I had this friend once who persuaded me to go back to church which I did for a few months until I was so depressed I had to leave and since then have not been back.  That was about seven years ago and it was two years' later I joined the walkaway forum.  This is the same friend I lent "Leaving the Fold" to in order to help her deconvert which she found quite offensive and upsetting to read.  At the time I hadn't been to church for ages but had not challenged my religious beliefs much.  I had had a nervous breakdown and didn't know at the time that in order to move forward with personal development and deal with stress I had to examine my christian faith and find it wanting.  I had been in counselling for a year or two and was wondering why I wasn't moving forward. 

Since joining the walkaway forum five years' ago I've come a long way.  I'm able to meditate and practice yoga without guilt (though not regularly) and take a look at Buddhism have come to the conclusion that christianity is quite a dark religion alien to the western world.  There is now longer a conflict between my left wing political beliefs and feminist stance on the one hand and religious belief on the other hand as I've given up the latter.  I like to be environmentally aware and this has become a hell of a lot easier without religion or the vestiges of a lapsed faith.  I prefer the company of animals to children and I'm beginning to understand the benefits of mindfulness and relaxation over frantic dashing about.

However this friend has come back into my life and there have been several wrong assumptions.   She's given up going to church but this is only because she hasn't found a church she likes and still holds on to basic Biblical beliefs.  I had gone round to visit her yesterday and she came out with the sentence "well we're both christians...." to which I had to put her right and said that no I do not believe anymore and have seen evidence that it is not the one true religion.  She replied that once a christian always a christian as she is so entrenched in Calvinist doctrine and then got upset that people in the church were telling her that she wasn't chosen by God to be saved.  I told her that much of her religious upbringing is Calvinist in original which she found hard to understand.  Apparently has never heard of Calvinism.  I knew about it from student days whereas we used to discuss the doctrine of predestination over free will wondering which was the correct one.  However moving to wear I live Calvinism in churches is a given (such as the grass is green) so nobody discusses it.  Well I've sent her a "dear John" letter putting her right on my stance when it comes to religion and saying that we couldn't be friends anymore as she was giving the same old shit; telling me what to think and then changing her stance as soon as I began to agree only this time I disagreed with her on a couple of things.  Makes me feel better already.  I even mentioned in the letter that she was just as abusive as the people in the church who abused her by supposedly spreading lies about her in the church.  It's taken me this long to be upfront about my walkaway and what I believe now rather than saying that I couldn't be bothered to go to church anymore as I hadn't found one I liked and I realise how far I've come in those years.  I think people are opening up more about the evils of Christianity thanks to television programmes presented by people such as Richard Dawkins.