Thanks, Ed.

My faith came under scrutiny in all of this as well. I say my faith but mostly it's about my faith in man and how that relates to the church. I see little resemblance to what Jesus called the church to do and the overall mindset of what passes for a Christian church today. This came into very sharp focus for me a few years ago when I pushed back on our lead pastor about his double-standard toward persons of the GLBT community.

I was troubled because there's very little attention paid to homosexuality in the Bible and Jesus never once spoke of it but if you ask your typical Christian you would think that it was one of his main concerns. What he did speak of again and again was idolatry, something we in the church are so good at dismissing. Drive through the parking lot where I used to attend church some Sunday morning and see the bling out there on the lot or follow us home to our houses and see our lives of excess...pure idolatry yet there's no mention of it by the church. Those are just blessings from God!

I began to really feel for these people who'd been relegated to 2nd class citizen status by the church (if that) and felt strongly that we had to do better. I'd been attending Hosanna for 15 years and felt I'd at least earned 15 minutes of time with our lead pastor to look him in the eye and discuss my concerns. He denied me that. I approached him again 6 months later and the answer was still 'no'. I didn't understand what could be so threatening about hearing me out.

It became glaringly obvious to me that the same crowd that tuned into Fox News, had nothing constructive to add to the public debate on the Affordable Care Act and were such ardent gun-rights supporters were pretty much the same people who made up the church. I had to wonder what Jesus would think about how they were representing him and what sort of heat he'd be packing if he were walking among us today?

I began to question so much of what I'd come to accept along the way having been affiliated with a church most of my life. I decided that it no longer worked for me at all. The hypocrisy was simply too much. I left the church and have little to no desire to find another.

I still have my faith, Ed but I seem to have more questions than answers these days.

http://onekgguy.blogspot.com/2012/10/losing-my-religion.html

Kevin g