“May I share my testimony with you?”
I’ve been asked the above question countless times. Usually, though not always, I say yes. I’m not sure if the concept of “testimony” is prevalent outside of Christian communities, so for those of you who were not raised in the church, let me give you a brief explanation of what sharing a testimony means.
A person’s testimony is usually a life experience or series of life experiences that have led the person to a spiritual conclusion. In most cases, this conclusion is to accept Jesus as her savior. But every testimony is different and deeply personal. When a person asks to share a testimony, she is taking a risk. She is about to offer up information about her life and beliefs that others might judge or ridicule. The act of sharing this is intimate and trusting.
Testimonies are shared for a couple of reasons. Sometimes, people share within the church community to reinforce their connections to one another. Other times, people share with non-believers to explain beliefs or persuade the listeners to reach the same spiritual conclusion that they have reached. Sometimes people share testimonies for all of these reasons at once. They can be public; they can be private. The important thing is for the testimony to be honest.
There is a reason people ask first. When a person asks if she can share a testimony, she is asking a number of things at once—and the things she is asking are not small things. She is asking if you will listen, if you will really try to consider this personal story, and if you will give her conclusion the respect and consideration that something that is honest and hard-earned deserves.
Sometimes the answer to that question is no. And it’s a valid answer. I’ve said no to missionaries. I’ve said it to friends and family. There are people I would say no to right now. In fact, there are many people who, for the first time in my life, I’m not even able to speak to–much less listen to their testimony.
And so it may seem like an odd time for me to ask the question I’m about to ask. It may even seem hypocritical to ask it. It probably is. But I will ask anyway.
May I share my testimony with you?
I’ll keep it as short as I can, though I cannot limit it to a single experience or revelation. I’m a questioner. I believe in questions. And I believe in asking the hard ones, the ones that challenge me. And in the course of my life, these hard questions have changed my beliefs, even strongly held ones.
I was, as we say in southwest Missouri, “raised right.” My grandpa is a Southern Baptist preacher, and my dad even spent some time behind the pulpit. I went to church every Sunday and most Wednesdays. I was a precocious, people-pleaser and made the decision to accept Jesus at the age of five. At the time, I did believe in Jesus with all my heart. Though, to be fair, I also believed in Santa with all my heart. Really, I believed in what the smart, caring people around me believed. Even after the truth about Santa came out.
My drift away from Christianity began with the way I saw women being treated in the church. At First Baptist in Bolivar, Missouri, women were not (and still are not) allowed to be deacons or preachers. This practice was justified with biblical verses about women not teaching men. But as I continued studying the Bible, I began to realize how many contradictions the Good Book had. I realized it was impossible for it to be infallible. I also realized that there were many commandments in the Bible that were regularly violated, without comment. Once these realizations occurred, I found it “odd” that the leaders of the church picked and chose certain parts to follow strongly and certain parts to ignore. For example, people in my area were in favor of the death penalty and wanted to go to war in Iraq, despite the very clear idea from Jesus to love your enemies. And yet, some obscure verses from Paul (the same man who told slaves to remain as they are) led “men of God” to treat women as though they are inferior. Other verses from Paul, in combination with verses in the middle of the much-ignored Old Testament, became the foundation for condemning gay people, a belief that quickly turned hateful. It was also that belief that turned my family away from the Southern Baptist denomination. We took up with the Methodists, who, with their more lenient attitude toward eternal damnation, were a better fit for us.
But questions lead to more questions. My college experience brought me from Missouri to the East Coast. At the time, I’d never spoken to a Jew or a Muslim—much less an uncloseted atheist. I led a Bible Study, but I led it with a few rugby teammates, who had fascinating perspectives to throw in. Fantastic questions. By the end of college, I thought of myself as a follower of Jesus’s teachings, but not as a believer in some of the more “magical” aspects (the virgin birth, the resurrection, heaven).
And then I moved to Baltimore. When I moved, I moved with a friend to form an “intentional Christian community” in a rough neighborhood. We wanted to model our lifestyle on the principles of Jesus, so we had an open-doors policy and talked to anyone who would talk to us–and helped anyone we could. We tried out many churches and finally found one (again, a Methodist church) that worked for us. We taught ESOL classes there.
And then I started teaching in the public high school nearby. For the next three years, nearly every belief I had, not just the religious ones, was challenged. Coming from a nearly all-white town, I had never understood race or privilege. The college I went to was “diverse” in some ways, but I still left there thinking that the real problem in underprivileged communities was almost solely socio-economic in nature. I was wrong. Race is a huge factor. Until Baltimore, I had never experienced being aware of my skin color. In Baltimore, I thought about it every day. I had never experienced being afraid for my safety on a regular basis. I wouldn’t leave the house alone after dark that first year. And yet, in the classroom, I realized that kids are kids. My high schoolers were funny and kind and liked stickers. Even the same kids who had gone to jail for violent crimes or occasionally cursed me out. I began to research and study and rethink my positions on education, crime, race, privilege, and hate. I also met my first undocumented immigrants–students and some adult neighbors–and began to understand what their lives were like and the difficult decisions they were faced with continually. I realized how much wrong information I had been exposed to.
This is also when my religious beliefs began to significantly change. I was thinking a lot about these terrible standardized, multiple-choice tests in education today–and how much damage they do to students. And then I thought about this supposed “test” that God gives us, and how much damage it does to the faithful. What it all comes down to, for so many, is that the most important thing in life is to pass God’s test of faith and go to heaven. Questions, critical thinking–those things were very dangerous. You don’t overthink if you want to pass a simple test. You just go along with it. Faith was the thing. So if the Bible tells parents it is wrong for their child to be gay–and their spiritual leader agrees–the faithful simply have to choose not to accept their child for who he or she is to pass the test. They simply have to choose faith and rejection over love. And then everything would be fine. Tests like these are a lie in education, and they are a lie in life.
And I had another lie to confront: How many times had I repeated the phrase “God is love?” And I’d believed it. But it wasn’t true.
Because once I started to realize that “faith” and “love” were very separate, often opposed concepts, I began to realize how separate and often opposed “God” and “love” were. If God existed, He chose to watch people suffer when He could intervene; chose to test people, when He could easily lead them; chose to give some people every advantage and throw others into terrible situations–expecting the same result. That is a negative, unfair world vision. It is rationale that allows us to be OK with the poverty and unfairness that exists here and now. I would rather not believe in God than put my faith in a God like that. And so, I let go of the lie.
I am now an unapologetic, uncloseted atheist, and I am a better person for it. I act, in love (as so many atheists do), to try to make the world, now, a better place. The switch has given me a peace of mind that was never there while I was constantly having to perform the dances around logic that were required to Believe. But it also brings its own sadness. Things aren’t going to happen on their own. Things aren’t OK. In Baltimore, I once found myself about to yell at a person simply for wearing a hat that said “Life is Good.” Even though, at one point, I’d had a T-shirt that said the same thing. I just wanted to scream that it wasn’t good. Not for a lot of people. How could he have the nerve to wear such a thing?
But while blind faith may be the enemy, positivity is not. Just yesterday, a friend said something to me that I’ve been thinking about ever since: “These days, hope seems like the rebellious act.” Hope. But not faith. Hope and action. And so I keep going. I keep fighting.
And I keep failing. I have made more than my share of missteps and will continue to make them. I have been wrong about so many things. My beliefs have changed. And they will continue to change. I’m sure I am wrong about other things, even as I write this. Odds are pretty damn high. Some of them are probably big, important things.
But I will continue to question. I am brave. I am willing to face hard truths and deal with the consequences. I can allow for the possibility of being wrong and still hold beliefs strongly. I can question my motivation and act with conviction. I am willing to fail and willing to succeed. And I will. I will do all of those things. I’ll live bravely with the support of the incredible, diverse people who I am so lucky to call my friends, my family, my community. I’ll live bravely with love and without God.
Questions led me away from faith. Love led me away from God. And I am a better person for it.
