sVery recently, a somewhat successful blogger, mother and Christian, made public her shift in thinking. More specifically, that she has become an atheist. I have to commend her honesty and bravery. If she was as active in her church as her post made it seem, she almost definitely has lost most of, if not all of, her church friends (which statistically among Christians would mean all of her friends. Of course, her own experience is all conjecture on my part).
I am not going to link directly to her post. Specifics aren’t terribly important and digital gossip is still gossip I’d like to avoid.
In her post which puts some background under he conversion, she links to a number of YouTube videos which decry Christianity and the Bible. The YouTube videos, like usual, take many of the harder passages from the bible and isolates them from the whole of scripture. Or, assumes a lot of things about the state of naturalistic thinking and the reason behind that.
In a few words, the woman remade these points with her own lexicon. Citing misogyny, slavery and child abuse as some of her biggest contentions with Christianity. Though in the length of the whole post, these were pretty small points. Perhaps the “wrinkles” in the fabric of her faith which eventually lent themselves to a full fledged tear.
When she really got down to a heated monologue it wasn’t about Christianity, it was about the Church.
This is long, but if you’re a Christian you ought to read it!
The woman absolutely did not want to serve as an elder in her church for a second term. The woman did not like being an elder. Being an elder was mostly about money. How to get it and how to spend it. She came to understand just how much money it took to maintain the large brick church building that stood empty six days a week. The amount of money it took made her sick. It was thousands and thousands of dollars every month. She thought about how all that money could be used to alleviate human suffering and misery and instead it went to to heat and cool and pay a mortgage on a huge brick church building that stood empty six days a week. She thought about the hundreds of dollars that she gave every month to maintain the huge brick church building that stood empty six days a week. She thought about how if she gave that money to a starving family or a hospital in Africa or a school in the slums of Brazil, she would be doing a much better thing than when she gave that money to heat and cool and staff a huge brick church building that stood empty six days a week. But the bible commanded that the woman give ten percent of her money to the church and not to starving people in Africa. The bible was more interested in the empty building and not the miserable people who were suffering and so was god. The woman did not want to be an elder anymore because she wanted to forget about that money that went to heat and cool the huge brick empty church building, but the woman felt like she had to be an elder. Because that is what christians do. They serve the church… or the the expensive brick building that stands empty six days a week.
What has she said here? She’s said, in extreme brevity, that there was a painful mismatch between the money they had and what they spent their money on.
In the case of this woman, it seems that her church failed to help her, or at least give her the tools, to iron out the theological wrinkles in her faith. If that isn’t one of the churches important functions, I’m not sure what is. But more than that, her church’s self-absorption led her to misunderstand the whole point. Unfortunately, it ended sadly. Though my own story must lead me to believe no one is out of God’s reach. There is still hope.
I’m heartbroken for this woman, and my own lack of faith leaves me fearful for the huge number of people in the current church system. The church cannot continue like this. It’s disgusting and stories like these are just the refuse of something that should be beautiful, but instead is disfigured and grotesque.
So, can it stop already?