open ended question
I know most of you are not Christians and that decision was made with much thought and you have strong reasons for this. This question is, mostly, for you (if you are willing to answer it) but also for everyone else. Mostly, I've been looking in the mirror and seeing a lot of -well, bitchiness there. I want to be rid of that but it also got me ( Read more... )
I was raised in a hardcore, extremely conservative Christian family. My family has currently taken on Andrew Wommack as The Prophet. Before him, it was James Dobson.
I was not born a free-thinker. I was born a quiet, sensitive person who naturally loves people too much and expects too much from them.
My family, namely my father, made me a free-thinker.
I drifted away from the church at about the same time I drifted away from him. The correlation was no coincidence. I could not and would not see one without the other.
Time has helped me to see things without his influence.
There are two things I know.
The first is that I, and the rest of the world, was made. I do not presume that we were made one way or the other--just that my existence is beyond a mortal suggestion at some point.
Two--my life has had an uncanny series of conveniences that I cannot explain. Not all of them are good, but all of them disturb me as being orchestrated by something other than myself.
On behalf of those two things, I'm slowly finding a faith again. I'm calling it a quiet, open faith. It isn't my parents' faith or behavior. I do not believe we were created to be militant or extremist. I believe we were created to ultimately be at peace and to love others, and I don't see that in evangelical Christianity. I know neither ultimate peace nor ultimate love are at the base of evangelical Christianity as I know it. I've seen it many times. I've felt it.
I am finding that in my searching, but I don't claim to accept everything I see just yet as part of Christ. I accept that which will lead to an ending to suffering, an ending to the "kinks" of the life to which we have been assigned.
So, in a shortened long story--if it doesn't help you be at peace and help others find peace, I don't quite accept it as Christianity.
Of course, what do I know? I'm going to church for the first time willingly and of my own volition for years this Saturday evening.
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