For many people, Christianity isn’t just a belief system, it’s a way of life. It shapes culture, builds community, and often serves as a measure of morality. From Sunday services to midweek vigils, from family prayers to youth fellowships, religion can inform how people live, love, dress, and even think. But what happens when the very faith that’s supposed to bring peace becomes a source of guilt, fear, or pressure?
For this piece, we asked five former Christians to share what it was like growing up in the faith, the questions that led to their disillusionment, and the result of leaving it all behind.
“I was tired of pretending to maintain a certain public image” — Remi*, 25, F
Remi was raised Christian, but as a pastor’s kid, the pressure to maintain a good image to protect her parents’ reputation took its toll.
“Being a pastor’s kid was a very hectic experience. I had to maintain a certain image in public because any misstep could embarrass my parents. The church also came before every other thing in our lives, including socialising with friends.
From when I was six, I watched my older siblings get flogged mercilessly at different points because a random church member spun a lie against them.
As I continued to grow, I started to read more because some of the sermons I heard just didn’t seem right. I also did a bit of religious criticism in my school work, which exposed me to the underbelly of Christian history. I hated having to pretend I believed in the things my parents and other pastors preached, and I really just wanted out. So, one day in 2021, I made the decision to stop going to church. I had started living on my own, so it was easy to dodge any backlash from my parents. I don’t go to church anymore, but they don’t know that.
Now that I’m free from religion, I can decide what is wrong or right without weighing them as ‘sins.’ I’m also very grounded in my sense of being, what I want and what I don’t want out of life. I’ve been slowly building a community of friends and family who aren’t religious fanatics, and who love me regardless of my lifestyle choices. I like it better this way.”
“I realised I didn’t need a god to give me the answers I was looking for” — Nkem*, 28, M
Nkem’s world view expanded when he went for his NYSC service year. Once he went back home, he realised he didn’t believe in the faith any longer.
“Growing up, practising my religion made me feel like I was part of a community. The process of deconstructing my faith was made up of many ‘turning points.’ When I went for my NYSC, I met people from all walks of life, not only people who shared my religion. When my service year ended and I came back home, I followed my parents to church. While I was listening to the pastor, I realised I disagreed with what he was saying and at some point during the service, it hit me that I didn’t believe any of this anymore.
During this period, I began questioning Christianity and wondering if it was true or not. The final turning point was when I concluded that I didn’t need to believe in a God to be a decent human being or care about other people. I could simply do that on my own. That was the moment I realised I didn’t want to be religious.
Leaving religion behind made me re-examine and question all my beliefs and biases. I became more aware of the prejudice and bigotry I had towards other people. Without the lens of religion, I approached this self-audit with logic instead of scripture or something vague like the holy spirit.
I quickly realised how much of a shitty person I was and how any room for growth was hampered because in a lot of religious spaces, bigotry and bias were the order of the day, especially towards queer people, disabled people and poor people. I was also able to investigate existential questions like ‘What is my purpose on earth?’ and ‘What do I derive satisfaction from doing?’
I’m currently in the process of answering, but it’s a great feeling that I don’t need to wait for a god to give me the answers I seek. I also got to really think about whether I wanted to do things like get married or have kids, and I realised that those are things I don’t really want when there’s no one whispering in my ear that God wants it from me.
Being irreligious has its perks, but it also comes with its own baggage. For instance, romantic and platonic relationships have become more complicated. A lot of people aren’t comfortable with irreligious people, but I’m more willing to be upfront about my beliefs than to be dishonest just so I’m accepted.”
“I have let go of the enormous guilt I felt” — Timi*, 28, F
While practising her religion, Timi was weighed down by a strong sense of guilt and a fear of hell. She shares how irreligion let her release this pain and choose peace.
“I was never particularly devout. My parents raised me Christian, but they themselves were not so pious that I developed a strong attachment to my faith. What I do remember is all the guilt I carried around. Even though I wasn’t the most spiricoco person, too many things felt dirty.
As a child, I lived in almost constant fear of hell and God’s punishment. If bad things happened to me or people I loved, I took it as a personal failing because obviously, I didn’t pray hard enough. ‘Jesus hears the cries of little children’ was something I took personally. If children’s cries were heard best, then it was my responsibility as a child to make sure things were okay by praying, and when that didn’t work, I felt it was my fault.
Throughout my childhood, I had to contend with asking questions about parts of the Bible and other teachings, but I only got unsatisfactory answers like ‘God works in mysterious ways’ or ‘That’s just how it is’. As someone whose parents were insistent on me thinking for myself in every other aspect of my life, it was very confusing for me that this God, who was to be the most important thing in my life, could not be explained.
When my father got sick, I was still a pre-teen. But his illness didn’t give me a crisis of faith, in fact, it plunged me deeper into God. The way I saw it, everybody was telling me his slow losing fight with cancer was God’s plan, so it didn’t really matter what I wanted or what I prayed for. Everything changed when I lost him. I got angry with this ‘plan’ and decided I didn’t like it. Why did I need to follow a plan I couldn’t understand or explain, even when it hurt me and my loved ones? After interrogating my personal moral code and ethics, I decided I didn’t like this god very much.
Giving myself permission not to like Yaweh was the last crack in the dam. I allowed myself to ask all those questions I had suppressed since childhood. I read more of the Bible than I ever read the whole time I was still “dedicated” to being Christian, and in less than a year, I realised we were all lying to ourselves about this religion and took myself squarely out of it.
Having left the faith, I find myself to be a kinder person, to myself as well as to others. When one accepts that there is no grand plan, it opens up one’s perspective to see that the strings were really being pulled by fellow human beings. People are the reason most things happen, not some mysterious, powerful being.
Whether it’s capitalism, self-interest, or plain old stupidity, you can find the human behind most disasters. You can also find the human behind most of the good in the world. I decided to dedicate myself to being part of that good. There is no more ‘’leaving it to God’, ’ it’s now ‘‘What can I do?’’ ‘’Who can I help?’’ The greatest benefit I have enjoyed so far is that I no longer walk around with a crippling fear of burning forever in a pit of eternal fire. I enjoy my life now for what it is.”
“I wondered why God was so unkind to his followers” — Daniel*, 26, M
Daniel was raised Catholic, but between the dwindling economy and church politics, his faith began to raise questions that he couldn’t answer.
“I was born Catholic, and I probably would have remained so if my mother hadn’t left our church in an effort to distance herself from her problematic family. When I was still practising as a Pentecostal, I read the Bible a lot, but I had several questions that I had no answers to. I remember sitting in the back seat of the family car, asking my parents, ‘How do we know God is real?’ and getting vague answers.
When I was 14, I was sent off to boarding school. Being away from my family, I found myself drawn more deeply to Christianity because I craved community. I heard it promised peace, and I desperately wanted that. ‘‘Holy Spirit, come into his heart now, give him peace’. I answered multiple altar calls, yet I never felt it. The only thing I miss is singing in the choir.
As I grew, Nigeria’s dwindling economy affected my family financially. I couldn’t understand why God seemed unkind to my mother and her efforts, especially since she was deeply religious, kind, always helping her community, and doing her best for everyone around her. Suddenly, the pastors who once name-dropped her in their sermons didn’t mention her anymore. The church members who used to come around stopped showing up. All because we weren’t as financially buoyant as before. I began to notice how some of the worst people I’ve ever known, ironically, were deeply religious people.
But the most ridiculous part to me was the ‘sacrificial giving.’ They would ask students to give everything they had ‘in faith’. When I questioned it, they said, ‘It’s after you remove your daily expenses for the month’. As if a student could ever predict their expenses. It just seemed like a money-making grift.
I think the most important lesson I’ve learned since leaving is control. It hasn’t been easy, especially coming to terms with the fact that nobody is coming to save you. As a Christian, I found comfort in believing there was some grand plan or design, but now I know I literally shape my own outcome. It’s a realisation that’s both terrifying and comforting.
And when it comes to relationships? I’m upfront about it. I can’t be with anyone religious at all.”
“While I was still a practising Christian, I felt like I wasn’t righteous or prayerful enough” — Izzy*, 24, M
Izzy hit a low point in his life that made him question everything, including religion. He shares how he sees life after leaving his faith behind.
“When I hit rock bottom two years ago, I began questioning my beliefs. It wasn’t a new train of thought for me. I had always felt like Christianity was biased and wasn’t a representation of the absolute truth. It didn’t take long for my faith to crumble under my scrutiny. While I was still a practising Christian, I felt like I wasn’t righteous or prayerful enough, and that evil spirits were the cause of my problems. It was a horrible way to live.
Now, I’m relieved I don’t see life that way anymore. I see life as an outcome of choices, the system in which those choices were made, and the probability of them going right or wrong. This new approach didn’t just eradicate the feeling of being cursed, ignored, or unloved by a god; it granted me the feeling of control. Now, I can make better choices to achieve my goals.
For my identity, I see myself as a living part of the universe becoming conscious and learning to understand itself. Because of that, I try to develop critical thinking skills that transcend biases. Though it took me a year to find my purpose again, I’m now more open-minded to other people and their own beliefs. I’m learning to understand why people think the way they do. I’m also less judgmental than I used to be. I approach life with the humility that I don’t know it all, and I try to focus on becoming a better person each passing day.”
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