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I became a hardcore Christian, super-excited about Christianity when I was 14. I always went to church (3 times a week), helped with anything & everything, taught SS, went on mission trips, read my Bible everyday and prayed multiple times a day. It wasn't something I faked.
In church over the years I remember people within the church fighting over money or landscaping, missionaries arguing over supplies for "their families", pastors cheating on their wives or abandoning their kids, Christian educators ridiculing children or changing grades so their pet students were on top, and church members fighting over whether or not to panhandle in front of Wal-Mart. However, there are two circumstances/incidents that made me seriously question Christianity.
The first was spending time in NYC. For the first time in my life, I was friends with openly gay people, Wiccans and Jews, agnostics and atheists. I watched how they treated each other and me. I saw them perform in fundraisers and cancer marathons. I saw how accepting and loving they were, and they weren't Christians, at least not like any I ever saw. They actually treated people with respect. I started asking myself: "If nonChristians show more love, compassion and acceptance to me than Christians, is there really anything to Christianity? I mean, Jesus isn't changing those people (Christians) so maybe He's not real." I spent about two years chewing on that.
The next incident happened after we moved to the south. We drove up to a slot at Sonic and on the speaker was a sticker "God hates Gays!" in big bold letters and underneath was a statement about HIV being God's punishment for homosexuality. You can imagine how I felt seeing that after the 2 years of questioning God's existence or power in part because of my gay friends in NYC. I told my husband, "Take that down!" He ripped it off, and we talked about new question: "If there is a God, why does he allow his people treat other people like trash?" That's not very Christ-like.
It sat like that for another 18 months, and I started reading. I read about science, philosophy, and the history of Christianity. In a nutshell, I became convinced that there is too much the church has not been honest about - from the Council of Nicaea to today. Once I discovered more about the history of Christianity, leaving it became a very natural and easy transition. There is very little likelihood that I will ever return to that faith or any faith.
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