Conversations on Faith : Leaving the Christian Faith - Ayock Duniya

Thank you so much for agreeing to do this. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions. 

- Tell us a little about yourself and your religious background. 

My name is Ayock Joseph Duniya. I'm 29, first child of 3. Born a Christian.

- Why did you leave the faith and how long were you away for? 

Well my mum died of cancer and prior to her death I felt a lot of persons prayed for her, she went to TB Joshua's church, went to Paul Enenche as well... In both churches, the assistants didn't allow her see the pastors (men of God) but then asked that she drop her prayer requests that they'd pray for her. Well she did.... She came back... She prayed, we prayed, they prayed. She got sicker, and she died

- What did you discover in your time away? Any epiphany? 

Now my leaving the church was more of psychological and not really physical cause I was still living with my dad who would not even hear me if I'd said "I don't believe God exists"....plus since I love music and the church was the only place I could play the keyboard, I was always going to church.... For the music and always blanked out whenever the pastor preached...I felt if there really was a God, my mum didn't deserve to die tbh... I mean, I felt I should die cause I was more of a sinner than she... So it was like "why's she sick with cancer for 11 years?"... I had so many questions and the more I asked, the more I didn't want to hear "God knows why"... And I was like "if I didn't have faith sef then what about the pastors thag prayed for her both in Nigeria and outside the country?".Like how do they preach "if you have faith you can do exploits, but couldn't lay hands on her to get well?" "was it that their faith was weak as well or was their faith nonexistent? Or was it that all the God listens to us was just crap?"

- How did your family and friends react? 

The only person I told was my younger sister... I felt my dad would maybe disown me or punish me or something sha. Then also I was waiting to finish school, finish serving, get a job, leave his house then become a full time atheist. So I don't really have a particular time frame per se....

- When and why did you make the decision to go back? 

"coming back to faith" wasn't as a result of some epiphany. It was borne out of one thing. If God truly exists I'd want to know why he let my mum die... If he truly exists. So it was more like out of looking for God to tell him I was mad at him and he was terrible... "if he did exist"...it sounds funny tbh. And another reason I "came back" was that on a certain Sunday I didn't go to church and I was reading a tweet about a boy who was ill but wasn't worried, his mum was worried and wanted them to go to church to pray for his healing and he said he'd rather not pray about that again but pray to God about other things, his mum asked why and he said "I feel God has other plans".... That's when I understood and "forgave" God... I felt he had his own plans and I really really understood that and decided to come back and work things out with him... Even though my faith is still shaky sha

- Life with and without faith which do you prefer? 

When you get to that point you feel God doesn't exist, it makes you feel "owk what/who should I hold on to" there's that space that's created and you feel "well soooo what's my point of existence" you end up with more questions than answers tbh, even though being religious also comes with a plethora of questions as well.

- Do you think you'll ever leave again? 

...........

- Any last thoughts or comments?

I feel a lot of persons in church don't even believe in God anymore... Some desperately want to believe in him again but they instead feel and see more reason not to agree he exists. Some kuma, are scared of the consequences from family and friends.