I followed a similar path to the people in this video, but for me it was a rejection of my church. For some context, I went to the Calvary Chapel church mentioned in this article,, in the 90s. I...
I followed a similar path to the people in this video, but for me it was a rejection of my church. For some context, I went to the Calvary Chapel church mentioned in this article,, in the 90s. I went to Sunday school while my mom and older brother sat in on Chuck Smith's sermons. My dad one day wanted to try to get back to his Christian roots and we dropped in on a Smith sermon that was talking about how at least 100,000 Muslims wanted to kill us at any second. Let's just say my dad never went to another church service.
What is interesting to me is the strength of these individuals' faith. I was rattled when I was told God wouldn't make my parents stop smoking for their health at 5, and driven away when I saw contradictions of what Jesus even taught, and cultish dogma. These people in the video see that their church was wrong, but they believe in the words of Jesus, as written in the Bible, I guess they would say. My response to the same thing was to leave, but it seems like these people sort of take the contradiction as a test of their faith, which is fascinating. As an aside, my brother (who's being dragged to church by his wife) and I have been half-jokingly saying that if we didn't go to our specific church, we'd probably still be Christian.
I won't claim to know how representative these people are of the bigger picture, but there are progressive enclaves. I had a polisci professor, super progressive, who even spent a few minutes trying to dispel some stereotypes about Christians and politics after mentioning an non-religious, class-relevant event he arranged for his church to host. To him, Christianity is why he's progressive, and I hope we can see more people go this way, if they aren't going to leave the church.
I'm a bit the same as you. I found that once you start questioning things, very soon everything falls apart, and I'm not a Christian anymore. However, from a societal perspective, I feel these...
I'm a bit the same as you. I found that once you start questioning things, very soon everything falls apart, and I'm not a Christian anymore.
However, from a societal perspective, I feel these "progressive", jesus-style Christians are far preferable to the republican brand. So even though I don't necessarily agree with them, I think this trend (if it is confirmed) is a positive one for society at large.
Anything that tilts humanity in a positive direction is okay in my book. It took me a long time to figure out that my issue wasn't with Christianity, but with people who used it for societal harm,...
Anything that tilts humanity in a positive direction is okay in my book. It took me a long time to figure out that my issue wasn't with Christianity, but with people who used it for societal harm, be it the Crusades or making laws about punitive justice, reproductive rights, or who can marry who. Unfortunately, there are members of every religion who do stuff like that, and even a fair amount of atheists, which tells me it's a human issue, not a religious one.
If you let go the idea the that the bible, or any part of it, is inerrant, pure, or an expression of divine perfection, a beautiful and workable way if cooperative life emerges. In this way...
If you let go the idea the that the bible, or any part of it, is inerrant, pure, or an expression of divine perfection, a beautiful and workable way if cooperative life emerges. In this way progressive christianity is a boon both tonadherents and conmunities.
r/AskBibleScholars really helped me reject the more toxic elements of evangelical Christianity by helping me realize that the Bible consists of a series of texts that were written down by people...
r/AskBibleScholars really helped me reject the more toxic elements of evangelical Christianity by helping me realize that the Bible is a bookconsists of a series of texts that were written down by people who had cultural and political influences of the time. I hadn't really considered the Bible in that way before, and doing that really helped my relationship to my faith and Christianity in general. I really appreciate you providing such a great resource.
A lot of that fell away when I started learning the history of the Christian world in middle school. My religious falling-out happened at just the right time for The History Channel to be running...
A lot of that fell away when I started learning the history of the Christian world in middle school. My religious falling-out happened at just the right time for The History Channel to be running a bunch of stuff about the world around Jesus's time, which explained things about how Jesus clashed with the local Roman government, and even how some stories in the Old Testament actually may go back to Mesopotamia, with geological records that suggest things like Noah's/Gilgamesh's flood in the region. I'll be keeping an eye on your AskBibleScholars project, it's been increasingly interesting to me over time.
I followed a similar path to the people in this video, but for me it was a rejection of my church. For some context, I went to the Calvary Chapel church mentioned in this article,, in the 90s. I went to Sunday school while my mom and older brother sat in on Chuck Smith's sermons. My dad one day wanted to try to get back to his Christian roots and we dropped in on a Smith sermon that was talking about how at least 100,000 Muslims wanted to kill us at any second. Let's just say my dad never went to another church service.
What is interesting to me is the strength of these individuals' faith. I was rattled when I was told God wouldn't make my parents stop smoking for their health at 5, and driven away when I saw contradictions of what Jesus even taught, and cultish dogma. These people in the video see that their church was wrong, but they believe in the words of Jesus, as written in the Bible, I guess they would say. My response to the same thing was to leave, but it seems like these people sort of take the contradiction as a test of their faith, which is fascinating. As an aside, my brother (who's being dragged to church by his wife) and I have been half-jokingly saying that if we didn't go to our specific church, we'd probably still be Christian.
I won't claim to know how representative these people are of the bigger picture, but there are progressive enclaves. I had a polisci professor, super progressive, who even spent a few minutes trying to dispel some stereotypes about Christians and politics after mentioning an non-religious, class-relevant event he arranged for his church to host. To him, Christianity is why he's progressive, and I hope we can see more people go this way, if they aren't going to leave the church.
I'm a bit the same as you. I found that once you start questioning things, very soon everything falls apart, and I'm not a Christian anymore.
However, from a societal perspective, I feel these "progressive", jesus-style Christians are far preferable to the republican brand. So even though I don't necessarily agree with them, I think this trend (if it is confirmed) is a positive one for society at large.
Anything that tilts humanity in a positive direction is okay in my book. It took me a long time to figure out that my issue wasn't with Christianity, but with people who used it for societal harm, be it the Crusades or making laws about punitive justice, reproductive rights, or who can marry who. Unfortunately, there are members of every religion who do stuff like that, and even a fair amount of atheists, which tells me it's a human issue, not a religious one.
If you let go the idea the that the bible, or any part of it, is inerrant, pure, or an expression of divine perfection, a beautiful and workable way if cooperative life emerges. In this way progressive christianity is a boon both tonadherents and conmunities.
r/AskBibleScholars really helped me reject the more toxic elements of evangelical Christianity by helping me realize that the Bible
is a bookconsists of a series of texts that were written down by people who had cultural and political influences of the time. I hadn't really considered the Bible in that way before, and doing that really helped my relationship to my faith and Christianity in general. I really appreciate you providing such a great resource.A lot of that fell away when I started learning the history of the Christian world in middle school. My religious falling-out happened at just the right time for The History Channel to be running a bunch of stuff about the world around Jesus's time, which explained things about how Jesus clashed with the local Roman government, and even how some stories in the Old Testament actually may go back to Mesopotamia, with geological records that suggest things like Noah's/Gilgamesh's flood in the region. I'll be keeping an eye on your AskBibleScholars project, it's been increasingly interesting to me over time.
I don't know how if this only concerns a handful of individuals or if it is the beginning of a trend, but I thought it was an interesting development.