Suggesting the Controversial

There has been a significant shift in my experience of my faith since leaving the institutional church. That's actually an understatement, to put it mildly. Everything about my faith has changed. I actually wonder sometimes if I was a real follower of Jesus back in the box.

One of the most prominant changes is that now I am seen as "not really a Christian" because I don't go to church. People somehow equate 'outside the box' as 'not really in line with Christ'. I suppose I don't help much with my new thinking style. I challenge things, question things, struggle to unwrap my mind from my religious thinking and start knowing Jesus again. I challenge things like the false belief that the bible is the word of God. It isn't, by the way. Jesus is the Word. The Bible is a book about Jesus. The book isn't Him. Needless to say, my thoughts leave people questioning whether I am going to hell or not, which I am not sure I believe in either.

Somehow when a person like me steps outside the 'what we have always been told' and dares to question or think outside 'what we have always been told', my heart is quickly condemned as a heretic or demonic. (Funny, religious people said the same things about Jesus).

I am not saying I am right about anything I believe. I know I am no authority. What I am saying is that Jesus challenged religious thinking that was more interested in comfortable and safe rules than it was in alive relationship with a living God. When people chose the stance of 'this is what we have always been taught', he challenged them. He seemed to want them to be alive more than he wanted them to be theologically correct. Loving God seemed to be more important than right believing.

So I wonder what he would say if he were to talk to the church of today. Would he challenge them with beliefs they found hard to swallow? Would it tick some people off? Would the church go as far as to label him a heretic? How about killing him?

I believe that the institutional church is not only very capable of the above behaviors, but has committed even worse over the years. That truth is obvious. What I want to challenge people to think about is the real church - you and me - and how we will behave toward people who actually think rather than just recite religious mantas. Is there room for them to grow and question, or must they believe the same as we do? Will we take our own religious thinking and carry it with us outside the church walls? May God rip it out of our hands on the way to the church parking lot.