February 7, 1997
"God can have my soul. I don't need it."
- Me, February 7th, 1996
I was raised a fundamentalist. My mother and father had been raised in Amish and Old-Order Mennonite families, respectively, so my upbringing was liberal by comparison. They took me to church two or three times a week, long before I was able to comprehend what was going on. Although I couldn't understand the sermons, the training I received at home was more than enough to indoctrinate me into the Christian faith.
Every night as my mother would tuck me into bed, she would say "Remember, mommy and daddy love you, but Jesus loves you even more." To a four-year-old child, that was a mindblowing statement. Children naturally adore their parents, and I was no exception. I knew my parents loved me. I knew they wouldn't lie to me, because unlike some parents, they had not deceived me about Santa Claus. I would no more have questioned the idea that Jesus loved me than I would have questioned the fact that the sky was blue. It didn't take much for them to convince me to accept Jesus into my heart. In fact, my parents did too good of a job, and in so doing, they layed the seeds of my eventual deconversion.
My desire to feel the love of Jesus and to see heaven was so great, that I wanted to be sure that I had been saved. How could I tell? I hadn't felt anything different after asking him into my heart. My parents continued to love me, they said that Jesus did too, they said that my sins had been forgiven, and that I was going to heaven, but there was nothing else to indicate that I was any different. In desperation, I would go to bed at night and pray in the darkness. "Jesus, I really, really mean it. Just in case you didn't hear me last time..."
Finally I read a Sunday School tract that said, "If you worry about whether or not you really are a Christian, it's a sign that you are one. Someone who isn't a Christian wouldn't worry about it." That made sense to me, and relieved a lot of my fears. But it was too late. I had been inadvertantly taught to look for proof, for evidence, and would never again be able to deny myself that search.
When I was in grade school, we moved to a different town. About the same time, my parents had a falling out with the Mennonite church we had been attending, and my family spent some time searching for another church home. Eventually, we found a church of the Grace Brethren denomination. It was a fairly mainstream evangelical church, large, vibrant and steadily growing. The pastor was energetic, the music was majestic, there were programs during the week for children and in-depth Bible studies for adults. Church became something to look forward to.
I started to learn about my faith, attending church several times a week. In the Sunday morning service the pastor would apply the Bible to matters of every day life, preaching so that even kids could understand. Then there was Sunday school, where we would read Bible stories and discuss them among ourselves, carefully guided by the teacher. We'd go home for the afternoon, then return for the evening service, often with church-organized youth activities before and afterward. Wednesday night was yet another Bible study and youth activity night.
It is no wonder that I became well-versed in Christian doctrine. I knew all the textbook answers, and believed them with my whole heart. My church family would not lie to me. I could see that they really believed what they taught, and honestly tried to live it every day of their lives.
But like my parents, the church tried just a little too hard. From time to time they would host a series of revival meetings, or they would offer summer camps or weekend youth retreats. I attended many of these, and each time I would feel a powerful sense of conviction whenever the speaker would begin to preach. At first I took it for granted. There were things in my life that God wanted me to change. Since I was certainly not perfect, that made sense to me. But after many of these events, I began to notice a pattern. Curious, I went to the library and began looking up books on revival. One thing lead to another and soon I reached an inescapable conclusion. My mind was being played with!
I discovered the world of mental manipulation and behavior modification. In short, brainwashing. I could tell that the techniques being used on me were not as harsh as those used by some cults, but all the signs were there. In fact, their subtlety made them all the more effective. After some initial consternation, I realized that it was not a concerted effort with sinister motives. The teachers and preachers I was exposed to weren't consciously trying to brainwash me. They were just using techniques of spreading the Gospel message that had been proven to work.
I was able to forgive that. I wanted to forgive that. But I was not able to forget, and although I felt the tuggings many times, the techniques never again worked on me.
The curtain had been pulled, and I had begun to see the truth about the Great and Powerful Oz. But I didn't want to believe that that was the truth. There had to be something greater, something real, something that wasn't just humans pulling the strings. So I started to read.
Apologetics appealed to me. Here were intelligent people who believed the same things I did, and could tell me why. C.S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge, R.C. Sproul, Francis Schaeffer, Josh McDowell. I overlooked their errors because I wanted to. They were telling me the things I wanted to hear. I realized that I was deceiving myself one day in the library when I looked at a book about the Bible that was written by a non-Christian, and refused to check it out. I knew that none of the Christian authors I had read had any plausible explanations for most of the things in that book. (Today, that volume, Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible, occupies a prominent place on my bookshelf.)
So I decided to read the Bible, straight through, begats and all. I did. Like my parents and the church, the Bible went too far. The translation I chose to read was the New American Standard Bible. It is a fairly faithful translation, without any of the flowery language of the King James, or the bland simplification of the New International Version. Because of that, the voice of the authors came through loud and clear. I began to realize that the Bible had been written by real people. They weren't just secretaries for God, who dictated the whole thing, as he had dictated the Law to Moses. No, these people had written what they felt, in their own unique languages and styles. Even though I was scrupulously avoiding anything that would point out contradictions I couldn't explain, I began to wonder: if God had given them enough leeway to put their own unmistakable mark on his Word, how much of an impact did they have on the actual contents?
It was a question I dared not answer.
By the time I left for college, I had decided to become what C.S. Lewis called a "Mere Christian". I would not allow doctrinal issues or theology to disturb me. The central message of the Bible was love, and I could trust that despite any other doubts I might have.
But even that simple faith could not last. I discovered that many non- Christians exhibited greater love for their neighbors than my Christian friends did. One day in the cafeteria, I heard a Christian say to his friends that all gays should be lined up and shot. I felt sick to my stomach. Some of my acquaintances in my classes were gay. All I could think about was "What if they were here to hear that? What would they think about Christians? Would they ever talk to me again, knowing that I was a Christian? If Jesus is so great, why doesn't He do something to stop these idiots from driving the ones He loves and died for away from Him?"
A few months later, I cursed a travelling preacher who stood out on the mall, haranguing passing students. A decent crowd had gathered, including some of my Christian friends. The preacher was a young, well-dressed man, obviously sincere, and not a complete nut like some of the "Brother Jed" types who occasionally passed through. As I listened to him tell the passing students how evil they were, it suddenly saw my religion as others saw it. I realized that the whole thing was not based on love as I had previously believed. It was a doctrine of sin and degredation.
"Hey!" I finally yelled. "Who the fuck are you? Half of the people here are Christians! And what about the other half? Do you think they're going to listen to you? Where the fuck are you when they're hurting? Where the fuck are you when they need help? How can you tell them what they need, when you don't know the first thing about them?" I climbed up on the bench he was using as a stage. "Step off, motherfucker!" He did. I don't think he preached for the rest of the day, and I never saw him on the University of Toledo campus again.
I wandered off in a daze. After that, I stopped going to the meetings for Christian students. I didn't see any point. I already knew all the doctrine. I knew they couldn't teach me to love. I knew that Jesus was not among them. I found a wonderful girlfriend (now my wife) who understood about making the world a better place a little bit at a time. I moved away from Ohio, and didn't bother to find a new home church. From time to time I'd consider it, but the thought of trying to fit in with all the happy, sincere Christians I had known as a teenager filled me with dread.
For three years I was a functional agnostic. I neither believed, nor disbelieved. I could not call myself a Christian in any but the most general of terms, yet I could not get free of the faith I had known since I was a child. Along with a desire for heaven, I had been indoctrinated into a severe fear of hell. I thought it best to hedge my bets. Every once in a while, I would pray to God for something to let me know what to do. Once again I was that little kid, lying in bed and asking God for something, anything to show the way.
I doubt it was a message from God, but I finally found an answer. One afternoon I was reading a book a friend had loaned to me. The Ape That Spoke by John McCrone. As it layed out the structure and mechanisms of the human mind, I began to get more excited. The brain was just an organ, and the mind nothing more than a symptom of the brain's activity! An amazing symptom to be sure, but one entirely dependant on the structure of the flesh beneath it. Find out how the brain works, and you have the basis for understanding the mind. Change the brain, and the mind would change. Kill the brain, and the mind would die. Even assuming that souls existed, with heavens and hells in multitudes, it was nothing to me. Without the memories stored in the neural connections of my brain, that soul wouldn't even be me! Oh, sure. A God could restore my rotting brain for the sole purpose of torturing it for eternity, but was that the kind of God I wanted to worship? Was that the kind of God I had worshipped all these years?
No.
Then and there, I stood up, took a deep breath, and uttered the words that set me free. "God can have my soul. I don't need it."
As I write this, it's been exactly one year since I made that declaration. It's been one of the best years of my life. I got married. I got a new job. I've read the Bible through again. I've read lots of theology, and philosophy, and science, just to see if there was anything I was missing. There was, and I have a lot left to learn, but not once have I felt the urge to pick up my old beliefs.
I am now free to explore the world around me, without any preconceived notions about what I should expect. I can deal with reality on its own terms when I have to, and mold it to my will when I can. I do not fear death, and more importantly, I do not fear life. I do not fear.
Copyright © 1997 Jason Steiner