The atheist faith story
In the congregation that I pastor on Saturday nights, we've gotten into the habit of having someone tell their “faith story" each week. This is not a formal “testimony" as such, where you tell your life story in great detail, but rather an opportunity to talk about how God is working in your life. The idea is not to be comprehensive but to give a snapshot of what's happened lately with the expectation of taking another turn in a few months with an update on what's happened since then.
Everybody has a faith story. For some people that means talking about how God showed up in their lives but for others it means talking about how God seems to have disappeared. For many in the second category the Church has become irrelevant, God is an entity that has yet to prove His own existence and Christians are a pack of wolves out for a hunt. Too often that last part is true.
Open call
We had an open slot for a faith story one week so I made a public invitation via social media: “Who's up for telling their faith story this Saturday night? We have an open slot. LMK." I got a taker - a new friend whose life has been transformed by the gospel. I'm looking forward to hearing his story.
But I also got another response:
“How's about an anti-faith speaker?" this one said, later adding, “not really anti-faith, just anti-religion." I replied that we would gladly hear his faith story, even though it would be different from most of ours. After a similar encouragement by another church member (an invitation to tell his story and so “make us think") he responded with:
“What would it make you think of? Make you think about how you can change my mind and win me back over to the good side? The side of 'I'm right and everyone else is wrong?' Just asking."
The perception that Christians are out to arrogantly and unlovingly prove their own rightness and convert everyone via coercion is not completely unwarranted. I think we've proven that enough times and although there are plenty of Christians who are not like that, what is entirely likely is that most people haven't met one. Why? Because most of us are comfortable in our safe and cozy Christian bubble, where everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.
Every atheist has a faith story
Meanwhile, every atheist has a faith story, and most of them are quite willing to tell it. The same goes for most agnostics, skeptics and ex-Christians that I know. Their stories probably sound very different from yours, and therein lies the value. Theirs is a story of losing faith - some in God, others simply in the religious systems that we've built around faith.
We do need to hear these stories. Some of them have come about because of our own sin and for that we need to repent. But we must move beyond that into loving interaction, continuing in our faith in Jesus while allowing the stories of those who have lost their faith to inform our own.
Because the same thing can happen to you - maybe it already has. If it has, I want you to know that not all Christians have written you off. We're not all closing our doors and saying, “Come back when you come back to your senses..."
An unfinished psalm
My greatest hope is that the faith stories of my atheist, agnostic, skeptic and ex-Christian friends are simply unfinished psalms. The biblical king and psalm writer David struggled with the same sense of abandonment and disillusion that these friends are feeling.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" he cries out, “Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest" (Psalm 22).
We shy away from this language; we wince at the implications. Was David having a crisis of faith? Is it appropriate to ask such a question of God? Apparently it is. His sense of desperation and abandonment is palpable, his expression of it blunt. But by the end, as is often the case, David's faith is restored and he is exulting in the goodness of God.
I hope that my atheist, agnostic, skeptic and ex-Christian friends find their way to the end of their psalm. I hope that their faith is restored. I hope that they can find the grace to forgive the Christians and churches that have hurt them. And I hope that I can be instrumental in all of it.
Yeah, we'd love to hear your story.
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