That's me in the corner...
A coworker, who is afflicted with the common American workplace affliction of cognitive dissonance as regards her work load and her amount of productivity, will when 'overworked' roam the office querying the moon, the stars, and the captive audience:

"How do you eat an elephant?"
The answer of course being "one bite at a time."

Which is exactly how one moves from planning on being in ministry in some capacity to being whatever it is that I am today.
I generally describe myself as being an agnostic on a good day, an atheist on a bad day, and apathetic as regards religion on most days.



I prayed the prayer when I was 9 best I remember (it could have been 8, but my biological Father wasn't there, and it wasn't odd that he wasn't there so I think it was the summer after that - that's my evidence). It was an anticlimactic retroactive moment. I had recently been shuffled from my Nana's home to my Aunt and Uncles and I was mouse meek. I believed. I knew I believed, I just didn't want anyone at church to think that there was a time when I hadn't believed, so I never raised my hand when they were doing the soul count on Sunday.

It was easy to believe. My folks are good people. Legitimately good people. Not the type of folks who act a certain way and then try to paper over it with a halfhearted 'repentance' later, but Christians trying to honestly lead the life they feel they've been called to. It was easy to see the influence that God has in their lives.

And so I grew up in the Church. First in a baptist church, then a home church, then for most of the rest of my church going days in a Vineyard Church. I was active in Sunday School and then in youth groups in two different churches (at the same time).

I was that kid in your school wearing the Jesus t-shirts and listening to Christian music before Stryper hit big. It was what I did, It was who I was. My friends were Christians, my environment was Christian, there were no doubts. I had words with Mr. Seifert when he referred to the Bible as mythology in his AP Lit class. I was a leader in my Baptist youth group, doing teachings and leading small group discussions. I have been baptized, I have evangelized, I have spoken in tongues, and been part of healings.

There wasn't a single doubt. There were questions I couldn't answer from the Tough Kids, but they were issues of Faith, not issues of fact.

I went to college and nothing really changed. I didn't go to church on the few Sundays I was in Durham my freshman year, but they were few, and the churches were dull.
I was the designated Christian in the theatre department. I wasn't terribly obnoxious about it (surprising I know) but when questioned I would push back. The InterVarsity kids were more zealous and less advanced than I was, so that got old very quickly. Sophomore year we started to hit difficulties.

I met Guenevere, and Guenevere was a better student than I was, a better theatre artist than I was, and a better Christian than I was. And, as it turned out she liked boys AND girls.
The first cracks appeared. How was it possible that this person who was, in my parents mold, a good person who was trying to live her life for and like Christ was going to hell? I had no answer. The unequivocal truth was that she had to be. She was (despite not practicing her 'perversion') an unrepentant sinner. End of story. But that wasn't right at all.

I let it go. I just actively avoided thinking about it. Faith doesn't cover such large gaps in the rationality of God for me.

If God is not a rational loving God then did Christianity matter? If God was irrational enough to waive salvation for someone who loved and strove for him as much as Guenevere did, simply because of how he made her, why love and serve him? The Blood either covers or or doesn't.

But the deal breaker for me was the Undiscovered Countries, and the obvious bias of a rational loving God for Westernized countries.
Now, mind you, this was by no means an anti-Road to Damascus. I didn't get knocked back on my donkey one day.
But the thought that God would simply discard entire generations of people simply because His Church didn't get there with the message seemed perpetually fishy.
But so did the thought that I responsible for abstaining from sex, drugs, and rock and roll because they happened to have made it to my country and spoke my language before I was born.
It seemed awfully legalistic to me.
Hm.
Legalism. Legalism. What organism has broken their entire existence down into fenced off do's and don'ts and lives and dies with legalism every day?
Hm.
Oh. Right. Humanity.

I just woke up one day and found that I didn't believe any more. Which put me in kind of a bind vis a vis my friends and family.

I currently believe that if there is a God it's a binary deal. Good and evil. A good man cannot serve Tash, and an evil man cannot serve Aslan. (that's right, CS Lewis is even good for the apostates, as that article will ably demonstrate)
There are many ways to God, because God is a pretty fair guy, and he's going to give you a ladder to heaven that's attainable for you from where you're at. There's only one rule really. Don't harm others. If you prefer the positive to the negative: Try to bring joy to others.

But this all poses my Dad's theological question.
Does my apostasy negate my salvation?

Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Pretty straight forward.
Done and done.

I have continued to live my life by more or less the Christian moral code. It's what I know. It's in my bones. The fact that I like some of Zen Buddhism and try to apply it doesn't negate that, in fact if I take the label off it's just peace that passes understanding (down in the depths of my heart) anyway. I honor the Decalogue. I honor the Golden Rule (Platinum in my case). If I simply told people I was a Christian there would be no doubt in their minds that I was.

So.

Is the Preservation of the Saints in fact Conditional?
Was I lying about the 15 or so years I spent as an active Evangelical Christian?
Was I not saved in the first place (i.e. it just didn't take?)?

If any of that is true, and the Christian paradigm is unerringly correct, I am unconditionally Hell bound.

But if my salvation was genuine (and my intent was, so if it wasn't I got bait and switched), then I'm getting a free ride along the fellowship of believers, breaking of bread together, and repentance lines.

And therein lies the Question of my Salvation.

My friends and family don't particularly care for talking about my apparent ticket to Hell. And it's not really a sticking point, as I am still well versed in doctrine and theology. I know Church life as well as any deacon, and I still have a genuine interest in preserving their faith, and talking about their issues with them. I'm not trying to deconvert anyone. Quite the opposite. If they have found their path to God, and it brings them peace and joy, bless them. I will support them in it fully.

For my part, I can talk about it lightly because either there is no God and I'm fine but living a life that has meaning in the here and now, not simply in the Great Hereafter, or there is a God he knows my heart and mind and I am at his mercy at the Bema Seat. (not quite Pascal's wager - but along those lines)

Either I'm one of the Elect or I'm screwed anyway.


I welcome questions from those of you who made it this far, it's a bit rambly. I do ask that you be respectful.