This is the beginning of a work that I want people to read, but only people who want to understand where I came from, how and why I've changed, and trace my path. I suppose it's to explain why I'm here, after almost two decades of seriously and intentionally following Christ, to renounce Christianity.
If I had a 95 theses and somewhere to nail them, I'd probably do that. I'm a fan of tradition, making bold statements, and not being afraid to tell the whole world.
But I was afraid to talk to my whole world. I knew where they were coming from, and I knew it would hurt them. I knew that I was, in their minds, turning away from God. Which is bad 'n' stuff 'n' things. In some theology, to know God's goodness and still choose to turn from him is the only unforgivable sin. My parents raised me to be a good Christian, and I had learned how, and it was all good until about five years ago.
To preface, I used to be what I'd call hardcore Christian. I believed that the whole Bible could be literally true. It didn't matter to me whether He made the earth in 7 24-hour days, or 7 SomethingElse-days. I just believed that it mattered that he started the whole thing. I'd read about the deistic clockmaker god and many other perspectives on god that I half agreed with and half disagreed with, but I wasn't too bothered about it. Jesus was so real...
God was my best friend. We talked all the time. I was an authentic, living-like-I-should Christian. And everything was not always good, but I have an undying optimist inside me that believed it would all work out in the end, the way it was supposed to be. And I just KNEW God was real.
How did I know? Well, while I was carefully contemplating how to kill myself in sixth grade, I felt a hug. And Something told me that I wasn't supposed to kill myself and that it had plans for my future. My then-faith in the Christian God was complete. He had to be real.
Now, I'm not so sure. It could have been another force that I don't put into the box labeled "Christian God" and I'm certain that it was. Why? Well I don't believe in the Christian God. I believe whatever is out there has been misunderstood, mislabeled, and misrepresented by people who espoused to know it and religions that claimed to frame it for us. I think Jesus Christ himself would be pretty upset about what we've made him out to be and what we've made God out to be and how we started a religion.
How dare we.
So that's the short story. Now for the long version, including how I handled questions like:
Does God ask us to do things because they are the right thing to do?
...or does he ask us to do them simply because he says so?
Why do you keep using/reading the Bible if you don't believe in it anymore?
...and how I came to conclusions like:
Christianity does not have the monopoly on truth.
I am a witch. (I feel the potential consequences of making such a statement are dire, even in this day and age, and I'm ready to burn at the stake for it...*that's supposed to be halfway funny, guys*)
More to come; feel free to post questions and I will answer them as I come to them. Love and light to all.
