Johnmark Larson
I was raised in a Christian home — Dad was born-again in the late ’60’s while in the Army, met my mom and proposed 4 days later when he realized that “God had ordained the match.” Mom was raised Protestant and went to a very conservative Christian school in the South. So they got right down to raising babies and doing the Lord’s Work without much time for introspection.
In my preteen years, we moved to a new town so Dad could start a church. Thus began years of driving many hours each Sunday morning to visit the local flocks (local meaning close enough to drive there, attend church, meet people and return home within one calendar day). I went along, not really questioning much until I discovered Bad Religion and started thinking a bit about the whole thing. But that is not my deconversion story.
Couple years later, I’m at Wheaton College — the belly of the beast, or perhaps the self-styled Brain of the beast. There were actually good professors there — the science department didn’t teach YEC although they spent a lot of time trying to reconcile the Genesis account of Creation to their observations in the natural world. The social sciences weren’t monolithic hotbeds of Reaganite conservatism — there was one prof who sported a beard, wore Birkenstocks and talked effusively about community. No speaking in tongues that I knew of. I found a semi-rebellious Wheaton Underground crew and we did our best to pursue the diet version of American College Hedonism.
But something just seemed…wrong. So many smart kids, so much money, torrents of good will, but something was never right. I felt that it was a great waste of human effort to spend all this time phrasing our pursuits in devotional terms, dedicating ourselves to a Christian movement that couldn’t even keep itself from splintering constantly. The trade winds of anti-intellectualism blew constantly despite Wheaton’s reputation. An idea began to take root in me: if we’re God’s creations, why does my big God-given brain constantly suggest to me that God doesn’t exist? Was there something wrong with me? Was I not wired for belief?
It came to a head at my graduation, when Franklin Graham (fourth son of Billy Graham and one-time personal pastor to George W. Bush) gave the commencement address. His thesis boiled down to this: now that you’ve filled your heads with knowledge and are prepared to sally forth into the world, don’t forget to raise the flag of Jesus! Raising said flag, um, unfortunately seemed to mean that we should forget about all that worldly knowledge stuff since it’ll just get in the way. All you need is Jesus! To this day I regret not throwing my shoe at his head. But that is not my deconversion story.
My twenties passed completely unchurched. I had some fun (too much fun), got a good job and settled down a bit. I never really thought much about Christianity or belief, but I somehow still hung on to the idea that there was a bearded sky wizard out there who made the world and set us on it. That the world didn’t make sense without a unifying deity. Until I read, of all books, David Quammen’s “Song of the Dodo”. Not an atheist screed by any means. Somewhere in the account of Wallace and Darwin teasing out the threads of proof for natural selection and evolution, it clicked. The last wispy thread chaining me to supernatural divinity blew away and I was free. There didn’t have to be magic — the natural world was good enough. And real! We could observe it! My brain had been right all along, and I wasn’t alone. It wasn’t that I wasn’t wired for belief — but that belief itself was false. Until I understood the power inherent in scientific explanations, I wasn’t ready to completely give it up. The creationists are right to worry.
And that’s the start of my deconversion story. I haven’t seen the end yet, though it’s gotten more complicated since. Soon thereafter followed the Four Horsemen, who armed me with reason, evidence and a defiant spirit. Anger and resentment came and went (and came and went), mostly stemming from the years of youth I wasted trying to believe in God, the time I spent believing that it was my fault that I couldn’t believe. The resentment still bubbles up, sometimes, mostly when I think that maybe I was lucky to get out with my humanity intact. There are plenty of others, some my friends, still trapped in it. But we all know the layers fall away one by one and can’t be rushed.
So it was: my deconversion was not a bang, but a whimper. An afternoon’s reading, a few chapters and my world changed with a “huh” and a “how about that.” How feeble the foundations of belief that quietly crumble under the fresh breeze of honest, mortal humanity.
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