Moving on takes three major forms for those of us who are ready to leave the IFB.
1) Becoming an atheist or an agnostic
2) Maintaining a belief in God, but writing off church and organized religion
3) Maintaining a belief in God, and becoming a part of a different kind of church
Which one did you choose and why?
December 31st, 2011 at 10:59
I chose #3 when I left the IFB. I believed so strongly in God (at the time), and I opened my eyes to the Christians outside our sect. I tried out several different churches for a few years, never settling for their doctrines. Instead, it was a gateway to exploring my deep-down beliefs about a god.
Since I was more interested in verifiable truth (than hanging on to all that I had been taught to believe), I eventually became atheist after years of trying to hold onto the Scriptures as a god’s word. This exodus from faith was a result of my intimate knowledge of the Bible. Go figure.
December 31st, 2011 at 15:21
You missed one: Changing your attitude & beliefs without leaving. Not that it is very common, but it does happen. Judging by the number of double-minded people, people that have a persona that they put on to go to Church that is different than they have elsewhere, maybe it is common.
The real issue is that if someone becomes a different person when they go to Church, they are ‘men pleasers’, putting the view of their conformity by others ahead of God.
Obviously, if the message from the pulpit is pharisaically following rules, then it’s not a place to stay. On the other hand, if the preaching is sound, but the culture demands conformity, then it is an option.
December 31st, 2011 at 15:24
I considered making this one of the options, but I decided to omit it because its hard to classify it as actually being ready to leave. But I have known many people who have taken this route.
January 7th, 2012 at 00:33
I chose number 3.
My frustration with fundamentalism came from where I saw the movement in contradiction with historic Christianity and consistent biblical exegesis. I, like many others in our boat, and like capitalgeek’s suggestion above, first tried to change my emphasis and inspire reform from within. Impossible.
I soon realized fundamentalism cannot be reformed.
However, I have a firm belief that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. I could not blame him for the ills of fundamentalism; in fact, I know his teachings were in direct conflict with some of the legalistic implications of fundamentalist belief and methodology.
I also see how fundamentalism as a movement (and much of modern evangelicalism) is pervaded with dangerous trends that come from late 19th century revivalistic pietism. I believe authentic Christianity goes back way further than that.
I find myself in the Reformed camp, and feel at home. My church straddles the fence between classical Protestantism and modern, conservative evangelicalism, but it’s a tension that I can live with.
February 6th, 2013 at 15:22
#2, briefly, and rather intermittently. I was going through this while still living at home under a semi-patriocentric father, so I didn’t have a whole lot of “choice,” but I did occasionally put up with his frustration in order to avoid church. When I moved across the country, I stopped going to church for a year and lied about it to everyone I knew. I hadn’t “settled down,” but I was “visiting.”
I’m #3 now, but mostly because I realized I didn’t know what church was like outside of IFB– so I went to every single denomination and religion I could find. I was lucky, because the town I was living in had over 300 churches. I found a Reformed non-denominational church where the pastor taught based on hearing from “both sides” and then finding a biblical middle-ground. It was a healthy environment to discover, and question, and I could go to the pastor with concerns and he would be honest (even about no-no topics, like how the Bible seems to treat genocide, rape, and sexism).