No True Scotsman

Several years ago, I started 'coming out' about my deconversion to a few friends in my former church circle. I wanted to remain authentic and normalise the experience.

As the meaning of my words became clear, I could see the microexpressions on my companion's face shift in trying to reconcile all the seemingly contradicting facts. 

I opened up and shared sincere reflections on my inner journey... about learning the connection between evidence and belief, my search for truth, my evolving values, and how I found all these at odds with what I believe it means to remain a Christian.

I could see the wheels turning in my companion's head.

And the words just came out.

Maybe you were never really a true Christian*

Those words struck me right at the heart.

And they hurt.

In one phrase... my sincere utterance of the sinner's prayer, hours and hours of prayer and connection with God, grateful tears shed over my beloved Lord's death on the cross for me, my voice raised jubilantly in praise and worship toward Him... all meant nothing.

Maybe my heart wasn't sincere enough.

Maybe I was just faking it.

Maybe something in my heart was not tuned in exactly the right direction.

After all, if I had been a true Christian, I would still be one and continue to remain one.

That is the conumdrum isn't it?

There is no room for doubt to lead anywhere.

One can look in the direction of doubt, but never follow it.

Stay on the chosen path and only listen to the voices that affirm that this is the one and only true path.

That sounds perfectly reasonable.

*The 'No True Scotsman' fallacy

You made what could be called an appeal to purity as a way
to dismiss relevant criticisms or flaws of your argument.

In this form of faulty reasoning one's belief is rendered unfalsifiable because no matter how compelling the evidence is, one simply shifts the goalposts so that it wouldn't apply to a supposedly 'true' example. This kind of post-rationalization is a way of avoiding valid criticisms of one's argument
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman

Martha Corey, Last Woman Hung in the Salem Witch Trials
https://www.thoughtco.com/martha-corey-biography-3530323