i venture with great trepidation.....

i hesitate to even write this blog because i'm sure all four of you that read it will scratch your head immediately.

i am no longer a christian. there i said it.

now before everyone thinks i've forsaken my call let me assure you i have not. i just finished a book that has changed my life, how i read scripture, and in conjunction with other thoughts lately given me this feeling. i hate christians. plain and simple. it's not even for the normal reasons post-moderns like myself give like the crusades, the televangelists, and some horrible church leader they encountered in the past. no, mine is even simpler than that. the church of today tries to examine and understand something using modern mindsets that isn't meant to be read and examined like a book. let me explain...

modern thought and study says we should pick up a book, read it, study it, dissect it, break it down, and try to reason what the main point is. that's great, but when it comes to Jesus, all too often we use the same logic. we have a problem so we open the bible and search for answers. to me this is missing the boat completely. scripture is meant to seep into our consciousness and pervade our heart to the point where we are a living, breathing example of the gospel.

this might sound confusing and i assure you, it is. it goes against most modern principles that the modern age has brought us. even the very doctrine of christianity nowadays has gotten completely off track. don't believe me....try this on for size.

church culture today has a main focus of "saving" people. we are saved from our sins and will have eternal life. yes, this is true and i agree that we are "saved" but there's something that has always bothered me about that. something about God never resolved with me in this area. if our main focus is getting saved and saving others what else is the point to life? to me this culture that breeds the main focus is getting saved is very dangerous for a variety of reasons paramount of which is that it breeds complacency. if the church makes its priority "saving" then it creates this stigma of ok i'm saved great, i'm going to become the church automaton and join the masses. this should be the ABSOLUTE last thing that should happen.

there are a lot of other things i could say about this subject but to keep this blog from becoming a giant tangent, but i think we should re-define the word "salvation". rather than it meaning "to become saved from our sins", perhaps a better way to define it would be to say "it's accepting the mission of Jesus Christ". what is this mission? to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

now, why am i no longer a christian? i think that's apparent. i don't want the label of what we define a christian as nowadays. i'd much rather be a radical Jesus loving, broken soul, and people loving guy who wants other people to find the joy he's discovered in the love of Christ.