My Experience in Evangelicalism: Four Things that Pushed Me Out

Leaving Evangelicalism wasn’t easy and it didn’t come overnight either. I come from a family of extremely dedicated evangelicals. My parents even started an evangelical home church in the second half of the sixties, turning their back on an increasingly liberal Reformed Church as they dedicated themselves to Billy Graham and his Gospel. I’ve deeply respected my parents and their faith and still do. I even became an ardent supporter of my Dad’s Church, eventually making it to assistant-pastor. The point is, I was an evangelical. Evangelicalism was all I knew from my earliest youth.

Breaking away from this faith involved a long process of soul-searching and entertaining agonizing questions. Eventually everything came tumbling down like a house of cards that had to come to terms with its flimsy structure and lack of foundation. It was not a mere intellectual decision in which I exchanged one set of presuppositions for another, but much more a prolonged existential struggle that left me orphaned, bereft of certainties. I’m certainly not happier now, though I feel good about my decision.

I managed to remain on talking terms with my parents on matters of faith and occasionally pray with them when the need arises. In fact, I’m not even entirely against evangelicalism or evangelicals. I’m in conversation with some of…