Expressing gratitude for the commenter’s kindness, Steingard shared that he had a ton of support while he deconstructed from his faith.
“Some Christians sometimes assume I left because I wasn’t aware of the answers available to my questions,” he said, explaining that this wasn’t the case. “I read a lot, and had a lot of hard conversations and I just found myself unimpressed with many of the typical answers to things like the problem of evil, divine hiddenness, a bunch of biblical issues, and watching American Christian culture become unbelievably toxic. Since then I’ve found Christian thinkers/writers with much more sophisticated perspectives and I’m dedicated to continuing to take their voices seriously—because I’d like to believe true things.”
RELATED: Hawk Nelson’s Lead Singer Shares He Has Lost His Faith in God
Although the once follower of Jesus doesn’t believe the Bible to be true anymore, he doesn’t think of Christians as delusional. Steingard shared that he believes that most people are or have been religious, which he sees as beneficial to life.
“There are measurable benefits that are hard to replace. I see lots of reasons why a reasonable person could be motivated to believe,” Steingard said.
“I just wanted to say that I grew up fundamentalist Baptist, and I loved Hawk Nelson,” one of Steingard’s followers posted. “It’s so crazy to think that I’ve deconstructed all the way down, and then I look around and you’re here too! It made my week when I found out that you’re also around in deconstructiony spaces!”
Steingard replied to the fan that he loves that they found each other twice.
Steingard admitted that he has experimented with chemical spiritual journeys [taking drugs to produce hallucinations] when he was asked about it, saying. “I have, although not extensively—I found them pretty powerful and dare I say helpful.”
Fans of Hawk Nelson peppered Steingard’s Twitter feed with questions regarding his time as a Christian artist. Steingard shared that TobyMac, Mike Donehey (Tenth Avenue North), Dan Bremnes, and Tampa radio personality Davis Watts were the most genuine people he met during his tenure with the band.
Steingard said that he keeps in touch with his former bandmates and is grateful for the experiences he had with them, but he couldn’t really cite any of the songs that he currently enjoys or identifies with.
