Bizarre

"Why would you want to do that to yourself? You hate religion, and yet you want to be a youth pastor!?! I don't understand that at all." We sit eating our subs. We have been talking about religion for the past hour, and all the negative things that come from it. Completely unrelated she asks me the question, "so what do you want to do after college?" Become a youth pastor. A blank stare. That's what I love. I am no longer the Christian she has grown to hate. There is something about me that is somehow different. That confusion and the curiosity is all that I could ever ask for. All I need is interest and I can manifest that into meaningful conversations. "If I have to jump through a few bullshit religious hoops to get to that one kid who gets it, then it's all worth it. I want the religion that I saw in the church to be destroyed. I want the next generation not to experience the same atrocities I did. Because I don't have a good enough reason for them to not give up on organized religion. That one kid seeing things differently is worth all the pain that I have to go through to get to it." "I don't get you at all." "That's fine."

Presumptions

I do not confine my religion/spirituality to the stereotype of Christianity. I do not associate with Christianity, because it holds with it too many negative connotations with it that do not describe me in the least. I will not allow others to judge me based on their presumptions on a statement that means something different to me than to them. If people do not konw that I am a good person by my actions, than me telling them that I am a Christianis irrelevant. I experience the most joy when I am talking to someone who hates religion, hates Christians in particular, and the moment finally comes twenty minutes into our conversation that I admit to being a Christian myself. We have agreed how ridiculous organized religion is, and how hypocritical Christians are for twenty minutes, yet I still hold on to Christian belief. In that moment, the person I am talking to can no longer say "Oh, you're just another ignorant, blind, religious whack-job." I have earned their respect, and in their moment of confusion, they see me as a Christian yet not as the Christianity that they have become accustomed to.

Disowned

I am shaking. I did not want to have this conversation, and he definately did not help the situation. We are different people who see two opposing views of the same situation. He cannot leave without some form of self-justification. The conversation escalates to my asking a question I never thought I would have to ask: "Do you think it's impossible for me to be a Christian if I do not attend a physical church building every week?" He responds: "Yes." At this point I know the conversation is over. We may dabble here and there, but there's nothing else to be said. Finally we got to the root of the issue, and he gave me a clear answer. We disagree on issues of religion, and his response is to completely disown my salvation in Christianity. My different view on religion has excluded me from his religion, and he from mine.

Thesis

Religion is a human attempt to explain God. Christians have taken their Savior off the pedestal and replaced him with denominations and needless arguments revolving around irrelevant subjects. Man has taken the "Word of God" (the Bible) and created a religoin out of their personal interpretations of the book. Jesus has been taken out of the question, and instead replaced with two millenia worth of human interpretation and misguided tradition. Mankind has trailed far from what Jesus originally intended. It is no longer a debate of what is the correct way to live , it is who can be considered to be his followers. Instead of following his example, Christians have instead found means to self-proclaim their own personal worth over others.

Egotism

We're not talking. I'm trying to stay calm. I'm trying not to point the finger right back. But it would be so easy to shove it right back in her face. She is questioning my actions, when she is no less guilty. She tells me that my action is somehow the worst thing I could do. I hate it when people put together these "levels of sin". In the most non-hostile way I can fathom, I question her on her actions. "I don't want to talk about it." That's her response. This sense of there being a ladder to sin is completely ridiculous. I admit that some things that I do are wrong. But to completley disregard what she does as being innocent, is both hypocritical and ignorant. She has taken the laws of religion and chosen which ones she wants to follow. That is not religion. It is a personal choosing of moral laws.

Misguided

How things change. A year ago he was the man I believed in entirely. He was the voice of my being. I would soak up everything that he said. Now he is just a man that I look up to. In the year since he has escaped from the confines of a faulted church, and has formed his own theology. In an act of defiance towards the depravity we experienced together, he struck back. He went as far in the opposite direction of that church as he could, yet I begin to question if he didn't go too far? Did he lose sight of his duty to those looking up to him for advice? Did he take advantage of the power bestowed upon him, and use it to proclaim his own personal theology? How much of what he says is what he is called to say, and how muh of it is merely what he wants to say personally?

Questions

October 1, 2008: I walk into the room, and see the typical crowd, each with a Bible in hand, ready to go. It's the routine get-together: read a passage of the Bible, discuss it, get something out of it and generally feel good about doing the "religious" deed. I don't like that kind of meeting. We sit down and begin reading. It takes half of the meeting time before I speak up, and when I do, my comments are met with utter silence. My question is simple. It's just not the kind of question they have heard before. They don't like the direction I'm going in, so they brush off the question with a safe answer. I have never been one to accept safe answers. There is a slight pause between my question and the leader's response. I timidly ask the next question. Again, a rehearsed response. Again, a momentary pause. And again, a question by me. I'm asking for a better explanation, but they only have the explanation that was taught to them. They accepted the reason when they were taught it, and have not questioned it since.

By this time it is beyond just me and the leader talking. More people have become involved. More people against my questions. I don't let up. And with each follow-up question, I receive another member of the group siding with the group and not me. I keep asking and they keep answering, yet they give me nothing more than the original brush-off answer given to me at the beginning of the discussion. I am trying to point out how useless their responses are in trying to find real answers. They do not see it. I leave the room abruptly, as I have another meeting to get to. A few of the people shake my hand as I leave the room. One person makes a comment as I'm leaving: "At least he's asking questions." The next week, the group's numbers are cut in half. Half of them never return.

Outdated

"I didn't want to ask questions because I knew that I wouldn't like the answers." I actually heard someone say this about religion. How? The timeline of human existence has been a progression of thought. Each philosophy has been built by the philosophies before it. If religion does not grow across time, then the only thing you're left with is an outdated set of belief systems. Why would you weigh women and measure their noses to determine if they were witches in a twenty-first century society? Growth only comes when the old is thrown out and the new is welcomed. Without suffering, without pain, there is no growth. The Christians confess it, yet they do not hold themselves accountable to their own principle.

Tradition

Living in the South, I experienced religion as nothing more than tradition. Everyone was a "Christian." I started disliking terms like "Christian," "religious," "religion," or "Christianity." They lost all sense of meaning to me. The one constant in my life, the one thing that had meaning was completely ruined by their complete disregard for its weight in my life. The term "Christian" meant immeasurably more to me than it did them. In fact, it actually meant something to me and how I lived. To them it was a social norm; it was something that was looked down upon if you weren't a Christian. The lethargic approach to Christianity made me want to disown religion altogether. Religion to me was far more applicable to my personal life than it was to their lives.

Outnumbered

The church service is finally over. I have done my duty and gone to the church that I've been asked to go to for weeks. Only lunch is left before I can get back to the safety of my dorm room. The conversation hovers around civil discussion, and then it happens: politics. Some guy I don't know makes a subtle anti-Democrat remark. I've seen this kind of guy before: pays no attention to politics, but has been told his whole life that the word "liberal" is a swear word. These are the people I enjoy rubbing the wrong way, because it's so easy to. I don't even have to say what I believe. All I have to do is bring into question what he is saying, and it will disturb this guy to no end.

"Why do you dislike Obama?" This is the way I start the conversation. I can see the excitement in the guy's face; he finally has the oppurtunity he's been waiting for in order to perform his rehearsed speech. It's not so much an argument as it's a memorization of a limited number of words. After a certain point, there's nothing left for this guy to say. His argument is not strengthened by data or opinion; it is built on the fact that he has numbers. I am sitting at a table filled with conservative Christians who think the same way my adversary does. When he doesn't have something to say, one of his friends will think of something new. His problem is that he doesn't know I've been outnumbered my whole life and have become used to it. I start in with a political discussion, but his argument towards politics isn't that thorough. He has to revert to what he thinks he knows. He takes the quick religious route where he tries to use the Bible against me. He doesn't know that I've been raised in the church my whole life. I have more responses than he has questions, and more questions than he can answer. I've had this debate before, and it always ends the same. I will not run out of things to say, and he will run out of rehearsed lines. He will be forced to show his true inability to civilly discuss both politics and religion. For him it is about winning the argument. For me it is to see how far the discussion can go. He can't win.

The discussion ends when he changes the topic, as if by some way he is accepting the victory. I start off with a question. He "answers". I respond with more questions. He does not answer a single one.

Growing Up

I grew up a pastor's kid. Church was my life. Whether it was in Washington D.C., West Virginia, Massachusetts or North Carolina, church was something our family did every Sunday. With that amount of moving around, I never quite fit in wherever I was. Yet the place in which I felt most out of place and most on the defensive was the church.

Hopeless

I slam the door shut. All the stress of the day has built up until right now, and finally I am by myself. It's only eight o'clock but it could easily be eleven. I hit the light switch before falling into bed. TAP. God, where are you? I stare straight up at the ceiling. My heartbeat is sporadic, like a child on the verge of tears yet unsure of why it is they're crying. A great flash lights up the entire room, shooting the reflection of the trees outside over the walls and ceiling. TAP TAP TAP. If you are so great then why do you allow them to do these things in your name? It's beginning to rain outside. Inhale. Exhale. I lift up my head to look out the window in time to see another streak of light. The wind is picking up. I sit up, back against the wall. For a moment nothing else matters. Another flash. I pick up my iPod and let it play for me whatever it wills. A light rhythm begins to play in my ear. I turn the volume up until the music consumes every inch of my being. The storm is picking. Do not let me give up hope in you because of them.