The Life Transformed by Christ

[Unknown Soldier]

In a Cheech & Chong skit, a homeless man is accosting people on the street asking them for change. He's not having much luck with them. Suddenly, he encounters a street preacher who says to him: "Have you talked to Jesus lately? He can save your soul, sir. Before, I was all messed up on drugs, but since I met the Lord, now I'm all messed up on the Lord. He can help you too!" Laying all jokes aside, many religions claim they know of people who like this street preacher have talked to Jesus and have been helped by him. Such cases are often referred to as "transformed lives." They involve people who we are told were involved in crime, drugs, alcohol, wife beating, kinky sex, and/or the occult. Fortunately for them, they "met Jesus" and today are clean and neat and sober and very happy staying out of jail attending church and Sunday school. Their marriages and families have been restored.

Does anybody here know of any examples of these "transformed lives"? While I think they are possible, I can't say I've seen anybody's life improved by Christian faith and practice. On the contrary, I've seen many people take turns for the worse as a result of adopting Christian faith. I was one of them.

There are other difficulties with these claims of lives transformed by Christ. Two Christian groups in particular claim they can change lives for the better: Evangelical Christians and Jehovah's Witnesses. Since these two groups see the other group as heretical, they no doubt are not impressed with the other group's claims of transforming lives. So the claim that Christ has transformed a life is a claim that even many Christians doubt depending on what group they belong to and which group(s) they hate.

Finally, if these claims are true, then why don't unbelievers see the people transformed by Christ and then hop on the bandwagon hoping to have their lives transformed too? You would think that Jesus helping people would be better known than what it apparently is.

 

[southernhybrid]

My late father used to claim that Jesus transformed his life, but he had several mental health issues and he also exaggerated a lot. According to him, he drank way too much before his conversion, but I don't ever remember him drinking when I was a young child, so I think that was a gross exaggeration. Perhaps he did drink some as a way to curb his symptoms of bipolar disorder and PTSD, but I never once saw him drunk. He always had a job and did an enormous amount of work fixing and building things during his off hours. A person who drank way too much would never had been able to accomplish what he did, imo.

I can't say if becoming an evangelical made him better or worse. It did give him an excuse to beat us with his belt, but he would have done that anyway, as it was the way that many parents disciplined their children during the time I grew up. His own parents abused him too. I suppose his religion gave him a supportive community of friends, but other than that, I don't see how it helped him. I was about 6 when he finally got tired of my mom preaching to him, went to church with her and became "saved". I liked the father I had before the religion kicked in. In his old age, he sometimes feared that his god would punish him for killing Japanese soldiers during WWII, so perhaps his religion added to his guilt and made his PTSD symptoms worse. I'm not sure because he was such a damaged individual and I doubt there was anything that could really help him. He's been dead for about 9 years and it's still sad to think of what his life might have been like if it weren't for his religion, and his madness.

Religion became an obsession in my childhood home. Prior to my parents religious conversions, I enjoyed listening to secular music and watching my parents dance together in our little house. After the conversion, the only music played in our home was Christian music. Dancing and card playing were now considered sins. So, for me, things got worse after my parents became religious believers. They dragged my sister and I to the Billy Graham Crusades in New York City when I was about 8, and once they even took us door knocking to "witness". This craziness finally left me looking for something different, which after several years of considering other religions, I became a happy atheist. I never held the nutty religion against my parents. They couldn't help but be victims of the emotional appeal that persuaded them to belong. Maybe that was the good part of my parent's coming to Jesus. It helped me see the craziness of religion. It helped me think. It helped me become very different from the mostly self righteous, judgmental people in the church. I'm not sure this is the answer you were looking for in your OP, but it did bring back memories that I felt like sharing.

I'm not claiming that all religious people are self righteous, and it's very possible that religion does influence some in a positive way. To me, the only benefit of religion is its ability to form communities of friends as well as sometimes providing an avenue to provide charitable offerings in one's community. I also realize that religion does give some people hope, hope of better things to come. Mythology is interesting, but mythology isn't factual. For some reason, mythology attracts a high percentage of humans. Maybe it has a positive influence on some of them, but it has also caused a tremendous amount of hate and damage in the world. Then again, perhaps that's just the nature of the human beast.

 

[James Brown]

It's a rather common tale among guest speakers and itinerant preachers in my school, church camps, etc. growing up. "I was a mess, then I found Jesus, and now I'm happy." I never personally knew anyone who had that kind of transformation, though. Usually their story is more like, "I was a more or less decent person, then I started going to church, and now I'm a more or less decent person."

Then again, I have known people whose lives were a mess, then they found--something--and now they're happy. That something might be AA, a decent job, the right companion, government legislation, etc. But they don't usually make a living telling their story to captive Christian audiences around the country.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

My late father used to claim that Jesus transformed his life, but he had several mental health issues and he also exaggerated a lot. According to him, he drank way too much before his conversion, but I don't ever remember him drinking when I was a young child, so I think that was a gross exaggeration. Perhaps he did drink some as a way to curb his symptoms of bipolar disorder and PTSD, but I never once saw him drunk. He always had a job and did an enormous amount of work fixing and building things during his off hours. A person who drank way too much would never had been able to accomplish what he did, imo.

I can't say if becoming an evangelical made him better or worse. It did give him an excuse to beat us with his belt, but he would have done that anyway, as it was the way that many parents disciplined their children during the time I grew up. His own parents abused him too. I suppose his religion gave him a supportive community of friends, but other than that, I don't see how it helped him. I was about 6 when he finally got tired of my mom preaching to him, went to church with her and became "saved". I liked the father I had before the religion kicked in. In his old age, he sometimes feared that his god would punish him for killing Japanese soldiers during WWII, so perhaps his religion added to his guilt and made his PTSD symptoms worse. I'm not sure because he was such a damaged individual and I doubt there was anything that could really help him. He's been dead for about 9 years and it's still sad to think of what his life might have been like if it weren't for his religion, and his madness.

Religion became an obsession in my childhood home. Prior to my parents religious conversions, I enjoyed listening to secular music and watching my parents dance together in our little house. After the conversion, the only music played in our home was Christian music. Dancing and card playing were now considered sins. So, for me, things got worse after my parents became religious believers. They dragged my sister and I to the Billy Graham Crusades in New York City when I was about 8, and once they even took us door knocking to "witness". This craziness finally left me looking for something different, which after several years of considering other religions, I became a happy atheist. I never held the nutty religion against my parents. They couldn't help but be victims of the emotional appeal that persuaded them to belong. Maybe that was the good part of my parent's coming to Jesus. It helped me see the craziness of religion. It helped me think. It helped me become very different from the mostly self righteous, judgmental people in the church. I'm not sure this is the answer you were looking for in your OP, but it did bring back memories that I felt like sharing.

I'm not claiming that all religious people are self righteous, and it's very possible that religion does influence some in a positive way. To me, the only benefit of religion is its ability to form communities of friends as well as sometimes providing an avenue to provide charitable offerings in one's community. I also realize that religion does give some people hope, hope of better things to come. Mythology is interesting, but mythology isn't factual. For some reason, mythology attracts a high percentage of humans. Maybe it has a positive influence on some of them, but it has also caused a tremendous amount of hate and damage in the world. Then again, perhaps that's just the nature of the human beast.

What you've posted here is familiar to me in many ways. My parents were also very religious and were devout Roman Catholics. Like you I was abused by my parents enduring beatings, and once I was beaten simply for being glad to get out of church! So their abuse was rooted in their religious beliefs. My mother in particular believed in a wrathful, violent God, and she was a wrathful, violent woman. I don't think her disposition was merely coincidental with her religious beliefs. Like you I ended up an atheist being very glad to be free of religion, but I did need to endure both my parents' furious response to my leaving their religion behind.

My sister also had a lot of anger and hatred in her although it was based more in the Protestant version of Christianity. She was expelled from a Catholic school because she was making terroristic threats over the phone telling the priest at a local church that she was going to burn his church down. She has had a lifelong vendetta against the Catholic church for expelling her, and she ended up converting to a Protestant religion. I remember her reading the Bible and with it still in her hands she would walk up to me with an angry, hate-filled look on her face. She openly expressed hatred for disabled people one of which is myself as well as gays, atheists, heavy people, black people, and people who smoke marijuana. She started showing symptoms of paranoia and said she feared demons.

Anyway, based on what I've seen Christianity do to people, I find these claims of transformed lives hard to swallow. If some person does get "on the straight and narrow" then I think it's a result of their own decision to change. Religion is only too happy to take the credit for any improvements in their followers' lives.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

It's a rather common tale among guest speakers and itinerant preachers in my school, church camps, etc. growing up. "I was a mess, then I found Jesus, and now I'm happy." I never personally knew anyone who had that kind of transformation, though. Usually their story is more like, "I was a more or less decent person, then I started going to church, and now I'm a more or less decent person."

My pastor at the Pentecostal church I attended told me that Jesus changed him for the better, but I didn't know my pastor prior to his conversion. Such transformation stories are difficult or impossible to check out.

Then again, I have known people whose lives were a mess, then they found--something--and now they're happy. That something might be AA, a decent job, the right companion, government legislation, etc. But they don't usually make a living telling their story to captive Christian audiences around the country.

No doubt most Christians wouldn't be especially impressed with people who changed their lives for the better by some means other than Christianity. Since they're in the Christianity business, they want to hear what Jesus can do hoping they will so benefit. For example, I've shared with Christians my story of leaving religion telling them what good it has brought to me. One Christian I know responds: "That's sad!" Would she be happy knowing I remained a Christian being harmed by Christianity?

 

[couch_sloth]

I would think that most religions have the potential to help people stop some of their destructive habits. That's part of the reason religious beliefs have so much appeal.
Many things can be used to induce an epiphany (e.g. Sensory deprivation, fasting, EST, Scientology, LSD). A lot of things can be used as a motivation to behave better. That does not mean that these things are going to direct you to some greater truth or universal purpose.

 

[southernhybrid]

My late father used to claim that Jesus transformed his life, but he had several mental health issues and he also exaggerated a lot. According to him, he drank way too much before his conversion, but I don't ever remember him drinking when I was a young child, so I think that was a gross exaggeration. Perhaps he did drink some as a way to curb his symptoms of bipolar disorder and PTSD, but I never once saw him drunk. He always had a job and did an enormous amount of work fixing and building things during his off hours. A person who drank way too much would never had been able to accomplish what he did, imo.

I can't say if becoming an evangelical made him better or worse. It did give him an excuse to beat us with his belt, but he would have done that anyway, as it was the way that many parents disciplined their children during the time I grew up. His own parents abused him too. I suppose his religion gave him a supportive community of friends, but other than that, I don't see how it helped him. I was about 6 when he finally got tired of my mom preaching to him, went to church with her and became "saved". I liked the father I had before the religion kicked in. In his old age, he sometimes feared that his god would punish him for killing Japanese soldiers during WWII, so perhaps his religion added to his guilt and made his PTSD symptoms worse. I'm not sure because he was such a damaged individual and I doubt there was anything that could really help him. He's been dead for about 9 years and it's still sad to think of what his life might have been like if it weren't for his religion, and his madness.

Religion became an obsession in my childhood home. Prior to my parents religious conversions, I enjoyed listening to secular music and watching my parents dance together in our little house. After the conversion, the only music played in our home was Christian music. Dancing and card playing were now considered sins. So, for me, things got worse after my parents became religious believers. They dragged my sister and I to the Billy Graham Crusades in New York City when I was about 8, and once they even took us door knocking to "witness". This craziness finally left me looking for something different, which after several years of considering other religions, I became a happy atheist. I never held the nutty religion against my parents. They couldn't help but be victims of the emotional appeal that persuaded them to belong. Maybe that was the good part of my parent's coming to Jesus. It helped me see the craziness of religion. It helped me think. It helped me become very different from the mostly self righteous, judgmental people in the church. I'm not sure this is the answer you were looking for in your OP, but it did bring back memories that I felt like sharing.

I'm not claiming that all religious people are self righteous, and it's very possible that religion does influence some in a positive way. To me, the only benefit of religion is its ability to form communities of friends as well as sometimes providing an avenue to provide charitable offerings in one's community. I also realize that religion does give some people hope, hope of better things to come. Mythology is interesting, but mythology isn't factual. For some reason, mythology attracts a high percentage of humans. Maybe it has a positive influence on some of them, but it has also caused a tremendous amount of hate and damage in the world. Then again, perhaps that's just the nature of the human beast.

What you've posted here is familiar to me in many ways. My parents were also very religious and were devout Roman Catholics. Like you I was abused by my parents enduring beatings, and once I was beaten simply for being glad to get out of church! So their abuse was rooted in their religious beliefs. My mother in particular believed in a wrathful, violent God, and she was a wrathful, violent woman. I don't think her disposition was merely coincidental with her religious beliefs. Like you I ended up an atheist being very glad to be free of religion, but I did need to endure both my parents' furious response to my leaving their religion behind.

My sister also had a lot of anger and hatred in her although it was based more in the Protestant version of Christianity. She was expelled from a Catholic school because she was making terroristic threats over the phone telling the priest at a local church that she was going to burn his church down. She has had a lifelong vendetta against the Catholic church for expelling her, and she ended up converting to a Protestant religion. I remember her reading the Bible and with it still in her hands she would walk up to me with an angry, hate-filled look on her face. She openly expressed hatred for disabled people one of which is myself as well as gays, atheists, heavy people, black people, and people who smoke marijuana. She started showing symptoms of paranoia and said she feared demons.

Anyway, based on what I've seen Christianity do to people, I find these claims of transformed lives hard to swallow. If some person does get "on the straight and narrow" then I think it's a result of their own decision to change. Religion is only too happy to take the credit for any improvements in their followers' lives.

It sounds like you might have had it worse than me. My mother hated it when my father beat us, but she didn't have the courage to stop him. Being the oldest, I learned to stand up to him, so the beatings stopped when I was about 8. Sadly, my sister never had the courage to stand up to him, so she was abused by him into early adulthood. My mother usually liked the more charitable parts of the gospels, while my father cherry picked the more horrid parts.

My father literally threw my sister out of the house when she was 19, in the middle of a snowstorm. That was long before the days when we all had cell phones, so she made it to a phone booth and her boyfriend rescued her. She eventually was able to survive on her own, and oddly enough, she is the only one of three daughters that remains a Christian to this day, although I think her version is a bit more moderate than the one we grew up with. She just has too much fear to leave religion, a fear that was instilled in her during childhood.

Like our late father, she suffers from anxiety and PTSD, but her PTSD is related to how he treated her. I tend to think the way she was treated by some in the church added to her problems. Once, she left church early and a deacon chased her down the street, making her very fearful. So much for the good Christians! Imo, they were nasty, judgmental asses who tried to manipulate people by using fearful tactics and using the "saved" nonsense to allow people to believe that they were better than those outside of their belief system. While I have overcome the damage of my childhood indoctrination, I realize that some are damaged for life. I tend to think my sister is among them.

I seriously doubt that my father would have been any worse without his Christian beliefs. In fact, he might have been a little bit better as he wouldn't have had his religion to use as an excuse for some of his bad behavior. Plus we would have been a more "normal" family. The thing that bothered me among other things, is the Christian concept that when one "sins", all one needs to do is ask forgiveness and the sins are excused, unless you're a child of course. So, no one is held responsible for the bad things one does. I realize it's a bit different in the Catholic religion as most of my childhood friends were RCs. My husband was also raised in a Catholic home, but like me, he became an atheist during early adulthood.

I"m not sure if religion makes most people worse, but I'm pretty sure that it rarely makes people better. The more liberal and even some moderate varieties of religion at least do some positive things for their communities. We atheists aren't very good at establishing and maintaining strong communities, as we usually don't have much in common other than our lack of belief in gods. I know this well, as I've been a member of several atheist groups and some have died out after a few years. It's hard to herd cats. So, I can understand that some people will be happier when they find a church community that fulfills their social needs.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

It sounds like you might have had it worse than me. My mother hated it when my father beat us, but she didn't have the courage to stop him. Being the oldest, I learned to stand up to him, so the beatings stopped when I was about 8. Sadly, my sister never had the courage to stand up to him, so she was abused by him into early adulthood. My mother usually liked the more charitable parts of the gospels, while my father cherry picked the more horrid parts.

My father literally threw my sister out of the house when she was 19, in the middle of a snowstorm. That was long before the days when we all had cell phones, so she made it to a phone booth and her boyfriend rescued her. She eventually was able to survive on her own, and oddly enough, she is the only one of three daughters that remains a Christian to this day, although I think her version is a bit more moderate than the one we grew up with. She just has too much fear to leave religion, a fear that was instilled in her during childhood.

Like our late father, she suffers from anxiety and PTSD, but her PTSD is related to how he treated her. I tend to think the way she was treated by some in the church added to her problems. Once, she left church early and a deacon chased her down the street, making her very fearful. So much for the good Christians! Imo, they were nasty, judgmental asses who tried to manipulate people by using fearful tactics and using the "saved" nonsense to allow people to believe that they were better than those outside of their belief system. While I have overcome the damage of my childhood indoctrination, I realize that some are damaged for life. I tend to think my sister is among them.

I seriously doubt that my father would have been any worse without his Christian beliefs. In fact, he might have been a little bit better as he wouldn't have had his religion to use as an excuse for some of his bad behavior. Plus we would have been a more "normal" family. The thing that bothered me among other things, is the Christian concept that when one "sins", all one needs to do is ask forgiveness and the sins are excused, unless you're a child of course. So, no one is held responsible for the bad things one does. I realize it's a bit different in the Catholic religion as most of my childhood friends were RCs. My husband was also raised in a Catholic home, but like me, he became an atheist during early adulthood.

I"m not sure if religion makes most people worse, but I'm pretty sure that it rarely makes people better. The more liberal and even some moderate varieties of religion at least do some positive things for their communities. We atheists aren't very good at establishing and maintaining strong communities, as we usually don't have much in common other than our lack of belief in gods. I know this well, as I've been a member of several atheist groups and some have died out after a few years. It's hard to herd cats. So, I can understand that some people will be happier when they find a church community that fulfills their social needs.

It looks like we both got hit hard by the influence of Christianity. I'd recommend you continue to tell your story as I will continue to tell mine. I've learned that most Christians I've told my story to care little about us victims and just want to preserve their faith. Of course, some Christians do care, and I think they are actually budding atheists.

 

[Learner]

You can get a variety of story's for interest. In this regard, people who found Christianity. There are tons of testimonies on youtube. All sorts of people, previously from different religions, as well as former atheists.

 

[FwL]

Does anybody here know of any examples of these "transformed lives"? While I think they are possible, I can't say I've seen anybody's life improved by Christian faith and practice. On the contrary, I've seen many people take turns for the worse as a result of adopting Christian faith. I was one of them.

My mother.

As she put it, she cried out to the lord and in so doing found the strength to transform her life. She was an alcoholic trapped in a physically and mentally abusive relationship with my father. Having accepted Jesus, she quit drinking and remained sober for the rest of her life. She eventually managed to extract herself and three teenage children from her marriage to my father, in the face of great bodily harm and threats of death, moving to new town and managing to establish and provide a stable home for the three of us to finish growing up in.

Finally, if these claims are true, then why don't unbelievers see the people transformed by Christ and then hop on the bandwagon hoping to have their lives transformed too? You would think that Jesus helping people would be better known than what it apparently is.

I gave it an honest try, but no amount of church going, bible believing, or praying made me feel as though I had any personal relationship with Christ. I finally gave up on it, figuring I just wasn't invited to the party.

As I grew older I came to accept that it wasn't Jesus that made a difference in my mother's life. It was her belief in Jesus that made a difference.

 

[southernhybrid]

You can get a variety of story's for interest. In this regard, people who found Christianity. There are tons of testimonies on youtube. All sorts of people, previously from different religions, as well as former atheists.

So, why don't you tell us how becoming a Christian changed you for the better? Do you honestly think that the beliefs you embrace have made you a better person? Or, did your Christian beliefs simply give you a sense of belonging, which may have been lacking in your life prior to your conversion? If you had some bad habits, perhaps your Christian community gave you the type of support you needed to overcome the things you wanted to change. Or maybe, the ritual of prayer, like many other forms of meditation helped you overcome whatever it was that was harming you.

I really have no interest in watching the claims of people on YouTube. Besides, I heard lots of claims about how believing changed someone's life when I was a child. But, the people who made such claims seemed to put themselves above others who didn't share the same beliefs. If there was a god, she would never be as cruel and ego drive on the Biblical god appears to be to me. To me, it's obvious that all gods were created by humans as they often have the same characteristics as humans do, both good and bad.

I mentioned being forced to attend Billy Graham's so called Crusades, when I was a young child. They were highly emotional. Graham was a good speaker and he knew how to manipulate people emotionally, and make people think that coming to Jesus was going to change their lives. I can remember people crowding the aisles as they "came forward" to be "saved". As I grew older, I did wonder how many of those, often poor and desperate people felt as if they had been left out in the cold after the drama of the moment wore off. Too bad that all that money that was used to perform the "crusades" wasn't used instead to actually help the poor, instead of giving them a live performance, filled with false hope and promises.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Does anybody here know of any examples of these "transformed lives"? While I think they are possible, I can't say I've seen anybody's life improved by Christian faith and practice. On the contrary, I've seen many people take turns for the worse as a result of adopting Christian faith. I was one of them.

My mother.

As she put it, she cried out to the lord and in so doing found the strength to transform her life. She was an alcoholic trapped in a physically and mentally abusive relationship with my father. Having accepted Jesus, she quit drinking and remained sober for the rest of her life. She eventually managed to extract herself and three teenage children from her marriage to my father, in the face of great bodily harm and threats of death, moving to new town and managing to establish and provide a stable home for the three of us to finish growing up in.

I'm glad your mother changed her life that way, or at least I see her as changing her own life that way. Most Christians would say Jesus transformed her life which would deny her credit for the effort and wisdom she put into the change. Since Christianity tells us we are hopelessly sinful, any good people do is credited to Jesus/God.

Finally, if these claims are true, then why don't unbelievers see the people transformed by Christ and then hop on the bandwagon hoping to have their lives transformed too? You would think that Jesus helping people would be better known than what it apparently is.

I gave it an honest try, but no amount of church going, bible believing, or praying made me feel as though I had any personal relationship with Christ. I finally gave up on it, figuring I just wasn't invited to the party.

It's odd that many Christians say they have a "personal" relationship with Jesus. To me, a personal relationship involves going fishing and talking on the phone and things like that--you know, "up close and personal."

As I grew older I came to accept that it wasn't Jesus that made a difference in my mother's life. It was her belief in Jesus that made a difference.

Many Christians in the modern world tend to see Jesus as a wonderful guy in the modern sense. That is, they see Jesus as never harming anybody and helping anybody who wants help. He's shut down hell and doesn't even demand belief anymore. I think your mother saw Jesus that way. If she believed in the Bible version of Jesus, then she would have remained married because Jesus commands married people to stay married.

Anyway, thanks for a very enlightening testimony!