Kristillisen metalliyhtyeen laulaja kääntyi ateistiksi: fanit repivät julisteita ja rikkoivat levyjä
Yhdysvaltalaisen kristillistä metalcorea soittavan The Order of Elijah -yhtyeen vokalisti Shannon Low on jättänyt kristinuskon taakseen luettuaan Richard Dawkinsin The God Delusion-kirjan, kertoo Christian Post. Päätöstä oli edeltänyt pitkä epävarma ajanjakso, jonka Low halusi päättää etsimällä vastausta kirjasta.
Kaksikymppisenä Low eli päihderikasta rock’n’roll-elämäntyyliä, mutta tähän tuli muutos hänen liityttyään kirkkoon Joplinissa Missourissa ja ystävystyttyään kirkon pastorin kanssa. Low soitti kirkossa kitaraa ja johti sen nuorisoryhmää. The Order of Elijah perustettiin pian tämän jälkeen Low’n ollessa hurmaantunut uskontoon. Hän kertoo vanhassa haastattelussa yhtyeensä kristillisyydestä:
”Many other Christians don’t seem to consider us so due to the harshness of lyrical content and our lack of shame for who we are. God gave me the heart of a warrior so it’s in my nature to wage war.”
Artikkeli jatkuu mainoksen jälkeenMainos päättyy
Erottuaan vaimostaan vain vuosi tyttärensä syntymän jälkeen hän ajautui kuitenkin takaisin alkoholin pariin. Kun Low palasi kirkkoon poissaolonsa jälkeen, hän alkoi pohtia Vanhaa Testamenttia ja ihmetteli sen sisältöä. Mies kertoo Facebook-päivityksessään:
”One Sunday morning there was a sermon that spoke about Elisha and the bears. After a large group of children make fun of Elisha for being bald he curses them in the name of god (which I thought was a commandment not to do). God sends out two female bears to rip the kids apart limb from limb. Now this story disturbed me. I thought ’I’ve read the whole bible, how did I overlook this?’ So I began asking some questions and found each person had a different apologetic answer for this story. Some said ’You don’t understand, calling someone bald back then was horrible.’ or ’You need to realize these children were heretics and needed to die so their seed didn’t spread.'”
Hän kertoo, ettei ei kuitenkaan menettänyt heti toivoaan kristinuskoon:
Mainos päättyy
”I still claimed Jesus, I said to myself ’Jesus must have realized everyone was insane and there to set it straight.’ Which many people were quick to inform me that was blasphemous because Jesus condones and quotes the old testament quite frequently. I still stuck to my guns but received a lot of flak by my spiritual peers for not understanding why the OT god was so racist, ethnic cleansing, jealous as an insecure girlfriend, cruel and power hungry.”
Ristiriitaisuuksien hämmentämänä Low päätti lukea Richard Dawkinsin The God Delusion -kirjan, mikä selvensi asiaa huomattavasti. Hän kommentoi aihetta seuraavasti:
”It answered so many questions that my Christian friends would literally get furious for me to even address.”
”Sometimes I would lose Christian friends by simply pondering certain questions. I would see these same Christians publicly calling my other friends ’abominations’ for being gay.”
Artikkeli jatkuu mainoksen jälkeenMainos päättyy
”Why allow his message to be spread by fallible humans and sit by idly while falsehoods are spread in his name?”
”Why sentence [two-thirds] of the world to Hell for being born in the wrong culture? I’d think a perfect God would never need to correct His Word if our literal souls depended on it.”
”After one of the most difficult decisions in my adult years, I had no choice but to accept that I had shed my faith like a cocoon.”
”It was scary yet liberating, it confusing yet simple, I felt at peace yet completely shaken, I pretty much had to reprogram my way of thinking about the world. Not only that, I felt I had lived a lie for half my life. I read books, tried meditating, hell sometimes I’d even try to talk to God.”
Artikkeli jatkuu mainoksen jälkeen Mainos päättyy
Hän sanoo myös uskonnon taakseen jättämisen auttaneen elämänhallinnassa:
”After a few months I read about the science of addiction and life trauma. I stopped trying to pray my alcoholism away and began combating it with real methods.”
”I began confronting my problems head on rather than ’giving them to God.’ I became very interested in researching science and the culture of other religions daily. I eventually completely gave up alcohol, got my health back, and enrolled in college. I’m proud to say I have a 3.75 GPA.”
Patheos-lehden mukaan yhtye on menettänyt paljon faneja, mutta saanut samalla uusia tilalle. Yhtye on juuri lähdössä God’s Unwanted -nimiselle kiertueelle promotoimaan uusinta ”War at Heart” -albumiaan. Kiertue nimettiin uudelleen Low’n käännyttyä ateistiksi. Hän kommentoi tilannetta seuraavasti:
”Some people have already declared… things such as ripping out posters off their walls, breaking our CDs in two, vulgar messages, deleting us from their music, and hundreds of dislikes from the page. Especially after we took a stand for LGBT equality lol. Although, while its thinned out the zealots it has brought a lot of new opened minded fans. Many who have reached out to us about having the same doubts but have nobody to talk to. Most with the same fears that they will be shunned by their family or peers. I think it will be a transitional process, but separating myself from Christianity has been a great decision.”