Deconversion, Blogs and Enemy Love
Oct 01, 2010 by Craig Blomberg | 9 Comments
“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44 TNIV)
Whether you are a Calvinist, Arminian, or something in between, if you live long enough and aren’t a hermit you will meet, tragically, people who once claimed to be Christian believers but who have now repudiated their faith. Some of these have been leaders and even pastors in evangelical churches. I’m not interested in this blog in wrestling with which theological tradition best accounts for this phenomenon; I’m more interested in reflecting on the reactions of those who are “left behind” as still faithful Christians.
The fairly newly coined term for such abandonment of apparent faith that seems to be most popular among those traveling that road is “deconversion.” Studies of deconversions find three fairly consistent factors or kinds of experiences that trigger such rejection of Christianity. First, a crisis of some kind unexpectedly intrudes into a person’s life. Maybe it is the loss of a loved one, a major personal failure or even sin, a life-changing injury, a divorce or a devastating financial loss. Second, the community to which this individual has normally turned to for support in hard times turns on that individual instead. Perhaps it is a kind of church discipline that does not seem geared to lead to rehabilitation. Perhaps it involves pat theological slogans that don’t adequately address the complexity of the situation. Perhaps it includes interpersonal estrangement rather than empathy. Third, the hurting person is introduced to and/or for the first time takes seriously and investigates seriously an alternate world view. This may be a different religion or, as it commonly seems today to be, some form of agnosticism or atheism.
Search the blogworld and it’s striking how many of the most aggressive and hostile atheist blogsites are hosted by ex-evangelicals. That shouldn’t cause surprise, however; frequently when someone converts (or deconverts) from one religion or ideology to another, it is because of disenchantment with the former worldview, so that it is natural to take out one’s frustrations against those who remain in the group the individual has rejected. And if personal mistreatment has exacerbated the situation, the deconverted will naturally reciprocate with even greater venom.
But how should we as Christians react to the hostility of the deconverted? Whether that person is a blogwriter we’ve never met or a close friend or family member we know all too well, the tendency is for the believer to lash out also—answering ridicule with ridicule, rejection with rejection, rationalizing with rationalizing. If our goal is, as it should be, to bring this person either back to Christ or truly to Christ for the first time, such tit-for-tat reciprocity will almost never do anything except cause greater alienation. Jesus’ words on enemy love suggest that we should instead go out of our way to treat these people kindly, affirming any legitimate criticism they may have of Christians and churches, pointing them to healthier models of true Christian worship and lifestyle instead.
I try to do this periodically in the blogworld. Recently, a self-described atheist kept objecting to another atheist blogger because of the wildly inaccurate things he was claiming and because of the harsh, demeaning tone with which he and most of his contributors wrote. Shortly after we both made multiple responses to this blogger’s post, the other man who was objecting to the post e-mailed me, thanked me for my courteous and reasonable remarks, and said that he was getting so frustrated with atheists’ irrational hostility to others that he was starting to think seriously about becoming a Christian! But he lamented the number of Christians—not as many, fortunately—who were equally nasty, overly simplistic or just misinformed in their blogs or in their responses to their critics’ blogs. I quickly told him I was equally distressed by such behavior, found out where he was living, contacted some friends who lived nearby, and found out about a good church I could recommend to him. I have no idea whether or not he will take the next step to visit it, but I was again reassured that Jesus knew what he was talking about when he called us to that radical, countercultural principle of enemy love.
Peter even goes one step further, commanding us, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Pet. 2:12). The evangelistic motive and its periodic success is patent.
Comments
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John Notestein Oct 1, 2010 3:15pm
I read quite a few blogs and I never cease to be amazed at caustic and hateful remarks from both believers and non believers. It really amazes me that many times is Christian vs Christian in what seems to be an armed struggled to the death! I am not a Bible scholar nor do I pretend to be one, but even if we disagree, do we really have to villify the other side? Isn't God's Word sharper than a two edged sword? Does God really need me to defend what I believe to be His Will? Won't it be apparent when He choses to make it so? If I were just to live the Christian life as the Gospels describe, I could be used by God to spread His message. Do we really think we can brow beat or yell someone into the Kingdom of Heaven?
Rick Jory Oct 1, 2010 3:41pm
I, too, am not a Bible scholar. But I don't remember reading where Jesus tried to argue anyone into belief. He shared Truth and showed us how we are to do this as well. John Notestein's comment is unfortunately so very true: Christian vs Christian conflict. Two things stand out when I read the 17th chapter of John's gospel: Jesus' life that glorified God, and Jesus' prayer that we be unified. Many times our behaviors violate both.
John Douglas Oct 1, 2010 6:13pm
Thanks Craig ... most helpful "dynamic analysis" and wisdom in your comments on the "heart issue(s)" ... am passing it on into networkcontacts. My clearest "take-away" is ... respond, don't react to people and their perspectives. Cheers - John
Ben Dunning Oct 2, 2010 9:01am
(two cents worth) when Jesus was asked what the 2 most important commandments were the 2nd he noted was "love your neighbor as yourself". Then (in the book of Mathew) he answered the question "who is my neighbor?" with the parable of the good Samaritan. So often we are too interested in justifying our own beliefs and doctrines to the point that we get judgmental and condemning of others. In stead of putting ourselves in an other persons situation and consider what we would have others do. If you were the man on the road who had been robbed in the parable of the good Samaritan what would you want? To be ignored or to be helped? In the case of those who are “deconverted” what would you want? Would you want to be chastised and condemned or listened to empathetically to the point where you were understood.?
I think that as Christians we should react to the hostility of the deconverted with two ears open, listening until we finally understand. Then consider what they might want or need from us. Based on the study you noted there will likely be at least one of 3 opportunities. (more likely a messy combination of the items noted) If they have a crisis help them endure it. If their support network has turned on them, support them. If they are considering a different world view or for the first time and are seriously investigating what their world view is, listen... love... serve. As peter noted let “Live such good lives … that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds...” beyond that its their choice and in Gods hands. Prayer is probably a good idea too.
Grace and Peace,
ben
Craig Blomberg Oct 2, 2010 4:59pm
Amen and amen. Thanks, John and Rick!
Howard Pepper Nov 4, 2010 4:33pm
Craig,
These are some informative and gracious thoughts, thank you. I personally never considered my own movement away from a strong, well-informed evangelical Christian faith as a "deconversion." I've moved to something like a Process kind of panentheism (to me, a "personal" yet not individual God, both transcendent and imminent, and NOT the author of Scripture, anywhere near directly). I would be within or closest to your 3rd category, and I think there are many more of us than most people realize... not all are blogging or speaking out, by any means.
Personal and church issues played no part... I'd adjusted to all those problems long prior. It was purely a matter, after many-years-long study and reflection, of realizing that the Bible is a somewhat continuous but not united nor revealed collection of religious thinking of Jews and Christians. Thus, it carries no "divine" authority and Jesus, though very significant, is not a divine savior. The reason it took me (and many others) into mature adulthood (about 45) to come to this is that the serious examination of alternate worldviews (or religious views particularly) you refer to is tough to do, between life-long (or since adolescence, often) training and the in-group pressure, or professional pressure (I was in ministry, too) to NOT really re-examine deeply or look seriously at alternative views. Similarly, to not really explore the origins and contextual understanding of the NT writings and earliest Christianity, as that can present a picture much different than the received orthodoxy that serious believers get inundated with. BTW, a much more believable picture to many of us never "disillusioned" particularly, but always truth-seeking. One that makes way more sense than the spin of Acts and the Gospels, etc., later aided particularly by Eusebius, etc. And it needn't diminish the importance of spiritual life and belief in continuation of consciousness under a gracious "God."
Craig Blomberg Nov 5, 2010 10:18am
Thanks for posting, Howard. I'd love to hear more about your journey. The kind of person I was thinking of was someone who actually uses the term "deconversion," of whom there are many on the internet. Typically they are very strident atheists who would reject process theology as adamantly as they would historic Christianity. I was brought up in a very liberal form of Lutheranism, attending a historically Lutheran college with religion and philosophy departments that introduced students to all manner of theological and philosophical thinking, including process thought, except for classic Lutheran and Reformation orthodoxy. Their erroneous assumption was that everybody knew about that and it was their job to debunk it. Then I went to an evangelical seminary followed by a secular university in which I studied under one of the world's leading evangelical New Testament professors, I. Howard Marshall, for my doctorate, and I discovered there were compelling answers to all of the skeptical questions that my undergrad professors, and others, had been raising.
Howard Pepper Nov 6, 2010 10:25pm
Thanks for the reply, Craig, and the brief bio. Though my path to and through good Christian apologetics was different than your, but with similar exposures, probably. Through and after Biola College (30 Bible/theology/Greek units), Talbot Sem. (M. Div.) and 4 years working under Walter Martin, I also thot there were excellent answers to all the skeptical questions I encountered (tho our exposure to other than straw men at Biola was almost nil and very minimal at Talbot, too).
Even, over a decade later, at Claremont, the progressive theology of most profs and students (but not all, esp. students!), and scholars studied, didn't lead to any major change in my foundational theology. I wasn't persuaded by what was "liberal," and it was not the stereotypic liberal thinking I'd come to expect to find. I admit, though, that exposures there raised new issues (sometimes via relatively "conservative" people like Barth or brilliant theists/analysts like Wm. James) and opened me to further explorations. During the couple years after my 48 PhD units there, I think I'd achieved a more informed but yet relatively "clean slate" (never fully possible, of course) to work from. It was only then, with a major backlog of biblical and theological knowledge, that freedom from church or ministry responsibilities helped me relatively quickly (not in a "conversion-like" way, tho) reassemble the many, many data points, and not particularly to a "Process" theology. (My program focused on education heavily, and a bit on Process related to that, in part. The philosophical and cosmological aspect of Process makes good sense to me, but the specifically Christian part, not so much.)
As to re-interpreting theology, the issues I now consider core, I'd largely not heard raised in much depth or particularity, and still don't except in a relatively small strain of NT scholars and history of religions folks. They are sensed and factor in for even lay people of faith or no faith, but I find scholars tend to avoid probing them, and for understandable reasons.
For example, "What type of literature are the Gospels, or Acts, etc.?" "What is the type and extent of 'historicity' they reflect?" When they are clearly and/or blatantly in conflict, or merely slanted for evident and different purposes, what is that from and what does it reflect?" Most people get stuck, even scholars, on pointing out (often with glee) or defending/harmonizing "contradictions," when the real stuff of value is digging to find WHY they are there and what they indicate. Similarly for questionable statements of "fact." The answers are often relatively simple, especially in large stroke:
Jesus and his Jerusalem-based followers remained observant Jews in an acceptable messianic sect, never claiming deity for Jesus, or substutionary atonement, etc. Paul is the one who invented a Jewish/pagan hybrid new religion, and was in much more serious conflict with Jesus' own teachings (such as we are able to surmise their core and some likely particulars, beneath the gospel-writers' spin) than Acts carefully projects. Acts leaves clear indicators where and why Luke made stuff up and distorted a lot else to create a false sense of connection and continuity between Jesus' teachings, the Apostles, and Paul. (Much of the evidence for this is in Paul's letters themselves.)
This is WAY oversimplified, of course, but the nub of how we got a new religion and part of the reason we have gotten so many widely varying pictures of who Jesus was, what he contributed, etc. That variety started early and was widened by others besides Paul, but his role was most central, and influenced the Gospel writers extensively.
And one of the key things this understanding does is undermine the historic orthodox contention (and apologetic method around it) that Christian faith, especially in Jesus' bodily resurrection, is rooted in solid history vs. built-up mythology. Craig, if there is one central issue that "moved" me, I'd say it would be that historical fact is only discerned tendentially and with careful work, not being on the surface, in claims about Jesus, or those likely put into his mouth, esp. by John. (Similarly about early Christian history via Acts.)
Since Evangelicals generally make it the focus point, let me say: for a bodily resurrection, all the great thinkers defending it that I have read, sometimes re-read, considered, evidence is just not there, but rather evidence to the opposite. (Not that it is ruled out, apriori.) And again, Paul's vision and subsequent "revelations," become key... totally subjective, trust-him-alone kind of stuff. (And I do believe he had a positively transformative experience and perhaps even heard from the spirit of Jesus.)
I'm sure I've not read some of many ambitious attempts to address this understanding of NT era history and religion, and if you think there is a particular author who addresses and answers well the issues as raised and analyzed by particularly Hyam Maccoby, but also Joel Carmichael, SGF Brandon, Burton Mack, L. Michael White, Gregory J. Riley, I'm open to reading more on the "traditional" side. But I have to say that even Bauckham and the few "heavyweights" I have read in recent years, don't have much of substance that I find doing much to effectively challenge this interpretation. Maybe you have something yourself... I do see you referenced fairly often, but confess I don't recall reading a full book of yours.
Craig Blomberg Nov 8, 2010 10:52am
My major work on the topic is The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (IVP, rev. 2007), but it is by design only a "medium weight." Heavy weights would include N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, and The Resurrection of the Son of God, J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, and The Beginnings of Christianity, Colin Hemer's The Book of Acts in The Setting of Hellenistic History, and the five volume edited collection by Bruce Winter, The Book of Acts in Its First-Century Setting, David Wenham's Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity? and Craig Keener's The Historical Jesus.