I never expected to be writing this post. After all, I wrote a book arguing that the basic premises and teachings of Christianity are both false and harmful. However, Jesus Christ made his presence known to me and I now accept him as my Lord and Savior. I have directly experienced the presence of Jesus and have been born again of the Spirit.

I don’t consider myself a Christian in the confessional sense, as I don’t believe in all of Christianity’s basic doctrines as stated in the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds. But I do believe in Jesus and in the Holy Trinity. I believe that Jesus is fully human and fully divine and that he was resurrected from the dead.

I was raised as a Christian, specifically a Lutheran, which means I was “baptized” as an infant. I also went through confirmation and thereafter partook in communion or the Lord’s Supper. However, I never truly knew or believed in Jesus until recently.

I experienced Jesus’ presence once before, over 20 years ago, but I did not accept him as my Lord and Savior at that time. I had too much baggage from my past related to Christianity to simply accept him because I couldn’t differentiate him or my experience of him from all that baggage. That prevented me from truly knowing or believing in him. (And of course, I went much further than that. I lost my faith entirely and became an atheist and an opponent of Christianity after concluding that its basic premises and teachings are both false and harmful.)

Last year, I was able to see past all the baggage I carried from my youth relating to Christianity. I then invoked Jesus and he again made himself known to me. And this time, the only response I could have was to accept him as my Lord and Savior.

That doesn’t mean I have changed my mind about all the basic premises and teachings of Christianity which I argue against in my book, Thou Shalt Not Believe. I haven’t, though I have certainly changed my mind about some of them.

I will add that I have had other experiences which have convinced me that Jesus is not the only way to salvation or liberation. I believe that enlightenment or awakening as taught in Buddhism and several other traditions is a valid means of salvation or liberation. In addition, I believe it is probably possible to experience divine grace and be saved by means other than through Jesus, though I myself have only experienced grace and salvation through Jesus.

While I don’t believe there are infinite means of salvation or liberation and I am not a universalist, there is no denying that I am theologically liberal by traditional Christian standards in believing there are means of salvation or liberation other than Jesus. (Conservative Christians would argue that my views conflict with what the Bible explicitly teaches, particularly John 14:6.)