him out of Christianity.

• Donald Morgan "I did a lot of reading, and I now have an extensive library of critical material. I'm happy to say that I am a 'born-again atheist.' "

• Glenn W. Wood Grew up a Southern Baptist, and his father was a Southern Baptist pastor.

• Anon "I started writing on a secular humanist bulletin board with the intention of converting those "poor souls" who didn't have the truth. At the least, I would be able to say to God that I'd done my part in spreading his word. In the end, they ended up converting me!"

• Walt Noble Former Mormon High Priest, born-again Christian: "all it took for me to get shocked off my biblical inerrancy perch was two days into Thomas Paine's Age of Reason"

• Irene Jones "Facing facts after a lifetime of indoctrination requires integrity and involves the same courage it takes for a child to relinquish a beloved security blanket, but the freedom is worth it."

• Harry Ricker, Jr. "When I read the inerrancy defenses, they really didn't give me solid, intellectually honest answers. I read Josh McDowell on the issue of Jesus's resurrection, defenses by Gleason Archer, Norman Geisler, and others. When I read the other side, it made more sense."

• Wayne VanWeerthuizen had a 4-month Internet debate on Christianity. "I won that Q-link debate, because I was willing to learn from my opponent and learn I was wrong."

• David Friesen "I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home and was forced to endure unimaginable psychological abuse because of the extremely "hardline" Christianity that my parents enforced."

• Linda Vincent "I am kind of embarrassed that I believed in something for so long just because other people told me to."

• Dr. Woodrow Coppedge "In reality, fundamentalists are idolaters; they blindly worship a book. Not "a book," per se but a 2000- to 4000-year-old collection of books, written by various authors to various diverse cultures, far removed from our own, that contradicts itself on every other page. To "literally interpret" such an ancient collection of literature as "absolute truth" is clearly delusional and borders on psychotic."

• Kelly gives an interesting summary of his scholarly findings.

• Rob Savarie writes about Happiness Found "out of" Christ...

• Douglas R. Larson a former Pastor, describes his doubts and how all his so-called Christian friends deserted him when he left the ministry.

• Carol Faulkenberry "After a little reading, we realized we were atheists and have proclaimed it proudly ever since. And guess what? Since then I have not had one second of depression or irrational fear. I didn't know life could be so enjoyable. I now believe with all my heart that teaching a child to fear hell is the very worst form of child abuse."

• Michael Koller "I don't think it's possible for an inerrantist to understand the intellectual freedom people experience once they have released their minds from ideological constraints, including that of an inerrant and literal interpretation of the Bible."

• Amy Smith deconverts in prison and writes from there: "My liberation from all the religious propaganda is so refreshingly honest to me and is a new lease on life. I am actually experiencing a personal freedom within these walls."

• Allen Nielsen writes Thanks from Another Ex-Preacher...

• Mark Wenneborg describes his frustration that the Christians around him invent theories about his deconversion rather than accepting that he examined the Bible and concluded that it is not 'the inspired word of God.'"

• Craig Cunningham left Christianity after years of missionary evangelism and describes his subsequent rejection by all the Christians he knows.

• Tom Brookman "the members of that church made a large mistake: they insisted I now needed to study the Bible. Study it I did and found so many ridiculous and unbelievable things I began to feel embarrassed that I had been "suckered" into this bizarre belief system."

• Brian Dube Another Inerrantist Sees the Light... "I have been to the mission field and served functions as an assistant minister, but four years ago after my son was born, like a splash of cold water on my face, I awoke from my daze."

• Dr. Dorothy B. Thompson "...life as an atheist is peaceful, happy, exciting, and confident."

• Anon. "I considered myself to be a very "good Christian," but I feel that I am a much better person now that "the Good Book" is out of my life for good!" Farrell Till also outlines his reasons for deconversion.

• Dave Eaton describes his time consuming Christian past and the happines of freethought.

• Lee Salisbury was an ordained minister, founder and pastor of a prosperous evangelical, Pentecostal church, plus preacer at pastor seminars in Africa, and ministered in churches in Yugoslavia, England, Sweden, Canada, and the U.S. Then he read some books that got him thinking!

• Atieno Odak describes the wonderful feeling of freethought.

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