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?

I have had a few conversations in the past couple weeks in which the Christian on the other side seemed to argue that humans were not stuck with a ‘sinful nature’ per se. Rather, they were stricken with a kind of natural ‘mark’ or ‘sin’ at birth, passed down from Adam, which is washed away during infant baptism.

In the context of the argument (and that particular Christian denomination), the original ‘sin’ at birth would appear purely ceremonial, and nothing more. Once removed by baptism, a person returns to a pre-fall state. There is no ‘sinful nature’ which tends us all toward sin. And thus, human choice and absolute freedom is prized more highly than God’s grace.

This, however, I find both irrational and unbiblical.

1. Human beings are born bad. We don’t like to think that, but it’s hard to deny. And no, it’s not purely a kind of ceremonial mark of uncleanness. It’s real, and aggressive. Even a basic look at a small child reveals the tendency toward sin which exists. Among the first things we do once we learn to speak is to lie. We are not taught to do it. We just do. A mother sees that a child has broken a plate in the kitchen. She asks, “did you break this plate?” the child quickly replies, “No, it was…”. Fill in the blank.

In adult life, even among Christians, any rational, honest, self-assessment will reveal that we tend toward things that are bad for us. Even those who have been baptized. We are not always caring, loving, patient, kind or humble. In fact, we are not more often than we are. It requires a kind of delusion to miss this.

Even Paul experienced this and writes about it in an eerily relatable way in Romans 7:13-20.

2. Freedom to choose is not in question, it is the will to choose. There is only one human in all history who did not sin. If there were not some kind of block in a human’s heart or mind, this would be extremely unlikely. At some point, someone would’ve gotten it right.

It’s not that human beings don’t have the freedom not to sin, it’s that they do not have the will not to sin.

This, as I’ve already shown, is not removed by any kind of ceremonial practice at birth, or otherwise. Christians from every sect all over the world echo the inclination to sin. Rather, It is removed at God’s discretion by his Spirit, and it always accompanies a personal learning faith in Christ. Only at this point is a Christian freed from their own will which then allows them to choose not to sin.

In conclusion.

The topic of ancestral sin is very large and complicated. I’ve hardly scratched the surface of the discussion here. However, I am hard pressed to believe that there is any kind of spiritual ‘mark of Cain’, which believers must have removed. And, the scripture used in its defense is highly suspect (1 Corinthians 15:22, Romans 5:12-21).

Instead, I find that it sits well with scripture and my rational mind to say that humans are born wicked and in need of actual redemption from Christ.

In the chapter 11 of the book of Acts, God reveals that the salvation brought by the Christ was not only for the nation of Israel, but for all mankind.

You probably remember Peter’s vision. While in a trance, God showed Peter ‘something like a sheet’ being lowered down from heaven. It was filled with all kinds of different animals—‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ in the Hebrew sense. God tells Peter to take and eat whatever he likes. At first, Peter resists the command, asserting that he’d never eating anything ‘unclean’. But God rebukes him, insisting that he isn’t to call anything ‘unclean’ that God has made clean.

It was at this moment, that some men arrived to bring Peter back to the household of a gentile who’d been commanded by God to fetch Peter and listen to whatever he told them. Of course, what happens next may not seem like much to us, but was a huge deal to Peter. God poured out his Spirit on the gentile household. Peter then understood that the vision of the animals in the sheet was to explain that Jesus’ salvation was for all men—‘clean’ and ‘unclean’ alike.

Understandably, Peter was criticized by the other Apostles for his decision to baptize the gentiles. But after Peter explains everything, including his vision, their response is remarkable. Acts 11:18:

When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, "Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life."

You can almost see the picture like it’s a dramatic scene in a movie. The group is heated by Peter’s apparent disregard for their laws and customs. Then, Peter explains why he did what he did and how God’s hand was at work.

The group grows silent, then humbly accepts that God has chosen something different than what they were used to—what they even thought was right. “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life”. It’s remarkable to me how quietly and humbly they accept they were wrong in their assertions, and accept God’s decision.

This is an attitude that seems altogether absent from our corporate church culture (and often even private walks).

How tightly do we grasp to our customs and traditions—even in the face of changing times and tides. God continues to meet each generation differently (in many ways) than the ones before it. No matter how you look at it, this is hard to deny. We do not spiritually interact with God in the same way our brothers and sisters did 500 years ago. Even 50 years ago. Yet, each generations seems to see their own customs as the pinnacle of appropriate spirituality.

I think we would do well to try and emulate the Apostles in this way. Hold ‘nothing sacred’ (so to speak). When God begins to move, we should move with him, even if it rubs the grain of what we have grown accustomed to.

Puritan author Daniel Cawdray says it better than I ever could. A classic thought to appreciate from a wise mind and heart:

As a heap of wheat, though it have chaff in it, is yet called wheat; or as a tun of wine, though it have lees in it, is yet called wine; or as a field where tares appear with the wheat is a cornfield; even so the visible Church is the Church. Though it consisteth of good and bad, and be mixed of the elect and reprobate, yet are they called God’s Church for the elect’s sake, and have their denomination from the better, not the bigger part.

I was reading about Saul’s conversion today in Acts. It’s a familiar story. And, a great evidence that God doesn’t need a permission (per se) to make believers out of us by his Spirit. But, that’s not really so much what I’m writing about today.

After Saul was blinded God told him to go and wait for a man called Ananias. What I find so interesting is the way Ananias addresses Saul when he finally meets him.

“Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ "

Ananias refers to Saul as ‘Brother Saul’. That word ‘Brother’ is the Greek word ‘Adelphos’. It literally refers to a blood brother. But, it’s also the word commonly translated as ‘Brethren’, as in the following. 1 Thes. 1:2-5:

“We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father, knowing , brethren beloved by God, His choice of you”

There is no record that Saul (yet to be renamed ‘Paul’) had made a profession of faith. As far as we know at this point, Saul had been terrified by a bright light and a booming voice which knocked him to the ground, all of which was followed by blindness.

I’d imagine that more than anything, Saul was terrified. And, having been confronted by Jesus himself, was truly broken in Spirit. Yet there was no open profession of repentance. I’d imagine at this point that he probably didn’t even grasp the idea of grace distributed through faith in Christ’s work.

Yet, besides that, Ananias refers to Saul as ‘Brother Saul’. Though Ananias could have been pointing out their shared heritage, it seems more likely that Ananias was acknowledging that God had chosen Saul and that whether he knew it or not (at this point) he was one of the Brethren.

I’m uncertain what application this thought might have to our own lives and relationships. But on the front end, it means that I may have to reconsider what I consider a ‘Brother’ to be. Perhaps there are Brothers in my life that neither I, nor they, quite know they’re in the family yet. But, it will only be a matter of time.

Romans 1:16 says:

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Most of the time, I feel confident saying that I am not ashamed of the Gospel. I don’t usually have the inclination to shrink back from talking about it or its power.

However, I am ashamed—very ashamed—to be associated with this:

(Can’t see the video? Watch it on YouTube)

Just for the record, a ‘rough rider’ (which this group of youth pastors from ‘The Father’s House’ in California repeatedly calls themselves in this song) is a type of condom designed to enhance sexual pleasure. It’s also a (gross) sexual technique. Painfully lame and uninformed.

What the hell? Wake up people! Seriously, there is absolutely no part of this that’s okay.

Abraham had this unfortunate habit of telling people that Sarah was his sister, not his wife. Twice in scripture he allows the people of the land that he is dwelling in to believe this. Because of Sarah’s beauty, both times a ruler took Sarah as his wife and the wrath of God began to fall on that leader and nation.

In this case, it was Abimelech, the king of Geber. But listen to what happens. Genesis 20:4-6:

[Abimelech] said, "Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this." 6Then God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.

Abimelech did something wicked in ignorance. Honest ignorance—and God took note. He kept Abimelech from consummating their marriage and it was merciful. Matthew-Henry says it well.

If our consciences witness, that, however we may have been cheated into a snare, we have not knowingly sinned against God, it will be our rejoicing in the day of evil. It is matter of comfort to those who are honest, that God knows their honesty, and will acknowledge it. It is a great mercy to be hindered from committing sin; of this God must have the glory.

God was merciful on Abimelech when his wrong doing really was an honest mistake. I wonder, why does the church have so much difficulty extending that kind of mercy?