DaveVanAllen.com

W hen I was a Christian, I was taught to bring my pain, confusion, and doubt to the foot of the cross. “You can be healed,” I was told. “ If you have faith, God will make a way .” But the promised healing never came. When my faith-filled prayers were answered with silence, the reassuring comments of “It’s all part of God’s plan” started to sound like empty rhetoric. For that reason and many others, I eventually left Christianity, carrying a burden of spiritual scaring. Now what? Seek psychological help? Eliminate my magical thinking by actually studying science? I tried those paths, and they did help. However, somewhere along the way, I quietly, curiously stumbled onto the writings of modern and ancient philosophers. I mostly skipped the dry texts presented by academia, being more drawn to contemporary writers who bring philosophy alive. When I think of medicine, I often picture pills, prescriptions, or white-coated professionals poking at problems with stethoscopes. But lon...

F or the better half of my life, I was a dedicated Christian. My faith shaped how I interpreted the world, how I related to others, and how I understood meaning and morality. In my 40s, I began to question — not out of a desire to sin (the usual Christian dismissal for my current disbelief), but out of a deep and unsettling sense that the religious world I inhabited no longer made sense to me. What followed was a liberating and empowering transition. After many years of identifying as a timidly skeptical ex-Christian, I discovered Stoicism, an ancient philosophy that had eluded me until then. Now, I proudly identify as a Stoic Prokopton — a term that signifies progress, not perfection. I am not a sage, not a master, not a know-it-all, but simply someone walking the path with intention and empowerment. Why I Moved Away from Christianity My faith had been my primary source of community, identity, and purpose. The more I learned about Christianity, the more I noticed the contradictory n...