My Christadelphian experience

by Phynnodderee

Whenever I read blogs by other people who have left their religion, the thing I find most interesting is their personal stories. So I thought I would share my story here in case it resonates with anyone else.


Growing up
I was brought up as a Christadelphian in the UK. As a child I went to Sunday School every week, after which the whole family attended the meeting, which was held in a room in a community hall. The ecclesia my parents belonged to was fairly traditional, with a stiffly formal atmosphere, the sonorous sound of the King James Bible, and strict gender roles. Although I was exposed to normal ideas elsewhere in life, within Christadelphia I was immersed in a male-dominated atmosphere in which a woman’s place was to be silent.

On Sunday evenings there was the lecture, while on Wednesday evenings there was Bible Class, which was held at people’s houses. The Sunday evening lecture was nominally a public lecture, which was advertised in the local paper, but I don’t think the public was ever interested. Occasionally we went to fraternals and other events, and every so often my parents hosted the weekly Bible Class at our house, which always meant nice things to eat after the adults had finished the readings and discussion.

The only ones to understand the Bible?

Generally speaking I was quite happy in the Christadelphian community as a child. I wasn’t expected to pay attention to the exhortation on Sunday mornings, but was allowed to read a book instead. So it wasn’t too boring. It never occurred to me for a moment to doubt the veracity of what I was taught about the Bible, God and Jesus. I believed that I belonged to a uniquely enlightened community, the only ones to understand the Bible properly, the re-discoverers of truth after it had been lost by the mainstream churches.

I do however remember one occasion, when I was perhaps about 11, when I first read for myself Paul’s injunction to women in 1 Timothy 2: “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.” I instinctively balked; I knew, even at that age, that it was sexist and wrong, but it was in the Bible, so how could I argue against it? I didn’t realise it at the time, but cognitive dissonance had begun to set in.

As I got older, I began to experience hints of unease: sometimes certain things about the meeting struck me as silly or faintly ridiculous. But there was still no question in my mind that I could grow up to be anything other than a Christadelphian. I couldn’t understand how anyone of intelligence could fail to see how wise, reasonable and logical the Christadelphian faith was.

Broadening horizons
By the time I went to university, a number of my peers had been baptised. I had assumed I would naturally feel ready for baptism some day, but there were no signs of that happening. I felt intensely puzzled about where faith came from. I believed, but something held me back. Why did other people have such strong faith, when I didn’t? What was faith, and how did you acquire it if you didn’t have it?

After graduating I got a job in the city and started attending the local meeting, which was quite different from the ecclesia I grew up in. It was more broad-minded, lively and interesting, and I went there regularly for several years. During that time I slowly became aware of a different type of Christadelphian. I learned that there were people who didn’t think it was necessary for women to wear head-coverings. I heard open discussion and criticism of accepted ideas for the first time. When I realised that some of them even accepted the idea of evolution, I was shocked – surely believing in creation was an essential part of being a Christadelphian?

Meeting these liberal-minded Christadelphians was a breath of fresh air. I felt that, more than any other Christadelphians I had met, these were people I could get on with.

Like a strongly built wall

And yet there was still an underlying discontent and doubt. I believed that what I was doing, at this point, was deconstructing my faith, sorting the good bits from the bad, in order to retain the good and put them together again in a coherent whole. I felt that it was not only possible, but necessary to critically examine your own faith. Being afraid to do so was a sign that your faith was weak. If your faith was like a strongly built wall, you could shake it, subject it to blows, knock out individual stones and the whole would still stand. Thus, I could modify or eliminate this or that faulty idea and my faith as a whole would not be damaged. I felt I was progressing towards a more mature and compassionate faith, one that was compatible with enlightened, egalitarian and humanitarian ideas. Yet, to my puzzlement, I still didn’t feel any active desire to be baptised.

At the same time I had become aware of the appalling injustices that happen in the world, and – although I knew Christadelphians were not supposed to do things like this – I became involved in the human rights movement. I found myself doing a great deal of thinking about my religion, myself, and the strange creatures we call humans. One day, when I was browsing through an astronomy magazine, I saw an artist’s illustration of the Milky Way Galaxy, showing the location of our solar system in one of its minor spiral arms. It was mind-enlarging. I realised just how tiny and insignificant our place in the galaxy – and the universe – was.

Growing problems

Misogyny

I meandered along for another couple of years, still a regular attender at the meeting, but increasingly disenchanted with Christadelphia. Most of all, I was deeply troubled by the apparent sexism and misogyny in the Bible – which I still considered to be God’s revelation of himself – and the traditional gender roles that most of the Christadelphian community insisted on, which struck me as utterly illogical. But there were other, fundamental things about the religion that just didn’t make sense. I didn’t even see the point of the ritual of baptism – without which I could never be formally accepted into the community.

One day, I commented to one of my liberal Christadelphian friends on the fact that Christadelphians are convinced that they alone have ‘the Truth’. He replied: “The truth is that Christ died on the cross for our sins.” I liked the simplicity and directness of this confession; it was inclusive and uninflected by complicated doctrine. If you had asked me, around this time, what my religion was, I would have answered: “Love God and love your neighbour.” It seemed to me that that was the main thing that mattered, and everything else was mere detail. I began to consider myself a Christian rather than a Christadelphian.

Through my interest in human rights, I learned about more and more instances of appalling suffering caused by abuses in various parts of the world. Every time I read one of these stories, unanswerable questions clamoured in my head: How could a loving God allow such atrocities to happen? How could it possibly be part of a good and wise plan? I signed petitions, I donated to appeals, and I prayed. But I couldn’t help wondering what the point of my prayers was. Did they avail anything? Why did God require me to pray about these things in the first place, as if he didn’t know about them?

Shattered foundations
The final blow came on a beautiful spring day. It came in the form of a report describing the brutalities of the prison camps in a certain country.

It was the most shocking thing I had ever read. It made me tremble with revulsion and horror. Even now, years later, I can hardly bear to think about it. The routine barbarism, killing, rape and starvation. The child dragged out of bed to watch his mother being shot. The woman forced to drown her newborn baby in a bucket. I could not believe that such appalling cruelty could go on in the world. How could human beings be so evil? How could God look on as his creatures were tortured and tormented beyond belief, and do nothing?

Suddenly the world was different. I was different.

That night I slept, but it was a strange kind of sleep; the night seemed very short and when I woke in the morning, it was as if hardly any time had passed. For two days I felt no desire to eat, and it took nearly a week before my state of mind felt ‘normal’ again.

It was not the first time that I had been shocked by human cruelty – I knew something about the horrors of the Holocaust, for example – but for some reason this particular report made a greater impression on me than anything ever had before. I don’t think I had ever fully grasped the sheer depths of vile, gratuitous, organised cruelty that humans can sink to. For the first time, the ‘problem of evil’ produced intolerable cognitive dissonance. The strongly built wall of faith I had been so proud of had been struck at its very foundations, and it was toppling.

I kept going to the meeting for several more months, although my attendance became somewhat irregular. I don’t really know what I believed at this point in my life. Questions continued to plague me, and I certainly didn’t feel uplifted by my attendance at the meeting. I simply sat through it, feeling unmoved and faintly bored, and usually left promptly at the end. It was a matter of routine; it was simply what I did on Sunday mornings. I felt increasingly detached from Christadelphia, yet I felt that I couldn’t ever belong to the ‘real world’ either.

For years I had wondered why other people seemed to have such strong faith when I didn’t, even though I so much wanted it and prayed for it. I remember one occasion when I prayed on my knees for God to reveal himself to me, allow me to feel his presence, give me some sign to strengthen my faith.

But nothing happened.

The problem of evil

That September I watched a documentary about humanitarian aid efforts in a country affected by civil war. I was deeply distressed by the civilian suffering and moved by the courage of the aid workers. Once again I wondered how God could allow such suffering to happen. There were volunteers risking their lives to relieve the misery, but God appeared to do nothing. It crystallised the dreadful feeling that I had more faith in the goodness of people than in the goodness of God. I felt fearful for having this thought, as I feared it was a kind of blasphemy.

It must have been some time during that summer or autumn that I first consciously thought: “Maybe there isn’t a God after all.” It is hard to convey how shattering this possibility was, what an extraordinary thing it was for me to consider. I was confronted for the first time with the possibility that everything I had been taught was false and empty.

The months that followed were spent in a state of confusion, doubt, anxiety and loneliness. As a doubting Christadelphian it's extremely difficult to find anyone to talk to - either within the community, where doubts are not generally welcome, or outside it, where no one has even heard of the religion.

I went to the meeting for the last time just before Christmas. I remember sitting there, surrounded by others yet feeling so apart and so lonely. I knew that I no longer shared the worldview of the other people in that room. I decided then that it would be the last time.

A new beginning
This has only been a summary of my experiences in the Christadelphians and I have not discussed in detail any of the specific issues that troubled me, because those would be articles in their own right. The way I have told my story here perhaps makes it sound as if my deconversion was inevitable; but the evaporation of my faith, when it happened, came as a complete shock to me. My life was to a large extent built on my faith; I could not imagine being anything other than a Christadelphian. It provided my worldview, my comfort, my frame of reference, my identity. I had a massive process of adjustment ahead.

Now, years later, I can truthfully say I have never been happier. Leaving the Christadelphians was the best decision I ever made. In leaving them behind I have reclaimed my identity, my mind and my conscience. While I was in the grip of the Christadelphian religion, I was in agony; now I am filled with calm and peace.

Thanks for reading.