They Turned Their Back on God

I remember after church every Sunday, I would tell Christy, I'm just, I'm not who they think I am. They think I'm clamping my eyes shut because I'm having such a meaningful experience, but I'm clamping my eyes shut because I can't find anything.

But I took a second to go one layer deeper and to look at the answers to the Christian answers that I had been given all my life. And that was when I realized that this Jesus thing was very, very messy.

That I was no longer choosing to live according to those.

I'm just not a Christian anymore, and it feels really good.

The Rise of Public Deconversion Among Former Christians

Brett McLaughlin and Link Neal, entertainers and YouTube sensations, host of the immensely popular Good Mythical Morning channel and Ear Biscuits podcasts. Abraham Piper, John Piper's son and TikTok sensation.

Joshua Harris, author of the popular book, I Kiss Dating Goodbye. Marty Sampson, former Hillsong worship leader and songwriter. Paul Maxwell, former Desiring God contributor, former philosophy professor at Moody Bible Institute.

These men have turned away from the Christian faith. Some people call it deconstruction, but that's really just another word for apostasy. In other words, they are just non-Christians now. And not just non-Christians, they are now essentially anti-Christians who are loudly proclaiming their new non-Christian worldviews.

John Cooper, lead singer for the Christian rock band, Skillet, got it right when he posted, what is happening in Christianity? More and more of our outspoken leaders or influencers who were once faces of the faith are falling away.

And at the same time, they are being very vocal and bold about it. Shockingly, they still want to influence others. For what purpose? As they announce that they are leaving the faith. I am stunned that the seemingly most important thing for these leaders who have lost their faith is to make such a bold new stance.

Basically saying, I've been living and preaching boldly something for 20 years and led generations of people with my teachings. And now I no longer believe it. Therefore, I'm going to boldly and loudly tell people it was all wrong.

While I boldly and loudly lead people in to my next truth. I'm perplexed why they aren't embarrassed, humbled, ashamed, fearful, confused. Why be so eager to continue leading people when you clearly don't know where you are headed?

Rhett and Link's Deconstruction Narrative

Let's take a look at the quote unquote deconstruction of these men. Rhett and Link used to be missionaries in Campus Crusade for Christ. Now known as CRU, staff members. In February of 2020, both Rhett and Link each posted videos that were nearly two hours long explaining their deconstruction.

I had never looked at the evidence revolution. I had read books about it written by people who didn't believe in it. I was even further troubled, right? And so I'm losing my faith in the Old Testament, but I'm also losing my faith in those same Christian thinkers who have said all this stuff that like, guys, this is solid as a rock.

You can stake your entire life on these truths and they'll always be vindicated. This was like a kind of a breath of fresh air for me, honestly, coming to California with all these doubts. I found these Christians who had these doubts, Christians who saw the Bible differently.

But I took a second to go one layer deeper and to look at the answers to the Christian answers that I had been given all my life. And that was when I realized that this Jesus thing was very, very messy.

By far to me personally, the most compelling and seemingly reasonable view was that the Gospels appear to be a mix of religious propaganda as well as actual history. I was creating God in my own image as opposed to God creating me in his image.

I remember after church every Sunday, I would tell Christy, I'm just, I'm not who they think I am. They think I'm clamping my eyes shut because I'm having such a meaningful experience, but I'm clamping my eyes shut because I can't find anything.

I felt fed up with this phony feeling every week. And I felt like it was on me, but I started to question if it was, if it was worth it. You just can't know. And I started to feel it was more likely that he didn't actually raise from the dead.

The Christian Response to Doubts About Evolution and the Resurrection

Of course, nothing Rhett or Link said are unanswerable questions for Christians. They argue against apologists like Lee Strobel, Josh McDowell, Tim Keller, and Ravi Zacharias. But not only are Rhett and Link's arguments not at all conclusive.

You know, my number one pet peeve when it comes to the culture war and origins is that people will allow evolutionists to talk about evolution like it's fact, like it's absolutely proven and be intimidating when it comes to talking about creationism.

And so there's absolutely no fact or no science on our side. And nothing could be further from the truth. The fact of the matter is there's actually more scientific evidence on our side than there is on theirs.

And there's more presupposition on their side than there is on ours.

They never mentioned deeper, philosophical, arguably stronger arguments made by apologists such as Gordon Clark, Greg Bonson, and Cornelius Van Til.

And truth. Scripture teaches us that God upholds the world and carries the universe along to its intended destination. Therefore, we have a justification that satisfies the preconditions necessary for the intelligibility of the uniformity in nature.

All human experience, let me say it again, all human experience depends upon the uniformity in nature. All human experience is dependent upon the principle of induction. Our opponents will assume this all night.

They're doing it right now. They'll not, however, be able to justify their appeals to it given their atheistic presuppositions. The Christian worldview denies what atheists like Dr. Clark and Mr. Ellis claim about reality, that it is simply matter in motion or that all that exists is the material universe.

The Christian worldview maintains that there are material and immaterial aspects to reality and our existence. And we'll demonstrate their dependence upon the triune God. If you like this video,.

A subscribe does more than you might think. In an article titled, Let's Deconstruct a Deconversion Story, The Case of Rhett and Link, Alisa Childers notes concerning Rhett, he suggested that if all these apologists and theologians were to recant their stories and change their opinions, their livelihoods would be at stake.

Aside from the fact that most apologists have day jobs, this leads to a fair question. What would Rhett and Link stand to lose if they didn't capitulate to culture on an issue like same-sex marriage?

Would Jack Black and Daniel Radcliffe guest star on their YouTube channel if they held to the biblical doctrine of marriage and homosexuality? How would it affect their revenue streams and net worth to remain faithful Christians in today's cultural climate?

Whatever their motivations, two things seem clear. First, Rhett and Link do not have any answers. They're just turning away from Christianity, which we would argue does have answers. The second, rejecting Christianity makes it much easier for Rhett and Link to maintain and expand their popularity in a culture that hates biblical values.

Abraham Piper is John Piper's son. Abraham was excommunicated from Bethlehem Bible Church when he was 19 because he wanted to stop pretending that he was a Christian. At 23, Abraham returned to the church saying, God made it possible for me to love Jesus.

After that, Abraham walked away from the faith again. And now Abraham has become a TikTok sensation who regularly criticizes Christianity.

Even the most abrasive fire and brimstone preacher doesn't really believe in a liberal hell. Here's how we can tell. If they allow themselves even a single banal luxury, they're proving they don't believe.

How are you gonna take your family to Outback after church while millions of people are burning alive? Lots of people saying they wish hell was real yesterday. You hear that a lot after notorious people die.

And I resonate with that. Nobody actually means it. They're just pissed and they're expressing their frustration hyperbolically. But my brain always goes to the same place and takes it literally. Let's say Christian hellfire is real.

If I got to hold the worst person ever over an open flame, how long could I do it? It's stupid and grotesque, but we're talking about hell here. So yeah, stupid and grotesque. Could I even do it for five seconds?

No, of course not. And neither could you, because it doesn't matter how bad they are. We're good. Good enough to not burn people alive anyway. What's interesting to me about this thought experiment that nobody asked me to conduct is that it shows you have to be insanely evil yourself to give evil people what they deserve.

Essentially, why would you hate God? He'll send you to hell. Or you should love God, otherwise he'll torture you.

Most people have ideas of hell based upon Dante. I'm sure most of you, all of you read in high school, Dante's Inferno, and have ideas that hell is some sort of kind of twisted, malignant, gleeful torture of human beings.

It's not. You say, ooh, that's good. It's worse. It is perfect justice. It is perfect, pure, blinding justice.

Of course, Abraham's arguments against Christianity aren't good arguments. Nevertheless, Abraham certainly has a lot of influence over a large number of people on TikTok. Joshua Harris was a popular Christian author who wrote, I Kiss Date and Goodbye.

In July of 2019, Harris published an Instagram post announcing that he and his wife were separated. Later that month, Harris published another post on Instagram saying, the information that was left out of our announcement is that I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus.

The popular phrase for this is deconstruction. The biblical phrase is falling away. By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. But I specifically want to add to this list now, to the LGBT plus community, I want to say that I am sorry for the views that I taught in my books and as a pastor regarding sexuality.

I regret standing against marriage equality for not affirming you and your place in the church and for any ways that my writing and speaking contributed to a culture of exclusion and bigotry. A couple of years later, Harris announced that he would be launching a course about deconstructing one's faith called Reframing Your Story, which would include a starter pack costing $275.

However, soon after launching this course, Harris took down the course because of widespread criticism. Marty Samson, former Hillsong worship leader and songwriter told the Christian Post, I have and continue to analyze the arguments of prominent Christian apologists and biblical scholars and am open-minded enough to consider the arguments of atheist debaters and debaters from other religions.

Churchleaders .com writes, he brought up questions like why God, who is supposed to be unconditionally loving, sends people to hell, why pastors fail morally and why advances in science seem to be piercing the truth of every religion.

Again, like with Rhett, Link, and Abraham's arguments against Christianity, there are answers to all of these questions. It simply seems that these men are choosing not to accept the answers that are being given.

Paul Maxwell and the Internal Assault on Truth

Paul Maxwell used to be a writer for Desiring God, the ministry that John Piper started. In April of 2021, Maxwell announced that he was not a Christian anymore.

I think it's important to say that I'm just not, I'm just not a Christian anymore. And it feels really good.

I'm really happy. All of these men will regret their decision to reject Christianity, which does indeed have answers to the questions they ask. Whether people will accept these answers rather than succumb to the pressures and temptations of the world is the real question.

This is not about attacks from the outside world. It's not about the outside, but the inside. The much more devastating, the much more subtle, the much more destructive assault on the truth from those who profess to know the truth.

We have to battle inside. It's as if we are in a fortress and ready to defend that fortress and its contents from those who would attack from the outside, all the while having to face an insidious eruption of rebellion on the inside so that we are always fighting on two fronts.