Changes in faith

Do you ever feel happy to hear that someone changed their opinion in one direction, and then happy to hear that someone else changed their opinion in the opposite direction? What about when that involves religious conversion?

I've heard stories of many people giving up on Christianity, from my brother who is quite unclear where he stands on matters of faith, but doesn't seem to consider himself a Christian anymore, to stories online on sites like exchristian.net. When I hear these stories I feel a twinge of disappointment that they've given up on the faith that I hold dear, but I also find myself thinking, "Good for them." And it doesn't even feel like a condescending "Good for you that you're thinking for yourself, but you're wrong" sort of way. So why would I be happy about this?

I can think of a couple of reasons. First, there are times when I feel like I don't actually hold my faith all that dearly. I doubt, I get frustrated, and I feel like giving it up. Maybe these people have the courage to make a change, and I lack that courage.

Or I still believe in Jesus and still hold God and my faith in him dear, but I wonder if these people have actually moved closer to the real God by giving up their faith. There are many aspects of my own faith that I've given up over the years--the infallibility of scripture, opposition to evolution, much of the opposition to homosexuality and approaches to dealing with it (and I am quite uncertain about any opposition that I still have), and intellectual certainty about the truth of Christian claims. And many other Christians have been fed beliefs that I would consider much worse than what I've been raised with and rejected. When a person gives up beliefs that they're raised with, it shows that they're thinking for themselves, especially if they take their time and don't just change their beliefs to match someone else's exactly. These people have not found the whole truth, but maybe their view of God was so distorted, the god they rejected wasn't real.

(Am I closer to the whole truth than they are? If I didn't think so, I'd give up on Christianity, but only time will tell for sure. I could be wrong. And by the way, this is not meant as an attack on my parents or on the church I was raised in. I have drawn so many positive things from my parents and that church too that I still embrace, especially from my parents.)

And then there are stories of people becoming Christians. A few years ago a good friend of mine started to get a strong sense that God is real, right around the time that he lost a parent. This led him to Christianity. I'm happy to hear how he finds it so much better to have God in his life, but I also hope he will show discernment and reject harmful or false Christian teachings. I've met several others over the years who've given up various self-destructive lifestyles, including heavy drug use, as they became Christians. In those cases, the benefits are clear.

And on the internet, and atheist blogger that I occasionally read (too over my head to read all the time) recently became Catholic. Even though I'm not Catholic and have some with Catholicism, I'm happy to hear this too, and maybe even less concerned that this blogger will adopt harmful teachings. She seems to be taking time to learn about things and isn't accepting every Catholic teaching unquestioningly. Besides, I have issues with evangelicalism too.

And so I think, "Good for them," too.