One of the main things that I do in my discussions with Christians is to immediately let them know that I was a believer for most of my life. I do this to prevent them from talking to me as if I have no idea what it is like to be a true genuine believer. In every case, I am accused of not being truly saved to begin with. This is a classic response from someone who believes in OSAS, or once saved always saved. They make all types of excuses as to why someone who claims to have been a believer was never "truly" a believer, but a false one. But I do find it odd as to how I could have been a believer for almost 20 years but never "truly" believed on Christ.
They typically respond by stating that I was merely just part of a religion and that I never had a relationship. What do they mean by this? Well, to the Christian mind, just being part of a religion means just that, being part of it. They consider you to have been someone who just simply went to church, partook in the rituals such as water baptism, church activities, etc. But, unlike someone who has a true relationship with Christ, your heart was not for Christ. Yeah, maybe you went through the emotions when the pastor was speaking heart warming words from the Bible with soothing background music but you never actually took the time to truly believe in Christ from the heart and receive him as your Lord and Savior and to have a real relationship with him.
So it is no wonder that they still continue to talk to you as if you are brand new to the Christian faith because in their eyes, you were never saved to begin with, you never truly had a relationship with Christ, you were just merely a member of the church and went through the emotions. And now as they talk to you they are trying to get you to go from one who used to be part of a religion to one who has a relationship with Christ, since to them, having a relationship with Christ compared to just being in a religion is like night and day.
I think any sensible person can see the immediate problem with their approach. They are forced to say that all "former" believers were never truly believers to begin with to maintain the integrity of their beliefs. Otherwise they would have to admit that maybe there is nothing supernatural behind their "gospel" message. But is this fair? They are essentially presupposing from the get go that there is no possibility for their beliefs to be wrong and they then shield themselves by convincing themselves and then trying to convince you that the problem lies in you, not in their beliefs.
But as my personal experience shows, I did in fact have a relationship with Christ. And I say that as a former believer, not as an atheist looking at it retrospectively since I do not believe in any of the supernatural claims of christianity. So, retrospectively I view myself as having a relationship with an imaginary character, the same way that children may talk to their invisible friend. And I usually demonstrate that I did have a true "relationship with Christ" by the fact that any verse that you can think of which speaks of how to be saved, I did it, and I did it genuinely from the heart. I was not merely just part of a church, but I truly had a deep love for God and Christ. I prayed to Christ, I thought about Christ and his sacrifice for our sins continually everyday, I read his word, I had faith in him, I meditated on him, I did my best to put it all into practice, I fellowshipped with other believers. That is not just merely being part of a religion, that is actually doing all the things that characterizes a true genuine relationship with Christ, at least by Christian standards.
After I finish explaining all this to a Christian, they are usually hard pressed at finding a problem, but it is obvious that they trying to find a hole somewhere so they can say, "Aha, that's where you went wrong, therefore you never truly got saved." If they are not able to find a hole in your experiences, what they will do is temporarily stop saying that you never were saved and appear to give you the benefit of the doubt. Then, as they let you share your current viewpoints as an atheist, they immediately use what you say as ammunition to discredit you and to vaguely tie that in to the fact that you probably never got saved to begin with.
I suspect that it is their primary objective to lump you in with those who have no experience whatsoever with having a "relationship with Christ" so they could try to lead you to Christ by traditional means. But this just shows that they only want to put you in a box so they can function in their comfort zone. Because if they did believe that you truly were a believer, then they would be forced to try to provide evidence, as opposed to just using the traditional methods of recruiting people.
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