Doing my due diligence

I've been raised a Christian all my life.  Fact is, I have believed it, too.

I remember taking an INSTE class through the Open Bible Churches and telling my group I always felt like there was this elite group of people who get it and I am not a part of that group.  Always felt like I couldn't get to the next level - like I was an outsider.

Maybe because as a child and young adult my faith was really a religion that scared the hell out of you or shamed you to death.  The end of the world was always near and I would surely be left behind if I happen to be in a bar or some other "non-Christian" place during the rapture.

I think my brother would agree with me.  Everything we ever did we were made to feel guilty about and so two young kids who were raised in a pentecostal world did everything we could to do our own thing.  I suppose our parents couldn't understand where they had gone wrong with their children pretty much being hellions (in their opinion.)

Despite my crazy young lifestyle, I always believed the basic Christian tenets.  Still perk up when I hear of natural disasters or wars on the news.   I go along acknowledging the Christianese.  I understand the verbage and became a master at Church-speak while working in a Christian bookstore.

I was talking to a friend who is approaching retirement age.  She's still working with a tyrannical boss but has developed a "I don't care" attitude.  She understands that she could quit right now and have retirement to fall back on so she no longer has to take the bosses stuff.  It's a freeing thing for her.  It's the same feeling I have had since I was diagnosed with cancer.  I just don't care anymore.  I mean, I care, but in light of what might happen to me, I am free to say things I would keep to myself before.  I try not to be too harsh, but I can see through facades and I just can't sit back and listen to lies and half truths without calling people out.  I have no tolerance for anyone who is phony.  If you cannot be yourself, then I have a problem with that.

Anyway, so I decided I wasn't really going to accept my Christianity at face value.  I no longer was going to accept the argument, "that's what the Bible says so it is true."  Ok, but how do you know the Bible is true?  I think the Mormons think the book of Mormon is true.  The Muslims believe the Quran is true.  The Jewish think the Old Testament is true but not the New Testament.  The New Agers believe God is in us.  The Scientologists think L. Ron Hubbard was THE man.

So I am on my quest for truth.

When I met and married Jeff we started attending Lutheran Church of Hope.  Mostly to give him his Lutheranism because that's what he felt comfortable with.  Little did I know that we would enter a mega-church who actually "gets it."  Mike Housholder is the pastor and when he teaches he basically tells you, "if you do not believe it, check it out."  He talks of historical evidence of Jesus' death and resurrection.  He doesn't do a song and dance on the stage that is such a turn off to me!!  He doesn't try to scare you to death or make you feel guilty.  Whatever this man learned in seminary made him a great leader in a church that keeps growing by leaps and bounds.

So here's what I am doing.  I am vulnerably asking God to show himself to me.  I am doing research on the historical evidence of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  I am reading the Bible and trying to figure out if this is a credible account of the Jewish Messiah.

I want it to be true.  I want to know what Jesus means by "I am the way the truth and the light.  No one comes to the Father but by me."  Does that mean that if you have not accepted Jesus as your Lord and personal savior that you will not get to the Father?  What about the people who have never heard of Jesus?  Or the people that came before Jesus?  Is there really a hell that people are banished to forever and ever?  Do we really go into the air and live with Jesus and God on a cloud "drinking kool aid out of styrofoam cups in a church basement" scene.  (That last quote was from John Eldredge's book The Sacred Romance - love him - such a great speaker!)

I no longer will accept it because that's what everyone who has kids at DM Christian believe and to not believe it makes you a heretic.  I won't believe it because my parents told me that's how I should think.  I won't NOT believe it because a very smart person tells me it is a fairy tale and a crutch.  Fact is, I don't need a crutch.  I won't believe it to stay in the good graces of other people.  But I won't NOT believe it to stay in the good graces of other people.

So what do I hope to accomplish with my studies?  I hope to find out that I can believe it.  I'm not gonna lie.  I want it to be true.  But I don't want to be even for a minute one of those Christians who says AMEN all the time or who starts every conversation with a Bible verse.  I want to be someone who understands it, believes it and exudes it from my very being.  Not because I look down my nose at you because of your "sin."  Or has a "holier than thou" persona.  If Christianity means that than I do not want any part of it.

I look at churches.  All of them.  I don't think they look very much like the early church.  I just can't see a bunch of men in sandals walking into a tent and shaking hands with a greeter who dutifully hands them the sequence of events scrolled on papyrus.  I can't see them sitting in rows of benches.  Standing to sing repetitive songs.  Sitting for announcements.  Standing again.  Taking an offering.  Then Jesus comes up but he has slicked his hair back.  He tells the Good News by reminding you to give him money and never drink a beer.  It all seems so foreign to the Jesus you read of in the New Testament.

I'm digging deep.  I went to be prayed for during Alpha and I stood at the foot of the cross and looked up.  I prayed to be healed and I was touched.  I went to Easter service yesterday and was touched many, many times.  It felt true.  It felt right.  But is it?  Was my feeling the Holy Spirit wooing me unto him?  Or have I been programmed to respond that way?  The more beautiful the song and the better the singer gives me more of a touch than someone who goes on stage and butchers a song?

I would like to read some books.  I've read some of the well known apologetic books like "Case for Christ."  My only problem with that book is that the author, Lee Strobel does not interview anyone who doesn't believe.  He only interviews Biblical scholars.  Of course, they are going to defend the Bible.  I welcome suggestions from people on good books to read.  I want to find out what and where.  I don't want to be categorized.  I want to figure it out on my own.

This is an aside, but I feel the same way about politics.  I read people's posts on FB and realize there are some widely varied opinions on politics.  I don't want to believe something just because my parents believed it or because most of my friends believe it.  But again, I am not going to agree with someone else just because their argument is louder and prouder than the next...

On a quest for answers.  I welcome comments.....