Ehrman has said he progressed from evangelical belief to agnosticism, identifying the problem of suffering as decisive. He has written, “the problem of suffering became for me the problem of faith” and has said, “I no longer go to church, no longer believe, no longer consider myself a Christian”. In a 2008 interview he said, “I simply didn’t believe that there was a God of any sort”.

Ehrman has said that he is both agnostic and atheist but that “I usually confuse people when I tell them I’m both”. “Atheism is a statement about faith and agnosticism is a statement about epistemology”, he said.

Ehrman argues that Jesus of Nazareth existed historically, and has summarized the claim in popular form “he did exist, whether we like it or not”. His position on Christology is historical rather than confessional. In summarizing How Jesus Became God, NPR recorded his judgment that “Jesus himself didn’t call himself God and didn’t consider himself God”. He has also written that Jesus did not teach postmortem reward and punishment as popularly conceived. In a 2020 essay he argued that Jesus proclaimed resurrection and the coming kingdom rather than eternal torment.

Adults are discussing history. Whatever they did to you in Sunday school class is not relevant here.