Those of us who consider ourselves to be part of the Church need to think about the point being made here with all due seriousness:
Of the friends of mine who have abandoned the Christian faith, very few of them stopped believing in Christ because of intellectual problems with the Bible of because they were seduced by some other worldview or belief system. Rather, they tend to abandon Christian faith because of the irrelevance, judgmentalism, internal dissension and lack of compassion they experience within the Christian community. Rather than finding the church to be the community that most deeply encouraged them in their struggles, they lost heart in their discouragement and lost their faith in the process. Rather than experiencing the church as the site of the most profound hospitality, love and acceptance, they felt excluded because of their doubts and struggles.
It certainly captures why I have problems with the church, though I have also found the most profound support in faith communities. When I read the words "irrelevance, judgmentalism, " I wonder why anyone would be attracted to any church nowadays because those words express our image to the world to a very great extent.
ReplyDeleteOh, I agree, Paul. These are indeed the problems I have with the Church, myself. And, like you, I have also experienced great support within faith communities. That presents something of a difficult contradition, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteI don't believe because I see no evidence for any of it.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't want to be associated with the ignorance and poor education of the fundiegelicals and the "progressive" politics and the posturing of the mainline.