Phil, you are too kind. I appreciate you immensely and am so thankful that our paths have crossed. It's great to have others like you alongside for the journey.
I’m an exvangelical and all the other things that go with that. I consider myself agnostic/atheist most of the time - except when I hear/read your words on Christianity in part because it comes from a place of love and healing for me and doesn’t just focus on some rigidity of rules and leaving out so many people. I was a worship leader, got my mDIV and did all the other things and felt like a total outcast - but what you are teaching is accessible and feels like the Jesus that was more about love and kindness and a bit of a hippy instead of some doom and gloom authoritarian dictator who pretty much threatened people to listen and believe what he was saying. Anyway, all of that to say/ask - where did Christianity become so split - why are there sooo many versions? Reading actual scripture I don’t get the sense that Jesus was at all how the conservative evangelical church portrays him but yet, sooo many people see him as that - like everyone’s reading the same thing, right?
Natala, I am humbled by your words. Thank you so much for your kindness… and your thoughtfulness in the questions you raise. Your question of; “Where did Christianity become so split” is one I have often spoken about when teaching others about the denomination of which I am a part of… the United Church of Christ. I share not specifically about the “where” but more the “why.”
For over 500 years now as we navigate “being church” post Protestant Reformation, Christians have moved further and further away from one another based in large part because of their differences…. different worship styles, different theologies, different understandings of who God is calling us to be in the world. And when those differences drive people apart, new churches are birthed.
Now, this is clearly an oversimplification. However, it speaks to the heart of what your question raises. When people are not getting their way… they find another means of achieving it. And that, my friend, I believe is at the heart of the great divide now encountered in the Christian experience.
It is definitely an aspect that has gotten us to where we are today and how the Institutional Church has become so corrupt and oppressive. And definitely something I need to write more about.
Wow this actually puts a lot in perspective- it’s like people decided to start their own religion, loosely based on the Bible. So many people could have so much healing learning this, there has been so much abuse by people who say they are Christian when it sounds like there have been many breaks in the tree branches of Christianity - which is really sad, because I do think at its core the message of love and kindness was supposed to stay - it’s just so sad that people who (seemingly) wanted power kind of made up their own religion..:pretty sure that goes against the (actual) word. Thank you for being so kind no matter where someone is coming from - means a lot.
You keep breaking my heart open. Thank you for your being you.
Phil, you are too kind. I appreciate you immensely and am so thankful that our paths have crossed. It's great to have others like you alongside for the journey.
I’m an exvangelical and all the other things that go with that. I consider myself agnostic/atheist most of the time - except when I hear/read your words on Christianity in part because it comes from a place of love and healing for me and doesn’t just focus on some rigidity of rules and leaving out so many people. I was a worship leader, got my mDIV and did all the other things and felt like a total outcast - but what you are teaching is accessible and feels like the Jesus that was more about love and kindness and a bit of a hippy instead of some doom and gloom authoritarian dictator who pretty much threatened people to listen and believe what he was saying. Anyway, all of that to say/ask - where did Christianity become so split - why are there sooo many versions? Reading actual scripture I don’t get the sense that Jesus was at all how the conservative evangelical church portrays him but yet, sooo many people see him as that - like everyone’s reading the same thing, right?
Natala, I am humbled by your words. Thank you so much for your kindness… and your thoughtfulness in the questions you raise. Your question of; “Where did Christianity become so split” is one I have often spoken about when teaching others about the denomination of which I am a part of… the United Church of Christ. I share not specifically about the “where” but more the “why.”
For over 500 years now as we navigate “being church” post Protestant Reformation, Christians have moved further and further away from one another based in large part because of their differences…. different worship styles, different theologies, different understandings of who God is calling us to be in the world. And when those differences drive people apart, new churches are birthed.
Now, this is clearly an oversimplification. However, it speaks to the heart of what your question raises. When people are not getting their way… they find another means of achieving it. And that, my friend, I believe is at the heart of the great divide now encountered in the Christian experience.
It is definitely an aspect that has gotten us to where we are today and how the Institutional Church has become so corrupt and oppressive. And definitely something I need to write more about.
Thank you once again!
Wow this actually puts a lot in perspective- it’s like people decided to start their own religion, loosely based on the Bible. So many people could have so much healing learning this, there has been so much abuse by people who say they are Christian when it sounds like there have been many breaks in the tree branches of Christianity - which is really sad, because I do think at its core the message of love and kindness was supposed to stay - it’s just so sad that people who (seemingly) wanted power kind of made up their own religion..:pretty sure that goes against the (actual) word. Thank you for being so kind no matter where someone is coming from - means a lot.