This morning I received an invitation. They had listened to one of my podcasts and said they loved my message and wanted to collaborate. It was an offer to cross-promote podcasts, highlight servant-hearted content, and foster a positive online community. “They” is a social media platform. The platform’s mission? Spreading light and love through Christian values. I have nothing against Christian values. And I’m all about servant ministry.
It sounded promising. Encouraging, even. However, I then scanned their Statement of Faith. It was a familiar list of doctrinal absolutes—I felt a quiet, steady “no” rise inside me. Not from cynicism. Not from anger. But from clarity. And, truthfully, a lingering strangeness. It felt icky. But it helped me to clarify to myself why I feel the need to say, “I’m not a Christian.” I’m grateful I read through it.
I was born into this faith and baptized in it. I spoke in tongues. I read the Bible cover-to-cover more than once. I couldn’t envision a day when I would "deny Jesus."
It’s because the version of Christianity most visible today often feels so foreign to the Jesus I love—and so misaligned with the deepest truths I now live by. Saying I’m not a Christian isn’t a rejection of Jesus. It’s quite the opposite. It’s an act of honesty. Of naming the gap between inherited identity and chosen integrity.
Their statement of faith articulated, almost exactly, why I am no longer a Christian.
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1. “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God revealing the love of God to the world.”
I grew up revering the Bible. I still hold deep respect for its poetry, its moral provocations, and its role in shaping human history. But we were given an all-or-nothing view of Scripture: either everything in it is true, or none of it is. That is a house of cards. Once one piece cracks, the whole thing falls down. It’s one of the major causes of materialistic atheism.
As I studied the origins of the Bible, I realized it didn’t drop from the sky, bound in leather. Dozens of men wrote it (all men) over the course of hundreds of years. It represents many voices, not one. It is humanity's evolving view of God, not God's fixed decree to humankind. It’s been edited, redacted, and curated—with books chosen or excluded based on theology, politics, and power. Some of the best gospels (like the gospel of Thomas) didn’t make the cut because they were too liberating.
As I read other sacred texts—the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, the Dhammapada, and others I saw something profound: Spirit has spoken to many, in many ways, across cultures and centuries. There is a deep thread of wisdom, love, and transcendence that runs through all of them. No one tradition holds a monopoly on the sacred.
And yet, parts of the Bible still sing to me. But not because it is infallible. Because it is deeply human. A record of the sacred longing and struggle of those who came before me.
The Bible has been used to justify love and liberation—but also slavery, colonialism, and the silencing of women and queer people. I’ve come to believe that if something is truly Divine, it doesn't need to be absolute, exclusionary, or used as a weapon.
My faith, such as it is now, lives in spirit, not in static texts. It is open, curious, evolving.
2. “We believe that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
This idea once comforted me. The Trinitarian formula felt like a sacred mystery I didn’t need to solve, just accept. But over time, I started to wonder: why must God be defined so narrowly, boxed into roles and hierarchy? Why only three? Why only male?
God—what a loaded word. So short, yet expected to carry the weight of all meaning and mystery. Paul Tillich calls God the "ground of being." Hinduism speaks of Brahman in similar terms as limitless, formless, and beyond name. I now see God as Source, not personal, not impersonal, but transpersonal—beyond personhood entirely.
And God as three male figures? What happened to the divine feminine? To the sacredness of balance, of creation, of embodiment? The feminine was not absent. It was erased. Only small vestiges remain in the text. And I feel called to reclaim it, to widen the frame of the Divine to include what patriarchal theology ignored or suppressed.
I no longer feel the need to define the Divine so precisely. The Divine, to me, is more expansive, less doctrinal, more relational. It’s present in breath, beauty, community, and paradox—not necessarily in theological formulations.
3. “We believe in the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ... virgin birth... sinless life... bodily resurrection... personal return.”
There is so much beauty in the story of Jesus. His compassion. His resistance to empire. His care for the marginalized. But elevating him into a supernatural figure whose sinlessness, virgin birth, and exclusive divinity must be believed as literal truth? That became a barrier, not a bridge.
I no longer believe Jesus needs to be divine to be meaningful. It's his humanity that appeals to me most. His crying out in despair from the cross. The tears he shed when his cousin Lazarus died. His flashes of anger. His need to retreat and recharge when crowds overwhelmed him.
What kind of a role model could he be if he had never experienced the rawness of being human? His divinity doesn’t move me. His vulnerability does. He is one of many sacred teachers, not a gatekeeper to salvation.
4. “We believe that all men everywhere are lost and face the judgment of God... only way of salvation... eternal punishment in hell.”
Here we go. The black or white afterlife threat. Eternal bliss or eternal damnation. The more I think about eternal damnation, the less sense it makes. I've written about this extensively elsewhere, so I won't belabor it here. But this was the turning point for me.
The image of a God who creates people only to condemn them to eternal torture? That’s not love. That’s control. Fear. Shame. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, we can do in a finite period of time to justify eternal torment. The worst human being who has ever walked the planet doesn’t deserve that.
I reject the idea of original sin and eternal punishment. I don’t believe people are fundamentally lost. I believe they are loved radically. Growth, change, and healing are part of being human. So are making mistakes and falling short. Being human is not a justification for hell.
5. “We believe in the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, whose indwelling enables the Christian to live a godly life.”
I still believe in Spirit. But not one that is exclusive to Christians, or that manifests only through a certain code of morality. We have a host of guides, angels, ancestors, and even our Higher Self, we can call on. I believe in presence, intuition, healing, and awe. Call it Spirit, Energy, God, the Sacred—I believe it dwells in all of us.
We don't have to be Christian to want to live a godly life, or to live a godly life. We just have to desire to be like our Creator.
"Godly life" has too often meant conformity. To me, a sacred life is one that is honest, open-hearted, and aligned with integrity and wholeness.
6. “We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost... eternal life and eternal punishment.”
Again, the binary: saved or lost, heaven or hell. This is the architecture of fear, not love. My friend, who is still Christian, at least, is merciful enough to believe that resurrection is only for the saved. Eternal life, in his view, is not guaranteed. Annihilation is more merciful than resurrection only to be punished.
For me, resurrection is about this life—not the next. It's when we are "reborn," as Jesus put it. It's when we throw off the chains of the world, claim our divinity, and start living that way. I no longer need to believe in an afterlife that functions as reward or punishment. I care more about resurrection now—about coming alive to who we truly are.
7. “We believe in the spiritual unity of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.”
This one is almost laughable. There are approximately 30,000–40,000 Christian denominations worldwide, depending on the source. Christian unity is, frankly, a farce.
There's an old Emo Phillips joke that captures it perfectly:
"I asked him, 'Are you Protestant or Catholic?'
He said, 'Protestant.'
I said, 'Me too! What franchise?'
He said, 'Baptist.'
I said, 'Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?'
He said, 'Northern Baptist.'
I said, 'Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?'
He said, 'Northern Conservative Baptist.'
I said, 'Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?'
He said, 'Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region.'
I said, 'Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?'
He said, 'Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.'
I said, 'Die, heretic!'"
That’s how easily we fracture. So no, I don’t buy into the illusion of Christian unity. True unity honors difference. It welcomes divergence. It makes space for many paths, many truths, many ways of encountering the sacred. Interestingly enough, even with this strict statement of faith on their website, they said on the platform you are supposed to respect diversity.
8. “We believe that evangelism and discipleship are the responsibility of all followers of Jesus.”
I used to evangelize with the best of them. Back in the AOL days, I went into chat rooms and argued with atheists, Jews, and anyone who didn't believe as I did. I had a website called "The Counsel For the Defense" that was all about proselytizing.
I suppose you could say I still proselytize today—but not for any particular religion. I speak to help people understand who they are, where they come from, where they are going, and why they are here. I want them to understand their inherent divinity and live according to the guidance of their hearts.
I believe in dialogue, not conversion. In shared growth, not recruitment. Discipleship, if it means anything to me today, means becoming more fully myself—not conforming to a single religious ideal.
9. “We believe God’s plan for human sexuality is to be expressed only within the context of marriage... between one genetic male and one genetic female.”
This is where exclusion becomes explicit. "One genetic male and one genetic female"? Yes. I took eighth-grade biology, too. But we now know gender identity is far from that simple. It's not up to me to tell someone what their gender is or their sexuality.
Jesus lived in a world that included queer people. And yet, he never mentioned them. Not once. If this were such a critical moral issue, don’t you think he would have? That silence speaks volumes.
Love is sacred wherever it creates safety, dignity, and joy. Full stop.
10. “We believe that we must dedicate ourselves to prayer, to the service of our Lord, to His authority over our lives.”
Prayer, service, surrender — these are beautiful practices. But when framed as submission to an external authority, they can foster spiritual codependency.
Today, I honor prayer as presence. I see service as an interconnection. And I follow the authority of inner wisdom, not an external lord.
11. “We believe that human life is sacred from conception to its natural end.”
Life is sacred. But this statement often becomes a political tool rather than a spiritual truth. If we're going to be biblical, the Jewish tradition teaches that life begins at first breath. And to truly honor life also means honoring the life and bodily autonomy of the mother.
I believe in the sacredness of bodily autonomy, of reproductive freedom, of complex moral agency. If Christians are so concerned about human life, why do so many of them seem to stop caring once the baby is born? We don't treat healthcare as a right. Or shelter. Or even food. That is not a culture of life. That is a culture of control.
To truly honor life means trusting people with their own choices, and creating systems of care that support life beyond birth.
12. Christian Nationalism
There is an uncomfortable and undeniable merging of Christianity with political power in the United States. Over time, Christianity has become closely associated with a particular political party, platform, and identity. What grieves me is how often the loudest expressions of this faith champion policies and rhetoric that are the antithesis of Jesus' teachings.
Jesus taught love, nonviolence, care for the poor, and inclusion of the outcast. And yet, many who claim his name support exclusion, nationalism, racism, and control. This co-opting of Christianity for political ends has made the label not only inaccurate for my beliefs, but actively harmful to my conscience.
I don’t want to be mistaken for a member of a movement that proclaims Jesus while betraying his ethic of radical compassion.
In Closing
I don’t share this as a critique of those who hold these beliefs. I share it as a declaration of spiritual sovereignty. I’m no longer Christian, not because I’ve lost faith, but because I’ve found a faith that no longer fits inside the walls of Christianity.
My journey is not about rejection. It’s about expansion.
Your Turn
If you’ve ever felt like you were the only one questioning, wondering, or evolving—you’re not alone. I’d love to hear where you are on your path. What are you shedding? What are you reclaiming?
Comment, reflect, share. Your story matters too.
