For some, the experience of losing faith is a feeling of liberation from the shackles of a repressive system of belief; for others, it is one of deep anguish and pain, as they are awakened to the uncomfortable reality that the premise upon which they have built their life and identity may in fact be mistaken. While for some, rejection of their former faith comes as a relief, for others it comes at great personal cost.
For many years, I have had a fascination for the reasons why people deconvert from the Christian faith. I was therefore interested to pick up The Anatomy of Deconversion: Keys to a Lifelong Faith in a Culture Abandoning Christianity, by John Marriott, a professor of philosophy at Biola University.
There is absolutely nothing for you to lose: Even if you still remain unpersuaded, at least you will be able to say that you gave the best arguments for Christianity a fair shake.
A common litmus test for Christian orthodoxy is adherence to the doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, which maintains that the Biblical text, in the original autographs, is completely without error in all that it affirms.
The popular stereotype of scientists and critical scholars as impartial investigators who are totally objective in their search after truth is not as clear as we might first be disposed to think. Nobody does their scholarship in a vacuum, and everybody brings their presuppositions and preconceived ideas to the table when evaluating evidence.
When an objection to Christianity carries high stakes, it strikes at the very heart of the Christian message, calling into question the core tenants of the faith. In my experience, most of the objections that have led people down the road of abandoning their faith have not been of this category. Rather, people lose their faith over much less fundamental issues
Different people have varying levels of tolerance for mystery and ambiguity. Individuals with a high need for cognitive closure are more prone to walk away from the Christian faith than individuals with a lower need. For some people, in order to be content within one’s worldview, satisfactory answers must exist to all possible questions and objections that might be raised against it.