Religion defection sounds so ominous when in fact it is simply someone who said "enough." Recently President Jimmy Carter said, "Enough" as he left his church of many, many years. I guess you can say a US President has officially defected. His reasons were very simple, the religion was not treating women equally. So him and Rosalind left the church.
According to Carter, "At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities."
Why Does One Defect:
There are many reasons why a person leaves their religion and most of them have little to do with God. Most people leave a religion due to not agreeing with the policy of the church or religion. Like President Carter, he did not agree with the belittling of women. He was a member of a Southern Baptist Church, the same as me when I was young.
I had the advantage of being involved in many religions so I grew up with a lot of knowledge. I was raised in the Southern Baptist Church, switched to being a 4 Square Church member before converting, not defecting to Islam. When I was a teenager I lived with 4 women in an apartment who were Mormons or Latter Day Saints. My mother is presently a 7th Day Adventist and before that she was involved in four or five different Christian Religions from "Holy Rollers" to Presbyterian. My sister was a Jew before, then Muslim and now she is in the 7th Day Adventist.
What I have found is that most people leave over hurt feelings or policy. My mother left many churches because they hurt her feelings and a few insisted she tithe her money, even though she is very poor and most of the time does not have food. I find this very disturbing to say the least.
I left a church once because the minister ridiculed me in church saying that I said I had been baptised, but he doubted that the membership card I produced was legitimate. Yes, this was a Southern Baptist Church. At the time I was hurt, but later joined a 4 Square church and was very happy.
I was happy indeed, but something was missing. There were over 10,000 members at this very beautiful church
and I felt I belonged and I could see myself walking down the aisle married there, but there was a problem. I did not feel God close enough to me. All the right things were there. World renown preacher, wonderful choir and tons of friends, but I was not happy. So I started searching for how to become closer to God.
I Defected Because of Allah:
I was not defecting because of policy, I was defecting because I wanted to know God more. In my desperation I decided to move closer to my church so I could go more often. I was going three times a week as it was, but I wanted to be closer to God. So I quit my job and gave notice at my apartment and went to Van Nuys to live. But funny story, no one would show me a home. Every apartment I went to was not available and even though I tried, the doors were shut.
So I went back to my preacher and said, "What am I doing wrong?" He very profoundly told me, "God doesn't want you to move to Van Nuys, he wants you to say yes." I looked at him and smiled and I said, "Okay, Yes." I went back to Downey and took my apartment back and found solace in God's decision. Not to long after that I found a partner to help me in my real estate business and she gave me a Quran.
Three days after the gift of a Quran, I was a Muslim and I had found Allah. Did I defect from my religion or did I simply find the one thing that would give me happiness? I find words are exactly how we feel and if I was to explain what happened to me, then I must simply say that I found the keys to heaven
