Leaving a Cult or Religion: Comparing 1st and 2nd Generation “Ex’s”

I was born into a fundamentalist Christian family. I attended church for the first time as an infant, about 2 weeks old, held on my mother’s lap during the service. From then on, I was always in church: Sunday morning and evening services, Wednesday night youth group, and church events on many other nights of the week. As an adult, I went into the ministry, with the aim of becoming a pastor or a Bible college teacher. I attended Bible college, did two Master’s degrees at a seminary, and then finally completed my PhD in biblical studies and homiletics (preaching). In between all of the academics, I pastored a church in Portland, OR, for 12 years; after that, we moved to the UK for my doctoral work, whereupon I taught at a Bible college for another 8 years.

After leaving pastoral ministry, however, I started having my doubts about the faith in which I’d not only been raised, but served as a pastor and teacher to many hundreds of people. As I deconstructed my faith, I finally made the decision about 10 years ago first of all to leave the church, and then a few years later, my Christian faith entirely. Along with many other thousands — if not tens of thousands — of ex-evangelicals, I sort of figured that was the aim of the whole thing: deconstruct, get out, and move on with life sans religion.