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January 10, 2016 |
| Turning Away | ||
A surprising number of people who seemed to be solid Christians are turning away from God and calling themselves atheists. In this lesson we'll look at a few of the cases to learn a few of the reasons why.
As we do, we'll need a key verse:
Stop regarding man, whose breath of life is in his nostrils; for why should he be esteemed? (Isaiah 2:22)
9:17AM EST 1/23/2015 JENNIFER LECLAIRE
George Perdikis was a founding member of the Christian rock band Newsboys. (George Perdikis/YouTube)
The Newsboys is one of the most popular Christian bands ever - most recently reminding fans why with the hit theme song for the movie God's Not Dead that tackles atheism head on. That's one more reason why it's so disturbing that one of its co-founders, George Perdikis, has renounced Christ and embraced a godless worldview.
"I'm now an atheist," Perdikis wrote in guest post on the "Friendly Atheist's Patheos blog.
"I always felt uncomfortable with the strict rules imposed by Christianity. All I wanted to do was create and play rock and roll… and yet most of the attention I received was focused on how well I maintained the impossible standards of religion. I wanted my life to be measured by my music, not by my ability to resist temptation."
Perdikis left The Newsboys in 1990, which is when his heart began to stray from Christianity. In the post, he explains how he "carved out a life for myself away from church" and started his own "voyage of inquiry" into what he believed. He explored cosmology and was fascinated by the works of Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lawrence Krauss, Brian Cox and Richard Dawkins.
"By 2007, I renounced Christianity once and for all and declared myself an atheist," Perdikis says.
"The Christian music scene is populated by many people who act as though they have a direct hotline to a God who supplies them with the answers to the Universe. There seems to be more ego and narcissism amongst Christian musicians than their secular counterparts."
Perdikis is not the first high-profile Christian rocker to reject Christ. Heavy metal Christian rock star Tim Lambesis last June told the world he's an atheist. Not only that, he told the Alternative Press he figures only 1 in 10 Christian bands he toured with were actually Christians.
"I actually wasn't the first guy in As I Lay Dying to stop being a Christian," Lambesis said. "In fact, I think I was the third. The two who remained kind of stopped talking about it, and then I'm pretty sure they dropped it too. We talked about whether to keep taking money from the 'Christian market.'"
Earlier this month, I wrote an article entitled, "Why Are So Many Christians Turning Into Atheists?" after ex-pastor Ryan Bell decided to share this results of his experience living a year without God. His conclusion: "I don't think God exists."
Again I ask, how do you move from accepting a call of God into full-time ministry only to turn your back on Him and decide to exchange a close relationship with God to a "closer relationship with reality"? How do you glorify God with your music only to reject Him - and in Lambesis' case, hire a hit man to kill your wife - just years later? What is going on? Is the church doing something wrong? Or is the culture wooing once-saved Christians to the godless side? Or both?
Deception - and even the strong delusions that will characterize the end times (2 Thess. 2:11) - is rapidly rising in the body of Christ.
Jesus warned us not to be deceived. Paul warned us not to be deceived. Peter warned us not to be deceived. John warned us not to be deceived. James warned us not to be deceived. You can hardly read a chapter in the New Testament that doesn't issue a warning against deception. And yet deception is rising in the church.
The problem with deception is that you don't know you are deceived. If you knew you were deceived, you'd walk away from the lie and embrace the truth. Lovers of the truth are less likely to be deceived, but anyone can fall into deception. And if you think you are above the possibility of falling into deception, you are walking in a deception called pride.
11:00AM EST 1/4/2016 JESSILYN JUSTICE
Rapper Jahaziel says he is no longer a Christian. (Facebook/Jahaziel)
Christian rapper Jahaziel denounced Christianity three days before the celebration of Christ's birth.
"A short while ago I turned away from 20 years as a professing Christian. I had a good job with a church organization, a house provided by the church, a large social circle of likeminded people, a career in gospel music, a worldwide fan base, a respected reputation & status within Christian and non Christian circles," Jahaziel wrote on Facebook.
In 2013, the U.K.-based rapper told CrossRhythms he was shying away from fame for the sake of the gospel.
Now, the tables have turned. The man Rapzilla called one of the most important U.K. artists in the history of Christian hip-hop has not only renounced his faith, he's questioning the foundation Christianity is built on.
In the Facebook post, Jahaziel told followers he cannot believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God.
He later posted a follow-up for those who were questioning his decision.
"You can believe the bible and its God all you want but to me he just demands my fear because he cannot earn my respect. I cannot possibly agree that he is love unless I ignore all the men, women and little children he has slaughtered throughout the entire bible," the post reads.
"But maybe some peoples Christian lenses won't allow them to see that - cool. Mine didn't either for [a] long time. I have tasted and seen - and my conclusion is that Christianity (it's flawed book, bloodthirsty god and mythical savior) i have found unsatisfactory and unworthy of my allegiance or worship unless by threatening to kill me if I don't - as Christianity does."
11:30AM EDT 6/18/2014 JENNIFER LECLAIRE
Heavy metal Christian rock star Tim Lambesis says he's not really a Christian at all. (Facebook)
Heavy metal Christian rock star Tim Lambesis admitted last month to hiring a hit man to kill his estranged wife. He was sentenced to six years in prison for paying to have Meggan Murphy Lambesis murdered.
Here's the back-story: Lambesis was in a custody dispute with his wife over their three children. According to charging documents in the criminal case, in May 2013 he asked a personal trainer at his gym if he knew anyone who could kill his wife. The trainer called the cops and an undercover sting led to his arrest.
Now, the founder of As I Lay Dying is now making another confession - the Grammy-nominated Christian metal singer says he's not really a Christian at all.
In an interview with Alternative Press, reporter Ryan J. Downey asked Lambesis a pointed question about a YouTube video in which the rocker discussed a new side project called Pyrithion. Lambesis described it as "satanic."
"I remember watching the video at the time and noticing you never gave the easy answer: 'Of course not. I'm a Christian!' You knew people thought of you as a Christian. Weren't you lying by omission?" Downy asked.
Here's where the admission comes:
"Yes. If you say, 'This is what I believe, you can count on this. If you believe the same things, I'm on your team.' A lot of Christian parents said, 'Yes, you can buy this As I Lay Dying CD, because they're a Christian band.' They don't even think to actually check the lyrics," Lambesis says. "So when you change your views, you kind of owe it to the fans to be honest.
"As far as the video I did explaining Pyrithion's lyrics … I was trying to put out a fire. I was afraid it would affect As I Lay Dying sales, which would affect my overall income. I was trying to put out the fire by saying the easiest thing, 'I'm not a satanist!' Truthfully, I was an atheist. The 'strategy' I had at the time was cowardly. Two of the songs on that record were about coming to grips with the idea that life has no purpose, no meaning. These were negative themes I wasn't 'allowed' to deal with in As I Lay Dying songs. I thought making As I Lay Dying darker would be bad for my career. That was my thinking."
But the revelation becomes perhaps even more disturbing, when Lambesis says As I Lay Dying has toured with more "Christian bands" who actually aren't Christians than bands that are. In 12 years of touring with As I Lay Dying, he estimates only one in 10 Christian bands he toured with were actually Christians.
"I actually wasn't the first guy in As I Lay Dying to stop being a Christian. In fact, I think I was the third. The two who remained kind of stopped talking about it, and then I'm pretty sure they dropped it, too. We talked about whether to keep taking money from the 'Christian market,'" Lambesis said. "We had this bizarrely 'noble' thing, like, 'Well, we're not passing along any bad ideas. We're just singing about real-life stuff. Those kids need to hear about real life, because they live in a bubble.'"
For a small subset of religious believers, quitting their faith is one of the hardest choices of their lives
AMANDA MARCOTTE, ALTERNET
The percentage of Americans who have abandoned religious faith has been growing rapidly in recent years, with one in five Americans citing "none" as their religious affiliation. Most of these people have little to fear when it comes to admitting they have no religion, but for a small subset of religious believers, quitting faith is one of the hardest choices they'll have to make in their lives. What happens to people who lose their faith in God after they've taken on a position as a religious leader? Here's an examination of five prominent skeptics of religion who used to consider themselves not just believers, but leaders, and how they've learned to cope with life after religion.
1) Dan Barker. Religion was a major part of Dan Barker's life for more than two decades. He became an evangelical Christian in his early teens and entered a career as a preacher who specialized in spreading the Christian faith through music. He wrote popular religious children's musicals, worked heavily with Christian singer Manuel Bonilla, and accompanied many other famous Christian musicians.
Over the years, however, Barker's reading caused him to start to doubt the truth not just of Christianity, but claims of God altogether. In 1984, he publicly came out as an atheist. Since then, Barker has become a prominent atheist leader and author, writing two books about his journey and working with the Clergy Project and the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Despite his past–or because of it–Barker shows no reticence in criticizing his former faith. "How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost?" he asks, while affirming rationalism as the surer path to a happy existence.
2) Jerry DeWitt. For some, leaving religion exacts a high price. Jerry DeWitt lost his faith after 25 years in the Pentecostal ministry in Bible Belt rural America. DeWitt, who was converted at age 17 in Jimmy Swaggart's church, hung onto his religion as long as he could, but finally could no longer hide his lack of belief.
While he found a welcoming community among atheists, particularly through the Clergy Project (devoted to helping ministers who have lost their faith) and the group Recovering From Religion, DeWitt still faced many practical concerns as a result of his deconversion. As recounted in a profile for the New York Times, DeWitt lost his job, his wife, and much of his connection to his community in his hometown of DeRidder, LA. While he is getting back on his feet with his work at Recovering From Religion and a grant from the Clergy Project, DeWitt's story shows that for many atheists, the price for being true to your conscience remains high.
3) Teresa MacBain. Teresa MacBain described to NPR the hell that is continuing to serve as a minister after losing your faith in God: "I start having stomachaches, headaches, just knowing that I got to stand up and say things that I no longer believe in and portray myself in a way that's totally false."
MacBain continued to serve as a minister despite having concluded that she didn't believe in no small part because she feared the economic devastation that would follow if she didn't have her job as a minister any longer. Eventually, with moral support from the Clergy Project, she moved on to become an outspoken atheist and the executive director of Humanists of Florida.
MacBain describes a lifetime of squelching doubts, going back to her adolescence, when she noticed the internal contradictions in the Bible. Despite decades of trying to ignore her doubts, her inherent nature as a questioner eventually came out. She described her deconversion to American Atheist Magazine: "I didn't want to lose my faith. I didn't want to change or stop believing, but I wanted truth more!"
4) Anthony Pinn. Anthony Pinn is a professor of religious studies at Rice University and an outspoken expert on African-American humanism. As he explained in a recent speech at Skepticon, he began preaching at the ripe old age of 12, and was ordained at age of 18. His doubts started immediately after he started working as a youth pastor in Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. Now he has a Ph.D. in religious studies from Harvard and a professorship in Houston, and he's a blunt and outspoken critic of religion, focusing specifically on religion's inability to address the concerns of the black community
Depending on your point of view, Pinn's acerbic wit and no-holds-barred approach to the discussion of belief versus non-belief is either delightful or offensive. In a recent interview with the Root, Pinn summed up his critique of religion by saying, "I think African Americans are worse off because of their allegiance to theism. The belief in God and gods has not been particularly useful or productive for them. It has lessened their appeal to their own creativity and ingenuity, and in most cases has resulted in a kind of bizarre understanding of suffering as a marker of closeness to God and a mark of divine favor. Nothing good can come out of that."
5) Andrew Johnson. In the Mormon faith, young men must demonstrate their right to inherit the priesthood by going on a missionary trip to spread their faith to the non-believers. For Andrew Johnson, however, going on a missionary trip made him a non-believer. The time away from home made it easier to research literature (including Richard Dawkins' instant classic, The God Delusion) that spoke to his doubts about God.
Johnson has since put that famous Mormon work ethic to the task of helping other ex-Mormon atheists find community and support, creating a club called Atheists of Utah Valley. "I thought I was the only one," Johnson said, but his work organizing atheists in the atheist-unfriendly Mormon region of Utah has conclusively demonstrated that atheists are turning up, and thriving, in every corner of this country.
These are just a sampling of the stories happening every day in this country as people who aren't just believers but leaders in their various faith communities are losing their faith and turning to secular humanism to find the answers to life's big questions. The Clergy Project, an organization devoted to helping members of the clergy who no longer believe, has over 200 members, despite its rather recent founding. Now that atheists are organizing and making their presence known more than ever before, the ranks of religious leaders who no longer believe and want to come out is only likely to keep growing.