Why I am Not a Christian: The Problem with Fearing Godlessness

September 29, 2023 ~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ Leave a comment

Note: I have moved to Substack! Please subscribe to my work there.

This is the third installment in my Why I am Not a Christian series. I invite you to read the other articles, but they are not necessary to follow what I will argue in this post.

One of the things that kept me from accepting my disbelief for so long was a fear of what the universe would be like without God. As Soren Kierkegaard wrote in Fear and Trembling:

“If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?”

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Why I Am Not a Christian: The Problem With Experiencing God

September 21, 2023 ~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ Leave a comment

Note: I have moved to Substack. Please subscribe to my work there!

This post is a continuation of my series on why I am no longer a Christian. In my last post, I explored how I came to doubt the core miraculous and supernatural claims of Christianity. I invite you to read that post, but it isn’t required to follow what I’m arguing for here.

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Sacred Tension: Armageddon | Bart Ehrman

May 18, 2023 ~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ Leave a comment

In this episode of Sacred Tension, I’m joined by renowned New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman to talk about his new book Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End. We discuss what led him out of the Christian faith, why it’s important to understand the Bible, what the Bible really says about abortion, and the consequences of a fundamentalist reading of Revelation.

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The 4 Steps of Standing in Solidarity with LGBT People

February 14, 2019April 3, 2019 ~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ Leave a comment

I regularly find myself in conversation with people who feel deeply conflicted about how to love and respond to LGBT people: conservative minsters whose hearts have softened towards LGBT people, but whose theology has not; college chaplains who are suddenly finding themselves flummoxed by trans, queer, and gay students sitting in their office, struggling with faith and sexuality; parents, friends, siblings of gay people who see the damage done by the church and don’t know how to stop perpetuating that damage.

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Why I Still Call Myself a Christian

January 17, 2019April 3, 2019 ~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 10 Comments

I’ve spent a great deal of time on this blog exploring the ways in which my faith has transformed from the reassuring, cozy, traditional Christianity of my childhood. I’ve wandered far from home into nontheism, flirted with blasphemy, and questioned the existence of the supernatural altogether.

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Christians, Gay Celibacy, and Miscommunication

February 15, 2016December 2, 2018 ~ Stephen Bradford Long ~ 20 Comments

Last week, a reader sent me an email and wrote a blog post in response to my recent post, The Church Is a Whore, And I Am Her Gay Son. The person in question is named Andrew, and is connected with Courage – the official Roman Catholic ministry to gay people. You can read his full post here.

While I genuinely appreciate Andrew taking the time to reach out to me and respond to my post, I also thought that I would take some time unpacking his statements, because they bring up some ideas that I find particularly frustrating when it comes to the topic of gay people in the church.

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