University of Pretoria – The Died-Again Christian Syndrome

Christian - university of pretoria

Tourniquet album

The Died-Again Christian Syndrome By the University of Pretoria

I have nothing to say about this article written by a post-doctoral student of the University of Pretoria.  It’s pretty self explanatory.  The absolute hatred for born again Christians is extremely evident.  This is what Jesus Christ said would happen in the last days.  They will choose a false Christ, doctrines of demons, and wickedness over the Truth.

I will always stand true in my faith for Jesus Christ, Gericke.   There is nothing you can say or do for that matter that can change my beliefs and love for Jesus Christ.   Don’t make your insecurities and problems mine because you just don’t get it.

Jesus said in Luke 23:34;   “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

Faculty of Theology should be called the Faculty of Occultism.  Their main aim is to study the Bible and then tear it apart.

—————-

by Gericke, JW – University of Pretoria

The ‘died-again Christian’ syndrome – Its etiology as manifested among fundamentalist students of the Old Testament in South Africa

Johnny is the chemist’s son but Johnny is no more
What Johnny thought was H2O was H2SO4
(lyrics from: ‘Acid Head’ by Tourniquet
 
ABSTRACT

Many Old Testament students (and subsequent scholars) come to the subject as eager fundamentalist Christians hoping to one day join the ministry. It is therefore not surprising that an exposure to the findings of biblical criticism and its exposure of the all-too-human, pre-Christian and alien nature of the Hebrew Bible has not infrequently contributes to a crisis of belief and, not uncommonly, a complete loss of faith (be it temporary or permanent). The cognitive dissonance involved in the rethinking of one’s childhood faith, the disorientation of having one’s consciousness transformed and the doubting engendered by insights that contradict the dogmas of one’s own Church traditions can be experienced as a shattering of reality – an inversion of the process of being born-again. This paper aims take a closer look at the etiology of the ‘died-again Christian syndrome’ as it is manifested among Old Testament students in the contemporary South African context.

A  INTRODUCTION

In Kerkbode (16 November, 2001:6), the official newspaper of the Dutch Reformed Church, published a letter, part of which reads in translation:

I am a student at one of the Dutch Reformed Church’s theological faculties. I am worried about the training those of us preparing for the ministry receive. It feels like we are being thrown to the lions. It is shocking to have to hear from first year students that a lecturer told them already in their first module of Old Testament studies that Abraham is just a story. I know students who have lost their faith as a result.

———

1.     This article was written as part of a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department Old Testament Studies in the Faculty of Theology at the University of Pretoria. It is dedicated to all those who have eaten from the tree of knowledge, realised that they were naked, and now live as best they can east of Eden. Those who know that the only ‘sage’ you can believe in, is the herb that goes into your cooking pot. Those who can tell you that you will find the meaning of ‘life’ only in a dictionary.
2.     Amuch more illustrated version of this article was read as a paper entitled ‘Old Testament studies as a recipe for losing faith? A social-psychological perspective on the South African scenario’ at the 2005 conference on The Bible in Africa, at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in Pietermaritzburg (the annual OTSSA meeting). It was classified as belonging under the rubric of South African Issues and Teaching the Old Testament in Africa. As noted there, the humour featured in this article is not meant to make light of a serious subject but, paradoxically, to emphasise the very complex and problematic nature of the issues involved.

In the subsequent edition of the paper (16 December 2001:8), the author of another letter wrote in response:

The letter about theology students who lose their faith was one of the most shocking letters I have ever read in this paper. Since then I have made an effort to speak to other former and current students and was devastated by what some have had to say. At the University of Pretoria a lecturer apparently began his very first lecture to these students by telling then that the stories in Genesis are fiction and did not literally happen.

In the same edition, the author of another letter wanted to know what the Church planned to do with the lecturer and asked:

‘… does he really belong in a faculty for the training of future ministers in the Church. Just think about it: if Jonah and the fish is (just) a story, if Abraham’s history is also only just a tale, how many more ‘stories’ might there be?

These abstracts represent but the tip of the iceberg of a debate about the nature of the Bible which, though it has been with us for centuries, has particularly intensified over the past decade in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa with ever-increasing mutual hostility between those one might label ‘fundamentalist’ and those often referred to as being of a ‘liberal’ or ‘critical’ disposition.3 In both Church and public media, within the Dutch Reformed Church and in its Synods, in local congregations and in the three theological faculties involved in the training of ministers, something ominous is brewing. This year alone, renewed and more serious efforts have been launched by students of a fundamentalist disposition at the University of Pretoria to have lecturers indicted for what is alleged to be their denial of the literal historicity of certain events depicted in the Bible. Apparently then, it seems that teaching the Old Testament in the new South Africa has become a dangerous and controversial business, potentially hazardous to the mental health of both students and lecturers alike. Studying the Old Testament, so it seems, has become for some a recipe for losing faith.

——-

3.     It is interesting in this regard that in the official statements of the Dutch Reformed Church during the last decade (and especially following the assemblies of the General Synods in 1998 and 2002) regarding the nature of the Bible, both fundamentalist and liberalist approaches to the text were rejected as extremes. In this regard, the Church appears to have opt for something in between these two opposites yet, among the laity, the entire spectrum of views still survives with a predominate tendency towards the fundamentalist pole. Several books on the nature of the Bible appeared that were written by Dutch Reformed scholars, including those of Deist (1986), Spangenberg (1998), Van der Watt (2000), Nicol (2002), König (2002) and others. The need for renewed formulation came about particularly as a result about the debates concerning the nature and authority of Scripture as these crystallised out of the discussions in the public media around topics like the Historical Jesus, The ’new Reformation’, Gay rights, etc. In some way, what is now happening here is similar to the debates in the Anglican Church in Britain during the 60’s (Bishop JAT Robinson who in the infamous ‘Honest- to-God’ debate also talked about the ’new Reformation’ and called for a new understanding of God and Christ as a result of the contributions by Tillich and Bultmann) (Robinson 1963). During the 1980’s, there was again heated debate, this time involving the Sea of Faith Movement spearheaded by the non-realist philosopher of religion, Don Cupitt, who called for a completely post-modern and naturalist approach to faith (Cupitt 1980, 1984)

But why should this be the case? After all, are students not supposed to grow in their faith when they learn about the nature and origin of the biblical texts? In a perfect world, yes. In our world, apparently not. And it’s not difficult to see why. For we are living in the turbulence of a paradigm shift in South African culture, not only politically and socially but also religiously and intellectually. It should therefore not be too difficult to see why someone who has for his or her entire life known only a fundamentalist view of the Bible, experiences severe cognitive dissonance when intellectuals of the same spiritual and religious tradition seem to be implying that everything learnt thus far, everything that gave joy, security, and consolation, everything taught as capital Truth, normative, unquestionable and untouchable – that all this is actually mistaken and based on outdated all-too-human opinions.

In this paper I aim to provide a social-psychological perspective on the typical experience of students from fundamentalist backgrounds as they attempt to reconcile their childhood faith with what they learn in biblical criticism of the Old Testament. The social matrix itself is derived mostly from the scenario at the University of Pretoria among students of the Dutch Reformed Church between 1994, when I was a first year student, and 2004, a decade later (i.e. Old Testament studies in the New South Africa). The students concerned are those of ‘generation-X’ and their lecturers are the first generation of Old Testament scholars in South Africa who are all comfortable with and at home in critical scholarship. Such is the current status quo, notwithstanding the fact that both the students and the professors come from the same fundamentalist background in the Church. As a result, both students who have studied since 1994 in post-Apartheid South Africa and the professors who lectured them will find something familiar in what follows below.

Given the current situation in both the Church and academic contexts, the research of this paper should be relevant for the foreseeable future although the issues merit more elaborate and in-depth inquiry. Whether, however, my findings are representative, and of value in elucidating what is the case at other Universities and among those of other Christian Church backgrounds, I leave for those who are more familiar than me with the particular scenarios to decide.

B  THE ETIOLOGY OF THE ‘DIED-AGAIN CHRISTIAN SYNDROME’

It is somewhat surprising to find that, though there are many studies of the fundamentalist phenomenon and many on psychological aspects of Old Testament biblical criticism, there is no bulk of research literature in psychology of religion or Old Testament scholarship dealing with the loss of faith among fundamentalist students of biblical criticism. Thus when in 1977, Old Testament scholar James Barr included a section containing psychological perspectives on fundamentalism in his seminal study on the fundamentalist phenomenon, the focus was almost completely on the psychological profiles of fundamentalists-in-action. As such, preciously little was said about the psychological dimension involved when those from a fundamentalist background have to deal with incorporating the findings of Old Testament biblical criticism into their cognitive frame of reference. The same scenario is also the case in subsequent related literature (cf. Teeple 1982, Barr 1984, Barton 1988, Hanson & Hanson 1989, Boone 1989, Carroll 1991, Armstrong 2001, et al.)

Of course, one of the reasons for the paucity of research data on losing faith, at least as far as Old Testament scholarship is concerned, may be the fact that ‘autobiographical criticism’ in biblical scholarship in a very novel post-modern innovation that has only begun to make an impact with the rise of reader-response and ideological critical perspectives, e.g. various forms of liberation theology, feminist criticism, etc. For how many prominent Old Testament theologians can you name from the modernist era who have made an effort to inform their readers as part of their research of the trials and tribulations of their own journey from Sunday School childlike faith to Faculty-of-Theology critical belief. Not many, for such were taboo in the context of objective depersonalised scientific research. At best such information is restricted to a moment of boldness in the preface of some publications on the nature of the Bible and its interpretation.

As far as the gap in the research in psychology of religion itself – which can be confirmed just by a quick peek at the table of contents or the subject index in any standard textbook on the subject – this may be due to several factors. Prominent psychologists of religion from yesteryear (e.g. James, Freud, Jung, Adler, Ericksen, Maslow, Allport, Fromm and others) – despite a few of them even being Old Testament commentators of sorts themselves, and at times touching on issues related to the present concern, were for the most part simply not interested in what concerns us here. None of them published an exhaustive study written for the sole purpose of describing in detail the dynamics and mechanics of the kind of crisis of belief so many students from conservative backgrounds over the course of the past two centuries studying the Old Testament have had to pass through.

Not, of course, that they should done so to be great scientists. It’s just that there’s not much from their writings to work with here.4 Or from the writings of contemporary psychologists of religion for that matter, since the currently popular concern among most psychologists of religion when it comes to religious doubt5 and losing faith in fundamentalism lies primarily with the deconversion experiences of ex-cult members. Mind you, a closer look at the challenges a deprogramming therapy involves and the psychological trauma that ensues is, however, quite revealing of something very analogous to what critical Old Testament scholars are up against when they attempt to help fundamentalist students make sense of biblical criticism.

One article from psychology of religion that was, however, closer to what I had in mind was that of Yao (1987), who discussed what he calls ‘the shattered faith syndrome’. The author himself played a pioneering role in founding what is aptly called ‘fundamentalists anonymous’, a not so secret society based in the United States which, it would seem, has thus far posed no known threat to George W Bush’s antics in favour of homeland security – unless of course national intelligence remains true to form. Anyway, it is unfortunate that Yao’s study is particularly linked to the context of American fundamentalism and then concerned only with deconversion in the most general sense and therefore only of relative elucidative value in the context of Old Testament studies in South Africa.

As for publications in the field of psychology of religion on the local scene, I have scanned the available literature for potential dialogue partners and after compiling an initial list of what appeared to be promising suspects the only progress I made was by narrowing it down to nothing.

Eventually, I had to fall back on years of both personal experience with shattered faith (cf. Gericke 2003:487-520), compliments of my addiction to reading anything and everything on the Bible, and on numerous discussions with other students and lecturers and professors who had suffered the same fate or knew the story of someone who did. At last I came up with my own reconstruction of what I have chosen to call, in my own moment of boldness, ‘the died-again Christian syndrome.’ The motivation for this Evangelical/Gospel-of-John type of designation for the condition will become crystal clear as we go along.

————–

4.     William James’s ‘Varieties of Religious Experience’ written at the beginning of the twentieth century contains some related material but there is no in-depth consideration and discussion involved (James 1902). Leon Festinger’s 1957 publication ‘A theory of cognitive dissonance’ mostly tells us why most fundamentalists remain such in spite of the evidence and deals only in passing with the crises of belief. The popular ‘Stages of faith’ by James Fowler (1981) is hopelessly idealistic, teleological, ideological and stereotypical in its liberalist evolutionary linear delineation of bourgeoisie age-related growth in personal faith. It trivialises the loss of fundamentalist beliefs as a mere phase in the movement from one stage to another. The same is the case with the role of doubt in the study of Allport (cf. Donahue 1985).
5.     Various interesting studies on religious doubt have been undertaken (e.g. Thouless, Allport , Batson, et al.). Jung’s infamous insistence that he had no patient over 35 whose problem did not have something to do with finding a religious outlook on life, and the references to the struggles of his own pastor father may be included here. These tend to focus on religious doubt in the context of stages in life, e.g. High-School, University, through midlife, etc. but none is exclusively devoted to a descriptive etiological analysis of the experience of doubt in the context of Old Testament studies

1.     The ingredients

So how is studying the Old Testament a recipe for losing faith? What is involved in the making of this dish? Linking up with my cooking or baking metaphor, let me begin by discussing the list of ingredients involved in the recipe.

1.1   The first ingredient: A fundamentalist background

Of course, there are many students who have no problem dealing with biblical criticism. Many who were not raised in fundamentalist spirituality will find studying the Bible in a nonfundamentalist manner spiritually interesting, liberating and, yes, sometimes even boring. My concern in this paper is not with these lucky devils but with those poor souls for whom biblical criticism takes the ‘fun’ out of fun-damentalism leaving only the part that sounds something like ‘dementia’.

In this paper I assume as operative James Barr’s understanding of the fundamentalist view of the Bible. According to Barr (1977, 1984), ‘fundamentalism’ is not, as popular belief would have it, a consistently literal interpretation of the text but rather the belief that the Bible is inerrant in all matters referred and alluded to therein. For fundamentalists can themselves often be found resorting to non-literal modes of reading when the literal sense seems factually erroneous (e.g. reinterpreting the ‘days’ as ‘ages’ in Genesis 1). Conversely, my references to a ‘critical’ perspective is simply a way of referring to any non-fundamentalist type of scholarship which does not assume or conclude that the Bible is factually inerrant in every possible sense of the word. The student at risk of falling prey to the ‘Died-Again Christian Syndrome’ is typically one who, apart from believing the Bible to be inerrant, exhibits a background profile that also meets the following criteria:

  • The student comes from a religious tradition where the Bible is believed to be the Word of God in the sense described in a plenary verbal theory of inspiration.
  • The student views the ideal belief system as one which is ‘biblical’, thus assuming that the Bible is a uniform and coherent body of discourse and that only ‘biblical’ Christians are ‘true’ Christians.
  • The student believes that the Bible’s message transcends culture and history and that it is unique, special and quite different from the mythologies and superstitions of pagan cultures. In short, it communicates absolute, eternal, normative, dogmatic, propositional truths.
  • The student has internalised everything he or she has learned in Sunday School and has a theological background prior to studying biblical criticism derived mainly from reading and enjoying popular fundamentalist (often evangelical and pietist) devotional religious literature.

As should be apparent here, the majority of students and their lecturers have come from such a background, which was and still is thoroughly fundamentalist. On its own, however, fundamentalism as an ingredient in a recipe for losing faith is not enough to initiate a crisis of belief. For what is needed to complete the process is some ‘anti-matter’, or in this case, Old Testament studies.

1.2 The second ingredient: Old Testament studies

In general, if you’re a believer then studying the Old Testament is like they say on the Outsurance ad: ‘you always get something out’. However, studying the Old Testament in this day and age is even more like Forest Gump’s momma’s ‘life-is-like-a-box-o’-choc’lates: ya never know whatcha gonna get.’ And, if you engage in Old Testament studies as a fundamentalist, the endeavour soon becomes something analogous to playing hopscotch in a minefield: any jump in any direction – or, in this case, learning the philosophical implications of various critical approaches to the text – has the potential to amputate your faith (at best) and blow it to kingdom come (at worst). No one whose religious ideological profile corresponds even roughly to the one outlined above can, therefore, on entering a class in Old Testaments studies, be prepared for some of the horrors that will be in store for them there. For, in retrospect, they will come to think that they have been tricked into entering a citadel of chaos, the dungeons of which conceal the curse of eternal damnation. For consider the components of this ingredient in the recipe:

  1. From Old Testament hermeneutics they will soon learn that their own interpretation of the text during devotional bible reading has been an exercise in dogmatic eisegesis. What they thought had been infallible one-on-one guidance from the Holy Spirit turns out to be nothing of the sort and for the first time the domesticated text loses the status of a talisman or fetish.
  2. From the study of ancient Near Eastern culture they will learn that Israel was not after all so different from their pagan neighbours as they assumed and that the fundamental assumptions and structure of the Israelite faith was at times even derived from those religions the ancients saints so often hypocritically ridiculed.
  3. From historical criticism they will learn that traditional views about authorship are OUT and that Jesus was wrong to think that Moses wrote the Pentateuch and David the Psalms. Moreover, the critical reconstruction of the history of Israel shows that much of what supposedly happened in the actual past never actually did or at least not in the way the events are described. There never was any literal theophany: YHWH did not really appear and speak to people. Much of what used to be considered salvation history has turned out to be myth and, so the argument goes, if the Old Testament Fall is mythical then so is the New Testament Redemption.
  4. From narrative criticism they will learn that YHWH is a character in a story-world and his acts and words are literary constructs, created by the narrator in order to promote a particular evaluative point of view. So are all their favourite Old Testament ‘saints’ who, if they existed as historical persons at all, were probably not as pious or heroic as they appear in the biblical stories for their characters and actions have been reconstructed in the texts to conform to the value system of later theo-political ideology.
  5. From Old Testament theology they will learn that the text contains many mutually incompatible and, from a modern Christian perspective, unorthodox ideas about God. They soon realise that the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent ‘Lord’ they have worshipped all their lives is not so ‘biblical’ after all but an updated and domesticated version of YHWH, the all-too-human ancient tribal deity who, at least in this testament, is himself the cause of much evil and has the Satan as an employee rather than an enemy. Also, unlike the Lord, YHWH knows nothing of heavenly rewards or hellish punishments and the only meaning in life seems to be in resolving oneself to be and beget and be and beget until your one-way ticket to Sheol arrives. Horrifically then, on their own terms, the fundamentalists realise that they have been worshipping an idol of their own making since their theology is not as ‘biblical’ as they were led to believe. And now it seems that it can never be, given the pluralism in the theologies of the Old Testament which imply selection and rejection come what may. Moreover, reading the so-called messianic prophecies and any other Old Testament text in context seem to suggest that even though the New Testament authors can be forgiven for being children of their time with regard to exegetical methodology and hermeneutic assumptions, it still does not make a whit of difference to the fact that the Old Testament texts had nothing at all to say with reference to Jesus of Nazareth. 6

There is no more time at this point to look at how fundamentalist students conceive of the implications of other critical approaches like tradition criticism, redaction criticism, socialscientific criticism, feminist criticism, deconstructive criticism, etc. – all of which, from the fundamentalist perspective, are immensely unsettling in their own way. This apart from the draining effect an overview of the reception history of particular texts has on the student. Suffice it to say that once you observe how all readers of bygone days have tended to project their own preferences onto the text and then claimed that the texts backed them up you can no longer do it for yourself. It is always amusing to see how people naively recreate the text in their own image until you realise like David did in response to Nathan’s story that ‘you’re the man!’

Of course, lecturers seldom if ever bother to spell out these shattering implications and no lecturer ever tried to deliberately shock anyone when I was a student. Moreover, it is a fallacy to think that a lecturer can ever make anyone lose faith. For to lose it is an act of will, only possible if you are yourself convinced by a particular critical perspective and have made a conscious decision against your own previously held convictions. There is always the option of simply rejecting a critical view if it is not to your liking – and this is what most fundamentalists do anyway. But anyone who reads more than just the prescribed materials, which seldom if ever contain anything radical enough to destroy one’s faith, and reads between the lines of international critical scholarship, as opposed to limiting oneself to the reactive devotional and apologetic rhetoric of conservative scholarly literature, the thrust of the anti-fundamentalist implications will become readily apparent.

Of course there are many students who just don’t get it. However, if you’re a fundamentalist, God help you if you ever do! For let’s be crude here – students from fundamentalist backgrounds will, after thinking about the discoveries as outlined above, say to themselves that if what critical scholarship has to say is true, who can believe anything anymore? For now theology becomes mythology, salvation history becomes pious fiction, the biblical books the result of pious fraud, the biblical God becomes an ancient Israelite projection, divine commands become all-too-human conventions, the spiritual realm becomes an ideological social construct, the Church a oversized cult, biblically-derived dogmas datable cultural products, and so on ad nauseam. The dogmaticians of their own Church, it seems, have practised wayward exegesis even as they said it must not be so.

Also, now the students themselves realise that they are not the graciously elect and had never really been privileged to being privy to the deepest truths of the universe as their Calvinistic background had led them to believe. Mortifyingly, they now seem to have been just as superstitious and out of touch with actual and ultimate reality as any myth-saturated pagan barbarian from yesteryear. For in the Christian tradition it has always been taken for granted that the Bible is the epistemological source to consult for knowledge of God. It was supposed to be inerrant divine revelation. But now it seems to be nothing but the all-too-human words of scribes, priests, and other assorted riff-raff who wouldn’t recognise a god if they met one.

———-

6.     This is the gist of the arguments in Brueggemann (1997) whose Theology of the Old Testament is the prescribed textbook for the subject. All the old problems facing Old Testament theology as outline by Hasel (1972) resurfaces in Brueggemann who acknowledges them, radicalises them and, in his own selfrefuting post-modern way, relatives them. These include, inter alia, the problems of history, theological pluralism, the relation between the Testaments, the question of method, the relation to Church theology (dogmatics/systematic theology), etc. Gerstenberger (2002) also takes up the strain.

2. The result?

Now mix together the first and second ingredients – the fundamentalist mentality on the one hand and Old Testament studies on the other. Place them together in the ‘oven’ of the mind, turn the dial up to exactly 180 degrees opposite of room temperature and bake the concoction for whatever time it takes until you smell something burning. And then what happens? In the vulgar jargon of today’s generation – what you find between ‘shish-kebab’ and ‘shiver’ in a typical English dictionary – that’s what ‘happens’! For when someone has spent his or her entire life as a character in the world derived from the Biblical story, has established social relations on the basis of fundamentalist beliefs, has made a public commitment to them, has his or her existential anxiety dulled as a result of it, has meaning in life derived from it and, lest we forget, has a financial and even a career investment riding on the maintenance of it, the prospect of losing and having to reconstruct one’s childhood faith is probably not exactly a reason to drool in anticipation and jump for joy.

3. Having your faith and eating it too: popular strategies for survival

Not surprisingly therefore, several strategies for survival have been followed by students from fundamentalist backgrounds in the past (including those who subsequently became ministers or professors) to alleviate some of the cognitive dissonance experienced as a result of the new perspective on the texts:

  1. The most popular strategy of survival is to ignore and repress the problem and just try to get through the course with as little in-depth reading as possible so as to obtain the qualification you need to return in the role of a minister to the context of the Church. Here amiable and ignorant company and the passage of time will eventually dull whatever cognitive dissonance was introduced.
  2. Another not infrequently encountered way of coping for some involves quitting your studies altogether and retreating back into the socio-religious world of blissful ignorance concerning any challenge the critical study of the Bible might hold for your faith
  3. A third option is available to you if you find biblical criticism offensive and cannot conceive of a spirituality inspired by it but still wish to obtain post-graduate qualifications and academic respectability as a platform for propagating fundamentalist beliefs with sophistication. In this case, the strategy is to stay in the game and pretend to take biblical criticism seriously but to remain seeking solace in conservative apologetic scholarship. Consequently those following this strategy can be found chronically polemising and complaining about what they perceive to be the demonic threat of liberal theology.
  4. The fourth strategy, also popular but distinctly different from the three fundamentalist options that preceded it, is the one in which you realise that to continue in fundamentalism is to opt for a spiritual lobotomy and committing intellectual suicide. You realise that critical perspectives have a point and so, after a few moments of disorientation and confusion, you experience your exit from fundamentalism as ‘liberating’ after realising its constrictive nature. Soon you see less and less conflict between faith and reason and have little trouble becoming more critical before attaining a second naiveté and feeling completely at home in a wholly critical approach to the biblical text. People who take this option can typically be very critical in their approach to the text but this capacity held in conjunction with peace of mind is often made possible because specialisation in biblical studies seldom requires one to think through the philosophical and theological implications of the research.
  5. Finally, you might, on the one hand, have in common with the previous group the realisation that to continue in fundamentalism is out of the question as its assumptions and ideas have been thoroughly discredited beyond revival. Yet for you , the liberal or critical option is not particularly inviting since even here there appear to be equally repressive and fallacious types of arguments in favour of what seems simply a more sophisticated and eclectic form of fundamentalism. However, for you the realisation of the bankruptcy of all available religious options is not liberating but – excuse the language – absolutely bloody terrifying. You were happy in your fundamentalism but cannot bear living in self-deception no matter how strong the temptation to repress. Ergo, you become an agnostic or atheist.

But what happens from a physiological (metaphorically speaking) perspective when the recipe is sampled?

4. Eat your heart out: phases of the ‘Died-Again Christian Syndrome’

Given these strategies of survival, evasion, and apostasy, those fated to become victims of the eating process – i.e. the ‘Died-Again Christian Syndrome’ itself – will find themselves on a journey which, in its totality may be seen as typically passing through three distinct phases. These are:

  1. The tasting, or constructive phase: the student constructs the meaning, significance and implications of the critical data for the personal fundamentalist belief system
  2. The chewing or deconstructive phase: the student deconstructs his reality and spiritual identity by juxtaposing as binary oppositions the now-discredited fundamentalist beliefs with what is implied as viable based on the acceptance of the critical perspective constructed in the first phase.
  3. The swallowing or reconstructive phase: the student attempts to reconstruct a new personal perspective on religious phenomena and an identity that takes cognisance of what is demanded in the aftermath of phases one and two.

Kindly note that if you make a break for it after the constructive phase, as most fundamentalists will want to do, you will avoid, for the most part, running face first into the negative symptoms this damned little dish of destruction has in store for you. If, however, you manage to pass beyond the first phase and enter the deconstructive phase, the negative symptoms will start to manifest themselves and the sight will be neither simply pretty nor simply ugly but rather a bit of both, really – in other words: pretty ugly! The paw-paw will strike the fan at the end of the deconstructive phase when the kitchen lies in ruins, dinnertime is approaching and there isn’t a crumb in sight. Should you manage to avoid this by immediately moseying ever-so-doggedly onto the reconstructive phase to find a new home in liberal or critical theology, the severity of the negative symptoms of the ‘Died-Again Christian Syndrome’ will be unpleasant but not impossibly so. Their duration will also be of a relatively short nature. If, however, no religious option somehow related to the former spirituality is found (i.e. you end up in atheism or agnosticism, after liberalism and radicalism are found to be as problematic as fundamentalism itself) the severity and duration of the negative symptoms of the syndrome can be intensified and prolonged beyond what is humanly possible to endure without being psychologically scarred for life.

5. The feeling of warmth deep down inside and the joys of heartburn: symptoms of the ‘Died-Again Christian Syndrome’ 

So what does the concoction derived from the recipe for losing faith tastes like? More literally,what is it like for someone from a fundamentalist background to experience the kind of cognitive dissonance that occurs when one discovers that the Old Testament (and therefore the Bible) is not the kind of book one had always believed it to be? What is it like to lose faith? What is it like psychologically when, as someone once wrote, your God is dead and, come to think of it, you’re not feeling so good yourself? Just what are these negative symptoms associated with the ‘Died-Again Christian Syndrome’? They are the following and, as suggested, will be manifested variably among individuals in terms of type, duration, frequency, intensity and quantity, depending on which phase of the syndrome one is in and what happens during that particular phase.

  1. Specific psychological symptoms: Reactive depression, identity confusion, existential anxiety, cognitive dissonance, feelings of sadness, spiritual disorientation, feelings of loneliness, a recurring nostalgia for former certainties, disillusionment, loss of selfconfidence and self-respect, a loss of zest for life and former mental vitality, cynicism, feelings of nihilism and the loss of meaning and purpose, indecisiveness, repression, obsessive compulsive negative self-talk, apathy, anger and frustration, entertaining a death wish and thoughts of suicide, self-loathing, endless reconstruction of the self-image, analysis paralysis, a feeling of fear, horror and revulsion at life and reality, etc.
  2. Specific physical and behavioural changes: Extreme passiveness or hyperactivity, social isolation, anti-social behaviour, restlessness, changes in appetite and possible eating disorders, chronic fatigue, insomnia or narcolepsy, self-destructive behaviour, impulsive and compulsive activity patterns, inability to commit or trust, etc.

These symptoms can, in both theory and practice, last anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of decades. Their nature merits their unification in the concept of the ‘Died-Again Christian Syndrome’ for, as should be apparent, the syndrome basically amounts to and involves an inversion of positive symptoms like joy, meaning, security, warmth, comfort, euphoria and general feelings of happiness and well-being typically associated with the ‘born-again’ experience. And if you cannot possibly relate to the combination of negative emotions listed above I suggest that you make a point of renting a video or DVD of the films The Matrix (part 1) and The Truman Show to get only an inkling of an idea of what the feeling is like. In the plot of both these films the main characters eventually stumble across the horrible fact that reality is not what they, all their lives, believed it to be. ‘Reality’, in fact, turns out to be no more than a technologically simulated social construct. Such a discovery, believe me, is far worse a fate than the lesser evil of finding out that there is a reason why Santa Claus looks suspiciously like ‘dad’ or that of learning for the first time where meat comes from. For in this case, it’s not just the feeling that all the magic has gone – apparently there never was any magic to begin with.

6. Conclusion: recovering from the mess in the kitchen and preparing for the next one: prognosis and preventative measures

The ‘Died-Again Christian Syndrome’ can be excruciatingly painful but it need not be terminal. There is, however, no quick and easy recipe to follow for dealing with it since, as far as treatment is concerned, not every form of therapy on the market may be suited to everyone given the uniqueness of individual personality and circumstance. Consequently, treatment is symptomatic and individual and preferably always holistic. Unfortunately, as far as an offensive pro-active approach as opposed to a defensive re-active solution to the problematic is considered, as long as fundamentalist spirituality remains the order of the day in the Church and its popular media, teachers of the Old Testament will always be fighting against the odds and we can prepare ourselves for an epidemic in the years to come.

But when we do encounter fundamentalist students in our classes, which is 90% of the people 90% of the time, there are better and worse ways of dealing with the situation. Critical perspectives, though they should without question be taught, should never be used as a kind of shock treatment for the ripping apart, the belittling or ridiculing of, or the laughing at any student’s beliefs about the Bible and what he or she might think counts as inspiring ideas about it. I am not saying that lecturers do this deliberately but sometimes we forget what it was like being a student. Distance lends enchantment – you forget how hard it was. So we must be careful in how we communicate. No matter how naive, wayward, pathetic, cliché, sugar-coated, misguided or outdated their cherished beliefs may seem to be from our perspectives, you don’t mess with people’s personal faith. It’s ‘just not done in Israel’.

So when, due to particular circumstances, one of our student’s reality is shattered as paradigms clash, the least we can do is to help them pick up the pieces and let them know that we are there for them. We can also relativise the crisis itself by pointing out that, even though a critical mindset is inextricably part of all scientific endeavours, any particular critical view or theory can be taken with a pinch of salt. For though from the outside and for undergraduates it may look like Old Testament biblical criticism is hardcore science dealing in objectivity and capital-T Truth, ‘there ain’t no such animal’. Such notions are only appropriate for quiz shows and pocket encyclopaedias. At the forefront of research where all the action is, what counts as fact and truth is nothing but a running debate.

Of course, if it isn’t one thing it’s another, since our students tend also to be modernists, naive realists and positivists. Thus appreciating this thoroughly post-modern vision of what goes on in Old Testament scholarship may be unsettling in itself – and, God help us, lead to another horrible syndrome of its own. But it may also help many students to relax and spare them the disillusionment that comes from the equally futile and desperate strategy of trying to find security after fundamentalism by naively put all your faith eggs in the basket of any particular and currently popular critical theory. Also, we should not try to make our students copies of our own selves. Instead, we should allow them to seek out their own identity by providing them with disinterested non-partisan descriptive and evaluative overviews of the contents and pros and cons of all viewpoints on a particular matter, whether conservative or critical. This strategy will not only prove to be a more balanced approach but will lessen the stress also on ourselves when we have to ‘please explain’ regarding why our own favourite ideas seem from some perspectives to be unorthodox or outdated, as they must.

Finally, those of us who have had the syndrome and lived to talk about it, would do well to show our fellow travellers the highways and byways we and others have followed to cope with the cognitive dissonance that shatters the reality of everyone afflicted with the horrors of the ‘Died-Again Christian Syndrome’. We should show them that we too can and have cried and are not and will never be ‘big boys’ with ‘hard facts’. Come to think about it, establishing a local chapter of ‘fundamentalists anonymous’ may not be a bad idea. It may make the difference between our students dealing with the condition or becoming individuals who, if they do not retreat back into fundamentalism out of sheer nostalgia for consolation, will probably be scarred for life and end up contemplating ending their own. Nobody deserves such a fate. Nobody. For no one’s system is immune to the recipe for losing faith, which, in its current format, has more than once become a recipe for disaster.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Armstrong, K 2001. The battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity & Islam: London:
Harper/Collins.
Barr, J 1977. Fundamentalism. London: Oxford University Press.
Barr, 1984. Beyond Fundamentalism. London: Oxford University Press.
Barton, J 1988. People of the Book? The authority of the Bible in Christianity. London: SPCK.
Brueggemann, W 1997. Theology of the Old Testament. Testimony, dispute, advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress
Press.
Boone K 1989. The Bible tells them so. The discourse of Protestant fundamentalism. London: Hutchinson.
Carroll, R P 1991. Wolf in the Sheepfold: the Bible as problem for Christianity. London: SPCK.
Cupitt, D 1980. Taking leave of God. London: SCM Press.
Cupitt, D1984. The Sea of Faith. London: SCM Press.
Deist, F 1986. Kan ons die Bybel dan nog glo? Onderweg na _ Gereformeerde Skrifbeskouing. Pretoria: Van
Schaik.
Die Kerkbode. 16 November 2001. p 6.
Die Kerkbode, 14 Desember 2001. p 8.
Donahue, JM 1985. ‘Intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness: Review and meta-analysis’, in: Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology.
Festinger, L 1957. A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston: Row, Peterson.
Fowler, JW 1981. Stages of Faith. The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. San
Francisco: Harper & Row.
Gericke, JW 2003. Does Yahweh exist? A philosophical-critical reconstruction of the case against realism in
Old Testament theology. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of Pretoria.
Gerstenberger, ES 2002. Theologies of the Old Testament. London: Continuum Books.
Hasel, GF 1972. Old Testament theology: basic issues in the current debate. Grand Rapids: Gracewing.
Hanson, RPC & Hanson AT 1989. The Bible without illusions. London: SCM Press.
James, W 1902. Varieties of religious experience. A study in human nature. New York: Collier & Macmillan.
K̦nig, A 2002. Ek glo die Bybel Рondanks al die vrae. Vaste bakens vir _ tyd waarin die Bybel in gedrang is.
Wellington: Lux Verbi.
Nicol W 2001. Godsdiens wat werk. Ontdek die soort Godsdiens wat vir jou die beste werk. Wellington: Lux
Verbi.
Spangenberg, IJJ 1998. Perspektiewe op die Bybel. God se woord in mensetaal. Pretoria: Van Schaik.
Teeple, HM 1982. The historical approach to the Bible. San Francisco: Foundation for religious humanism.
Van der Watt, J 2000. Die Christen, die Bybel en die toekoms. Dis wat ek glo. Vereniging: Christelike
Uitgewers Maatskappy.
Wulff, DM 1997. Psychology of Religion. Classic and Contemporary (second edtiton). Massachusetts: John
Wiley & Sons.
Yao, R 1987. An Introduction to Fundamentalists Anonymous. New York: Fundamentalists Anonymous.

TREFWOORDE

Ou Testament
Geloofskrisis
Fundementalisme
Wedergestorwe Christen sindroom
Godsdienspsigologie
Teologiese opleiding

KEY WORDS

Old Testament
Crisis of belief
Fundamentalism
Died-again Christian syndrome
Psychology of religion
Theological education

Jaco Gericke, post-doctoral fellow and research associate in the Department Old Testament Science, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria.

source:  http://www.academia.edu/1497070/The_Died-Again_Christian_Syndrome_among_fundamentalist_Old_Testament_students_in_South_Africa


Other Recourses: 

Picture: Album Cover from Thrash Heavy Metal Band Toruniquet – Collected Works (contains the song:  Acid Head)  

Please share:

Deborah (Discerning the World)

Deborah Ellish is the author of the above article. Discerning the World is an internet Christian Ministry based in Johannesburg South Africa. Tom Lessing and Deborah Ellish both own Discerning the World. For more information see the About this Website page below the comments section.

58 Responses

  1. Discerning The World says:

    I have email Jaco to find out if he indeed is the author of this article.

    *********
    Hi there

    Can you please confirm if you are the author of the following article:

    The ‘died-again Christian’ syndrome1Its etiology as manifested among fundamentalist students of the Old Testament in South Africa2

    I have attached the file.

    Thanks
    *********

    Let’s see if I get a reply.

  2. Jaco says:

    You wrote:

    “The absolute hatred for born again Christians is extremely evident.”

    You have completely misinterpreted the paper. It has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of “hatred” for born-again christians. Quite the contrary, in fact: I wrote it to bring attention to the plight of students who went through hell by losing their faith. Students like me.

    I thought by way of this paper I could create awareness of the need for sensitivity – you don’t mess with believers worldviews without any concern for how they will cope when reality shatters. Reality like mine.

    Your malevolent distortion of my intentions and eagerly reading into the paper whatever you like is rather sad to say the least. For me it is simply a reminder of how many believers read the Bible and of why I should be thankful not to be that kind of person anymore.

    That being said, I apologise if the paper offended you and I forgive you for your judgmentalism – the fact is, you know not what you do.

    Perhaps someday you’ll understand.

    Perhaps not.

    Regards
    Jaco

  3. Discerning The World says:

    Hi Jaco

    Apologies Jaco, I understand now how the article was written – I did not actually realise you were one of the shattered ones.
    Would you mind as to answer a few questons for me please….

    >> you don’t mess with believers worldviews without any concern for how they will cope when reality shatters.

    WHY were believers worldviews been messed with?
    IS the UP teaching anti-Christianity to the students in stead?

    >> Reality like mine

    ARE you now an unbeliever because you were shattered by what they taught you?

    Thanks

  4. Jaco says:

    Hi there

    What I meant was that the scientific study of one’s own religion and the history of one’s beliefs and the nature and origin of the Bible tend to shatter the fundamentalist illusions one has been brought up with.

    So you can drop your conspiracy-theory agenda – the only guilty parties in the messing with people’s worldviews are the facts themselves. It is hard to discover that what one honestly believed to be the fixed truth has an all-too-human history within religious thought.

    I can therefore assure you UP is NOT teaching anti-christianity. Quite the contrary – members of the faculty are all devout christians and they simply do their job of educating students about what is going on in the world of research on the Bible, the church, etc.

    Those students and people on the outside who moan and bitch about the liberalism there are simply dissatisfied with the fact that the latest findings in the research on the Bible simply do not support what they themselves happen to believe and would like everybody else to believe.

    My only concern was with HOW the facts are taught, not with the fact of them being taught. And you have to remember, no lecturer there has any delight in seeing students struggling to deal with the facts. And no lecture ever made anyone lose their faith. You cannot actually lose faith unless you really believe the arguments that imply its negation.

    The lecturers never present their own views and command students to believe it. They simply inform them about what is happening at the forefront of research and the students are free to do with the facts what they like. One is perfectly free to reject what one does not like.

    So as for me, I do not blame any lecturer at UP for being the cause of me losing my faith. No – the fact, they were far too considerate and orthodox for that. I lost my faith as a result of my own affinity to read more than the prescribed materials. I lost it while I was reading up on Christian apologetics and the problems it dealt with, and by coming to terms with what fundamentalism is really all about.

    See the book by James Barr – “Beyond Fundamentalism”

    I lost my faith not because I discovered that liberalism or atheism was right. Rather, I lost it when I discovered why fundamentalism is WRONG. To be honest – it was discovering the truth about the Bible that caused the crisis in belief.

    Up to then I had so many nice ideas ABOUT the Bible and had read so many sound books ON the Bible so that when I actually began to study the Bible I discovered that my orthodox ideas, comforting as they were – had little if any relation to the realities within the text in their own contexts.

    So kindly refrain from seeking to blame somebody. There is no scapegoat in this story. There are only the explosions that occur when cherished ignorance meets head on with hard-found enlightenment.

    Regards
    Jaco

  5. Discerning The World says:

    Hi Jaco

    >> I can therefore assure you UP is NOT teaching anti-christianity. Quite the contrary – members of the faculty are all devout christians and they simply do their job of educating students about what is going on in the world of research on the Bible, the church, etc.

    Unfortunately there is hard core evidence that this is not true, a 1 hour DVD nogal that showa quite a few of the faculty are not devout Christians at all – the things they say prove this without a shadow of a doubt.

    >> Those students and people on the outside who moan and bitch about the liberalism there are simply dissatisfied with the fact that the latest findings in the research on the Bible simply do not support what they themselves happen to believe and would like everybody else to believe.

    So what you’re saying is that the new research shows that the Bible is just a ‘story’ per se. And this of course would upset most people who believed it to be true. Now if the new research shows the bible to a fallacy and the faculty remain devout Christian and teach this new info to the students then…well…that makes the faculty non-Christian for no genuine Christian would in anyway teach a false teaching there by denying Jesus Christ.

    >> My only concern was with HOW the facts are taught, not with the fact of them being taught. And you have to remember, no lecturer there has any delight in seeing students struggling to deal with the facts.

    I see your point, as you said in your article it is devistating for some of the students. And I am sure that no-one even the lecturers take delight in seeing students struggle after having their faith challenged over and over again. I definitely think there should be a support group for these students, we can call it the BACA (Born Again Christian’s Anonymous).

    >> And no lecturer ever made anyone lose their faith. You cannot actually lose faith unless you really believe the arguments that imply its negation.

    Totally agree!!! We are all held accountable for our own choices, it’s free-will.

    >> The lecturers never present their own views and command students to believe it. They simply inform them about what is happening at the forefront of research and the students are free to do with the facts what they like. One is perfectly free to reject what one does not like.

    If the students are free to do with the ‘facts’ what they like, how then do they pass their exams, if they don’t answer with the ‘facts’? Surely this technically forces them to answer with the new ‘findings’ because the old ‘truth’ is actually false. I’m confused in this instance (not ignorant), it’s just that with all my studying in other fields there is only 1 answer.

    Do you know the story about Ferdie Mulder?

    >> So as for me, I do not blame any lecturer at UP for being the cause of me losing my faith. No – the fact, they were far too considerate and orthodox for that. I lost my faith as a result of my own affinity to read more than the prescribed materials. I lost it while I was reading up on Christian apologetics and the problems it dealt with, and by coming to terms with what fundamentalism is really all about.

    I know you do not blame any lecturer. As I agreed above that no one can make one lose theit faith. Question though; do you think there is fundamentalism on both sides, or just one side? 1) Those that want to hold onto the truth for dear life (Christians) and 2) those who want to change the truth no matter what it takes?

    >> To be honest – it was discovering the truth about the Bible that caused the crisis in belief.

    Why did you not leave UP Theology dept if you realised that what was being taught there is false?

    >> Up to then I had so many nice ideas ABOUT the Bible and had read so many sound books ON the Bible so that when I actually began to study the Bible I discovered that my orthodox ideas, comforting as they were – had little if any relation to the realities within the text in their own contexts.

    Where one is truly born again (you have the Spirit of God in you, i.e., the Holy Spirit) He leads us into all undestanding of the Bible. You do know that the Bible can’t be understood by those who are not genuinely saved. So even though the Bible felt comforting to you, this comfort was easily broken by reading books by other people who themselves did not have the Holy Spirit in their lives and therefore do not understand.

    This is another reason why I question the so called devout Christian lecturers at UP becuase if they were genuinely saved they would in no way tolerate any form of ‘new’ revelations and research on scripture, let alone teach it to others. Just because the new research appears to be true, if there was no Holy Spirit in the researcher then he would not understand. And around and around they go.

    >> So kindly refrain from seeking to blame somebody. There is no scapegoat in this story.

    Unfortunately there is always someone to blame, and these people are not scapegoats as though they would love us all to believe. And I’m not speak about you, for you are honest about what you believe. But there are those who sit on the fence and bend whichever way the wind blows to save face. I mean it’s not like they are going to get kicked out if they come clean; cos the Theology dept accepts these new teachings with open arms.

    >> There are only the explosions that occur when cherished ignorance meets head on with hard-found enlightenment

    So hard-found ‘ignorant’ genuine born again Christians vs hard-found ‘ignorant’ New Age Agers.

    PS, the best Tournique album was Stop the Bleeding, but that was only when I was full on into metal and an occultist for 17 years. Jesus Christ the Son of God saved me from all the darkness that surrounds and showed me the way, the truth and the life, for this is who Jesus is – the way, the truth and the life. And that reminds me, if Tourniquet was really a Christian band would you really enjoy their music? But that’s another conversation all on it’s own.

    Deborah

  6. Amanda says:

    Jaco

    Would you agree that it makes no sense at all for Christians to send their sons to that institute?

  7. Amanda says:

    Jaco

    I am sorry. Let me try again.

    Would you agree that it makes no sense at all for Christians to send their sons to that institute to study theology in order to become ministers?

  8. Discerning The World says:

    Not sure if you are gonna reply, but I’ll comment never the less.

    Well I do love you Jaco, this is what a genuine Christian does, but just as you try desperately hard to convince me I am in wonderland (because you love), I try just as hard to convince you that you are in wonderland (because I love).

    Last but not least: >> And it is only once you realise that contrary to what you have been indoctrinated to believe…

    I was the other way around, I had not been indoctrinated, I chose Jesus Christ because I originally chose the otherside, the other ‘truth’ (the one those books don’t really tell you about) hence I know what the word ‘lie’ really means.

    Oh this is the last: >> Also students are unique and only 1% end up atheist. 98% stay believers and simply become aware that life is more complex than you could ever imagine

    Those 98% you speak of; would you say they remain believers BUT at the same time include new truths they have been taught into their current belief system? So it’s kinda the best of both worlds?

    Anyhow I don’t think of athiests as being immoral, lying and crude satanists, just unbelievers, for it’s true, you don’t believe. Also just a note, Satanists are not atheistic because they believe in Satan.

  9. Jaco says:

    Listen guys (gals)

    I am really sorry but I have had exactly this kind of conversation a billion times before and know its going nowhere. I also know that invitations to debate from believers like yourselves are not really open in as much as there is nothing you will accept as proof that you might be mistaken.

    I can try to convince you I was a true born-again christian but the fact that I lost the faith will make the facts seem as impossible to you as it did to me when I was still a believer. Because your theory cannot cope with the loss of belief, you will never believe that I was really born-again. Here there is nothing more to say – I know I myself never believed loss of faith is possible, which is one of the reasons why it is so traumatic.

    You mention your DVD and the Ferdi Mulder story. I know both inside out – and I know Ferdi personally. I consider him a nice person and I consider the faculty nice people. I can see where everyone is coming from and all I can tell you is that there are no simple answers.

    If you ask me about how one can pass exams without excepting the radical findings of research the solution is quite simple really. You simply report what the different scholars have thought on a given matter and no professor ever expects you to simply accept this uncritically. In fact, one is taught to criticise the critics as well – this is science as it should be.

    Should you send your kids to UP? Sure, it is internationally up to standard in its Theological education. That is, if you are serious about learning about the Bible and the history and nature of your religion, its beliefs and its institutions. What you have to realise is that studying Theology and the Bible at University is not advanced Sunday School – you don’t go there to hear an extended version of a sermon.

    You go there to learn – period. To be sure, chances are that what you learn will contain ideas and perspectives you might consider unchristian. If, however, you learn well what you will eventually come to realise is not so much that the Bible isn’t true – rather you will learn that your VIEW of the Bible and God has a history and that there are elements in the text and in the history of ideas about God (and Christ and just about anything else) that show fundamentalism to be based on an utter lack of historical consciousness.

    You will learn what you consider to be Christianity is but what your tradition and contemporary popular powerplays would make it out to be. Sure, you have your proof-texts, but that’s rather naive. One, its YOUR interpretation and two, what about other biblical texts that imply something else.

    I’m almost certain you will not grasp the full meaning of what I am trying to say here. I never could when I was told similar things when I was still a fundamentalist. And I know one cannot beat the system (of fundamentalism) – it has everything covered (thank God for apologetics) and tries to convince people the particular brand of Christianity is the only one possible. And yes, when you’re in it is certainly seems to go without saying.

    Then you learn about the history of Bible, the Church, ideas of God, and also all the current theological trends. You learn how to read the Bible in context, about philosophical problems and solutions pertaining to religious issues, about the psychology and sociology of religious phenomena, and in the end some studebts realise the impossible – that we live in a dreamworld conjured for us by the culture we live in.

    Some accept it and move on, others cannot face having to learn to cope with not possessing absolute truths and retreat into fundamentalism. Those who escape from fundamentalism are not the ones who fell in love with lies – they are the ones who made the pains to ask themselves whether their own tradition might not be as blind to its own misconceptions and prejudices as it accuses others as being.

    In a sense you learn to be humble. What will become problematic if you go to university as an average christian kid fresh from school is not so much the Bible or God but rather your views about the two. Not that you will be taught that you are wrong or told to accept any liberal or radical or other point of view – in becoming aware of the history of your own beliefs on the one hand and of the Bible and the god-idea on the other you will simply realise that you have been a child of your time – as we all are.

    So what is taught is neither truth or lie. It’s the facts – for now. And in the end you have to decide whether you are willing to follow the facts whereever they may lead (after all, you admit you’re not perfect) or you can decide to ignore anything that happen to clash with what you happen to believe about religious issues.

    The trouble is, if theology is your job then even if you opt for the letter you will still encounter other views which you will not doubt wish to refute. But in doing so you have to try and understand these views, and in doing so, even without you ever dreaming of changing your mind, exposure to new perspectives will lead any self-critical and honest person to recognise that a) there is more than one side to every story; b) that all stories are stories of other stories, c) that all stories have human histories and d) that the world is made of stories, not atoms.

    But don’t take my word for it. I’m an atheist now and consider people at the UP faculty theologically somewhat conservative. Moreover, there is not such thing as the UP-view on a matter as the professors differ in perspectives and agree to differ – that is scientific etiquette.

    Also students are unique and only 1% end up atheist. 98% stay believers and simply become aware that life is more complex than you could ever imagine. The other 1% revert to radical fundamentalism and, like Ferdi Mulder, would have us burn heretics.

    This has been a long post. I am sorry but I do not really have the time or desire to continue a discussion which I know from personal experience always ends up going in circles. There is nothing I can say or do to make you understand where I am coming from (even though you think you do) – either you will one day see it for yourself, or you will stay in Wonderland.

    For now, at least try to appreciate that no-one is willingly being obstinate – everyone has a story that explains why they think like they do. As for me, once I discovered how everyone comes to the faith they happen to come to, project it onto a god and then claim it to be the only truth – in utter ignorance of the intellectual history and psychological variables of how that truth came to be believed as such, you can no longer take yourself seriously.

    It took me years to learn how to come to terms with a reality without God. I could not believe it was all just a combination of stories and imagination. I only got over it once I realised that what I was taught about life outside the faith is simply not true and that one does not really have to believe in something (religious) to experience life as meaningful or to behave. While you are a believer you imagine atheists to be immoral, lying, scheme and crude satanists and, to be sure, some people who deconvert become like that because that is what christianity convinced them they will become.

    The rest of us know that one does not need incentives to be happy, moral or find life interesting. And it is only once you realise that contrary to what you have been indoctrinated to believe, you don’t need any certainties, identities, final truths and objective rules to live life meaningfully and morally. All you need is love.

  10. Bloodwashed says:

    To Jaco

    In the book of Jude we read of those who are ‘twice dead’…In some way by your own warped way you have proven the scriptures correct, by being a self-fulfillment of God’s word.

    You are ‘twice dead’ but there is grace……

  11. cecilia says:

    My heart feels for “Jaco”! My twin-brother studied Theology (NGK)In his class were more than 20 students (last year) and only 7 did the course because they wanted to bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ 2 people; the rest of the class was in it for the monthly pay-check and pensioner’s packet. He was ordained “dominee”, was that 7 yrs,then his eyes were opened (long story), the Afrikaans churches closed their doors 2 him; the Right-wing Afrikaners got a hold of him 2 preach to their favor (he saw thro that in about 2 yrs time); then the CG-church asked him 2 take up the dominee-post there (won’t mention the city); he saw what was going on in that system; was asked by English AGS church 2 b a pastor (his eyes were opened as to what was going on in that system); the CG-Church asked him back; he went there on condition that he can be a missionary; so that he is to 2day; he says he is on his own; no church-politics or teachings; he learns from the Bible and wait on the Lord 2 hear what he must do in all circumstances. The whole family were baptised one after the other, in water, because this is what he discovered in Scripture. Every time he left a position because God showed him what was wrong, he lost everything. Today LordGod supply all their needs every day, no paycheck, no real stability 4 2morow, but a deep faith and love in the one who saved them, the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray Jaco, God’s grace abounds 2 u even more than ur hurt and unbelief. cecilia

  12. Robbie says:

    As I said… you can go to your college and you can go to your school.. but if you aint got Jesus you’s an educated fool.

    I will not understand the motives or intentions of “Christians” that enroll as a theological students, and then looses the faith they never had? Was it the money that drew them in the first place? Was it a Godly calling or just a worldly calling? (beroep of roeping)

    Woe to those Dominees (tsk!… I meant Pharisees)that are in it for the money…

    By the way, i can think many reverend who might as well go and claim their money back from the kweekskool…

    One of our local ones claims the Muslims and Christians pray to the same god…. the god of Isaac and Abraham.

  13. Robbie says:

    “You can go to your college and your school….” actually Buddy green sings it

  14. Torsten says:

    Didn’t Jaco continue the conversation. I’m trying to make sense about what he is saying. Until now it seems that he got a bit confused by the claims made by text deconstruction and so-called history of the bible. Both are uncertain foundations. Perhaps what he perceived to be “fundamentalism” had also it’s problems. But I’m still making sense about this.

  15. Torsten

    No he didn’t unfortunately.

  16. Amanda says:

    Proefskrif Weerlegging

    Ek het Jaco leer ken op ‘n internet-gespreksforum as “Wedergestorwe Christen” (WC). Jaco se tragiese storie van hoe hy eers ‘n fundamentalistiese, fanatiese Christen was wat later ‘n totale omkering ondergaan het deur middel van sy teologiese studies, en alle sekerhede in God en die Bybel prysgegee het en sy geloof verloor het, het baie opslae gemaak in ‘n groot aantal Christene se geloofsbelewenis. Maar meer as dit. Dit het ook die nie-gelowiges in groot getalle gelok om saam te gesels oor baie van hierdie einste sake waaraan Jaco sy geloof verloor het. Sy storie kan in die aanhangsels aan sy proefskrif (skakel hierbo) gelees word. Wat opval oor die geloofskrisis waarin hy homself nou bevind is juis omdat hy volhou dat sy krisis juis ontstaan het omdat hy (soos hy sê) die Bybel ernstig opgeneem het en alles gelees het vir wat dit sê (klaarblyklik sonder om vooropgestelde dogma op die teks af te dwing). Hy is dus huiwerig om homself ‘n “ateïs” te noem, omdat hy, juis a.g.v. sy agtergrond, homself nie heeltemal wil los maak van die term “Christen” nie. Die realiteit van die saak is dat menige gelowiges deur sy invloed begin het om hulle eie geloof in God en die Bybel prys te gee.

    Die primêre motivering vir hierdie aantekeninge is om as hulpmiddel te dien vir gelowiges wat baie dieselfde vrae het as Jaco, of wat met kritiek teen die betroubaarheid van die Bybel gekonfronteer word. Die bedoeling is om hulp te verskaf aan Christene om hulleself teenoor hierdie tipe kritiek te verantwoord. As ek sien wat die invloed is van liberale teologie op die geloofslewe van baie gelowiges, en dat baie selfs hulle geloof daardeur verloor het, dring dit my om my hulp aan te bied deur middel van my eie verstaan van God en die Bybel, asook my persoonlike getuienis. Hoewel Jaco telkens sê hy is oop vir kommentaar en sê dat hy hulp soek in sy krisis, is hierdie aantekeninge nie bedoel om vir Jaco anders te oortuig nie. Natuurlik verwag ek nie dat Jaco eensklaps na die lees van hierdie aantekeninge (indien hy dit lees) skielik sy teologie of uitkyk gaan verander nie. Trouens, ek glo vas dat net God se Heilige Gees sulke werk in mense se lewens kan doen. Ek antisipeer eerder dat Jaco by die lees hiervan dit sal afmaak as die aantekeninge van ‘n fundamentalis (wat ek terloops nie is nie – sal later meer daarop ingaan) wat niks van sy krisis verstaan nie en vanuit ‘n totaal ander paradigma redeneer. Voorts antisipeer ek dat Jaco waarskynlik kan dink ek is arrogant om te dink ek kan sy proefskrif so maklik “weerlê.” Daarom wil ek die term “weerlê” kwalifiseer. Uit die aard van die saak, omdat ek vanuit ‘n ander verstaansparadigma as Jaco werk, en ek nie met die bevindings van sy studie saamstem nie, noem ek dit weerlegging. Maar ek verstaan “weerlegging” bloot as my verantwoordelikheid en roeping om vanuit my oortuiging en verstaan van wat reg en waar is te reageer op dit wat ek as valse lering of misleiding beskou. 2 Tim 4:2 sê: “verkondig die woord; hou aan tydig en ontydig; weerlê, bestraf, vermaan in alle lankmoedigheid en lering.” Met weerlegging bedoel ek nie “onbetwisbaar teenbewys” nie. Ek dink gewoon dat menslike verstaan op hierdie aarde te gebroke is daarvoor. Ek bedoel ook nie dat ek dink my interpretasies is verhewe bo korreksie nie.

    ON THE EXISTENCE OF YAHWEH (GOD)and A BRIEF EVALUATION OF THE CASE OF A DEVIL’S ADVOCATE

    “DEAD-AGAIN CHRISTIAN”. The expression is entirely unlike anything I heard before or encountered in the New Testament or heard from Christians I know. Is it not an oxymoron? If it is, then such talk is “sharply foolish” (from the Greek oxys, “sharp” and mōros, “foolish” – Colliers Dictionary 1977:721). However, I am more familiar with the reality of the “living dead”, a proper paradox in Scripture (e.g., 1 Tim 5:6; Rev 3:2). I will return to this point in the conclusion. However, the expression “dead-again Christian” seems to be just another expression of the earlier “Christian atheism” of Thomas J. J. Altizer and John A. T. Robinson in theology in the 1960s.

  17. cheryl says:

    I juust read Jaco’s insightful article. I was raised in a fundamental evangelical church all my life. I experienced a crisis of faith at age 38 not because I was a theology student but simply because my theology clashed with the law ( and reality). It was one of the most horrific periods of my life, discovering that my faith was not a personal relationship with God but merely religious social constructs of truth by well meaning but delusional Christians. Unfortunately,I am not proud of this fact. I attempted suicide to help alleviate the tremendous cogitative dissonance and emotional anguish that ensued.Now I have spend the past decade trying to understand what lead me to such a profound despair. Reading this article has been very therapeutic. Jaco articulated so well the conflicts encountered by fundamental Christians when they attend a bible college outside of their own christian denomination and are exposed to liberal views that are not consistent with their indoctrination.

    When I was a in high school, I recall my pastor claiming that he knew that when he died that he was going to go to heaven simple because he said ” I know that I know that I know.” I have since have gone grad school. My old pastor’s proof may have evoke a few amens from the congregation but no this reasoning and ignorance is now simply embarrassing. I understand what Jaco is trying to say through his article, It was not written out of spite but simply an admonition to fundamentalist of the mental anguish that may await them if believers seriously employ critical thinking skills. I was impressed with his article, yet I must say that I was even more stuck with Jaco’s humble tone in his responses in this blog to your incredulous commentaries. Unlike Jaco,I am not an atheist but more so an agnostic, but Much like Jaco, I know that we can talk until we are blue in the face but nothing we say will be accepted by you, if it does not line up with your religious constructs.

  18. Amanda says:

    Cheryl

    It sounds as you have been indoctrinated by the post-modernist since you speak their language. I would not get too exited about Jaco’s story if I were you. Maybe you missed the momentous debate held at the University of Pretoria that exposed their “critical thinking skills”. Here is what happened:

    The second debate, at the University of Pretoria, was even more significant and, I dare say, one-sided. AntWoord had arranged for Michael Licona, who recently finished his doctoral studies in theology at the University of Pretoria, to join me in debating two liberal South African theologians, Drs. Spangenberg and Wolmarans, on Jesus’ resurrection. Their radical views on Christianity are an incoherent mishmash of modernist scientific naturalism and post-modernist denial of objective meaning. Neither of them even believes that God exists. They are part of a movement called the New Reformation which is seeking to transform Christianity in South Africa. Unfortunately, the South African church is apparently just not equipped to deal with these challenges, and so everyone was praying that Mike and I could expose the emptiness of their claims.

    Just arriving at a topic which these gentlemen would debate was enormously difficult, since they don’t accept that the New Testament has any objective meaning to argue about! We finally settled on “How Should We Understand the Narratives about Jesus’ Resurrection?” The night of the debate the auditorium, which sat over 500 hundred, was filled to capacity, so just outside the building a live television feed was set up to an amphitheater where several hundred more gathered. With our contrasting styles, Mike and I complemented each other nicely and so formed a powerful team. Spangenberg and Wolmarans were basically annihilated in a gracious way. For an account of how the debate unfolded click here.

    The organizers of the debate were absolutely thrilled with the outcome. At one of the later conferences at which I spoke an evangelical theologian rose during the Q&A after my talk and went on at length about the historic importance of the debate for Christianity in South Africa. At last, he said, the pretensions of the New Reformation movement had been powerfully and embarrassingly exposed!

    See also Debate with Spangenberg and Wolmarans.

    I would encourage you to browse around at Dr. Craig’s website. You might find his religious constructs to be quite robust and compelling. The DVD of the debate and the conference can be ordered at the AntWoord website. You will be pleasantly surprised to find that Christianity is in fact a “reasonable faith”.

    I do hope you will avail yourself of these powerful resources, because God will hold you accountable for breaking His Laws whether you believe in Him or not. And that is not my religious construct, but from the Word of God. Only Christianity has Good News to offer you, that Jesus Christ died for your sins so that you do not have to face the wrath of your Creator.

  19. Martin says:

    This is a heart breaking story and I’m filled with sorrow by reading it. Dear people please allow me to tell you something and forgive me for referring to myself but may this serve as a testimony.

    In my Christian walk as a believer I went back reading very dangerous books on Eastern philosophies and conspiracy theories. I’ll name the authors [DTW please feel free to edit them out should you wish, for I do not want to draw attention to them] The first author: (1)Jiddu Krishnamurti and the other (2)David Icke. I was kind of obsessed with the information these books contained. There is also a lot of information on them on the internet.

    From (1): This person was groomed for the role of World Teacher (not exactly a lightweight) in the Theosophical Society under the leadership of Annie Besant. The underlying theme of this book is basically that we do not know what love is and it is something that brings with it its own intelligence and once it touches you you’ll never be the same again. The first step is the last step…The reading is riveting and deep and brilliant, so much so that it makes philosophers look like nuns in comparison. It is truly inspired by something beyond human comprehension and I was taken in by it. Through this knowledge I became ‘enlightened’ and realized especially the role the ego plays and found this in agreement with the author to be the reason for the world problem. In the mean time I also read the Bible and the confusion this caused was, I don’t know, beyond reproach. Because the Bible teaches about love and this extra biblical book does the same…the confusion I went through was horrible to say the least. No one could help me, no one knew what I was really going through, no one understood and just gave short little answers like ‘pie in the sky’ etc… To cut to the chase, I realized that what I was busy with was nothing else than believing that I (or we) can save this world by our own love or this higher love if we just let go of sorrow “for the end of sorrow is love” according to the author. Somehow I still clinged to it and read more of it on the internet.

    With (2): The conspiracy stuff. It’s not really all about exposing Freemasonry and the Illuminati and shadow governments, it also entails a solution to these problems. In these books (I read all of them, and they’re not cheap) a lot of mention is made of Bible stories and how it actually originated prior to the advent of Jesus. Lots of references against the Bible which I really do not even want to or can remember now, lest even mention here. What these books did was breaking down my faith on the inerrancy of Biblical truth. The doubts that came to my mind were in league with those I experienced from book (1). What they do is they make you feel so superior but humble at the same time, a kind of negative humility if I may want to describe the feeling…euphoric. You look down on your past and literally see what illusion life was and even then in the present. It’s just this matrix that we are trapped in and of course the New Age solution to escape this entrapment. From these books I started seeing the Bible as not being a reference to reality but an illusion or part of a grand illusion.

    I saw fantasic connections and correlations between them [ (1) and (2)] to such an extent that because of the relevancy it surely must be truth and reality. It was of course not easy to live by it because no one is really interested in discussing these ‘odd’ subjects. So in a way I became estranged from friends and family members because just mentioning anything of the content sounds crazy to the ‘average’ person. So I started seeing others as uninformed or lacklustre and shyed away from Christian friends. By this time I knew what false prophets were in Christendom and could easily relate with fellow Christians on such issues but further I just kept quiet on other spiritual issues not involving myself with stuff I thought is a waste of time in any case.

    In the mean time there was always this little doubt in these superior knowledge. This little doubt was actually the little faith still intact and on a somewhat weird way I happened to lodge with someone who at that time was saved from Satanism, a very zealous character at that time and quite bold in his approach. He took me on in a strange uncouth kind of manner regarding my twisted views and believe it or not, he asked to read a book, a book I would never ever recommend anyone should read but I’ll mention it here. DTW please don’t take offence. It was Rebecca Brown’s “He Came To Set The Captives Free”. How I wish I never read it, but it had some effect on me and awakened in me the reality that the adversary, Satan is well and truly active because there’s so much emphasis in her books on Satan that it can’t be overlooked. Please don’t get me wrong, this book didn’t save me or pointed me in any direction neither did it resore my faith either. At this time I had profound knowledge of the Bible, I just didn’t believe the whole of it. This guy was some kind of a fan of Rebecca Brown so when I returned the book I just said yes, thanks, marvellous, not to grieve him to much of what I really thought. We exchanged a few ideas on it and so on and I don’t know he kept going on with me on other scriptures and at some stage looked me in the eye and said that he think I’m actually blessed in a way because of the way I see and interpret scripture. It reminded me of my good Christian upbringing and how I drifted off in a sense.

    I moved from there and never saw the guy again. It was months later, maybe over a year or so that I finally got fed up with these books I was reading, they just started to not count anything for me anymore so I just threw them away, done. That was not the end of it, the confusion was still there although not that severe but still there. To ‘come off of it’ I dabbled a bit in Rudolf Steiner [DTW feel free to edit this name out] but found it too intellectual and cumbersome to integrate into biblical perspectives. And this was the last of it. I would’t want to become another Aristotle or Maimonides or Church father to mix in extra-biblical philosophies with what I knew and half believing to be Truth.

    I realized that all this time God was pulling me back but like Jonah I preferred to look the other way. Stubborn as a mule!

    People, God does not give up on what is His. Why do we so easily give up on people? I realised too that there were people praying for me and later enquired if this was so from certain individuals and I’ve found that to be the case. Why did people pray for me? Who put it on their hearts to pray for me? I’m sure you’d be able to figure it out. I thank God for his grace and mercy and the fact that He’ll never forget or forsake you, never!

    To highlight on this twice dead topic, let’s have a look at what it means.

    3Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. 4For certain men whose condemnation was written about[b] long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
    5Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord[c] delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. 6And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. 7In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

    8In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings. 9But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” 10Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them.

    11Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.

    12These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. 13They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

    14Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” 16These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage

    Pardon me for perhaps trying to read something into this profound scripture but I do not find that these men spoken of here, even though bereaved of any form of Godly inspired faith have the ability to totally deprive you of your faith. These are worshipers of self. They don’t deny self but deny Christ. They are only interested in themselves and would welcome and appreciate anyone to cling to their lips and their blind and pride ridden ways. They never started out with any faith whatsoever except faith in themselves. They won’t mention to want disciples following them but covertly desire to have followers. Someone who started out with true faith cannot follow these twice dead individuals for long. On the other side, yes I do see the resemblace drawn icw the Israelites being saved from Egypt and were disobedient and unfaithful.

    Dear friends, please let’s not give up on anyone. It is not my intention to start a praying campaign for those who profess to have lost their faith, not at all. Should you feel pressed to pray for them then do so in earnestness and honesty.

    DTW, please pardon me for this lengthy post, I really tried to make it as concise as possible but really, my heart goes out to the lost. I am open to correction where I’m wrong and will humbly accept to be reproved on details.

  20. Louisa L. says:

    Go do a study, most born-again Christians become what they are out of fear, they don’t know what comes after death and so choose to believe out of fear. And that’s not being a Christian.

    Fear doesn’t give people a choice what to believe in and God gave us free will. And no, not to test our faith! He gave us free will because he loves us and wants us to live in our own way.

    And this article was NOT written out of hatred! It’s an article written because of a study. You assuming it’s written out of hate is YOU JUDGING. As far as I know only God is allowed to judge, so what does that say about you?

    Besides you can’t deny how many times the bible has been changed either due to translations or just because the old churches decided to remove or change parts in it. So there is good reason for articles like these.

    And there are very few true Christians left in the world.
    The ones who call themselves Christians don’t act like it, that’s like saying you’re a world class peace activist but you do absolutely nothing to help or maybe even do the opposite and help wars along.

    Look at yourself before you start to look at others and if you see articles like these and it bothers you, either do something about it in a positive way or ignore it, but don’t judge others and moan about it.

    Everyone is entitled to their own views as God wanted it to be, so you can not say this person was wrong to write this, nor can you make comments when it clearly states what the aim of this article was!

  21. Louisa L

    You don’t know the difference between a FAKE Christian and a GENUINE Christian. You’ve obviously never been a GENUINE born again Christian to speak on our behalf and say we follow God out of fear – what nonsense.

    This article was written out of hatred for JESUS CHRIST because of someone who had NO LOVE FOR GOD.

    Genuine Christians are NOT people who do GOOD WORKS. There are a billion unbelievers who act good but who hate God.

    Before you comment, make sure you understand EXACTLY what you are talking about first. You say everyone is entitled to their own views, but you stifle mine? Pfff, hypocrite.

    You have no love for God just as this author has no love for God otherwise you would NEVER support a person who insults Jesus Christ.

  22. Michael says:

    Sadly there seems to be a paradox when an intelligent man like Jaco studies the scriptures from the interlectia approach and the repetition of the original sin (which is the exceptional deep and hard to recognise sin that is dormant and cleverly disguised in all of us and especially the very high principaled and intelligent…pride). It is “the snake in the grass”…no pun intended…so difficult to discern especially in ourselves…this is what makes it so deadly and it is no surprise that God forbade this fruit to be eaten.
    Genesis 2:16–17
    16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

  23. sylesa says:

    Louisa,
    it is the goodness of God that leads to repentance, however, Christ warned to fear Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell!

    8 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. 29
    Matt 10:28-29 (KJV)

    Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance
    Romans 2:4 (KJV)

  24. Arthur says:

    Deborah you are very emotional. You sound like my wife. You sound like a fanatic. You believe like a fanatic. Are you one? Jaco,s testimony of losing his faith was unbelievable and very moving. I have also lost mine. Born again, baptised in water and the holy ghost and a part time missionary and preacher. Fundamentalist, pentecostal and now an atheist.

    Your belief, if it is true should with stand intense scrutiny. What are you afraid of? The truth always hurts.

  25. Arthur

    >> Deborah you are very emotional. You sound like my wife. You sound like a fanatic. You believe like a fanatic. Are you one?

    You sound like such a nice person; a woman abuser (psychological). Someone with no disregard for women. Are you one?

    I would say you were never truly saved to start with dude if you lost your faith. If you read your bible correctly (or at all) when you are saved and GENUINELY have the Holy Spirit abiding in you you are SEALED and the Bible says the Holy Spirit will be with you forever.

    John 14:16 “16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever

    Ephesians 1:13-14 “13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who[a] is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory”

    2 Corinthians 1:22 “22 who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. ”

    Ephesians 4:30 “30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.”

    You were someone who had a form of godliness, you appeared to be Christian, but you were not.

    2 Timothy 3:1-2,5 ” 1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,…..5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!”

    >> Your belief, if it is true should with stand intense scrutiny. What are you afraid of? The truth always hurts.

    I stand intense scrutiny each day on this blog by commenters (hence I have the guts to keep the comments section open) for chops like you to come and give me a hard time (or so you think). Give it your best buddy ol’ pal -but refrain for calling me names mkay? Can you do that?

  26. Burning Lamp says:

    Arthur, any man who would degrade his wife like you did should be ashamed. Your comments smack of pride and the Bible makes it clear how much God hates pride. Perhaps some soul-searching on your part would be in order.

  27. Burning Lamp says:

    Arthur, I would like to add that as you describe your background that you were taught in a legalistic experience-oriented manner and never came to a saving knowledge and surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. You have become bitter for some reason and you do not realize how much the Lord Jesus loves you. I pray you will humble yourself and turn to the only Hope you have and not believe the lies of Satan.

  28. Arthur says:

    When i mentioned my wife it was in the context of her being a devout born again Christian. Bible puncher par excellence. We don,t discuss Bible or Christian issues any more. She speaks the same way as you do Deborah. She also points out the obvious off pat answers Christians dish out to ex Christians. Now that i have been set free from religious indoctrination and bigotry i actually accept all people of all faiths and life styles.

  29. Arthur

    I feel sorry for your wife.

    I find it funny that as an atheist you now accept other people of ALL FAITHS – errr, ok then. You sound like a confused atheist. Or are you saying that you are only anesthetist regarding the Christian God and his people, but other gods of other faiths and their followers you can accept 😉 If that’s the case you prove that GOD exists.

    Sorry for pointing out the obvious. You should tell your wife to come read my blog, least she will have some friends here that she can talk too.

  30. Burning Lamp says:

    Arthur, I agree w/Deborah – your poor wife must be heart-broken and suffering as you have forsaken your former beliefs. I am sure that she has callouses on her knees from praying on your behalf.

    Sounds like you had tons of “head knowledge” that never made it to your heart. Arthur, you are toying with your eternal destiny which if you are not saved will be torment forever and ever. The enemy of our souls has blinded you and you are in grave danger. Fall on your knees and seek your Savior – forget your pride and may the shackles fall from your eyes!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *