Consciencebound

Leaving The Fold: Testimonies Of Former Fundamentalists

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Mostly because I could identify with so much of the personal experiences of the people who wrote in it. Ed Babinksi has collected various people’s “testimonies” of their experience with fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity. From a review on Amazon, “33 former Christian fundamentalists explain how and why they first embraced, and later abandoned, that belief system. Of these, eight have become atheists, eight (including Babinski) agnostics, one a wiccan, and one a Zen Buddhist; the remainder have remained Christian”. The ones who remained Christian still believe the major tenets of Christianity, they are just not so hard lined as they used to be. I don’t like reading books that just slam Christianity and I don’t believe that this is one of them. It is full of honest people who have honest questions and/or problems with the modern fundamentalist version of the Christian faith. The reasons that they each had for leaving the faith are varied but to me they all seem honest and I believe that they are truly seeking after what is true. Anyone who is doubting their faith or struggling with things that just don’t seem right, I would recommend reading this book. It is very encouraging to see what other people have gone through as it can often feel like you are all alone being tormented by the doubts of your mind.

I would also recommend this to Christians who are not doubting their faith but may know someone(like me) who either is doubting their faith or has left the faith for honest reasons. This will give you insight into what goes though a skeptics mind and should help you in dealing with such doubters. Hopefully it will give you more compassion and an understanding for someone who finds themselves in such a place which on most accounts is not something that you just choose to do. Changing your beliefs or leaving your faith all together is quite possibly one of the hardest things that an individual can do and it is not something that anyone chooses to do lightly.

To read more of what Ed Babinski has written you can see his articles posted on infidels.org at this link or you can also go to his personal web page at http://www.edwardtbabinski.us/ .

Jeff

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