I kept noticing that the Gospel was powerless to actually change lives - Daranté Lamar

Описание: Today I spoke with Daranté LaMar, who grew up in the Word of Faith denomination and became a pastor for 10 years before ultimately deconverting as the truth claims of Christianity fell apart.

We touched on many topics, including:

• In his youth, observing his mom have a very moving spiritual experience at church.
• Accepting the invitation to accept god as his loving father, which was especially meaningful as he grew up feeling like an orphan.
• Being forced by his mother to either prioritize her or god and the church ... and proudly choosing god and the church.
• Hearing preachers encourage their congregations to purposely not focus on learning and knowledge, but to simply have blind faith.
• Believing that anything in his mind that was not aligned with the Bible was probably from the Devil.
• Growing in his leadership roles in ministry as well as his perceived spiritual power and influence, which he saw as evidence of god's blessing.
• Getting married before entering the pastorate to ensure he would not be sexually tempted in ministry.
• Constantly praying to god to ask him for clarity and direction.
• Seeing people in the church heavily exposed to the Bible and the church who were nonetheless not showing any evidence of the power of the Gospel to transform their lives.
• Observing his fellow pastors not caring about where the Bible really came from.
• Deconverting but not strongly feeling like the loss of "heaven" and the afterlife was a really big deal to him.
• Experiencing much more peace after deconversion than he ever had as a Christian.
• Realizing that Christianity had deprived his of his personal capacity, and being driven more than ever to achieve the most he is capable of and to keep asking hard questions.

Many thanks to Daranté for sharing his story and insights!


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Connect with Daranté:
YouTube:
‪@DaranteLaMar‬
‪@bridgecityglobal‬

  / mytogetherwecan  
  / dlddworldgroup  

Read Daranté's books:
https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks...

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--Tim


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Ending music by Eyal Raz, "Friends"

   • Friends  

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