Author and former pastor Josh Harris is opening up about his decision to leave Christianity.
Earlier this year, the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye (and several other popular books) took to Instagram to explain, “By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. Many people tell me that there is a different way to practice faith and I want to remain open to this, but I’m not there now.” He also added, “To the LGBTQ+ community, I want to say that I am sorry for the views that I taught in my books and as a pastor regarding sexuality.”
This week, Harris was a guest on the interview show “Axios on HBO” and opened up about his decision to leave the Church. He explained, “As a pastor I excommunicated people. And you know I excommunicated myself essentially.”
He also said that he and his wife’s decision to divorce played into his leaving the faith. He said, “If you’re not living according to the teaching of the Bible, and if you’re living in unrepentant sin, you have to be put out of the Church. And I think I came to the point of recognizing, ‘You know what? I’m not living according to this.’ And I held other people to this standard, and I excommunicated myself, essentially.”
The interviewer also told Harris that he personally knows people who feel like Harris ruined their lives and that they married the wrong person because of his books. Harris once again explained how he now sees that I Kissed Dating Goodbye misled a lot of people. In recent years, Harris has apologized for the book and ended its publication.
He also spoke out about what he sees as a destructive relationship between many Christians and the current White House administration.
