My guest this week is David Johnson, the co-host and creator of the Skeptics and Seekers podcast and blog. David is a former Church of Christ member and a pastor’s kid. He was baptized at 7, leading the church in song at 7, preaching at 12, the youth leader at 15 and assistant minister at 21.

Was I the real thing? Pathologically so.

His deconversion process began as he examined the Church of Christ’s doctrine against musical accompaniment in worship. He says “the little things, were the big things.” And if the little things were wrong, what else might be wrong?

You know, I think we might be wrong about that [instrumental accompaniment].
And that was hard for me.
It was hard in a way that I am not going to be able to express.
For me, if we were wrong about musical instruments, we were wrong about everything.

Deconversion was “like death” for David.

It was so hard for me to say,
not out loud mind you,
“I don’t believe there is a god.”
And then to say it out loud … alone in the woods where no one can hear.

Today David uses an unabashed polemic approach to counter-apologetics to reveal the problems with Christianity and faith in general. You can find him on his Skeptics and Seekers podcast and on his appearances on Justin Brierley’s Unbelievable? podcast. You can read the book he co-authored in response to Justin Brierley: Still Unbelievable!

The damage I did on the other side [as a believer] keeps me up at night.

Links

Skeptics and Seekers blog
https://skepticsandseekers.squarespace.com/

Skeptics and Seekers podcast
https://anchor.fm/skeptics-and-seekers

Still Unbelievable! book
https://reasonpress.net/SU1E

David Johnson’s appearances on Justin Brierley’s Unbelievable? podcast
https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Is-the-resurrection-unbelievable-Jonathan-McLatchie-vs-David-Johnson
https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Shows/Saturday/Unbelievable/Episodes/Unbelievable-Can-Justin-defend-his-own-book-feat.-David-Johnson-Andrew-Knight-Randal-Rauser

My recent appearance on Skeptics and Seekers
https://skepticsandseekers.squarespace.com/blog/x-tians-part-one-what-christians-who-stay-need-to-know-about-the-christians-who-dont

Interact

Deconversion
https://gracefulatheist.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/deconversion-how-to/

Send in a voice message

Support the podcast
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Paypal: paypal.me/gracefulatheist

Attribution

“Waves” track written and produced by Makaih Beats