Letters From Leavers

Dear Church:

First off, I need to say this: I have an absolutely amazing home church. I’ve been attending for nearly 3 years, and I have never been alienated, neglected, abandoned, or in any way been shown anything but humble love and acceptance, despite my obvious differences from most Christians. When I first started attending this particular church, I was extremely liberal - openly hostile toward the more conservative people in America. At the time, I didn’t consider myself a Christian because I just couldn’t convince myself of it all. The thing that DID eventually convince me was attending this church. The people are all wonderful, loving, exciting, excited, humble, kind, passionate and compassionate people. I had never met Christians like this. They weren’t “political”. They made jokes about conservatives AND liberals. They tried to vote based on their own beliefs. So, I figured, I can do this. The thing was that I really wanted the Jesus story to be true. And I thought that, if it was true, this was the place that I would find out because these people looked like the early Church. So, I became a Christian. I truly did. I decided that I believed what Jesus claimed, that I believed enough of the Bible to be able to follow it (I was never really able to grasp it in its entirety). And to this day, I have never had a bad experience with that church.

The problem comes when I look inward - at my own heart, intellect, and core beliefs - and outward at the Church at large.

When I look inward, I realize that I have beliefs so completely contradictory to the bible and to the followers of Christ that it unsettles me - beliefs that cause me not to believe in Hell, to believe in reincarnation, to believe that there is no holy trinity, to see a lot of merrit in Buddhism and Hinduism, to believe that God is in every person, to believe that humans can be basically good, among other things. The main “inward” problem is my disbelief in the Bible. I can’t accept over half of it. How can I follow Christ if I don’t believe the word of God?

When I look outward, I see that I have beliefs that alienate me from the Church at large - I don’t have a problem with a person being homosexual, I am pro-choice, I am against the war and I am against our government (as in democracy, not just Bush). I see these things, and I HEAR the way Christians talk about people who believe these things, and I know that I DO NOT fit in with it. Furthermore, the anger and hatred I felt towards my fellow Christians revealed to me that I should separate myself from it. God himself said that if a person does not love his fellow Christians, he is a murderer and has never known God.

I don’t think it’s right for me. I feel like there is so much more that I COULD say, but can’t really put into words.

Thanks for listening,

-Mallory