From Christ to Atheism

At the time of this series of blog posts, I’ve been going through a series of videos, 22 in number, produced by a young man named Chris. He claims to have been a Christian, but is now an atheist. The bulk of his testimony lay in the story of his de-conversion, or how it came to be that he left the faith of his youth, and became what he is today, an atheist. Let me say that I have no reason to believe he was not a Christian. I have found no statements in the word of God that would conclusively show a Christian could never lose his or her faith. Moreover, I believe history confirms that it is possible for Christians to turn their backs on Christ. Therefore, I believe him, when he says in his introductory video (HERE), and the first part of his series (found HERE), that he was a legitimate Christian. He also defines for us what atheism is (Atheism–the Definitions, found HERE), and I have no problem with his definition, so none of these videos need further commentary as far as I am concerned.

The first thing I noticed in Chris’ testimony, however, was that he wasn’t very knowledgeable about the Christian faith. For example, early in the first video, My Christian Life, he answered the invitation of one of his councilors and received Christ as his Savior, and he became born again. I have no reason to doubt his claim. However, he says that he was ‘saved’ several times, implying he responded to other invitations to receive Christ as his Savior. Just as one is born physically only once, one is spiritually born only once. One cannot have more than one spiritual birth. Either one has been reborn (spiritually) or one has not.

In a later video he admits to have never read the Bible from cover to cover, until he began to really question his faith, and even then he implies he got bored and gave up reading certain books of the Bible. Moreover, other statements, he made, concerning the Bible throughout his 22-video testimony, imply Chris, though very intelligent otherwise, was not very knowledgeable about the Christian faith that he, ultimately, rejects. He may know more about it now, and know more Biblical details today, than he ever knew before he abandoned his faith, but this says nothing about his knowledge of Christianity, while he claimed to be Christian.

Nevertheless, I also have no reason to doubt that Christianity was the most important thing in Chris’ life—his final claim in the video, My Christian Life. It is important to note that this young man’s testimony concerns his life before going to college, so there are reasons for his immature understanding of the Christian faith. In other words, I am not trying to fault Chris or make light of his testimony, but I do wish to put his testimony in perspective. We are not speaking of an adult with 20 or 30 years experience in the faith. Nevertheless, there is a great deal in Chris’ autobiographical account that has tremendous value in showing what had occurred to him—both in coming to Christ and in leaving the faith.

I have not, nor do I intend to challenge Chris, personally, to a discussion or even to ask him to peruse my commentary on his series to make sure it presents his personal views accurately. I’m sure anyone who reads my blog posts and consults Chris’ video series would be able to challenge any errors on my part or bring them to Chris’ attention. I thought about challenging Chris to a debate, but why would he want to do that? I don’t mean to imply that I have the answers he seeks, but, honestly, he is a young man with a personal life and career of his own, and how much time could he have to engage in debates with all-comers willing to ‘put him straight’?

Anyway, I’m sure, if he does have the time and the desire to do such a thing, he would no doubt choose to do so with someone more on his educational level. After all, what challenge do I present in terms of offering him something he hadn’t heard before. I don’t mean to play down my commentary, because I do believe it is valuable to folks like me–ordinary people, who live and work (or have worked) their 40+ hour week, in the process of raising (or have raised) families and have questions about things, similar to those Chris had in his journey to becoming an agnostic/atheist. After all, in a society that teaches atheism, a believer would have to be totally unaware of things occurring around him to not have some questions.

Below you will find 37 blog posts, which I have written that mostly concern the other 19 videos of Chris’ testimony (I won’t be commenting on the first 3 videos in his series that I mentioned above). I have also added my commentary on some of Chris’ other videos (8 actually) either within his testimonial series (and I linked to that other video there) or at the end of the series (I ended commentary on the series at blog post #30), and I linked to the other videos in question in each additional commentary, just as I have throughout Chris’ testimonial series. The combined total was then brought to 37 blog posts.

(As I edit these studies in 2025, I have discovered that Chris has also edited his videos series, deleting at least one, which I point to in my edited studies. I also believe he may have combined other videos into a newer video, because, if memory serves, I believe I watched other videos that are no longer there. In any case, while these studies still apply, the details are no longer fully represented in Chris’ video series).