Analysis of Tyler Vela's Deconversion Announcement

Kevin gives an analysis of Tyler Vela's Recent deconversion announcement. This analysis incorporates the 4 kinds of knowing, the functions of a paradigm, Fowler's Stages of Faith and elements of cognitive science.

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8 ‘A’s of Salvation” (pre-requisite salvation considerations before other inferences can be entertained)
“Christian Cognition” (learn about the things that affect data processing other than “the facts”)
“Full Stature Initiative” (follow presentations and group discussions of the Book of Acts)
“Acts 13:48” (videos that address this so-called “Calvinist proof text”)
“Calvinist Infiltration” (videos that address Calvinist infiltration into non-Calvinist churches)


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[kforsythe]

This was great. So helpful to go through the transcript and see all the principles applied. Would love to hear more like this.

[cmk]

Vela's deconversion is a great example of exactly why what Kevin says is important.

[treysmith]

I learned about provisionism, and when I first saw your channel, I wasn't really interested in it because I didn't understand. But I began to see that provisionism did not help to heal my mind of calvinism. It still isn't fully healed. But I think I am entering stage 4, but my mind can't handle it. I know calvinism is plain wrong, and provisionism is incomplete and relies on paradigms too, but I am still not free of the calvinist paradigm, and it causes me to be in fight of flight when I read a lot of the time. Which does cause burnout for me when I read.

[awakeandfearless]

I am grateful for the faith crisis I had many years ago because if forced me out of propositionally knowing things that I was accepting without the other kinds of knowing. This propelled me into a deep thirst for truth and I had to literally prove what I believe is true by challenging the beliefs I was “told” were true. Today, I am in a much deeper relationship with Christ and I am flexible to changing or adapting to new and more advanced views of the Word of God. Its almost as if the Bible really is “living and active”… 😉

[brianmassman]

Will pray for a heart and eye opening for Tyler as he walks away from all that has imploded in his life and is met and ministered to by God who has been gentle in my own implosions. Perhaps victory for Tyler is closer now than one might think. Well handled Kevin, thank you.

[chrislacy]

I went through something similar, not with Christianity but with conspiracy theories. I got all wound up in the weird truths of this world. I ended up having an ego death after a pretty ugly disorder phase. That mentality effected my walk at the time. Tries it some new agey stuff. Ultimately few from it. While I'm sure the church i teach at would rather me do the state 3 teaching i always offer up alternative points of view when we get to passages that are contentious. And participating in helping my community and the love i have for the people that go to my church are the major benefits i get from going rather than starting up a home church. It's nice to hear an articulation of what i went through. It felt like back sliding at the time, but i came out the other side better. And i still have a lot of growing to do.

[markushaoseb]

It seems as if there is a strong correlation between proposition centered living and divorce.

[lolersauresrex]

What’s crazy is that this guy starts talking about all the work he’s done to become a more whole human, he finally started embodying his faith (walking in truth and emotional development and love and family becoming his “religion”) and it was so foreign to him, that he thought he was losing his faith!

He is so close! He is on the road, I went through the same thing.

[stephenvieting]

The wisdom of holding possibility mode is like a child on a monkey bar this bar is the bar currently being grasped that will be released in order to move to the end of the playground

[Do_not_at_me_bro]

Interestingly enough I had my own experience of crisis 5 years ago. I started reading Peter Rollins book Idolatry of God, to help me understand what I was experiencing internally. I was also interested in the Pyrotheology courses (theology mixed with, psychology, philosophy, psychoanalysis) which is a kind of technology aimed to get people into an experience where they don't change what they believe, but to change how they believe. This was a different way of talking about paradigms and not aiming to make a lateral move but a vertical move. It was tough because I was stuck in stage 3 trying to get into stage 4, I remember sensing I was in a crisis, or storm, and saying I was transitioning, but didn't understand what I was talking about. I also described it as deconstructing and reconstructing, unlearning and relearning. Pyrotheology was helpful in my development and though it was confusing at the time, and I felt lost in what my ultimate concern was, I knew it wasn't attaching myself to any proposition or ideology or belief, I still wanted to keep God as my ultimate concern, but I felt disingenuous about my attachment to the paradigm. At the start of Idolatry of God, there was the glass half empty, glass half full analogy, but with a twist, what if God wanted to smash that cup to pieces and have the water flow everywhere (I'm paraphrasing) and that's how I wanted to see things, from a meta-paradigmatic point. It took me a while though to know and understand what my ultimate concern is, and I can say nowadays that it's Jesus that is of ultimate concern and I aim to be more Christlike with every passing year. It was hard for me to communicate my doubts as I was a bit cynical back then, but I remember in that time I thought of Jesus in the stormy sea, and He was sleeping peacefully while the disciples were all panicking, and I thought, "in this stormy season of my life, I want to be able to have the peace and stillness Jesus had in the midst of the storm." I don't think I ever got there but there were some moments of peace, but I also find on reflection looking at myself back then, I made changes to better improve my life that did bring me more peace, even in the Christlike way of calming the storm, I sacrificed time and money to get a drivers license and a car. I experienced more freedom, physically and even spiritually. Physically and spiritually I was in exploratory mode I found the freedom to go places, read different perspectives about the scriptures and my life was generally a lot more peaceful, however I was discontent and ambitious and wanted to make more improvements in my life, and where I'm at now as to where I was 5 years ago is colossally different. I still am working to make more life improvements, and I am also seeking to understand scripture in a relational manner and have things I read and didn't understand back then hatch into understanding. Next time I find myself in a stormy season, I'll be as peaceful as Jesus and know that there is some input I need to do to calm the storm. This channel is helping me develop my communication and understanding of scripture a lot. I also now understand why I resisted anything bible study related back then even though back then I didn't know why. Also I found Knights of the old republic games have themes of letting go of attachments to ideologies, which converged with pyrotheology and moving beyond the fundamentals. I found it difficult to let go of the paradigm I held onto, but I did find myself into epistemologically being drawn to Christ. A seed has to die before it can grow, and in early 2018 the seed of paradigmatic thinking died when my mum and I had a conversation about my beliefs. I basically said I don't know what my beliefs are, I don't even know If I believe in God and Jesus and all that. Then we watched Netflix and I wanted to watch Ben Hur, so we watched that and Jesus appeared as a background character, and he had some good screentime, and in that screen time, he was at work doing carpenting, and then some poorman was in the way of the pharisees and the pharisees were beginning to throw stones at the poor man, so Jesus stopped what He was doing and covered the poor man and shielded him from the stones being thrown. That scene is what drew me to Christ, that's when roots started taking place for my assurance of ultimate concern. It also showed the death and resurrection of Jesus and with that some miracles of side characters being healed of sickness and being freed from prison. It was the character of Jesus and the pattern of Him, it was like I was shown how Jesus is the way, and that's the direction I wanted to take my life into. No ideologies or paradigms I attached myself to at that point, then I was shown the way of Christ in what I thought to be a movie that didn't expect to see Jesus in. So I can call that a miracle that my seed of being attached to ideology or paradigm died, the resurrection was me being shown the way of Christ, and it is Christ that I'm drawn to and the way of Christ I've aimed myself to follow.

[jackspates]

My 2 cents as one who turned from Christ for many years and by His grace returned 20 years ago. From my initial profession I was directed to Churches where so much focus was about reading the Bible to know the truth, not so much to live it out but to prove everyone else wrong. Most of the churches were Calvinist but the problem is not exclusive to them (nor is this necessarily their intended focus ) Nonetheless, my wife, even while young in the faith, noticed that in those churches people liked to talk (and debate) doctrine, while in the churches we’re associated w/ now people want to talk Jesus. The Christian life is about living and loving Jesus. We love Jesus by keeping God’s commandments, not in a begrudging servitude but because we want to honor the God who saves us and because we believe Him; that walking in His way brings life, that God’s way works. Christ’s yoke is easy and His burden is light ( a passage that used to puzzle me greatly) not because the Christian life is easy ( you can get your head cut off ) but because it is not walking in His way that will rob you of your peace, joy, hope and life. That is what sin does. So the goal is not acquiring more Bible knowledge to know more, but rather to know God more and to learn how, in the fellowship of the Church, to walk together in His way… to love God and to love others, which is to live out His gracious commandments, by grace through faith in all our interactions. Followers of Christ honor God w our obedience and when we stumble, which we all do, we honor God w our repentance and confession believing that God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. What good news the gospel is! Praise God!

[eswn]

A wise man, of apostolic giftings, taught us the following:
"We love the blessings, but we grow through the sufferings."
Luke 9: 23: "Deny thyself; take up your cross daily; follow me."

Take up your cross IS suffering..., BUT it depends upon one suffering righteously. Once the whining, complaining and self-pity comes, we are on the road to becoming lost.
I pray that this man focuses upon spiritual truth and not his feelings. Otherwise, he will be "lost" and possibly bitter.... 🙏

[christianuniversalist]

Calvinists walk by sight, Christians walk by faith

[julayalo]

The thing that stage 3 churches can offer higher ups are a couple elderly higher staged saints. Few and far between, but they are there.

[dorarie]

Tyler Vela was an accomplished Christian who concluded Christianity is false. He joins many others doing the same. There is little and only weak evidence supporting the claims made for Jesus and Christianity in general. Once you start questioning the faith sincerely, it’s easy to see how it can all unravel.

[R.L.KRANESCHRADTT]

I seem to remember seeing a clip of him in a debate in which he denies that God "THINKS"....Having already determined the end from the beginning and everything in between even before time was invented.. there's really nothing left.😥 To me, that would be a truly disastrous position for an all knowing all powerful eternal being to endure.
1:13 His 'faith' was no help during his crisis because he was trained to believe God was responsible for whatever was happening to him which didn't align with his desire to believe that God is good to his 'elect', or at least has their best in mind. This would cause him to doubt his own (Calvinist defined) election even in the face of all his own dedication and earnest desire to relate to our heavenly father. Reconciling the determinist doctrines with his reality when the rubber hit the road was too much and he could not "persevere"... but, doctrinally, that would only be evidence that God did not cause him to persevere. He "inevitably" rejects the consequences of his own belief, then 'freely' chooses to deny his belief.🤔 I feel for him but at least he's rejecting Calvinism, so he's not beyond help.

[BrotherDave]

I hate to see anyone leave the faith before entering the Lord's rest and truly being born again and saved. Calvinism sure seems to cause so many to do just that

[LedHead]

This is really deep, good stuff, Kev. I feel sorry for this guy. He's leaving something that he thinks is "the faith, " but it's actually a manmade system he's disgusted with and just doesn't know it yet. I need to go back and watch the stages of faith video. I have somewhat of a grasp on it, but I could definitely stand to learn more. Thanks for these.

[peterfox]

28:42 Both beliefs and practices are important to discern. And yes, we do ask great leaders & doers what their underlying philosophies are. Practice derives from beliefs, and we do want to make sure public actions align with public beliefs. We go to church to be taught and to be edified in both beliefs and practices.

[pamelafaye]

I've observed that many of these deconversion stories have in common a belief in the modern translations and higher criticism constantly asking themselves "Yea, has God said..."