This past September (2001) was a time that few will forget. It also happened to be the occasion of my son's sixth birthday. While at his (somewhat somber) birthday party, idly chatting with the other parents, a stray though struck me - Six years! Has it really been that long? You see, it was shortly before his birth that I finally shrugged off the lifelong shackles of Fundamentalist religion. In many ways, my son serves as a constant reminder of the life that I left behind - the thoughts, fears, longings and confusion that dogged me for nearly my entire existence. He represents a new life, a new potential. Not for him only, but likewise for me.

I was born in the late sixties in a small town just outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. As the son of an affluent white family, I spent most of my childhood blissfully unaware of the terrible injustice that went on outside of my blinders. I "knew" that blacks were not permitted to stay in white areas after sundown - I never thought to ask why. I "knew" (thanks to the Apartheid Propaganda Machine) that we were constantly under threat from Communists, Liberals and other assorted terrorists who were determined to destroy our way of life. I never thought to question these "facts".

My parents were Fundamentalist Christians of the Baptist variety. All my life (literally) I had attended Church and Sunday School. Even at an early age, I was intimately familiar with the Bible and its contents. When I was about eight years old, my parents decided to start their own Church. At first, it was just a handful of friends and neighbors meeting in our living room. I listened avidly to every sermon delivered by the newly imported American preacher. I believed the Bible, literally, and in every sense. It was the Word of God, without question.

In time, the growing church moved out of the living room and into the garage. I was still attending Church - Sunday School and two services on Sundays, Bible study on Wednesdays and youth meetings on Fridays. My life revolved around the Church.

The constant barrage of Fundamentalist rhetoric finally broke through. After one particularly hell-raising Sunday night sermon, I went to bed realizing that I had not "asked Jesus to be my Savior". In mortal fear for my eternal soul, I prayed, as best I knew how, and asked to be saved. I immediately felt a powerful sense of euphoria. I knew that I had been forgiven, and was now one of the (very few) Heaven-bound mortals on the planet.

As the Church grew, so did my faith. After some years, we had run out of space in our house. The Church had gathered enough funds to buy a piece of land a few blocks away, and begin construction of a brand new building. I was elated. This was proof, surely, that God had blessed our small movement. From a handful of members, the congregation now numbered close to a hundred. And I was an integral cog in the machine.

As my adolescence progressed, I grew naturally into a teaching role. I taught Sunday School for a number of years. I lead the Youth Group for some time. I joined up with an outdoor evangelical group. Every Saturday night, we would take our guitars and collapsible whiteboards into the heart of Hillbrow (an extremely seedy section of Johannesburg) and deliver our sermons. Sometimes crowds came to listen; on other occasions we were completely alone.

Whenever I preached, I felt like I was on fire. The words flowed naturally from my mouth - I was completely in my element. I was a "natural".

Christmas vacations were spent on the beaches of Eastern and Southern Africa. Not enjoying the sun, as the other vacationers did, but once more dragging guitars and whiteboard across the burning sands, luring impressionable children to come and listen to our 'stories". Success was measured in names and addresses - children who had signed up for our correspondence courses.

Several things stand out from that period. For one thing, it slowly dawned on me that my knowledge of the Bible far exceeded that of my peers. I recall one particular night. I was probably about thirteen or fourteen. The preacher's son had come for a sleepover. Naturally, we read passages from the Bible before turning in. Just before going to sleep, the preacher's son proudly remarked, from his sleeping-bag on the floor, that he had almost completed his first reading of the entire Bible. I was stunned. I had already lost count of the number of times that I had read the King James Version from cover to cover. I kept quiet.

I also developed an avid interest in Christian apologetics in my late teens. McDowell, Little, Lewis, Morris, Whitcomb et al were my mentors. I devoured every word that I could get my hands on. And I was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I could defend my faith from all comers. And, usually, I was right.

Another area of interest was the Second Coming. Again, I read piles of books on the subject. Volumes by Hal Lindsay, Jack Van Impe, John Hagee and their cronies filled my bookshelves.

Ironically, it was also here where the first cracks in my armor began to appear. After reading all I could about the imminent Return of Christ, I found myself utterly confused instead of enlightened. Each writer appeared to have a different spin on the whole end-time scenario. Frustrated, I finally decided to do my own study, and bring all the pieces into one cohesive whole.

Pen and paper in hand, Strong's concordance and a mountain of reference books by my side, I began my study of the principal texts: Daniel, Revelation, Ezekiel, Matthew 24, all the writings of the prophets came under scrutiny.

Eventually I gave up. There seemed to be no way to form a single picture out of the morass of material available. I decided that I was either not up to the task, or that more was to be revealed in due time. I ended my study there, little knowing that it would come back to haunt me years later.

Another event that would come back to haunt me involved, of all things, the Book of Mormon. As part of my interest in apologetics, I read through Joseph Smith's opus, making copious notes along the way. I was dumbfounded. How on earth, I wondered, could anyone possibly believe that this pathetic hoax was actually inspired by God. How gullible would one have to be to actually swallow that line?

Prophetic words, indeed.

At the same time, our Church was embroiled in something of a controversy. There were splits manifesting between several factions; those who believed that the King James Version was the only True Bible, and others who held a more moderate view. Eventually, the "moderates" won out, but I felt somewhat shaken that such a thing could have happened to our perfect Church.

In time I graduated high school and began to attend university as an Engineering student. I joined Campus Crusade for Christ, and once more became an integral part of the machine, playing guitar, leading study groups and serving on the inner circle. My reading and study of the Bible continued unabated. I was, by this time, capable of reciting vast quantities of the Bible from memory, including several complete books of the New Testament (over 2,500 verses I once calculated). I became known as the "walking Bible", a label that I wore proudly.

And yet, something was missing. It seemed that the more I learned of the Bible, the more time I spent leading study groups and accosting random strangers on the University lawns (a practice euphemistically referred to as 'sharing" by CCC), the more I preached at my home church and others, the more converts I made, the emptier I felt. And it was not for lack of trying. I spent agonizing hours in prayer, trying to rekindle that one spark of the divine that had touched me so long ago. It was fruitless.

I graduated from University in 1990. A year later I was married to a wonderful girl whom I met at my home church. We moved away from our respective parents into a house twenty miles North of Johannesburg. Suddenly I found myself without the constant Christian influence that had surrounded me since the time of my birth. We attended another Baptist church closer to our home, although somewhat sporadically. I tried once again to move into a leadership role, but this time my heart simply wasn"t in it. I was beginning to have Thoughts.

These were years of turmoil in South Africa. Although Apartheid was officially history, the gap between rich and poor continued to grow at an alarming rate. Crime became rampant, and rapidly spun out of control. Murder and mayhem became the order of the day. I eventually could not even bring myself to watch the evening news.

In 1994, we decided that we could stand it no longer. We said our goodbyes to South Africa, and departed for America.

I soon grew to love my adopted home. As a consultant, I was able to move around the country, and see many different places. Everywhere we went, we would seek out another Baptist church to attend, but each time with less and less enthusiasm.

At the same time, I discovered the Internet. (How many deconversion stories, I wonder, contain that phrase?) I participated in several Usenet newsgroups, defending the faith. I also joined several Mormon newsgroups, intent on showing these poor deluded people just how wrong they were.

And that was to prove my undoing. The more I argued, the more logic I employed, the more debates I entered, an ugly fact began to worm its way into my brain. At first I resisted the thought, but it grew more and more insistent as time went by. Eventually I could ignore it no longer. I had to face it.

These people were no different from me.

They had just as much faith in the Book of Mormon as I had in the Bible. They were just as certain that Joseph Smith was a prophet as I was that Jesus was part of the Trinity. Point for point, they matched me in every way.

And here was my dilemma: I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Book of Mormon was a shallow, transparent hoax. The proof was stamped on every page in letters too large to miss. And yet these people devoted their lives to it. They twisted words beyond all recognizable meaning, and turned logic on its head just to avoid facing the obvious. Was it possible that I was just as mistaken in by belief about the Bible? Was I employing the same "pretzel logic" to defend my faith in the "Word of God"?

At the same time, another event shook my increasingly fragile faith. We were attending a very large Baptist Church in Kansas City. One of the associate pastors was something of a local legend as far as Biblical knowledge went. Several parishioners cajoled us into attending one of his Bible studies.

These studies were a little different from the format I was used to. Basically, a member of the congregation would ask a question, and the preacher would answer it, taking some time to expound on related areas. One of the questions asked that night was "Why does the Bible refer to Unicorns?"

I knew the answer to that one. It was a simple mistranslation of the ancient Hebrew. To my horror, the preacher began to explain that there were Unicorns at one time, but they became extinct before the Flood. I was still waiting for the punchline before I realized that he wasn"t joking. And the devoted parishioners nodded sagely, and dutifully penciled notes in their Bibles. I was astounded.

Shaken, I returned once again to the Mormon newsgroups. One of the strongest points against the Book of Mormon, I argued, was the manner in which Smith had misused his source material. It was clear that he didn"t fully understand it. He used phrases from the Old Testament in new and curious ways, sometimes being obviously misled by a poorly worded translation or archaism from the King James.

One of the Mormon defendants pointed out that the author of Matthew had made exactly the same mistake when he misunderstood Zechariah's prophecy in Matthew 21. Suddenly, I felt something click inside my head. Suddenly, it was all so clear.

A few years ago, I attended a training course in Denver. Even though the training center was less than ten miles from the hotel, the morning commute down Arapahoe Road was a nightmare. It took ages to fight through the traffic. Near the end of the three week course, I noticed a small road that led out the back of the training center. On a whim, I decided to follow it. After a few turns, I was stunned (and not a little embarrassed) to find myself at the back entrance of the hotel. All this time, I had been driving in a huge circle, when a much simpler route was right under my nose.

A similar feeling engulfed me as I pondered Matthew's error. Now, finally, I understood why I had been unable to form a cohesive picture of the End Times - there simply was no such thing. In that one single moment, all the things that I had been grappling with came clear. All the "deep mysteries" of the Bible turned out to be very mundane when viewed from a different angle.

The Bible is not a book. It is a collection of books. Each author had their own point of view, their own agendas, their own theology. Little wonder that they disagreed with each other so frequently.

I also now understood why the arguments of the Mormon apologists had seemed so familiar, why the words and phrases they used to describe their devotion to Joseph Smith resonated so deeply. Faith is not external - it is internal. All humans share the same basic longing for something to worship, something to transform the forbidding, unknown darkness into comfortable, familiar light. The divine fire that I felt so many years ago came not from God, but from deep within my own psyche. It is the same fire that has fuelled religious devotion for as long as humans have been sentient.

All of this turmoil had, of course, not gone unnoticed by my wife. One night, shortly before our first child was to be born, she came directly to the point: "Do you still believe?" I pondered the question for a little, and then answered. "No." And at that moment, I knew that I was not, and never would be called a "Christian" again.

But what was I now? I didn"t know what to believe, what to call myself. Where before my mental compartments had been filled with all things Christian, there was now just a void. Would I live on after death? I did not know. Is there a God? I wasn"t sure.

All of these questions were, of course, soon shelved by my suddenly acquired status as a new parent. But the question was to raise itself, with more urgency, in December/January of that year. We took a trip back to South Africa to show off our new arrival. I knew that my parents would expect us to have the child "dedicated" in Church. I was in turmoil. I did not know what to do, what I believed. I decided that it would be easier if we simply went ahead with the ceremony. I felt more than a little uneasy, however, standing in front of that once familiar Church, making promises that I wasn"t sure, was quite sure, I would not keep.

Arriving back in America, the questions began to circle again. I fell into a deep depression. All the places that I once had sure answers were now filled with questions. One thing I did know for sure, however, was that I could no longer keep my apostasy to myself. It was time to tell the family.

This being the Internet age, the news was delivered by e-mail, to the family, and to my brother. The following day, I received the expected phone call from South Africa.

It was a hard conversation. My mother did not take the news well, to put it mildly. I don"t recall all that was said, just that the more I tried to explain my decision, the more frustrated I felt with my inability to phrase it in terms that they could understand. I was looking at the tail end of a long spiral; my parents were seeing it for the first time. I hurt them deeply, I know that. I wish it could be otherwise, but there simply was no alternative.

My wife, too, was in something of a quandary. Although she had never been exposed to the same level of Fundamentalist rhetoric that I had lived with all my life, she still wasn"t sure what she wanted to do. She continued to attend Church, on and off, for a few months, while asking probing questions. Eventually, she too came to the same place that I was, and no longer attends Church.

Somewhere in those six, long years I finally found peace. I realized that I was never going to know all the answers. I realized that sometimes, "I don"t know" is a legitimate answer. And, I finally realized that I was, to all intents and purposes, an atheist. I do not believe in God.

I also eventually began to study the Bible again, this time with no illusions. I found that it is, despite all of its flaws, a fascinating document. When viewed from my new perspective, it is easy to see the multiple streams that fed the Torah; the manner in which the Jews progressed from henotheism to strict monotheism; the manner in which the early Christians co-opted the Jewish religion and reworked it into something entirely different.

The relationship with my family has been restored, to some degree. I still talk frequently with my parents, although, by mutual, unspoken consent, we avoid certain topics. When my daughter was born in 1997, we again visited home. This time there was no hesitancy. Everyone knew and tolerated my position, even if they were not entirely happy with it.

I don"t know, obviously, what the future holds. I learned to take life for what it is - a fragile, beautiful gift, given nonetheless by an uncaring, unknowing, yet awe-inspiring cosmos. I learned that all of us are entitled to take our own paths through this life; my path is probably no better, nor worse than any other. But, at least I finally get to choose the direction.

-Curt

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