The following article is a reprint from the Wednesday, August 27, 2014 edition of eSkeptic Magazine.
I had never heard of Seth Andrews, but the below article caught my attention. After reading it I was curious to learn more of what Seth has done. I found there is a lot of him on the internet. I selected a few podcasts and listened to the things he had to say.
I invite you to listen to a little of his stuff. Things that were foggy to me before have been made clear and solidified my viewpoint... on religion, science, and where I fit my beliefs.
I invite you to listen to one podcast I found very interesting. The Unholy Trinity Part Two sheds new light for me on an old subject, at least for me.
Here's the article.
The Thinking Atheist Confesses
In recent
years, there have been a number of “confessional” books describing the
deconversion experience of non-believers. The most famous of these is Dan
Barker’s (2012) Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading
Atheists, along with Jerry DeWitt’s (2013) Hope After Faith: An Ex-Pastor’s Journey from Belief to Atheism. Daniel
Dennett and Linda DaScola’s (2013) book Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Belief Behind documents a
number of ministers and preachers who have lost their faith, yet must keep up
appearances or face ostracism and rejection from their families and the entire
community.
So far, however, we are only hearing from ministers who
lose their faith. Seth Andrews provides an autobiographical account of someone
who was deeply involved in fundamentalism. More than just a local minister,
Andrews was even more influential as a Christian broadcaster, DJ, and talk-show
host on some of the most widely broadcast Christian radio programs in the
United States. Not only was his voice heard by far more people than most local
ministers can reach, but he wasn’t trained as a theologian. Thus, he can
capture the thinking of someone who is a rank-and-file evangelical. Now he has
come all the way from one extreme to the other, using his radio and studio
skills to create numerous popular YouTube videos and “The Thinking Atheist” podcast, one of the best and biggest
of all the secular podcasts out there. Several hundred thousand subscribers
download every show, a number few other secular podcasters can match.
Andrews writes in a friendly, relaxed folksy style, just
as you hear him on the air, and it suits his humble narrative well. He is a
good storyteller and conversationalist not only in his radio work, but on the
printed page as well. His autobiographical account begins with his strict
religious upbringing, where only Disney and other G-rated movies were allowed,
and his parents reacted severely when Seth was exposed to science (such as
evolution) in school. In high school, he became a fan of “Christian rock”—the
bland, watered-down, theologically safe alternative to real rock’n’roll bands.
They imitated and plagiarized nearly every trend in popular music, except with
godly lyrics. This led him to his first career at a small radio station in
Oklahoma, where he worked his way up to becoming the leading DJ on one of the
top Christian rock stations in the land by the mid 1990s.
Then in 1997, the first of a series of events shook his
faith: the “John Lennon” of Christian rock, Rich Mullins, was killed in a
horrible car accident. Andrews describes his feeling of doubt about God’s
mercy, and his horror at the event, as well as the revulsion he felt when
everyone began rationalizing it by saying “God called him home.” He further
slid away from his safe sheltered world when he lost his job at a conservative
Christian radio station and had to take work on another radio station where he
was surrounded by secular people all the time.
Then the events of 9/11 made him question God even
further, especially when religious leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell
blamed it on homosexuals and other secular sinners. His ebbing faith remained
dormant until 2004, when he saw the video of Christopher Hitchens debating Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Hitchens’
intelligence, quick wit, honesty and candor ran circles around the
theologically twisted ideas of the Rabbi. Soon Andrews was reading not only the
works of prominent atheists, but also re-reading the Bible and discovering how
barbaric it is. Meanwhile, the radio business downsized and went syndicated, so
secure full-time jobs in in that industry nearly vanished. Andrews quit and
became an independent producer before the axe fell. By 2009, he came out of the
theist closet to his family and began to produce short atheist videos for YouTube, which were huge hits. Then he
started on his own, self-produced show that is now “The Thinking Atheist.”
The latter part of the book is full of his shrewd
observations on religion and atheism. Among the gems are his list of the
different categories of believers he’s come to know (the Feeler, the
Theologian, the Folklorist, and the Foot Soldier), and his answers to the
common questions he gets from the many believers who cannot accept his atheism.
As someone who grew up in a slightly different Protestant tradition
(Presbyterianism) and grew out of his family’s faith also, I can relate to many
of Andrews’ experiences—as can most people who were raised in strictly
religious families and have found their way out of their religious shackles.
