A recent comment by Peter, "It's my prayer that the reality of sin and God's justice would break your hardened heart and that the good news of God's perfect grace would mend that broken heart."
First of all, my heart is neither hardened nor broken. I sure felt that way for most of my life after years of indoctrination of being told "you're a sinner", "you're broken", "you need to ask Jesus to soften your heart". No. I'm just a human; neither good or bad. Just existing. Have I done things that society would consider morally wrong? Sure. Have I done things that I personally find to be wrong? Yes. But I not longer believe that any of these things are worthy of being burned for eternity in a lake of fire if I don't believe correctly, say magical words or live a certain way. Not that there aren't consequences to possibly face for actions but those consequences happen here, while alive, and are not forever.
No need to give me a Christianese rant as I know every argument you'll try to give. They bore me. If your God is truly real and truly loving then I'm fine and I'll have to gamble on those things and not the bullshit guilt trip I've been sold my entire life.
All that said; I do want to sincerely thank The Crossing Church for being the final straw that got me out of the Christian life.
Thank you for not answering my questions, as I finally learned that no one has those answers.
Thank you for being abusive to your members, as I then had to leave and thankfully never go back.
Thank you for being so arrogant and vain, as it gave confirmation to my intuition saying "this just isn't right".
Thank you for keeping me on the outside and never letting me into the popular crowd, as I'm sure I would have stayed and still be sucked into your nonsense.
Thank you for consistently acting ridiculous, as that forced me to dig deeper and open my eyes.
Thank you for mismanaging money and living large off the tithes of your members.
I was just reading a recent post by Pastor Eric Dykstra that said to walk in freedom, joy and love. I do walk in those things because of releasing Christianity. No book of rules, no forced giving, no expectations. I get to think for myself, use logic and reason, and not believe I'm hard and broken. It's a true freedom like no other.
I thank you because after all the searching, the sadness, the pain and the anger, I'm finally free of you. I kissed hell, a vengeful God, penal substitutionary atonement and the "inerrant word of God" good bye and it's wonderful. I did it all while in Christianity: every prayer, every study, every song, every shame filled service. I did all these things while pushing down the feeling that it was all bullshit. Asked Jesus into my heart a good 10,000 times, and was even told by a Crossing church leader "maybe you should do it again - out loud in front of me" because supposedly their presence would make it take and then I'd feel it the way they did? Whatever. Baptized twice and no special supernatural thing ever happened. It was in going all in at The Crossing Church that it finally fell apart.
I don't know if there is a God. I don't know if there is an after life. I don't know and that's OK. I live in the tension between the possibility of an all powerful deity and nothingness. And that's fine. I'm open to all thoughts, possibilities and ideas. I accept that what I feel today will probably change. Jesus said his burden was light, and he was cool so maybe that's true, but the burden of the church is unbearable. So happy to be free. Thank you Crossing Church.
