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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I was a teenage zombie

I’ve been asked to comment on a deconversion testimony. Peter Pike has already done an excellent post on the subject.

It’s a stereotypical deconversion testimony. And it’s striking how formulaic these deconversions stories generally are. A young man grows up in a legalistic, fideistic, insular Christian environment. At some point he’s exposed, for the first time in his adult life, to a teacher or writer who’s hostile to the Christian faith. The instant he encounters an opposing view, his childhood faith evaporates on contact. And he finds this a liberating experience.

This phenomenon raises a number of interesting questions:

1.It’s a mystery to me how any American living in the age of cable TV and the Internet could ever be that sheltered to begin with. You’d think these apostates were Amish farmhands.

Or, to vary the illustration, reading deconversion testimonies is like watching one of those post-apocalyptic SF movies in which, to survive a nuclear winter, the human race took refuge in a fallout shelter. Decades pass. The younger generation knows nothing about the outside world. The community is ruled by a dictatorial gerontocracy. The elders remember the truth, but, being corrupt and power-hungry, lie to the younger generation to keep them under their thumb. They assure the younger generation that the outside world is uninhabitable. The radiation would kill them. Or mutant animals would eat them alive. They are the last people on earth. To leave the shelter is forbidden, on pain of death. They must avoid contaminating the shelter.

But the young people, being naturally curious and insubordinate, defy their elders and stage an escape. When they emerge from the shelter, with secret police hot on their tail, they discover, to their shock and awe, that the outside world is a paradise on earth. A new Eden. What is more, they discover other human beings living on the surface!

The average apostate acts as if he’d been hoodwinked all these years. Kept in the dark. He acts as though, if the Bible were true, then everyone would believe the Bible was true.

When he then discovers the hitherto unsuspected existence of unbelievers, this is followed by a sense of betrayal and disillusionment. He says to his elders, “How could you lie to me! Why didn’t you ever tell me!”

2.As I’ve often said, apostasy is frequently the result of false expectations. If you entertain a false expectation, then sooner or later rude experience may dash your false expectations.

It’s not as if the Bible cultivates this expectation. It’s not as though the Bible paints a picture of a word in which everyone is a fellow believer. Bible history actually records the existence of unbelievers!

You have to be incredible naïve to think that no one has ever written a book before attacking the Bible or the Christian faith. Why does first-time exposure to this sort of material so often lead to instant loss of faith? Why does this catch the reader completely off-guard, as if he never imagined the possibility of someone attacking the Bible?

I think one reason is that a lot of folks read the Bible without bothering to apply it to themselves or the world around them. They don’t stop and ask whether there’s something in their own experience or observation that corresponds to what the Bible is describing. Somehow, in their reading of Scripture, they compartmentalize what the Bible says about the world from the world around them.

3.The attraction of a deconversion testimony is emotional. It appeals to someone who had the same sort of experience. There’s the shock of recognition: “Gee, I can relate to that! He might as well be talking about me!” This creates a sense of camaraderie between the writer and the reader.

At least, it has that effect in the case of readers and writers who share a common experience.

But by the same token, it doesn’t have the same effect on readers like me who had a very different experience growing up.

I didn’t have much to rebel against as a kid. I didn’t feel repressed. I guess I suffer from the fact that I was too well-adjusted to identify with the experience of the apostate. So deconversion testimonies have no emotional traction for a reader like me. I find them unintentionally comical. I wonder how anyone could be that clueless to begin with.

For folks who pride themselves on being freethinkers, this groupthink mentality ought to disturb them. The degree to which their apostasy is formulaic, stereotypical, culturally conditioned, should be deeply disturbing.

4. Another stereotypical feature of deconversion testimonies is their very wooden approach to the inerrancy of Scripture. They think the Bible must be in error unless every speech is a full, verbatim transcript of what was said. Somehow, they can’t wrap their head around the idea that a Bible writer might summarize or paraphrase what was said.

They think the Bible must be in error unless every quote is a verbatim transcription of the source. Somehow, they can’t wrap their head around the idea that a Bible writer might paraphrase another writer, or combine quotes from two or more writers.

They think the Bible must be in error unless every narrative is strictly sequential. Somehow they can’t wrap their head around the idea that a writer might arrange some of his material topically rather than chronologically.

They make no allowance for hyperbole, round numbers, or numerology. They make no allowance for narrative compression. Or paradox.

Put another way, they read the Bible at the level of a child. The simplistic literality of a child who’s too young to comprehend verbal shortcuts, figures of speech, or double entendres.

In other words, a lot of apostates a functionally illiterate. They know nothing about the art of writing. About basic literary techniques which are frequently put to use in expository writing.

5.So often they don’t even bother to read conservative Christian scholarship. They only read one side of the argument: the liberal side.

Or, by the time they do get around to reading the conservative side of the argument, it’s too late. By then they’re already committed to their defection. By then it’s a question of saving face. How to rationalize their apostasy.

So even if they do read some competent conservative writers, they automatically dismiss their explanations as special pleading. They discount whatever a conservative writer has to say based on his tainted apologetic motives. Anyone who presumes to defend the Bible is suspect for that very reason. And somehow they manage to exempt opponents of Christianity from the same suspicion.

6. Apostates also suffer from the “grass is greener” syndrome. They feel emotionally and culturally deprived. All the fun stuff they never had a chance to do. And they’re in a hurry to catch up.

There are, however, lots of folks who come out of the opposite background. People who know what it’s like to grow up in the moral vacuum of atheism.

7.I’ll finish with a few suggestions. Although there’s nothing a parent can do guarantee that his kids will remain in the faith, you can take some precautionary measures:

i) Choose your battles with care. Don’t give your kids too many things to rebel against. The more things you give them to rebel again, the more likely they are to rebel. Don’t load them down with unbiblical restrictions.

ii) In the nature of the case, happy people are not as restive as mad or sad people. For example, some parents treat church attendance as an onerous duty. Like eating your turnips and parsnips and spinach.

But if your kids hate church, then as soon as they learn how to drive or leave home, they’ll turn their back on church and never look back.

Are you kids miserable in church? Why? Try to find out. Try to do something about it.

iii) The world likes to glamorize evil. By contrast, you should expose your kids to the ugly underbelly of evil. Do so in a controlled environment. Take them to shelters for battered women. Or prison ministries. Or night-watch ministries. Expose them to the violence and despair of a godless lifestyle.

For every glittering Vegas casino there’s a seedy Vegas pawnshop. You can’t have one without the other.

iv) Teach them basic reading skills. They should read some of the following books:

Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels

V. Philips Long, The Art of Biblical History

Leland Ryken, Words of Delight: A Literary Introduction to the Bible

Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative

v) And, of course, they should become acquainted with some standard apologetic literature. There’s a lot of find online material.

15 comments:

  1. I have to say this is one of my biggest fears and excitements about one day having kids. The chance to teach a child about God and raise them in His Word will be a thrilling experience. I pray that I don't screw up! I know it wouldn't be completely my fault but it would definitely be the toughest thing I would go through.

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  2. They think the Bible must be in error unless every narrative is strictly sequential. Somehow they can’t wrap their head around the idea that a writer might arrange some of his material topically rather than chronologically.

    Amazing how Quentin Tarantino did this with "Pulp Ficition" and he was lauded as a genius.

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  3. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

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  4. It’s a stereotypical deconversion testimony. And it’s striking how formulaic these deconversions stories generally are.

    ...as opposed to conversion testimonies, which are... how exactly? :-\

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  5. Thank you for this post.

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  6. But according to Calvinism it has nothing to do with you but only with their god's arbitrary will. If I was a Calvinist, I wouldn't have kids. Why give that god one more kid to roll the dice with and possibly condemn to hell for another man's sin? But of course, if Calvinism were true, I wouldn't be able to control my own procreative power since there would be no free will, so it makes sense that you can't keep yourself from procreating like a rabbit.

    Haha, I'll just let Steve deal with you... if the Calvinist God decides to have him do so.

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  7. Wow, that blog and "testimony" of deconversion are so very typical. It's been receiving a lot of internet acclaim lately since it was featured by Loftus & Co., but I find it abysmally basic in content. It does have a very large mp3 debate library, but most seem copied from Apologetics 315.

    My favorite part of the testimony is his reference to his personal search for the historical Jesus. He links to a previous blog where he comments about his research. It included listening to some basic Ehrman and reading the most basic book NT Wright has written. He also read through the gospels with his newfound critical lenses.

    Did he see how well Ehrman's popular stuff has been received by scholarship? Did he read any of Wright's scholarly writings? Did he see what Witherington, Evans, et. al. or even more liberal Catholic scholars such as Meier, Brown, etc. had to say? Of course not, because a couple lectures and a few hundred pages of pop-scholarship was enough to crumble the Jesus of his infantile, evangelical faith. He now quotes Bob Price and Richard Carrier with regularity, and thus destroys any credibility among academic discussion.

    This juvenile pursuit of truth, now has given him enough confidence to say, "I rejected Christianity because I spent a lot of time examining all the arguments for and against God's existence, and found that the situation looked pretty similar to the arguments for and against Allah's existence, or for and against the existence of werewolves." He then comically continues, "My atheism is not based on presuppositions. My epistemology is not presuppositionalism, or even foundationalism. I do not even have a presupposition against solipsism." We've finally found the only neutral thinker in the world! Polanyi? Kuyper? Clouser? I'm sure he's never even approached that level of thinking, but I pray that he does.

    Now, he speaks as though he is a scholar and is very confident in his assertions. Two of his more amusing posts are one where he talks about what he and William Lane Craig "agree" about, and one where he claims to show how the church grew so rapidly. He speaks in the former as though he's knowledgeable about modern philosophical scholarship, which is amusing. Unfortunately, listening to every debate by Bill Craig (he has done so and "reviews" them on his site) doesn't quite qualify you as any authority on philosophy in my opinion. In the latter, his source of authority ironically is Rodney Stark, who basically argues against every point he makes elsewhere. He seems ignorant to the fact that both Mormonism and Atheism's growth can be directly tied to Christianity. Both clearly have thrived due to the decline of Western Christendom, and even presuppose Christian ideals to gain converts.

    I only hope he continues studying, although one has started reading Richard Carrier as a source of philosophical morality, then you have probably moved beyond help, because you no longer care about critical, peer-reviewed scholarship and now are reading self-published drivel that supports your new presuppositions.

    The whole site, story, etc. are extremely sad and should be seen as a warning to the evangelical/fundamentalist church that is raising atheists by not taking the gospel seriously, or by possibly not even knowing gospel at all.

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  8. “But according to Calvinism it has nothing to do with you but only with their god's arbitrary will.”

    i) According to Calvinism, God ordained the means as well as the ends.

    ii) Moreover, God’s will is purposeful, not arbitrary.

    “If I was a Calvinist, I wouldn't have kids. Why give that god one more kid to roll the dice with and possibly condemn to hell for another man's sin?”

    i) In Calvinism, God doesn’t roll the dice. Shooting the dice is a game of chance. Libertarians like you roll the dice. Arminians, Pelagians, Molinists, neotheists, &c. gamble with the fate of their kids.

    ii) If you press the metaphor, then the only dice God is rolling are loaded dice.

    iii) More to the point, Calvinism honors the Pauline doctrine of original sin. Beowulf has no more regard for the authority of Scripture than John Spong or Bart Ehrman.

    iv) It’s not as if every child of every Arminian is heavenbound. So Arminians are taking a risk every time they have a child.

    “ But of course, if Calvinism were true, I wouldn't be able to control my own procreative power since there would be no free will, so it makes sense that you can't keep yourself from procreating like a rabbit.”

    That’s a completely ignorant characterization of compatibilist action theory.

    On a final note: I delete the comments of Beowulf because he lied about my position, and refused to retract his lie. Since he’s a dishonorable disputant, I will continue to delete his comments.

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  9. I've talked to deconverted pastors before, and when going over which doctrine it was that convinced them of God being fake - they usually don't seem to have a grasp of Christian doctrine. I can imagine pastors such as these had a lot of false converts in their flocks as well...who would later deconvert to the praise of the atheist world.

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  10. Greg must have talked to John Loftus before... :-D

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  11. I was a teenage zombie

    He finally admits it! (In my opinion, You still are, but -that again- that's just my opinion...)

    --just kiddin`... :-) :D ;-)

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  12. “[ALAYMAN] I'll say that I didn't agree with his analogy about the bunker mentality and shielding kids from ‘paradise’. When the kids finally come out of the radiation bunker, the reality is that they're gonna see something far from paradise, and a world that is becoming more secular in belief and practice everyday. The hard part of a parent is at what point do you allow exposure to certain kinds of (carnal) knowledge, and how much freedom do you give them to make those kinds of decisions on an intellectual and practical level.”

    http://fundamentalforums.com/showthread.php?t=65768

    I didn’t use the fallout shelter as a metaphor for Christian childrearing. Rather, I used the fallout shelter as a metaphor for the reaction of some nominal Christians when they read a book by unbelievers like John Spong or Bart Ehrman.

    I’m commenting on the odd phenomenon of nominal Christians who are shocked and floored by reading a book by unbelievers like Ehrman or Spong. They lose their faith in one sitting.

    It’s as if they never knew until the moment they read such a book that unbelievers even exist. It’s as though it never occurred to them that someone might write a book attacking the Bible. They act as though the mere existence of this hitherto undiscovered phenomenon is somehow inconsistent with the Bible or Christian theology.

    Didn’t they ever notice, in all their years of reading the Bible, that the Bible itself records the existence of men and women who disbelieve the word of God? The Bible leads us to expect opposition to the Bible.

    Why would you lose your faith just because you attend a college course in which a radical chic prof. attacks the Bible or the Christian faith? Why should that come as such a surprise? Why is that so disillusioning?

    I’m not even commenting on what passes for arguments in books and lectures like these. I’m commenting on the fact that some nominal Christians act as if they never even suspected the existence of teachers and writers who attack the Christian faith. When, for the first time, they encounter such an individual, it shatters their faith.

    It’s puzzling that, in this day and age, you can have young adults who were ever that ignorant.

    And when they do run across such an individual, they take his word as the last word on the subject. They instantly capitulate to his objections.

    First, it never occurred to them that there were such arguments. Then, having encountered such arguments, it never occurs to them that there are counterarguments. They don’t bother to look around and see if any conservative Christians have dealt with these objections before.

    As to the issue which the commenter raises, I have no problem with Christian parents who shield younger children from evil. Indeed, Christian adults should avoid exposure to certain forms of evil.

    But that’s not the point I was making. Rather, I’m commenting on the stereotypical experience of the apostate who, in his deconversion testimony, talks about how he was a pious, practicing Christian until the fateful day he ran into an unbeliever. That encounter left him dead in his tracks. The walk of faith came to a screeching halt. He never moved forward.

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  13. "I was a teenage zombie"

    Thank you Steve (along with Peter's previous post) for countering this zombie's poison.

    "it never occurs to them that there are counterarguments. They don’t bother to look around and see if any conservative Christians have dealt with these objections before."

    And that is precisely why the Triablogue ministry is so invaluable to His Kingdom! Thank you Triabloguers!

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  14. Might I also suggest a book to add to your list. The author is Richard James Fischer. The book is titled Historical Genesis from Adam to Abraham. See www.historicalgenesis.com

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