"Truth is the soul’s light; the mirrour which reflecteth not truth is but darkness veiled in glass." -The Mirrour Which Flatters Not
Reflections on Truth: The Unraveling of Faith
I was raised Southern Baptist, in a world where faith was not just a belief system but the architecture of reality itself. The Bible was the inerrant word of God, community was built around shared conviction, and questioning was at best unnecessary, at worst dangerous. From Sunday school to vacation Bible school, from weekly services to summer camps, my life was saturated in doctrine.
At nine years old, I was baptized alongside my best friend Nate on Easter Sunday, 1992. It was supposed to be the moment I was reborn, washed clean, a new creation in Christ. But in truth, I barely understood what salvation meant. I knew only that it was expected. The adults in my life framed it as a natural milestone, the inevitable outcome of being raised in the faith. I trusted them, as all children do.
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)
That was the guiding philosophy—indoctrination presented as nurturing. I never questioned it, not yet.
As I grew, my faith became more than just something I inherited; it became something I actively participated in. I led worship, sang in church, went on mission trips, and guided others down the Roman Road to salvation. I could recite scripture effortlessly, deploying it like a well-honed weapon in theological debates. By the time I entered college, I was certain I had been called to ministry. The plan was simple: earn my degree in teaching, then go to seminary. I believed that God had a plan for my life, and I was eager to fulfill it.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, everything began to unravel.
The breaking point came in a Sunday school discussion about the age of the earth. My minor was in geography, and I had just completed a course in geology. I had already accepted evolution as a scientific fact, something demonstrable through geology, fossil records, and observable natural processes. But the church I attended was deeply fundamentalist, entrenched in biblical literalism. The idea that the earth was billions of years old was not just incorrect in their eyes—it was heretical and dangerous.
That conversation ignited something that had likely been simmering under the surface for a while. I had been taught that faith and reason were not at odds, but now I saw that was only true as long as reason submitted to faith. The moment I entertained the possibility that science offered a more accurate picture of reality, I had crossed a line.
I became a problem.
I started asking more questions, engaging with ideas that made the church’s leadership uncomfortable. Some of the deacons had already been wary of me for pursuing higher education, sneeringly calling me an "educated idiot." Now, I was openly challenging their worldview. The response was swift: I was removed from leadership. No more teaching Sunday school, no more leading worship, no more participation with the youth group.
The final blow came when I brought a book to church—Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thích Nhất Hạnh. It was an assignment for a sociology of religion course, a book meant to explore parallels between Buddhist and Christian teachings. But context didn’t matter. My small group leader saw it, called the pastor, and within a day I was given an ultimatum: submit to counseling with the pastor or never set foot on church property again.
That was the moment I knew. There was no going back.
"The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself." (Saint Augustine)
But I had seen the opposite—truth was something to be controlled, policed, protected from intrusion. And that realization shattered the faith I had once thought was unbreakable.
Reflections on Honesty: The Years of Searching
Leaving the church should have been liberating, but instead, it was devastating. I had not only lost my faith, but my entire sense of identity. Without belief, who was I? Without church, where did I belong?
For a time, I drifted. I tried to hold onto spirituality, believing I could be spiritual but not religious. I explored Zen Buddhism, drawn to its emphasis on self-awareness and impermanence. But I never felt comfortable calling myself a Buddhist—I wasn’t. I read voraciously, diving into philosophy, comparative religion, existentialism. The more I learned, the more I saw the cracks in the foundation of the faith I had once defended so fiercely. And the deeper I searched, the more I felt the weight of betrayal.
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere." (Voltaire)
I had been taught to revere certainty, to fear doubt, to trust authority. Now, I saw that those who had led me—those who had shaped my worldview—had done so with an agenda. Not out of malice, perhaps, but out of their own fear. The fear of being wrong. The fear of uncertainty.
And yet, even in my anger, even in my grief, I never stopped searching.
In 2012, roughly a decade after I had left the church, I found myself at St. Gregory’s Abbey in Three Rivers, Michigan, living as a monk for a month. I didn’t go there seeking a return to Christianity—I went seeking truth. What I found was something I hadn’t expected.
The monks were not paragons of holiness. They were not spiritual giants. They were broken men, ordinary and flawed, simply trying to live a life of faith with honesty. They weren’t Thomas Merton—they were human. And in their daily practice, I saw a truth I had never understood before:
Faith was not a feeling. It was not certainty. It was not something bestowed upon the righteous.
Faith was an act.
Just as they tought that prayer is work, they showed me that faith is showing up. Again and again. Regardless of doubt.
For a time, I found a home in the Episcopal Church. My questions were welcomed, my doubts did not exclude me. Even though I was not a believer, I was invited to participate as a lay minister, to read scripture, to be part of something. It healed my wounds in ways I had not thought possible.
Then, in 2022, my friend—the reverend of that church—died of cancer.
His passing marked the quiet closing of a chapter. The anger was gone. The grief had faded. The wounds had healed. And when the world opened back up after COVID, I no longer felt the need to return.
I no longer needed faith.
Looking Ahead: The Truth That Remains
My time in the Episcopal Church showed me Christianity at its best—a home for the wounded, a place for the broken, a community of imperfect people willing to show up and try. I respect that deeply. But I also know that I am not a Christian. I have no desire to participate in rituals I do not believe in or mislead others on their own paths.
I am at peace being an atheist.
Truth, I have learned, is not a fixed point. It is a road walked step by step, with shifting landscapes and unexpected turns. The truth I held at nine is not the truth I hold now, and the truth I hold now will not be the truth I carry decades from today.
Looking back at the young man I was—the one who was so sure, so ready to argue scripture, so convinced he had all the answers—I think about what I would say to him.
I don’t know if I could reach him. He would need to learn the hard way, just as I did.
But if I could plant a seed, I would tell him this:
"It’s not their fault. They are afraid—afraid to be wrong. But being wrong is the only way we learn. The only way we grow."