The 40 Reasons I’m No Longer an Evangelical Christian

Why I walked away from the faith of my youth

Dan Foster
Backyard Church
Published in
7 min readApr 7, 2023

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Image by Robsonphoto on Shutterstock

I sat in my counselor’s office.

“I don’t think I believe in Hell anymore?” I mused as I lay on a couch staring at his ceiling. I ran through the implications of that thought in my mind, and as I did, I felt a wave of panic rise up through my chest.

I bolted upright.

“Does that mean I’m not a Christian anymore?” I blurted out.

“Well,” came his sagely reply, “It means you’re not an evangelical Christian anymore — that’s for sure.”

He was right.

There is no way that I’m an evangelical Christian anymore. This realization was terrifying because evangelicalism was the entire belief system I was brought up with, the bedrock of my faith, and the moral and spiritual foundation of my universe.

Now it had all changed.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m still following Jesus — well… as best I can. But, let’s just say if the Evangelicals are right, I’m not gonna be in Heaven with them. I’m too much of a heretic now. But I have reasons — forty of them, in fact. I sat down and started writing them down, and well… one reason led to another, and before I knew it, I had a long, long list.

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Dan Foster
Backyard Church

Writer, Poet, Blogger: Tackling life, faith, culture, religion, politics, and spirituality. Connect with me: https://linktr.ee/DanFosterWriter