By Merle Hertzler ~ J eremiah steps to the plate. Here’s the pitch. Jeremiah swings–“After seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place”–and he misses. Strike one! It was not looking good for the home team. Yes, the inning had started with hope. The home team, the Jews, were basking in great promises. The prophet Nathan had told David, “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.” ( 2 Sam 7:16 ) Forever! But, in spite of this promise,  the northern tribes were taken captive by Assyria  in 740 BC. One out. Then  Babylon deported  the southern tribes in 597 BC. Two outs. Jeremiah And that is when Jeremiah came to the plate. The kingdom had not lasted forever. The people were defeated. Now what? Jeremiah writes: For this is what ...

By Dr. Marlene Winell ~ L eaving my faith was a very slow process. I was raised by missionary parents and was devoutly religious for my entire childhood. Journal entries from my college years reveal swings between anguished frustration and renewed faith. I heaped blame for the problems on myself, looked to God for help, and thanked him for any improvements in my life. In my everyday life, I lived with enormous guilt and frustration over not being the person I thought I should be. Good things were always due to God, and failures were always mine. Looking back, I can see that self-respect was a near impossibility. Like a lost child, when I left I had to reconstruct reality. I had to examine and recreate so many assumptions: about the meaning of life, the world, myself, others, the past, present, and future. I eventually became a therapist, and it has been my great joy to help others to recover from the harm they experienced as a result of religious upbringing. After years of...

By Carl S ~ T he American Psychological Association site features an interview with Karen Douglas, PhD. on "Why people believe in conspiracy theories." Wondering why I'm tying beliefs in conspiracies directly to religious beliefs? You may figure it out before she finishes talking. On page 6 of my printout, Dr. Douglas is asked, "What makes a conspiracy theory catch on and have staying power? Are there certain types of theories that are stickier than others or some that are more enduring?" She finds that a "really, really, fascinating question." (Because they come back again or come back again in a different form, for instance.) She says sorts of conspiracy theories have always been there. They mutate. They change. Dr. Douglas didn't get into a connection between religious beliefs and conspiracy theories, but I couldn't stop thinking about a very, very, large conspiracy theory that has endured for thousands of years, unchanged and invoked...

   By G.M. Gates ~ W hat if Christianity is lying about the Bible? What if the original Bible in Hebrew was manipulated by the Church? What if the Old Testament was still being still being changed, hundreds of years after the life of Jesus? What if your pastor knows this but won’t tell you, because he’d lose his job? When I was attending seminary, I heard a joke that went like this: What do you call someone with a Master’s of Divinity? Answer: an atheist. While this is a joke, I had to wonder how true it was. Are there pastors, preaching in the pulpit, who no longer believe in the faith of their youth, but they feel like they can’t escape? Put yourself in their position. Could you imagine what it’s like to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a degree in theology, only to discover that the true history of the bible is distorted? What would this do to someone? What would they think? First off, they probably can’t tell anyone. They’d be alienated from people they ...