My name is Will Neate and I live in the UK. I was brought up as a Christadelphian and
was baptised in 1996. I remained highly committed until 2009 when I began
to have significant doubts about the validity of my faith and started a
wholesale re-examination of what I believed. I opened Pandora’s Box and found
that it doesn't go back together. I now have quite different conclusions about
the world.
I mention this for two reasons. First it is to show my previous commitment to the Christadelphian religion and the God I believed in. I was not a partially committed delinquent or free loader. The second is to show that the collapse of my faith has come at a significant personal cost. The reason I carried out the research noted on this website is because I thought it would bring me closer to the God I once knew and allow me to restore my previous relationships with Christadelphians. This has not been the case and I am left with a significant hole in my life.
Before 2009 the structure of my life revolved around being a Christadelphian. I would spend a lot of my free time doing Christadelphian activities and didn't spend much time doing anything else outside work. In a standard week I went to the breaking of bread (communion) on Sunday morning, the public talk on Sunday evening, Bible class and a discussion group during the week. Often weekends or Saturdays were spent with people from the meeting (church) and we also regularly went on holiday with other Christadelphians either as part of a larger group or as just a few couples or families. I have travelled to Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa with the CBM (Christadelphian Bible Mission) to carry out missionary work. I was a member of the preaching committee at my local meeting and spent further spare time producing marketing and publicity material. The Christadelphians have no paid ministry so volunteers prepare the sermons, public talks and other presentations. I also did these things at my home meeting as well as other Christadelphian meetings and gatherings.
I mention this for two reasons. First it is to show my previous commitment to the Christadelphian religion and the God I believed in. I was not a partially committed delinquent or free loader. The second is to show that the collapse of my faith has come at a significant personal cost. The reason I carried out the research noted on this website is because I thought it would bring me closer to the God I once knew and allow me to restore my previous relationships with Christadelphians. This has not been the case and I am left with a significant hole in my life.
I would also like to note that there are members of both my immediate and extended family that still believe and self-identify as Christadelphians. I do not want to alienate myself from them any more than I already have in the rejection of the God I once believed in, and they still do. My wife particularly has been very good to me, allowing me room to explore these ideas and form new conclusions without rejecting me (sadly, there are examples where the rejection of faith leads to family break up).
Those who know me offline know that I enjoy open discussion
about any of the subjects on this site. However, I don't want to argue against
the world on the internet and I don't want
protracted email discussion either. My intention is that this is an information only blog. My intention is to publish as many comments as possible whether I agree with them or not, but those I consider undesirable will remain unpublished. If you
know me, come and see me and let's have a chat, but please don't load me up with homework while not doing any yourself. I enjoy having an offline life and I
don’t what this to happen.
