Jon Steingard, lead guitarist for Christian pop-punk band, Hawk Nelson, made an announcement last week on Instagram that he no longer believes in God.
“I’ve been terrified to post this for a while – but it feels like it’s time for me to be honest,” wrote Steingard in opening the dialogue he’d been scared to initiate for years, adding, “I hope this is not the end of the conversation, but the beginning.”
“This is not a post I ever thought that I would write, but now I feel like I really need to,” Steingard wrote. “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.”
Rather than it happening ‘overnight,’ the musician explains that his journey to unbelief was more like ‘pulling on the threads of a sweater, and one day discovering that there was no more sweater left.’
The ex-Christian artist assured fans that may have followed him because of his band affiliation with Hawk Nelson that he was not lying to them the entire time, nor pretending to be a Christian.
“I was not lying,” he shared. “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.”
Though unsettled about his faith in Christ from early on, Steingard felt that growing up in a Christian home and being surrounded by believers, he must develop a “reflex to push it down, and soldier on.”