Switching Sides

Have you ever changed teams? This happens all the time in modern sports. It is really hard to maintain team loyalty when the star player you love up and leaves to play for the division rival. That's really awkward. In the course of a couple of seasons, half the roster shifts. The team you have hated all your life suddenly has your three favorite players. That's messed up.

Something similar happens in the realm of religion. But the stakes are much higher. It is not going to end well if you leave your Baptist heritage in a Baptist town for the Presbyterians. Your job could literally be in jeopardy over such a move. And that is not the most consequential of the defections you could make.

I am an X-tian. I was not only a Christian, but a small-time preacher. I was as inner-circle as inner-circle gets. My kind of defection is particularly painful, frightening, and rage-inducing to Christians. It hurts their cause much more than a generic Christian who had no status because I have seen all that Christianity has to offer. I know where the bodies are buried. And I judged it wanting. Ouch!

With that kind of defection, your best Christian friends turn into your worst enemies in a blink. Their loathing for you is even greater than the love they once had for you. They don't actively want to kill you. But were you to die in an unfortunate fire, they wouldn't shed a tear. It would just be god pouring out his glorious judgement on the worst kind of sinner imaginable.

Sometimes, that defection happens in reverse. An atheist or agnostic turns to faith. With that defection, the Christian is insufferably pleased. That single defection serves to bolster their faith and stands as proof against atheist propaganda. Jesus lives and Jesus saves. The Holy Spirit is alive and active in the world. The kingdom of god continues its inevitable in-breaking into the world and god continues to triumph over the enemy.

To be fair, both sides are unreasonably insufferable when a defection goes their way. But I do believe it is a bigger deal for the Christian than it is for the atheist. After all, our enterprise is not particularly evangelistic. We don’t go knocking on doors proclaiming the good news of disbelief or place pamphlets in hotels explaining that there is no god. We want to see religious belief marginalized for practical reasons. But we really aren't working al that proactively. There are no eternal consequences at stake.

However, the Christian really cares in ways that we don't. Those who are really earnest and loving are convinced that we are in danger of losing our immortal souls in some unspeakable manner. Their concern shouldn't be mocked or lightly dismissed. Some Christians spend some portion of their lives in tears over the fate of their non-believing friends. We should be overjoyed that someone loves us so deeply.

They also feel a bit of personal grief over their own failure to save a soul that was in their orbit. They believe they are on a mission from god. And every Christian friend of theirs who defects is a poor reflection on them as an ambassador for the kingdom of god. At some point, they have to tell themselves some sort of story to help them get through it. Your lost soul will not affect their happiness in heaven. God's justice is beautiful. You had a chance to save yourself from a fate that you must have ultimately wanted.

Again, atheists need no such solace. We honestly don't care enough to go through any of that. We generally don't care what people believe because we all believe things that are wrong and a little weird. We can deal with that. So if you decide to believe in a god, none of us are going to stay up at knight to weep over the condition of your soul. You believe in god. Big deal!

We don't consider it any kind of loss to the community because we are perfectly happy having believers in our community. We don't feel it is a loss of a soul because, for the most part, we don't believe in souls. Even those atheists who do believe in spirits don't believe that yours is in jeopardy because you believe in a false god. And we certainly don't generally have to tell ourselves stories about an afterlife fantasy that involves you suffering some awful fate because of your decision to believe.

So while defections happen on both sides, it just doesn't mean the same to atheists as it does to Christians. It is also a fact that Christians treat those defections very differently.

The asymmetry of switching sides

Christians do not treat all switchers equally. There is a pronounced asymmetry in the way Christians deal with those switching from Christianity as opposed to those switching to Christianity. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

The atheist to Christian conversion is always justified while the Christian to atheist conversion is never justified. I seldom hear a Christian opine that an atheist simply had insufficient justification to make the leap to believing in god. Any atheist making the transition to Christianity for any reason is a good reason and sufficient justification.

In the same way, I have seldom heard a Christian opine that an atheist was justified in moving from believe to none belief. No matter what the circumstances, the atheist is never justified in that move. This is a major asymmetry in how Christians view and treat switchers.

Motives are never questioned for the one converting from atheist to Christian. Have you noticed how no Christian ever stops to question the motives of the person switching to their faith. Those people are obviously good people with pure motives because if that wasn't the case, they wouldn't have honestly considered the evidence and made the switch.

The Christian moving in the other direction will always encounter Christians who question the motives of the newly-minted unbeliever. That person never really accepted Jesus and never had the Holy Spirit and decided that they would rather pursue a life of sin than a life of obedience. You get the idea.

They were never a Christian. This is one of the first accusations to be trotted out. Notice how the Christian moving to unbelief was never a Christian. But they don't except it if we say that an atheist moving to faith was never an unbeliever. In some cases, it is just a fact that some were never truly unbelievers. You can listen to them tell their own stories. They were just Christians with some troubling doubts. But they worked out those doubts in the context of a religious community and religious practices. The Christian doesn't accept it when we say that about a former atheist. But they say it about those who are former Christians. Those people were obviously never really Christians.

They never had the right idea about god. Almost everyone who has challenged me on my deconstruction has accused me of not knowing the Bible and not having the right ideas about god, or something of the sort. Interestingly, they never interrogate the new Christian about whether or not they have the right knowledge of the Bible or the right ideas about god. Because god reached out and brought them from the dark side, it is assumed that they have the right ideas about god.

It proves that Christianity is right when an atheist switches sides. This is one of my favorite of the asymmetries. When a Christian leaves the faith, it doesn't show that the faith is wrong. It just shows that the defector is wrong. But when an atheist becomes a Christian, it is absolute confirmation that Christianity is true. Only sinners run away from god. But the fact that anyone ever becomes a Christian is confirmation to the believer that god is acting powerfully in the world.

Conclusion: No bad reasons

I have made this point before but it bears repeating. I believe there are no bad reasons to leave the faith and become an unbeliever. First, you can't help it. You either believe or you don’t. You can't make yourself believe something you don't. And you can't make yourself disbelieve something you do. But at some point, you can stop trying to fight it. Many Christians fight their disbelief long before throwing in the towel and admitting to themselves that they no longer believe. Giving up the fight is not the moment you stopped believing; it is the moment you stopped fighting the fact that you no longer believe.

It is also a fact that many, if not most have no idea what made them stop believing. I don't know. That is why my answer is different every time I'm asked. It is usually not some dramatic event that made the difference. It is a lot of things that get caught up in the fog of decision.

That said, it doesn't really matter. For those who do have a more event-based conversion moment, the event or reason is irrelevant. It is always a good reason. Go ahead and try to think of the most unworthy reason to leave the faith you can imagine. That is still a good reason to leave the faith. Here's why:

God is supposed to be steering the ship and his spirit should be in the process of guiding you into all truth. If you came to him with a sincere and open heart, it is up to him to take it from there and move you in the right direction. When you first come to belief, you have no idea what is right and what isn't. That's why you need a guide.

Perhaps you had the bad luck of being converted by a false preacher. So what? The point is you were honestly seeking god. He should be the one to give you insight to leave that church and he should also be guiding you to a good one. If he left you to figure it out for yourself, that is on him, not you.

If you leave because your expectations about prayer were incorrect, that is also not your fault. What do you know about the intricacies of prayer? For all you know, you are supposed to be praying for pool tables. Some of the most esteemed Christian leaders have and it worked out pretty well for them. So if you were misled into having false expectations, again, that inner-witness should be able to steer you in the right direction. If you leave because of your sincere but faulty efforts to learn the truth, that is on bob and not you.

You can see how this works. Christianity has the magics that should protect a person from the things that make them leave. They didn't feel the presence of god in their lives. God could have showed up for them. They were abused by the church in some way. God could have protected them, especially knowing it would cause them to leave. They were tempted by sin. But greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world, right? I could go on like this for a long time. But I think you get the point.

I absolutely believe there are bad reasons to become a Christian. As unbelievers, all we have is human reason. So we have to use it wisely and well. Reason can be misused, or worse, set aside altogether. By reasoning badly, you have not committed any kind of sin. You have not destroyed your community ties. You have not cut yourself off from the same loving support you always had. But you could be making life more difficult for yourself. We care about that. But we also want you to have the freedom to pursue the path that leads to you being your best self.

I personally want you to walk away from religious and superstitious belief. But I don't give a damn one way or the other. You are free to be a person of faith. We're still good. I only wish it worked the same way in reverse.

See you in the comments...

David Johnson