Popular Canadian Gospel singer, Jonathan Seingard has shocked many after coming out to announce that he has stopped being a Christian because he no longer believes that God exists.
Taking to his Instagram page, Steingard wrote a very long epistle of how he came to his decision and how he had been terrified to make it public.
“I’ve been terrified to post this for a while – but it feels like it’s time for me to be honest,” he wrote in the caption to his multi-image post of his statement. “I hope this is not the end of the conversation, but the beginning.”
Part of his statement reads:
“After growing up in a Christian home, being a pastor’s kid, playing and singing in a Christian band, and having the word ‘Christian’ in front of most of the things in my life – I am now finding that I no longer believe in God,” he wrote in his statement. “The last few words of that sentence were hard to write. I still find myself wanting to soften that statement by wording it differently or less specifically – but it wouldn’t be as true.”
In regards to his fronting Hawk Nelson, a music band that he leads, Steingard wrote:
“If you’re someone who follows me because of Hawk Nelson, and my involvement in Christian music, you are probably thinking, ‘Wait — were you lying to me the whole time? Were you just pretending to be a Christian? What about all those songs you wrote? Did you mean those?’
“The short answer is that I was not lying. I did believe those things at the time. I may have been pulling on the threads of the sweater, but there was still some sweater left back then.”
Steingard also suggested that he will be leaving Hawk Nelson in the future.
“While I know I can no longer stand on stage and in good conscience sing songs like ‘Drops in the Ocean’, I no longer fear losing my place in Christian music. I know this means giving it up voluntarily.”
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