By James Wilhelm ~ S uperficial Christianity works best. The deeper you go - the more damaging and destructive it becomes - and the more mentally unstable a person gets. And the Bible implores us to go deeper and even chastises us if we are only superficial Christians. Take the case of the parents that opt to withhold medical help from their child. The child dies. This happens frequently. In virtually all cases you can’t fault their theology. They took the bible at its word – doing what it implores. Living by faith - and it destroyed them as well as their offspring. Were they more theologically superficial and secretly took their kid to a doctor - they could still be going to church with their child – praising the Lord - laying guilt on non-believers and believers alike to have more faith. Christianity’s endless mind loops are the problem. You do what it says. Things go wrong because you did what it said. The loop starts. Things get real complicated - real fast. Mor...

By James Wilhelm ~ C hristians tell us that God's ways are not our ways. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.” Isaiah 55:8 And also this: “A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out. In faithfulness He will bring forth justice.” -- Isaiah 42:3 The accepted meaning of this verse is that a battered and broken person - God will not further damage. As one interpretation explains – “He will not extinguish us while in our brokenness.” I’ve had the opportunity of knowing many Christians in many settings. So many times you hear them pray for the frivolous. Praise the Lord! I lost my car keys and He found them! Thank you Jesus! Or; I was almost out of gas - late at night - and prayed to the Lord to find an open gas station – Oh, thank you Jesus - I found one! The list goes on and on. Jesus and the Holy Spirit sure takes care of the faithful. Praise the Lord! I lost my...

By Art ~ G reetings to all of you! Sorry if my English is not very good, it's not my native language. So I want to ask you guys to give some advice about my situation. I'm a musician, worship minister in a small Pentecostal church (about 20-30 members). The other members of the group never considered themselves as a musicians and was doing their ministry only because there was no one else who was ready to do it. So when I became a minister, all technical stuff about how to make music not to sound like shit was laid on my shoulders because I was the only one in the whole church who knows how to do it right. Not so long ago I was came out to my pastor and to other ministers about my non beliefs. After some discussions when they realized that I'm serious about my decision to leave the church they're have nothing left to say but to ask me not to leave my ministry until a replacement was found for me as a musician. Actually I can understand them, because the rest of th...

By Kim Anne Whittemore ~ W ow, so much skin. Is it too much skin? This is, without contest, the most provocative thing I've worn on my 25-year-old body in the last four years. Provocative -- there's that word again. Of course, that feeling is here; it's the one thing I can count on when trying on new clothes. It visits me without a specific invitation. It's a drop-in kind of visitor; it's going to show up and usually at the most inconvenient times. In my life's relatively new context (four years ago I was "born again"), that word, provocative, carries a new connotation -- just as many familiar words now have new connotations. In my pursuit of an unimaginably beautiful eternity, I've willingly and wholeheartedly embraced this volume of newly defined words; words with definitions to which I've been introduced. My "mature" Christian teachers refer to divinely inspired texts while standing at a lectern, behind the microphone a...

By Fernando Alcántar ~ T he United Methodist Church has proposed a historic split over gay marriage and LGBT clergy . And it was a long time coming. How do I know? I lived it. You see, I worked in high levels of leadership for the United Methodist Church in the peak of my Christian ministry from 2008-2011. I was the Director of Leadership Development for Young People for the California-Pacific Conference of the UMC (Cal-Pac)—which in that time oversaw almost 400 churches across Southern California, Hawaii, Guam and Saipan. In my job, I oversaw youth and young adult ministries across the region, ran conferences, led leadership councils, and took part in the activism young people had in legislation—among them the always hotly debated issue of acceptance of gay marriage. Fernando Alcántar on the cover of the last edition of The Aquila , an e-magazine he had created for youth and young adult ministries. I came to the UMC after spending 8 years at Azusa Pacific University (APU)—the ...

By Carl S ~ H abitual rationalizing. Some believers don't think twice about ripping off people they don't know, esp merchants. It's like, “They won't miss the money, they overcharge anyhow.” Or, “Everybody does it.” (So that makes it right?) “She should know better, so she deserved just what she got. Some justify terrorizing children with descriptions of hell, “for their own good.” And lying to children by indoctrination? “Everybody lies to children.” Believers habitually make excuses for their interpretations of their god, clergy, and politicians. Morality doesn't enter into these choices. People ask, “How could that politician accept the ten thousand dollar bribe?” And the answer is, he began with accepting the hundred dollar bribe. Historically, Christian habitual rationalizing follows the same expansion. Small immoral acts become big ones, while easily justified, brushed off, by the saved. Example: 250 years of torturing and killing hundreds of thousands of wo...

By James Wilhelm ~ I came from a Catholic family and grew up in the 50's, 60's and early 70's. I'm the second oldest – now 65 – and have a sister two years older. We went to Catholic schools, catechism classes, mass every week, confessed our "sins" to a priest every month and all the usual nonsense connected with this brand of Christianity. My parents held strict Catholic beliefs. We had aunts and uncles that were priests, nuns and other holy people. We were deeply entrenched. We believed that priests were one step lower than God. They were prefect – we were lowly ignorant children. The expectation was that we children shut-up, and if there were any blame to go around it was always us kids that took the hit. My father would say over and over and over, "Children should be seen and not heard," and he abusively meant it. My older sister revealed to me just recently that while attending Catholic school as a child she was abused by a priest....

By Marlene Winell ~ A t this time of year it’s hard to avoid dealing with the differences you have with your family. If you are a “reclaimer” (reclaiming your life after being religious) who has been raised in a religious household, holiday times can be very uncomfortable when other family members are still devout. Having worked through these issues with many clients, here are a few guidelines that might be helpful.  I’ll start by suggesting you write in a journal, starting now and continuing through the holidays. This can help you sort through jumbled thoughts and emotions, stay on track with how you are trying to handle things, take care of yourself, and learn. There are exercises here to prompt your thinking. In general, if you plan to be with family at this time, it helps a great deal to approach the holidays with a high level of consciousness. In other words, don’t just blindly go home for Christmas, hoping it will be fine. What do you really expect it might be l...

By Carl S ~ H ere's one of my favorite jokes: A cruise ship was thrown off course in a storm. After the storm passed, the captain noticed a small island in the distance, not found on his maps. He ordered the ship to come near to it. Embarking with some crew members, they found a man roaming the beach and asked him how he got there. It seems he was the only survivor of a shipwreck recorded thirty years before. The captain told this man, “I don't know how you didn't go out of your mind, all alone here.” The answer came as the man flung his arm around an invisible being: “I never would have made it without Irene!” There's a site, “Without God I Am Nothing Quotes.” Oh? Does one have to believe God/Irene exists, in order to be a person? Really? Why doesn’t religion ASK us to believe, instead of TELLING us what to believe? My question is, since there's no proof this God/Irene is real, does that mean you might NOT be the “somebody” you think you are? I don't kno...

By James Wilhelm ~ (The following is a true story - one of many I have personally come across during my 40+ year journey through Christianity.) I have a good friend - a dependable, devout, genteel type of guy. Regularly attended church - always participating in "fellowship" and other church activities. Being single - he met a girl in church and quietly and discretely dated her. One night a very clear dream came - God wanted him to marry her! God answered his prayer! They married months later and soon a child followed. Turned out his new wife was a secret drug addict - and within two years sunk deeper into addiction and eventually killed herself. Now - totally broken and no faith he's struggling to explain to his child what happened to her mother. The real issue is how do you stop from being angry, bitter and resentful at a God you believed in that really doesn't exit? This is the conundrum of many of us who have abandoned religion. My anger is toward the th...

By Carl S ~ W hen wars are planned, when invasions begin, when atrocities are committed, when religious and other ideologies seek domination, who considers the impact and ravages on children? Driven by adult fanaticism, who among those fanatics cares how the new generation will suffer? Who considers the damage to their psyches, their nightmares, the results of creating orphans, the damage done by terrifying innocent children with threats of hellfire? What about children whose parents and guardians choose to live in cults, where they are abused, or their lives wasted if they have to die with them? Why don't the Ten Commandments include a prohibition against sexual abuse? Why are there no prohibitions against sex abuse in scriptures or in any writings by those who “speak for God?” Right now, go to OpenBible and enter, “What does the bible say about killing children?” The compilers list “100 verses;” only about half of which apply. If you read them all, you'll notice the co...