jon In February 2020, Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal, hosts of the wildly popular Good Mythical Morning YouTube channel, publicly shared the story of their faith journey. They were both born and raised in a Christian environment. They were active in Campus Crusade for Christ while in college, where they engaged in evangelism. But over the years, things changed. They began to reexamine their Christian faith, and eventually found it wanting. Now, they both consider themselves former Christians.
A day or two after learning about this, I was in the grocery store. I happened to run across an old friend who I hadn’t seen in several years. As we talked, he revealed that his wife, a former children’s pastor, had divorced him. She is now an atheist.
An all too common story
Stories like this are not unique. I could have easily mentioned several others, as I’m sure you can too. People have been leaving the Christian faith for as long as the Christian faith has been around. Perhaps what has changed today is that now it is acceptable–even fashionable–to “deconvert.” People who purposefully leave the Christian faith often see themselves as having matured beyond such things as church and the Bible, and our culture readily concurs.
For those of us who remain, these stories can be quite impactful. I know for me, it hurts to see people leaving the church and no longer claiming to follow Jesus. It hurts especially when the reasons they give for doubting the truth have solid rebuttals from apologists. And of course it stings when inevitably the reasons for leaving include veiled accusations of bigotry (usually in the form of sexism, racism, or homophobia).
These stories also tend to raise questions and doubts for believers. Were the people who deconvert ever really saved? Did they lose their salvation? Or are they still saved, if they sincerely said a prayer at some point in the past?
So how do we as believers process these deconversions? What do we do with the stories of ex-Christians? How should we view both the stories and the people telling them? These are important and difficult questions.
Understanding salvation
The biggest question that is asked when people walk away from Christianity is, were they ever really saved? The doctrine of Calvinism, for instance, has “preservation of the saints” as one of its core tenets. This has been immortalized in Baptist circles with the popular saying, “Once saved, always saved.” The corollary would be that if you leave the faith, you weren’t really a part of the faith to begin with. Wesleyans, on the other hand, would disagree, claiming a person can legitimately lose their salvation.
Aspects of salvation
But what is salvation? Or, more precisely, when does salvation occur? To show what I mean, let’s take a quiz. Which of the following statements is theologically correct?
A) We were saved before the foundation of the world.
B) We are saved when we accept Christ.
C) We are being saved daily through the work of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
D) We will be saved if we endure to the end.
If you realized this is a trick question, congratulations! The answer is all of the above. The Bible discusses salvation in several aspects. We were saved before God created the universe (Eph 1:4). But we could also say that we are saved when we accept him as Lord and savior (Rom 10:10). Moreover, the New Testament states that we are in the process of being saved (1 Cor 1:10). And finally, we will be saved if we endure until the end–either death or Christ’s return (Luke 21:19).
When the Bible speaks of salvation, then, it is speaking of a unique kind of event where the supernatural interacts with the natural, and one with aspects that extend out to eternity in either direction. So, do those who leave the faith lose their salvation? Were they ever saved to begin with? It depends on how you define “saved.” Are you referring to the past, present or future?
The impact of leaving
As for me, when I see a person walk away from the faith, I remember these words from 1 John 2:19:
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.
John is referring to people in the early church who physically separated themselves from the community as a direct result of their doctrinal separation from the community. These were people whose beliefs over time diverged to the point where they denied critical aspects of the faith–namely, the gospel itself. These were some of the earliest deconversions on record, and John is clear that by leaving the faith, they showed they were never part of the faith to begin with. In other words, the fact that they did not endure (future aspect) shows that they were never saved to begin with (past aspect).
The personal experience factor
That’s all well and good theologically, but when you listen to ex-Christians, you hear a different story. Link, for example, stated that he really was a Christian at one point, and really had a real relationship with Jesus. He would assert that he was, in fact, saved, and now is not. So how do we handle this kind of information? I’ve heard many different ideas to explain this, but I’ve come to believe that the true answer always comes down to the issue of authority.
The authority issue
The Safe King
A few years ago I read an incredibly insightful book called The Safe King by Jan Hettinga. The book points out something that I had never considered before, and yet the more I have processed it, the more I believe Mr. Hettinga is correct. He argues that at the center of the Christian life is the question of authority. In other words, being a Christian is not about saying a prayer, or trying really hard, or being good, or anything else that often gets associated with following Jesus. Rather, being a Christian is about giving Jesus the authority he is due.
The meaning of “lord”
After all, isn’t that is what the word “lord” means? If you were to live in a feudal system, the lord is the person who owns the land. As such, the lord has authority. They are in charge precisely because it’s their land you are living on. How much more, then, is the One through whom the Father created the universe in charge–of everything? Such should be our attitude with Jesus.
If he is your Lord, he is in charge of your life. If he is not in charge of your life, then he is not your Lord. You might have “prayed the prayer of salvation.” You might have what you genuinely believe to be a relationship with Jesus. It’s possible you are involved in various ministries–you might even be a pastor! But the heart of the matter is this: have you submitted yourself to Jesus as Lord, or are you still in charge of your life?
This is where the rubber hits the road. This is where all who walk away from Christianity have commonality. In each case, they have an authority issue. In one way or another, they have determined that ultimately they want control of their own life. Perhaps, like Rhett and Link, they find the Bible’s teachings on sexuality too restrictive. Maybe, like my friend’s ex-wife, they lose faith in God altogether (for whatever he did or didn’t do to their liking). It could be a thousand things, but eventually all paths lead back to the question of who is going to be in charge–God or self. It always comes back to authority.
Responding with contrition
Now that we’ve tackled a few of the theological questions surrounding deconversion, there is still the question of how to respond to these kinds of stories. I would suggest that there are a few things to consider, and all of them point to responding with sorrow and contrition.
First, if the Bible is true, then we will all stand before God on the day of judgment (Heb 9:27). I don’t know about you, but I do not want to have to explain to the Creator and Judge of the universe why I walked away from him. That is not an envious task, and a less envious result is guaranteed. After all, God is a just judge who will give all of us what we are due. For those who have not truly submitted to him, their sentence is eternal separation from God in hell.
Just to be clear, this will not be a time to gleefully announce, “I told you so!” from the pearly gates. People who deconvert are still human beings with value, and their stories should grieve us and drive us to pray that they would repent and return to God. As Christians, we should not want anyone to face an eternity without God, since he himself doesn’t want it either (2 Pet 3:9).
Second, deconversion stories should cause us to examine our own faith, and the foundations upon which we have built it. While it’s easy to look at someone who’s left the faith and point fingers, the reality is we who remain ought to look in the mirror instead. Do we ourselves have the authority issue settled? Is there sin or neglect in our own lives that might cause us to fall away? These are much harder questions to answer, but it’s where we ought to focus our energy when we hear of deconversions. As the famous saying goes, “There but for the grace of God go I.”