*UPDATE-Matt Recently Became Christian Again. A few months after we recorded this interview, Matt became Christian again. I'm leaving the interview up, but wanted listeners to know in case they were to reach out to Matt.
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Matt was born in Wichita, Kansas and lived there until about age 7.
He was raised non-denominational/charismatic mostly in the Assemblies of God churches and had full on believed by age 5. He had great parents and never had too many issues in the church. However, he always had a great fear of hell even as a Christian.
He was in and out of church most of his life until his first divorce. Then went to bible college at a very charismatic school in 2009. He began seeing cracks and flaws in that particular doctrine and started pulling back. He had gotten his minister's license close to graduation and upon graduation went straight to the mission field in Asia in 2011/12. He worked with the underground church in China and the Burmese refugees I’m Thailand.
He finally began having more questions over the years until he couldn’t do it anymore because of how it was just messing his head up. 10,000 religions, 40,000 plus denominations within Christianity alone, good people going to hell, simply for not believing. He hated the way Christians viewed & spoke to the LGBTQ community and other faiths like they all couldn’t just be people, but had to be a mission and Christians had to have an agenda. He felt that devalued all groups outside of Christendom as less than human. He hated it.
Later he had a stint in rehab for alcohol and began reading books like the wisdom of insecurity from Alan Watts and Thomas Paine’s the Age of Reason. He felt like he'd found freedom in Deism. He was there for a bit, then went back out of fear. That didn’t last long.
The full shift happened less than a year ago and now he is an Atheist. He said he truly feels born again and free.
012 Marty McDonald-Very Devout Catholic From Childhood, He Became Evangelical in Adulthood. Marty is Now an Atheist.
011 Wendy Marsman- Raised Fundamentalist, A Missionary for 15 Years Before Her 20 Year Marriage Ended. Now an Atheist, She Reconnected with Her High School Sweetheart.
010 Luciano Gonzalez-Moderate Catholic to Active Conservative Christian. He was Raised in Latin America & The United States
009 Audrey Moreland-Raised Strict Jehovah's Witness, She Lost Family & Friends When She Left the Church
008 Gary Westfall-One of My Best Friends, Raised with Belief in God, Now Agnostic
006 Dr. Anthony Pinn - A Good Methodist Who Became a Better Atheist
Special Episode: Researching Deconversion with Professor Jim Nagle
005 Maria Stadtmueller of The Big Chew Podcast and meetyourmyth.com
004 Robert Parham, M.A., LMHC
003 Alix Jules: Writer, Activist, Social Critic, Commentator & Blogger
002 Ebony Exodus Project: Candace Gorham, LPC
001 Dan Barker-Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
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