Letters From Leavers

I have left the church in my heart and mind but not physically, yet. I am in the closet with my un-belief. Along with my spouse, I raised my children in the church and have seen them all go on to be very active participants in the church. One is in a doctoral program in Christian ethics, and is married to someone in full time church ministry. One is an evangelical stay-at-home mom who is very active in the church, where her brother-in-law is the head pastor. One is very active in a charismatic church and is active in church music ministry, missionary work, and lives every moment of her life for Jesus. Need I explain further why I am still in the closet?

I had my born again experience about 30 years ago, and it was a life changing experience. I saw some men who had something I was missing, and I believed I had found what I was missing. I have never been an “in your face” Christian, but I would characterize myself as an evangelical. A big James Dobson and Chuck Colson fan. Good conservative Republican Christian. I have served the church with my financial gifts, and service on various committees and other leadership roles.

As far as my bible study, I was always content to just focus on the current Sunday school lesson or whatever the preacher was focusing on at the time.  About 3 years ago I got really interested in how the scriptures tell us that we should relate to one another in the church family. I read a lot of what Paul was saying in his letters to the various churches, and then I ran across my wife’s copy of “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren. I found it very helpful and inspirational as a resource on how we should live with one another in the church. It was full of the idea of loving and forgiving and really living as family members should.  I felt like I had found what the church was really all about.

It may seem odd, but it was a renewed interest in the scriptures themselves that started me on the road to some doubting. My focus had not really been on the Hebrew bible, since my interest had been in the church and relations. Our pastor, a radical fundamentalist and proud of it, began a sermon series on a walk through the bible. He gave sort of a synopsis of the books of the o.t. and some of his explanations for the brutality of the Israelites in the taking of the promised land I found a bit hard to swallow.  At some point over a year ago, I went back and read the book of Joshua. I found it disturbing.  I then decided to start at the beginning, Genesis 1, and read the history of the Hebrew people just as it was written, without any commentary or preaching, and see what I could accept.  I read, over several months, Genesis through Nehemiah, which pretty well covered the historical books, and it was the testimony of the scriptures themselves that has driven me from my faith.

I believe now that a better title of that portion of the bible would be, ” The Book of Hebrew Atrocities”. To put it succinctly, bad science, bad math, bad god! The idea that the church has joined Yahweh and Jesus Christ at the hip and heart in something called a holy trinity is now mind-boggling to me. That is about like saying Hitler and Gandhi were soul-mates and both had the best interest of humanity in mind, just different approaches. So where does that leave me with Jesus? Not real confident. After all, the New Testament writers never really claimed that Jesus was anything other than the Jewish messiah, did it?  So, if I reject that the god of Abraham and Moses was the creator of the universe, you tell me where that leaves me with Jesus.

I found the reading of the Hebrew text to be offensive to every ounce of humanity, and humaneness, that I possess. We now look at things such as genocide as the worst sort of crimes against humanity. Yet, in order to accept the bible as the holy word of God, we must accept the genocidal activities of the Israelites as a good and necessary thing, since it was commanded by God himself. I will no longer be a part of defending such cruel acts.  The Hebrew bible is full of all sorts of cruelty and crimes against humanity.  I abhor and reject cruelty at all levels. I have a higher opinion of a Creator God than this tribal deity of the Hebrews. The idea that an awesome Creator would have such a bloodlust and command and sanction such cruelty is ludicrous to me now.

One of the sad ironies that came to me as I read the text is that the idea of the chosen-ness of Abraham and his descendants is really a “master-race” theology. Yet, thousands of years later, the Jews would be the victims of a madman with his own “master-race” ideas. A strange world we live in.

Anyway, I totally reject Abrahamic authority and theology, and therefore must reject the bible as the word of God.  The theology you must now learn to defend as seminarians must now condemn me to burn in hell.  Sad.

Wally