You Were Never A Christian in the First Place

“My Responses to ‘You Were Never a Christian‘

By John W. Loftus at 7/25/2011

As an ex-Christian you’ve heard the same spiel, ‘You were never a Christian.’ How do you respond? I respond in four ways: 1) That’s just one of your delusions. There are many more; 2) Your God promised that if I believed he would save me. I believed, so why didn’t he keep his promise?; 3) I don’t care what you think. Deal with my arguments; 4) You’re right, because there isn’t any truth to Christianity. I was never saved because Jesus doesn’t save anyone and that includes you” (http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-responses-to-you-were-never.html).

John Loftus has given four responses to the statement “You were never a Christian.”  I don’t know where people get the idea that if a person becomes an atheist it is because he has never become a Christian, unless they hold to the “once saved-always saved” doctrine (a doctrine the Bible clearly refutes).  A person can be a true Christian and lose his/her faith in God, the Bible and the church and become an atheist.  Their becoming an atheist does not preclude their never having been a Christian in the first place.

Far too many people have given in to the Calvinistic doctrine of “once saved-always saved” which leads them to the conclusion that if one becomes an atheist he was never a Christian in the first place.  So what was he?  Was he an atheist before he became an atheist?  If someone obeys the gospel, does what the Bible teaches one to do to become a Christian, then that person is a Christian.  However, salvation is conditioned upon obedience.  Our obedience to the gospel doesn’t stop just because we become Christians.  The position that we do implies that there is a difference between doctrine and gospel, and one cannot preach gospel to the church, nor can he preach doctrine to the world.  The Bible refutes this idea in two statements:  (1) Luke wrote the following: “Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord” (Acts 13:12).  This man was not a Christian, but doctrine was taught to him.  (2) Paul’s statement to the churches of Galatia ”I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you to the grace of Christ, unto another gospel.  Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.  But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:6-8).  In these two statements we have doctrine being taught to the world, and gospel being taught to the church.  Actually the word “doctrine” comes from the word “didache” and simply means “teaching.”  So when people argue that there is a difference between gospel and doctrine, they are saying that there is a difference between the gospel of Christ and the teachings of Christ.  Nothing is further from the truth.

Loftus’ first response is that “That’s just one of your delusions.”  Here he is correct because one of the definitions of the word delusion is “False representation; illusion, error or mistake preceding from false views” (Webster, e-Sword).  As previously stated, this idea comes from the false doctrine of “once saved-always saved.”  The second response is “Your God promised that if I believed he would save me. I believed, so why didn’t he keep his promise?”   God never promised that all one had to do is “believe” in order to be saved, any more than God promised that all who repented would be saved.  There are several things one must do to be saved from his sins and belief is just one of them.  However, a person can believe, obey and have his/her sins washed away, only to fall away and be lost.  Paul stated “But I keep under my body, and bring into subjection:  lest that by any means after I have preached to others, I myself should be castaway” (1 Cor. 927).  Paul understood that he could be lost after being a Christian, faithfully living the Christian life, if he lost his faith and went back into a life of sin.  So Loftus could have been a Christian, lost his faith in God, fallen away and be lost.  It is not the Lord’s fault that he fell away, it is his own.  We often try to blame others with our faults, and this is what many have done when they say that if they weren’t saved it is the Lord’s fault.

Loftus’ third response is “I don’t care what you think. Deal with my arguments.”  This is a double-edged sword.  One of the claims that atheists make towards Christians is that we are Christians solely because we were raised that way.  So in Loftus’ style, all we have to say is “I don’t care what you think.  Deal with my arguments.”  I don’t think John would let that stand as a response.  So it is equally invalid when he makes it.  His final response is “You’re right, because there isn’t any truth to Christianity. I was never saved because Jesus doesn’t save anyone and that includes you”  No, this doesn’t work either.  It would be like me saying that man never evolved because evolution doesn’t work, and that includes you.”  Loftus would argue that evolution does work and then supply arguments to prove that it works; though the arguments would not hold true.  It is clear that Loftus doesn’t believe that Jesus saved him, and he may very well be right.  But it won’t be because Jesus doesn’t save people.  If he was never saved, it is because he didn’t do what the Bible said to do to become a Christian.

Three of the four responses that John gave are invalid, with only the first one being valid.  Christians need to think about what they are saying when they claim that one became an atheist because he was never a Christian in the first place.  However, John (and those like him) needs to look at the invalid statements they are making.

In Christ Jesus

Jerry McDonald

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Who Has The Burden of Proof?

The following link takes you to the Baker Book House blog to an article entitled “Who Has The Burden of Proof?”  It is a good short article (advertising the book  Why People Don’t Believe: Confronting Seven Challenges to Christian Faith by Chamberlain) that I thought you might want to read as it shows that the atheist’s view that only Christians have the burden of proof is false.

In Christ Jesus

Jerry McDonald

Another One Bites The Dust.

“McDonald:  So the scriptures were NOT WRITTEN BY GOD?

Oldridge: Correct.

McDonald:  Who was the author of the scriptures?

Oldridge:  Various men over a period of roughly 1200 years.

McDonald:  I see your whole problem now, you don’t believe that the Bible is the inspired and inerrant word of God.

Oldridge:  You are right.  I reject this latter-day doctrine” (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChallengeII/message/2175).

The words above are part of an email discussion between Dave Oldridge and me concerning evolution vs. Creation.  It always amazes me how someone can claim to hold to the Bible, believe in God and claim to be a Christian while holding to evolution.  Mr. Oldridge began this discussion making those claims.  Now after several months of discussion he has dwindled down to nothing more than atheism.  While he still claims to be a Christian (and even claims to be a successor to the apostles), he has denied the inspiration and inerrancy of the only book on earth that would give him instruction on how to become a Christian and let him know anything about the apostles at all.  While Oldridge explicitly denies being an atheist his actions speak much louder than his words.  Jesus spoke of those whose actions would speak louder than words when he said:

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them“ (Mat 7:15-20).

Mr. Oldridge has done exactly what the weak in faith have been doing for generations, following the only logical path that their position affords, complete unbelief.  Over the last 30 years I have seen many follow this path and it is all because they do not follow the scriptures and the scriptures only.  We have a saying, in the church of Christ, that says:  ”The scriptures only make Christians only, and the only Christians.”  In other words, if you follow the scriptures then they will make you a Christian.  However, you cannot become a Christian by any other means.  Those who try to hold to other means of Christianity eventually fall completely.

What people see in the theory of evolution is something that I cannot see.  Why would anyone want to admit that they are the product of evolution from apes, is something I shall never understand.  I tend to think that God created man special and that he has given man dominion over the apes–they are just animals.  I believe the Bible when it teaches that animals are lower than man in every way; and especially when it comes to our souls and spiritual importance.  I fail to see the glory in saying “that ape is my relative.”  There are many humans that I wish I didn’t have to claim relation to, but apes????  People who hold to theistic evolution must be so brow beaten and so down on themselves that they cannot think of man as being above apes.  I don’t see the fascination with the idea of man evolving from lower primates.  The only thing that I can find that has any value in it at all is if I was to become an atheist and I wanted to convince myself that there was no God.  However, we have religious people clamoring to the idea that they are evolved apes and that this somehow makes them special.

No, the only way to be special is to hold to the belief that man was created separately and apart from the animals on this earth and that everything reproduces after its own kind.  Thus telling us that no ape ever produced a man or even a partial man, and that no man is the reproduction of any ape.

Dave Oldridge, now, has his face in the dust because he has finally fallen completely.  All he needs to do now to complete his conversion to unbelief is to go ahead and follow his path to its logical conclusion and say “There Is No God.”  But then, the Bible has a saying about that too:  ”The Fool hath said in his heart, there is no God” (Psa. 14:1).  Those who say that there is no God are fools.  Oldridge continues to bite the dust and will continue until he finally bites it one last time and falls clean off into unbelief.

Oldridge only has one hope:  Accept the Bible as the inspired, inerrant, all sufficient and authoritative word of God, and follow it.  But he won’t do that because he would rather have the praises of men rather than the praise of God (Jn. 12:43).