Coping with Christmas

For the first few years after I stopped believing in God, I was repeatedly startled by how painful the Christmas season was for me.

Large chunks of my Christian experience were wonderful memories, and Christmas was at the top of the list.

Memories like walking through the snow singing Christmas carols with a group of congregants from the small church I pastored in a suburb of New York City.

Memories like leading three evening services on Christmas Eve at my last church in Houston. It was a family-oriented event. Parents were invited to bring small children in their pajamas, which made it easier to get them in bed when everyone went home. And attendees would often arrive with out-of-town relatives who were visiting for the holiday. It wasn’t unusual to see three or four generations sitting together.

Bad Glasses

Long, long ago in a place far, far away, a strange practice took hold when someone—no one knew who—developed special eyeglasses and began to convince large numbers of the inhabitants of this land that they could not see their world correctly or live life as it was meant to be lived without wearing these glasses all the time.

Soon the glasses-wearers were meeting weekly to extol the values of their lenses and to warn of the dangers of life without this special eyewear. They sang songs about their glasses and heard talks about how their spectacles helped them to clearly see things as they really are. They heard talks about how horrible life looked without the special glasses.

They called the glasses, and themselves, "Brighteners."

Safe Exit Ramps

I spent most of my life believing that the God of the Universe had sent his son to die for my sins, that I was a born-again member of God's chosen family, and that he had called me to be one of his spokespersons.

I became a believer at the age of nine during a year of reading the Bible from cover-to-cover. I was a good boy who made my parents proud. When the time was right, I admitted I was a sinner and gave my life to Jesus.

I learned to sing hymns like "Amazing Grace" in which we each proclaimed that Jesus had died for "such a worm as I." It was a great paradox of belief: God loves me. I am special. But I'm also a worm. I'm broken, flawed, and hopeless on my own, but Jesus has fixed me, no, is fixing me. Wait, will fix me. No, has fixed me. Yikes!

Don’t Tell Me My Life Sucks
I'll Make That Decision

It’s probably not the best sleep therapy, but when I have trouble falling asleep at night, I often put my earbuds in and listen to a debate between a non-believer and a Christian apologist on YouTube. Typically, I fall asleep within 15 or 20 minutes, well before the debate is over, and may or may not remember much of what I listened to the next day.

But last night, I listened to a debate—all of it—that did not permit me to fall asleep. In fact, it left a deep impression on me. The discussion was between Andrew L. Seidel and Christian apologist Tom Trento. The topic was "Does the God of the Bible Exist?" (I’ve included a link to the debate at the end of this article.)

I Am Not at War with Christians

This is me at age 17 preaching to 1,200 teenagers at a city-wide evangelistic rally I organized in my hometown of Odessa, Texas. As I preached that night and in the following decades of ministry, I was 100% sincere. I wasn't trying to con anyone. I wasn’t in it for money or power. It was my deep conviction that faith in Jesus made life a hundred times better for anyone who embraced it.

I continued preaching for 36 more years. Then, thirteen years ago, I left the Christian faith.