I have listened to several podcasts and read blog posts by Christian apologists asserting that people who leave Christianity are weak; that if they had more character, backbone, and strength they would have remained Christians. Long-time readers have witnessed Evangelical preachers such as Dr. David Tee frequently suggest that I am weak, a quitter. Such false accusations certainly sting, but I have learned that folks who hurl such things my way are only trying to disparage and hurt me.
Evangelical critics know that it’s anything but easy for committed believers to walk away from Christianity. Such people were not nominal Christians who infrequently attended church. Thus, these critics are gaslighting people when they say that former Christians were weak, and that’s why they deconverted. I contend that most people who deconvert have great strength and courage; and that there was nothing easy about them walking (or running) away from everything they held dear.
In my case, I had been part of the Evangelical church for fifty years, a pastor for twenty-five of those years. As a person of deep faith and love for Jesus, I devoted my entire life to following Jesus and doing the work he called me to do. My partner of forty-six years can say the same. God wasn’t something we just did on Sundays. God, Jesus, the Bible, the church, and the work of the ministry dominated our lives seven days a week. We were not nominal, half-hearted believers, as any former church member and ministerial colleague will attest. Simply put, if we weren’t Christians, nobody was.
Thus, when we walked away from Christianity, it wasn’t because we were weak. If we were weak, we would have remained in the church. If we were weak we would have continued to play the game. Instead, we made the hardest decision in our lives. With much angst and psychological pain, we left all we held dear. we lost our church community, family, and social connections. Overnight we were ostracized and treated as if we were tools of Satan. People we had known all our lives, met in college, or labored together in God’s vineyard, abandoned us overnight. I received nasty, hateful emails, letters, and blog comments from people who previously loved and respected me. Several preachers used my deconversion as sermon fodder, spreading half-truths and lies about me.
Weak, we were not, and neither were others I know who deconverted. How much strength would it have taken for us to stay in the church? Not much. It is always easier to go along than it is to stand up for what you really believe. I don’t fault anyone who takes a different path, but to suggest that I was somehow “weak” because I dared to act upon my beliefs and convictions is untrue. Those who suggest otherwise are guilty of character assassination.
Former Evangelical Christians are some of the strongest people I know; people willing to be true to their convictions and beliefs; people who put intellectual honesty above perception; and people who are willing to make great sacrifices to maintain and practice their beliefs. Many of them have forsaken all to follow reason, skepticism, and rational inquiry. I applaud their commitment to truth. To call such people “weak” is just a cheap attempt to smear their character.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
I think I speak for all your followers, when I say that far from being weak, your choices and resolve make you strong, damn strong. You broke free of indoctrination and became a better person for it, showing conviction and courage, something the rabid evangelical trolls of this world are incapable of comprehending.
Absolutely true. Stepping away from an entire life and livelihood based on one’s belief because one sees the lie takes an incredibly strong and upright person. It’s no wonder so many pastors simply continue preaching even after losing their belief. But not you Bruce, and I respect you immensely for that.
Bruce: “To call such people “weak” is just a cheap attempt to smear their character.”
Zoe: We are their scapegoats.
I agree with what Ben and Aram said. Leaving a lifetime of beliefs when you find they’re not true takes a heck of a lot of courage. Leaving when it’s your profession is even more difficult. I respect how much you and Polly went through in pursuit of truth. I think it would have been the easier way in many regards to stay a pastor – it was a profession you were comfortable with for decades. To leave in middle age had to be terrifying. And Polly getting over the prohibition against wearing pants was a big deal (and no, I am not joking).
They think people who leave the church are weak? That’s… weirdly telling. How much effort do they expend to keep believing? And if it takes that much effort — if you need to be Strong to remain a Christian — doesn’t that suggest that maybe some kind of reassessment is in order?
But that, of course, assumes that they’re making these accusations in, um, good faith.
“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.” The immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King also apply for we who are no longer held by the chains of religion.
We know better, Bruce. Changing one’s mind about anything in which one is heavily invested is hard because it goes against human nature. Deconverting is not for the faint hearted or irresolute. It’s no exaggerataion to say it takes a superpower of sorts. In any case, it’s the furthest thing from weakness.
Bruce, the whole reason I have been reading your blog is your integrity. I can read about atheism or faith in plenty of other places, but your conviction comes through with every post.
My high school Senior class motto was “Only dead fish go with the flow.” I’m sure it was pirated from uncited source, and in addition I did not suggest it. Even so, I’ve taken it to heart and I still consider it a worthwhile aspiration. I think of all the preachers who are disenchanted with their young, naive, and idealistic choice of vocation who have traded a career they thought they could believe in for a job they don’t believe in anymore and that they hate. I wouldn’t call THEM weak, I don’t know their exact situation, but I do know one thing those that struggle upstream are certainly NOT weak. Until atheists finally take over and become a political and social majority, it is definitely the harder path that requires more strength than those that flap their jaws to utter such useless crap can even begin to imagine.
The ministry was nothing like I told it would be in college. I remember as a young preacher standing in two foot of shit 💩 from a broken septic line. I looked up to the man helping me and said, “they sure didn’t teach this in college. “🤣🤣
Pingback:Week of Trump Blurry Flurry Musk trips and salutes, Jan 6 Pardons, Bishop checks King – Red State Blues