Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 155 | Deconversion

Episode Date: August 26, 2019

Can people actually lose their salvation once they’ve been saved?

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys. Welcome to Relatable. Happy Monday. I hope that everyone had a wonderful weekend.

As promised, we are talking about deconversion today. And by deconversion, I mean the act or the process of leaving Christianity or denouncing your Christian faith. this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and

clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed. You can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. The reason we are talking about Deconversion today is because there have been two public figures who have recently announced their disassociation with the Christian faith. The first was Joshua Harris. He is a former pastor.

He is the author of I Kiss Dating Goodbye. And the second was Marty Sampson, a songwriter for Hill Song. So a lot of articles have been written about both of these guys. A lot of commentary has been given. Some I agree with. Some I don't. Captions have been posted, tweets have been sent, et cetera. But my goal, as always on Theological Monday, is to give us a biblical thought-provoking perspective on what's going on. Before I do that, I actually want to address an email that I got. And since it was regarding my last Theological Monday episode, I thought it would be appropriate to bring it up before we actually get into this. So somewhat admonished me in what I think was a very biblical way, Apparently in my last episode or last Monday's episode, I said that motherhood was the best thing that ever happened to me. So I kind of used those superlatives a lot, thinking that it is implied that obviously salvation and regeneration through Jesus Christ is actually the best thing that has happened to me. But I probably shouldn't take that for granted. So to the person who reached out to me and said, hey, you might want to correct this. I appreciate you doing so in a loving way.

And that is true. Of course, nothing even comes close to that. That's eternal. even something is joyful and as wonderful as motherhood is temporary, and I should be more clear about that. So anyway, I just wanted to clarify that in case any of you out there were thinking the same thing. And just to let you know, I always take those kinds of emails very seriously. So thank you. Okay.

So Joshua Harris was a big name in the purity culture of the 90s and the early 2000s. He and his brother were the kind of young guys that Christian parents wanted their kids to look up to. I remember my mom giving me the books. dating goodbye in another book he wrote, I think, with his brother called Do Hard Things. I, by the way, did a whole episode on purity culture titled Purity Culture a few months ago, so you should go check that out, the good, the bad, the ugly, what we should actually take away from it and how we can change it for our kids. In July, Joshua Harris announced that he and his wife were divorcing.

He said they've changed and they are continuing their lives, his friends. His wife, interestingly enough, if you look her up or look on her Instagram, she just describes herself as an ex-vangelical. So that's the nickname that people use for themselves when they have left what they would probably call a fundamentalist Christianity or just evangelical Christianity. So she now rejects that. That was the first bit of disappointing news for people who are fans of Joshua Harris. I personally haven't been following him. I literally just knew his name from Ike's dating goodbye. As Christians, of course, we know that what God's word says about divorce that he hates divorce and there is certainly not a biblical justification for separation due

to just personality changes or some kind of evolution of interest or even spirituality or anything like that. But that kind of tipped people off that there's probably something a little deeper going on in his life than just an ending of a marriage. About a week later, he posted again, this was the post that garnered a lot of media coverage and this time it was about his faith. So it's a long post. Here is one sentence from it. I won't read you the whole thing. He says,

by all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. He also apologizes for how his book may have hurt people, especially the LGBTQ community. A few days later, he was pictured at a pride parade in Vancouver. He had actually written a blog post when I was researching. I found this.

I didn't know. He wrote a blog post a couple years ago saying that he regretted what he wrote in Ikehs, saying goodbye. He kind of renounced the doctor. that he supported then, and the publisher actually agreed upon his request to stop the publication of the book. I never read it. Maybe I told my parents I did. I don't remember. If I did read it, I must have just skimmed it because I don't really remember, but I get the gist. It's basically, you know, kissing goodbye, modern dating, and deciding to court someone with the very keen intention

of marrying that person. So it seems like for Josh Harris that this had been kind of a long time coming or he's been kind of wrestling through some things for a while. I'm not sure what precipitated this whole process for him, why he stopped believing the things that he wrote as a teenager and as a 20-something, why he stopped believing the things that he used to preach as a pastor. But the same thing seemed to happen for his wife. I don't know what she was like before. I've never read anything that she's written if she's written anything. But the same thing kind of seemed to be going on in her life. So they probably had an effect on one another. I can only guess. And then there was Marty Sampson, the guy who was a part of Hill Song, who also announced his relinquishing of his

Christian faith on Instagram. He has since deleted his post, but there were, again, a lot of articles on this that put the caption in the article. So here's part of what he said. Time for some real talk. I'm genuinely losing my faith and it doesn't bother me. Like, what bothers me now is nothing. I am so happy now, so at peace with the world. It's crazy. This is a soapbox moment, so here I go. How many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it. How many miracles happen? Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be beloved yet send four billion people to a place all because they don't believe? No one talks about it. Christians can be so judgmental or can be the most judgmental people on the

planet. They can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people, but it's not for me. What is amazing? Just, I got to pause for a second. What is amazing about the statements that he just said is the absolute pride and I don't know, a nicer word. way to say this ignorance in the questions that he's asking as if there haven't been thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people who have asked those very same theological questions and wrestled with them in truth, seeking God's word for what feels like very uncomfortable seeming contradictions in his word. He is not the only person who has asked these questions. He is not the only person that has struggled in this way. People throughout history

have asked the same questions and have wrestled in a way that seems to endure a lot longer than he has. So he says, it's not for me. Then he goes on to say, all I know is what's true to me right now. And Christianity just seems to me like another religion at this point. I could go on, but I won't. Love and forgive absolutely. Be kind, absolutely. Be generous and do good to others, absolutely. Some things are good no matter what you believe, let the rain fall. The sun will come up tomorrow. So the theological incompetence that he is demonstrating in this caption really disturbs me as someone who has been writing some of our most prominent worship songs for almost two decades now. So after so much hubbub surrounding this post, he actually came out and said, no, he's not not a Christian necessarily. He just has questions.

Of course, that's not really what he said in his original post. So I'm not totally sure what to think about that. I hope that it's true that he hasn't completely renounced his faith. and that he does just have questions. I don't want to deeply analyze each of their captions because I think that would take too long and I don't think it's the most productive thing to do because even though they said slightly different things,

they're coming out stories, if you want to call it that, share enough similarities for us to talk about them together and discuss deconversion in general. We're going to talk about what deconversion is, how to recognize it, what the Bible says about it and how we as Christians can, A, evaluate our own hearts and faith and B, help those who may be going through a deconversion experience themselves. In this, we are also going to answer the very controversial question.

Can someone actually lose their salvation once they have been saved? So first, what is deconversion? It is also referred to often as deconstruction. Some people may refer to it as a falling away, though I'm not totally sure that that's the correct phrase to use. It is the process of someone taking, this is how I describe it. I'm not, I haven't looked this up on Wikipedia or anything, but it's the process of taking a step back from your faith, taking it apart piece by piece, looking at each piece by itself, one by one saying,

I don't like that. I don't agree with that. That's no good. Until finally, you are left with just a few pieces that suit you, your proclivities and your inclinations, but together, they don't represent Christianity. It's funny that every single person that I have seen or heard of at least who deconstructs their faith or deconverse from Christianity all choose the same pieces to throw out and to keep. So they throw out the pieces that have to do with holiness, with obedience, with sin, and repentance. They throw out the pieces about self-denial.

They almost always throw out the pieces about God's wrath. They throw out the pieces about biblical sexuality, that it is excluded to one man and one woman within the context of marriage. have quite a few episodes on that. The most recent is titled biblical marriage. They throw out the pieces that declare inarguably that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So they throw out everything that makes them and other people uncomfortable. Anything that might cause an unbeliever to call them a bigot, they throw out. They throw out all of the things that they swear that no one has ever wrestled with except for them. Instead of submitting their doubt to the word of God, they lean on their own understanding which the Bible explicitly tells us not to do to make sense of that

which they just don't get or makes them a little queasy. They throw out the gospel of salvation. They throw out the cross. They throw out absolute truth. They throw out biblical morality and holiness. And yet they hold on to the pieces of love, forgiveness, and grace, not realizing that these things, that one, that God alone both defines and perfectly demonstrates these things, and two, without the gospel, these are nothing. They make no sense. They have no lasting value whatsoever. The only reason that love, forgiveness, and grace matter is because God says that they do. What is the point of love, forgiveness, and grace outside of the gospel? They make you and other people feel good, but other than feelings, why should we operate out of that kind of a worldview?

you? Why do these things matter if they're not a directive from God? And these are questions not just for ex-fangelicals, if we just want to use that term, but for anyone who claims to hold to morality defined by generosity towards others who don't believe in the one true God, who tells us to live a life defined by generosity and who showed us how to do so by sending his son to die for us the most radically generous act in all of eternity? I mean, why love anyone but yourself? Why forgive those who have wronged you. Why give grace when you can just hold a grudge? These are all perfectly acceptable choices in today's world. And yet every ex-vangelical that I've ever encountered or read about still claims that selflessness, that mercy, that service are important values to withhold.

But the question is why? And most of them will say that you really don't need to answer why, just like atheists and agnostics do. They also say you don't need to answer why it just is. You don't need to know why, just because. We're just supposed. We're just supposed. to because it makes you a decent person, to which I say, okay, come on, let's not be lazy here. Like, let's just take it a step further. Let's just think a little bit harder. What is supposed to mean? What is what is supposed? What is a should? What is a decent mean? If you're trying to be a decent person, what does that mean? By what standard are you operating under? Those who do not find their reasoning for their belief system in the God of the universe must find their reasoning for

their belief system in the universe. So those who do not find their reasoning for their belief system in the God of the universe must find their reasoning for their belief system in the universe. And time and time again, they find that it's just not there. Survival of the fittest does not account for kindness towards strangers or grace for your enemy. Evolution doesn't account for beauty, for wonder, for joy, grief, honesty, heroism, altruism. The things that human beings feel and do because we are made in the image of God and that are made sense by and made complete in the gospel of Jesus Christ. But this presents a really uncomfortable reality for deconverters or deconverts, however we say that, and unbelievers in general.

If all of these things have both their source and their significance in the God who created them, the same God who became flesh and died on the cross for our sins, who breathed out the scriptures that we have in our hands today, then we have no right to extricate these things, decontextualize them, personalize them, and manipulate them and use them as we see fit. We have no right. We have to look at them as part of the whole of God's word

and God's character who is not only loving and gracious and good, but also just in wrathful and holy. And it's the latter characteristics and the obedience and worship that they demand that these deconverters and agnostics and atheists do not like. Why? Because, as we know, as sinful and fallen, selfish human beings, all of us, self-denial is really uncomfortable. We, apart from Christ, only like to be uncomfortable when it suits us, when it helps us advance our goals. We don't like to be uncomfortable when we don't get something very tangible in return for us. This is especially

true in this day and age when sacrifices demonized and selfishness is glorify as virtue. It's also especially true today when being a Christian, someone who actually believes Jesus is the only way and thus holds to the Bible as the inerrant word of God. When being a Christian means getting canceled. Being comfortable today is just not worth it to most people. It feels better to lose our soul and gain the world than gain our soul and be called a bigot. But those who deconvert unfortunately seem unaware of their fear and rather emboldened by their confusion.

They simultaneously claim to no longer know yet to know everything much more clearly than ever before. They're unsure of what they believe, but they're absolutely confident in that uncertainty. They dress up their discombobulation as a philosophical revelation that only the unenlightened won't understand. It's amazing the hubris that is involved in believing that you are the first one to ask questions, like I was saying earlier, that you've asked, or that anyone else that has asked the questions has ended up also rejecting the word of God. It's amazing the pride that we all have, that we've all been guilty of one time or another, when we seek answers to our doubts in the world or in ourselves instead of in the giver of wisdom himself, as if we're capable of that.

Those who deconvert don't always announce that they are atheists. Sometimes they call themselves spiritual. Sometimes they say that they're just following Jesus, but they reject organized religion or they don't relate to Christianity, whatever it is. Sometimes they just don't know. And sometimes they still claim to be Christians. But to now have a new understanding of the faith that is not supported by the Bible, but is nevertheless inspired, nevertheless, what they're going to go with and build their lives on. Examples of these would be Jen Hatmaker and Glenn and Doyle, who have decided that God has changed his mind about sin and has redefined marriage from what he set up in the Garden of Eden and reflected in Christ in the church and has caught up to culture. They think that it is

very considerate of God to finally get on the right side of history. And for those of you who are thinking, okay, we don't need to be sarcastic about that. I think it's okay. I think that a little snark is probably a lot less harsh than what the Bible has to say about false teachers, and I think it's important that we get into that. Here's what 2 Peter 2 says about false teachers, so people who try to lead others away with a different gospel or false doctrine that doesn't align with the word of God. I won't read the whole chapter of 2nd Peter 2, but I'm going to read a good chunk of it.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction, and many will follow their sensuality. And because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. It goes on to say, listen to this. Listen to what God thinks of false teachers and has planned for those who lead people astray. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime.

They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed, a cursed children, forsaking the right way. they have gone astray. These are waterless springs and mist driven by a storm. For them, the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For speaking loud, boasts of folly, they enticed by sensual passions of the flesh, those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. That's a really good line. They promised them freedom,

but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. If that doesn't put the literal fear of God in you, I don't know it will. God has no tolerance whatsoever for those who lead others to a gospel that is not his. That is not the one articulated in his word. Paul in his letter to the church in Galatia says this, Galatians 1, 6 through 8. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be a cursed.

Those who seek to have people follow their new philosophy or any philosophy that does not line up with God's word, but they say that it does. They purport it to be the gospel who promise freedom, but are themselves slaves of corruption, will meet God's wrath. and this is why we must pray for them. This is why we have to pray for all of those who have been deceived, all of those who have given into the world. Pray for not just these names that the world knows, but also those in your life, in my life. Pray that as Ephesians 118 says,

that the eyes of their hearts would be enlightened, that they may know the hope to which they've been called. Pray for their repentance. Pray that God would give them grace. Pray that Christians would speak boldly into their lives, that their Christian friends and family would not talk. tolerate them not knowing the truth. And there's this. We have to pray for ourselves. I have to pray for my heart, my faith, that God would strengthen me, that I wouldn't be so prideful to think that

I couldn't be deceived or deceive other people. We have to pray for our families, our pastors, the godliest, holiest people we know. We have to pray for them too. Philippians 212 says that we have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And I know that can sound really scary or really legalistic or that salvation is up to us, but we read the next part that says, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So God works in us, and through him, he allows us to be able to obey and to seek and trust and worship and submit and surrender. If you have a friend who has done this, who is deconverted, share the gospel with them. It doesn't matter if they say, hey, I grew up in church. I know everything that you're about

to say. I don't need to hear that Jesus died for me. Tell them. If you have a friend who rejects what you know according to the Bible is true Christianity, share the gospel. Then we have to pray as Romans 2-4 says that God's kindness would lead them to repentance. In addition to praying, we have to read our Bibles. And we are all guilty, me included, definitely, of neglecting, reading scripture and studying theology. But our doubts and our questions are concerned have to find reconciliation. They have to find their answer in God's word and in his wisdom and not in our own understanding.

we're always going to be confused. We have to know our theology. One of the biggest problems with young Christians today, I've talked about this so many times before, is that they don't know theology. They don't know their Bibles. They don't read God's Word. They don't know what God's word says about what's going on. And so they just follow cultural whims. They craft their own version of what they call Christianity, and then they end up worshiping themselves. And we shouldn't be surprised when they walk away altogether. If you are a part of a church or a particular version of so-called Christianity that does not prioritize reading and studying and meditating on the Word of God or does not view the Word of God supreme or inerrant, you are in the wrong place. Your church leadership is

not inerrant. Your pastor is not inerrant. Your counselor is not anerrant. Your catechism is not inerrant, but the word of God is. And if you don't know it, if we don't know it, if I don't know it, I'll fall. Now, here's the big question. Does all of this mean if we're supposed to pray and persevere and strive and work out our salvation with fear and trembling, does this mean that a Christian can lose their salvation? Let me read for you, Ephesians 1.13 through 14. You also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. when you believed you were marked in him with this seal, the promised Holy Spirit,

who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory. A Christian is someone who has heard and believed the message of truth, which is that Jesus Christ, God made flesh, died and rose again, defeating sin and death, and is coming back to rule for all eternity,

which this passage says is the gospel of our salvation. So our reconciliation to God, our justification, our regeneration, that's what Jesus accomplished for us, which means, as 2 Corinthians 517 says, that when we are saved by Jesus, we are a new creation. So not just a new and improved or a better and improved version of ourselves, but actually a new creation. The old has passed the new has come. That Ephesians passage says that we were marked with a seal, the Holy Spirit.

That is a deposit or a down payment. It's another word for that. A guarantee of our inheritance. A guarantee, a promise. It is promised to us and God does not break his promises. I don't know about you, but that to me sounds really permanent. That sounds like something that we can't change on our own. In John 1028, Jesus says, I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one

will snatch them out of my hand. Romans 838 through 39 says, for I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor high, nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. First John 219 says, they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. I heard John McArthur say that if you could lose your salvation, you would. And I think that is true according to God's word. The Bible is clear that it is God who saves us, who chooses us, who predestines us, as Ephesians 1, 4 through 5 says,

He and he alone can take credit for our salvation. Ephesians 2 says that we are dead in our sin apart from Christ. Dead people can't save themselves. They don't have any part in their salvation. So if Christ is fully responsible for our salvation, it's not ours to lose. Philippians 1-6 says, And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work and you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Remember Philippians 2.13 that we quoted earlier, that it is God who works in you, both to will and to work, his good pleasure. Those who are truly saved forever and ever, according to God's word. I don't see any other way to interpret the verses that we just read. Ephesians 1-4 says that we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. If we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world to be adopted as sons and daughters, it doesn't make any sense to believe that we can lose that. That adoption isn't going to fall through. Those who walk away from what they purported to be a Christian, and here's the key part, and never repented and never came back, were never saved.

They may have known the Bible, just as Satan and his demons know the Bible. They may have had spiritual experiences, but they were never saved. However, if a person is saved, the Lord will call them back to repentance, and by grace, they will obey. And so I pray for these people's repentance, everyone who we listed here today, everyone that we know who is in this same kind of position. I pray for their repentance. I pray for their restoration. I pray for their deliverance. I pray that God would have mercy on them. I pray that God would continue to give me grace, to give us grace to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And we all should

be praying the same thing. I think one part that's confusing is that the Bible is so clear that we also need to persevere, that we also need to endure, that we also need to work out our salvation, as the Bible says. But I think what we have to remember before we see, say, well, that's contradictory. Maybe we do have some part in our salvation. Maybe we are responsible for it and maybe we can lose it. Remember, what we do when it seems like two things contradict each other is that we reconcile them with the word of God. And I think the way that we do that is that we realize that even the perseverance and the so-called striving or the working that we're doing is a work of the Holy Spirit. And that, yes, we are called to obey. Yes, we are called to persist and

persevere and to make sure that we are testing ourselves and examining ourselves, as the word of God says. But even that is a work of the Holy Spirit. And because we have the Holy Spirit and as a guarantee of our inheritance, we can be assured that we were chosen before the foundation of the world. And that is not going to change. That's part of God's eternal plan. There's a verse in the book of Job. And someone, I'm sure, can tell me what the specific reference is. And I don't remember, but there's a verse in the book of Job that says, no plan of God's can be thwarted. I think it's Job talking, so he says,

I know that no plan of yours can be thwarted. And we know that, especially as it pertains to salvation, we've talked about how Jesus says that not even a sparrow falls from the sky without the Heavenly Father knowing about it. So if God even knows about that, something that is so insignificant, I think that we can also trust that he knows

and therefore because he is fully sovereign predestined, our salvation and there's nothing that we can do to lose it. So again, we pray for repentance and restoration. We pray for our own selves that we continue to have grace and that we would persevere that the Holy Spirit would give us that strength. That's it for today. I hope that answered some questions that you guys had. There are so many different directions that we could go in this. I hope that you guys know that I am not coming from any kind of place of pride or self-righteousness. It makes me very sad that these two people are going through this season. And I take no joy whatsoever in them giving us content to talk about on this subject for this podcast. Not at all.

I have sympathy for them and my heart breaks for them and I think it should for all of us. And just pray also that no one is led astray by them as well. Okay, thank you guys so much for listening. As always, if you've got any questions, email me, Ali, at the Conservative, millennial blog.com. Please share this podcast with your friends if you like it. And I will see you guys back here on Wednesday. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality.

We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.