Changed Beliefs — From Evangelical Christian to new discoveries about God, Jesus and the Bible

Albert Gentleman
Aug 23, 2017 · 12 min read

My Changed Beliefs — Shorter version

I once believed that a loving and holy God would send people to an eternal hell if they didn’t believe and accept Jesus Christ before they died. For 35 years I preached, evangelised, pastored and taught aspects of this message, and many other evangelical Christian messages, to thousands of people in S.E. Asia, Canada and Australia.

Now, many years later my beliefs have changed after confronting my doubts, boldly asking many questions, doing the research and getting answers that made sense.

These changed beliefs haven’t converted me to Atheism or any other religion. I still believe in God and Jesus but with a different understanding of who God and Jesus are. Probably the most important and challenging change has been in my beliefs about the Bible, the foundation of traditional Christianity. Every sermon preached, every theological debate, all Bible colleges and Seminaries base their teachings on this collection of writings, the Bible. Even I devoured the Bible and the interpretations given to me from my flavor of Christianity back in my Bible College years. But over the past three decades I began to secretly question parts of the Bible. These doubts silently grew within my mind to a point where I could no longer just believe by faith. I needed answers because many things just weren’t making sense to me or were too unbelievable. For example, was Jonah really swallowed by a large fish and spit out three days later — Alive!? Are the all sentences/words of Jesus in the Bible really what He said? Did God command an ancient tribal group to slaughter 50,000 Canaanites and then move onto their land and was it exactly 50,000? These are only a few of the questions I had and I was too afraid to ask or to research them because it would mean I really wasn’t a committed Evangelical Christian. Eventually I got bolder and started reading books and articles written by mostly critical thinking PhD Bible scholars and theologians. My questions were gradually being answered and with those answers came my change in beliefs and continuing spiritual journey.

This change hasn’t been easy. It’s difficult to go against the grain of the religious belief system one lives in. There are people today who are killed or if not killed then shut out, “ghosting”, for believing differently from the group. It’s a serious step. For me to now say the Bible is not inerrant or God’s Word but rather a collection of writings which included some actual events, inspired stories, made up stories, later inclusions, poems, parables, metaphors and myths will usually upset people. The reaction from some Evangelical Christians and friends has been unsettling and hurtful.

But in spite of the reactions I feel better about my spirituality, more in tune with God and have a clearer picture of what really happened around 2000 years ago and the centuries following in regards to the beginnings and formation of Christianity. Dare I say it, but what really happened back then is different in many ways to what I had been taught in Bible College and every Sunday from the pulpit.

Sadly, in presenting the traditional Evangelical Christian message for all those decades, I understand now that I was missing the point. I believe the real message then and now is that God’s love is present everywhere and all of humanity can appropriate it to a greater or lesser degree. And Jesus whose life was filled with love, wonder and power, didn’t die for our sins but rather modeled for us how we are to live Godly lives which include: loving and accepting others, equality and equity with others, bringing healing to others and non-violently confronting and challenging the injustices of the religious, worldly and political systems. For these He was killed. My focus before was to get people saved from hell. My focus now is to model the life of the historical Jesus, to walk in the Spirit of Love Light and Life and to challenge others to do the same. I sense that by the third century and through the time of Constantine many aspects of the message were changed. We need to relearn to what we really know of the life and teachings of the historical Jesus and the original Bible letters and then model their messages as best as we can.

In this next section I want to describe some of the things that guided me throughout my life to a place where I became confident enough to take that step out of the Evangelical/Charismatic Christianity world.

Mother Nature was like God

My sense of there being a “God” all started when I was young and it came from two sources. Firstly, the Catholic School and church where I was a mischievous altar boy. It was here that I learned about the Catholic God, Jesus Christ and Mary and I would often pray in front of the statues asking for help with my grades at school. I had a sense that an invisible person was there or that Jesus might appear like a ghost.
Secondly, in the lush green forests near Lake Erie, Ontario where my parents had a summer cottage. This provided a place of adventure for me and I would wonder for hours into the bush where I felt close to the peacefulness of what I then called Mother Nature which to me was the same as God being there. Similarly I would experience this same Mother Nature when I went bird watching in the bush around Hamilton Ontario. I would marvel at all the colours of the birds. And then there were all the outdoor adventures with the Cubs and Boy Scouts and even the vegetable gardening I had to do and enjoyed. All of these “Mother Nature/God” experiences I had were before I understood any theology.

This foundation in my life stayed with me over the years into adulthood, family life raising three wonderful daughters with my wife Debbie, missionary life and secular life. Our homes were in Canada then seven SE Asian countries, and now Australia. It was in 1977 while attending University in Peterborough Ontario, that I became a Christian. Eight years later I was a committed Bible College and University educated Christian and spent 14 years in S.E. Asia as a Community Development missionary and also pastored a church. I was mainly helping disadvantaged people and but also evangelising them.

Doubts and Questions

Eventually the “Mother Nature/God” within me began to challenge what I had been taught. This more or less started after we emigrated to Perth Australia in around 2000. The main question I had was, “Are all these people really going to eternal hell if they don’t accept Jesus Christ?” The second question/doubt I had was, “Is the Bible really that accurate and all true?” During this period I found attending church boring and began to fall asleep especially during the sermons. Eventually I discontinued attending except when our daughters invited us.
After this I was part of a house church in which a community life style was emphasized and I enjoyed this but some of the Bible teachings I struggled with. Gradually I left this group.

Then I experienced my first theological confrontation with an evangelical Christian friend who quite hotly defended his “fundamentalist” beliefs on Noah and the flood and the Bible being God’s Word, both of which I now had great doubts about. This experience was a bit of a shock for me as I began to realise how religious beliefs can indeed cause major conflict even with friends.
I had exposed my doubts and yet there was a sense of relief as I had finally overcome the fear of being exposed. This led me to carefully engage in discussions with other Christians about my doubts and I discovered that some of them had doubts too, but, they still wanted to hold onto their traditional Christian lifestyle and community of friends.

In 2013 Debbie and I moved to Yangon, Myanmar for a two year contract with a secular volunteer organization. This country is a very conservative Buddhist country and I learned many good things about Buddhism. Our Myanmar friends were devoted to doing good being kind and generous through their Buddhist traditions. We were taken to many pagodas/temples and they would do their religious activity which was their way of doing good and I would squat nearby and pray/meditate to God. I couldn’t imagine that God would send them all to hell if they didn’t accept Jesus Christ.

The Study and Research

Then in mid 2014 I was asked to share my life’s journey at the Yangon Christian Men’s breakfast. By now I was feeling more confident about sharing my questions, doubts and a few changing beliefs. So when I got to these, there was silence and shock on many of the men’s faces. After I finished there came the backlash from a few of the more fundamentalist men who strongly challenged me. Thankfully the meeting had time constraints and soon ended. After the men’s breakfast a young gentleman from Holland came up to me and said that he and his wife agreed with what I had said and gave me a book by Rob Bell titled, Love Wins. I didn’t know it at the time but Rob initially had a rough journey in the Christian community because of this book and his others as well. Rob also doesn’t believe all unbelievers will go to hell. What a relief to finally find some other Christians who thought as I did and were on a similar journey themselves. This book was the beginning of my research and studies about the history of Christianity, Jesus, God and the Bible.

I began to devour books and watch seminars and debates on Youtube and soon realised that, especially in the debates, the Bible was always used as a reference point by the evangelical debaters. So if the Bible was the main reference then I needed to study the history and origins of the Bible to see how accurate it really is. I decided I would study from PhD teachers, authors and scholars who themselves had been traditional evangelical or fundamentalist Christians before. Scholars like Peter Enns, Marcus Borg, Brain McClaren, J Patterson, John Dominic Crosson, John Spong, Diane Butler Bass, Val Webb, Bart Erhman and many others. A lot of my free time was now spent on reading books and listening to teachings and debates. The lights were beginning to shine. More and more of my questions were finally being answered. I was learning so much and discovering new things that really made sense. It was exciting to finally know when, who, how and why the Bible was written and what really happened or probably happened back then and why all the flavors of Christianity are where they are at today. And the good part of all this is that I am not alone, there are so many others on this same journey.

The Painful Part of this Journey

In March of 2016 I received a SKYPE call from an old friend in Mongolia, who wanted me to edit a Christian book. I had to tell him about my changing beliefs and he was shocked and probably disappointed as well. It became obvious that I couldn’t edit his book and then came his shocking statement, “You’re like a heretic!” Oh, that hurt. My friend was bewildered telling me the Bible was God’s word and that I was wrong. Well the call was short lived as any amount of reasoning wouldn’t have gotten us very far.
As more friends hear that I have changed my beliefs there come three reactions. One, negative, they are concerned for me, hurt, praying for me, unfriending from FaceBook. Two, positive, they want to know more as they have many doubts too. And three, neutral still friends, let’s see where this goes.

I have to admit it can be a lonely journey as most Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christians still hold to their beliefs, although more and more are leaving/changing. Yet despite this lonely journey I know I am on the right track. I can now respect the different good beliefs of other people and not judge them as “lost”. I don’t have the “Us and Them” mentality anymore. I can now sit/kneel with Buddhist friends in a temple and pray or meditate while they practice their religious traditions. I can sit in a mosque and pray my prayers while they pray theirs. If any of these people were to ask me what I believed, I hope they would listen non-judgmentally and glean the good from it as I would do from theirs. And I can sit in a Christian church service and understand where they are coming from and why, because I was there. Overall I am freer, not as judgmental, and closer to an all encompassing spiritual God, One that is neither male or female, that is all Loving full of Light and Life, One that doesn’t send all non-believers to hell and One that I can also find in the beauty of Nature.
I am also challenged by the life and death of Jesus. He was an incredible young man, endowed with the spirit of God, radiating love, compassion, mercy and healing life and he countered the injustices of the religious, worldly and political systems of his time. For this he was killed. Am I willing to do the same in today’s context?
And this may surprise you but I can still read the Bible but I now read it with an understanding of when it was written, by whom it was written, where the insertions are and why it was written at that time.

My Beliefs Today

Here are some basics:

  • That God, who is neither male nor female but the Creator of the universe, is Love, Light, Life and full of the Fruit of the Spirit — Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Goodness, Kindness, Generosity, Compassion and Mercy.
  • That this God can be present in us, if we allow it, and will shine through us to as many people as possible in order to make a positive impact on the world around us.
  • That the historical Jesus was indeed a real person, born naturally, who was strongly endowed with the spirit and love of God which He shared with those around Him and who non-violently challenged the religious, worldly and political injustices of His day. For this He was killed by crucifixion.
  • I/We should model the life of Jesus, in today’s context, who accepted, loved and had fellowship with the least, the outcast, the disadvantaged, the rich, the poor, the sick, the healthy and spoke strongly against the injustices within the religious, worldly and political systems of his day.
  • That we should give or share where it is needed. Not in order to receive merit, good karma, Godly favor or a tax deduction in return. But to give and share unconditionally expecting nothing in return.
  • That we are not all “sinners” because of the story of the “sin” of Adam and Eve.
  • That there is no “eternal hell”. Possibly annihilation for the extremely wicked.
  • That some people choose to have a very small flicker of the Light of God within them (generally “bad” people) and others have a brilliant light shining from them to others (This could even include those who don’t believe in God).
  • That the Love, Light and Life of God can be present with all people of all nationalities, religions, beliefs and also with those who are presently suffering.
  • That suffering, sickness and either man-made or natural disasters are not caused by God.
  • We should live in fellowship with others of any nationality, religion or orientation and if possible in community.
  • That we take authority over bad spirits with the Love, Light and Life of God.
  • That we must take care of this earth and support others who want to do this as well and let us non-violently oppose those who don’t care about this fragile earth.
  • That I can still read the Bible with a new understanding of what it really is. It can also be a source of inspiration where inspiration and truth is to be given. But, if one does the research you will discover it is not the literal word of God. We should be open to inspirational Godly truths from other sources.
  • That I should meditate in quietness and give to God my everything and receive from God love, inspiration, guidance, wisdom and the Fruit of the Spirit.

Conclusion

God or Mother Nature as I called it and to a degree the Catholic Church certainly had an influence on what I started to believe when I was young. This is to be expected of all children growing up within the cultures/religions of the world today. Then as a young adult I embraced traditional evangelical Christianity which I was convinced was the true religion until I began to question some of the stories and beliefs. This eventually led to my change in beliefs and to where I am today, a freer man, close to God, more informed and still learning.

It’s OK to ask questions about our Christian beliefs or to question what the preacher or Bible is saying. Challenge the teachings and doctrines. Do the research and study the origins of Christianity and the Bible but from non-fundamentalist/non-evangelical critical thinking scholars. Get to the root of it with the help of God’s Spirit.

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