The gods I don't believe in either

Shayne O'Brien · RockPointe Church, Leander

You left.

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Maybe it was a slow fade, and one day on the drive to work you noticed you just didn't believe it anymore. Maybe something happened, and the God you were raised on no longer matched with the life you were actually living. Maybe you asked grown-up questions and kept getting told to quit thinking and just believe.

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However it happened, you're not confused about it. You're not embarrassed about it. And you are not looking for somebody to talk you back in.

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Good. I'm not going to try.

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But I want to tell you something you might not expect from a guy who still believes. I have listened to a lot of people tell me why they walked away. And most of the time, by the end of the story, I'm thinking the same thing.

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I would have left too.

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Because the god they're describing is one I don't believe in either.

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People have always quit gods. Nobody worships the sun anymore, or Zeus, or Jupiter. Richard Dawkins put it well: "We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." Here's something most people don't know. The first Christians were called atheists by their neighbors, because they refused to believe in the gods of Rome.

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So let me name a few gods worth quitting. See if yours is on the list.

Bodyguard god

This is the god who would never let bad things happen to good people. Then you watched bad things happen to good people.

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I don't know who promised you that, but it was never the deal. Christianity itself started with a horrible thing happening to a very good person. If Bodyguard god is the one you quit, you were right. He doesn't exist.

On Demand god

This is the god who is supposed to come through on fair, unselfish requests the way any decent person would. You weren't asking him to change the world. You asked for an answer and heard nothing. You asked for a sign and saw nothing. You asked for a miracle and got nothing.

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That god doesn't exist either. And honestly, I'm glad. If I had gotten everything I asked for at sixteen, my life would be a wreck.

Boyfriend god

This is the god whose presence you are always supposed to feel. Maybe you had those moments once, the last night of camp, a certain song. Then you got older and it went flat. Everybody around you had their hands up, and you stood there thinking, "Do you feel it? I don't feel it."

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Nothing was wrong with you.

Guilt god

This is the one who is hardest to shake. If it's enjoyable, the answer is no. This god loves you, but this god does not like you.

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People run from him the first chance they get. And here is the cruel part: the guilt follows them out the door. I have talked to so many people who said, "I just can't seem to get it off of me."

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If that's you, hear this from someone on the inside. That guilt is not God chasing you down. It's the residue of a god who was never real.

Anti-Science god

This is where the church has done a horrible job. You were made to choose between undeniable science and unreliable religion. An honest person picks science every time. You were being honest.

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It was always a made-up choice, and Christians prove it with how we actually live. When our kids get really sick, we don't take them to the church. We take them to the doctor, and we wait by the phone for the lab results. If a biology class forced you out of your faith, I am so sorry somebody handed you that god.

Whose fault that is

Somebody handed you those gods. A parent. A priest. A pastor. In some cases it was people passing along what they had been handed. And in some cases, and some of you know this firsthand, it was deliberate manipulation.

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Either way, that's on the church. It is not on you. I don't blame you for leaving.

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I would say it this way: you didn't lose your faith. You outgrew a god who was too small. Those are not the same thing.

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I'm not making an argument for God here. That's a different conversation, and only if you ever want it. I'm not asking you to come back. I just didn't want you going one more day thinking that everybody who still believes, believes in the god you left.

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Some of us quit him too.

If you ever want to talk

I'd enjoy it. Bring the adult questions. You will not get "just believe" from me.

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I lead a church in Leander, so I understand if that's a strike against me. You can write me here: