Fearless Wonder

Wait...this all means I am now one of those "godless liberals." Whoa! Hadn't thought about it in those terms before.

I miss the people at Buckhead, but it feels too weird to be at church when you don't believe anymore. Even our open minded Sunday night gathering is starting to feel weird to me. What is the solution?

(This is an essay I wrote for part of a Cultural Memoir Assignment) One former Adventist friend of mine always says, “It was the table that fed me” in referring to our shared Seventh-day Adventist background. My friend was referring to the morals, values and spirituality of Seventh-day Adventism that we still hold onto, even though we disagree with the Church in many ways. I, however, can’t help but think of feeding in the literal sense. Seventh-day Adventism did truely feed us, but in very unusual ways. Seventh-day Adventists have something they refer to as the “Health Message.” Just like the Mormons we have our very own prophet, only she was a woman and not a polygamist. Ellen White encouraged healthy living and vegetarianism in the Seventh-day Adventist church. In many ways this has been a blessing to the church. Adventists who follow the health message are some of the longest living folks in the nation. On the other hand it has brought a spirit of legalistic infighting ove...

Agnostic Thank you Good night

So you run into this problem if you step outside of Adventist/Christian circles. You discover people from all backgrounds who are really moral, kind, nice, giving, noble and in fact seem better than a lot of Adventists/Christians that you know. (I say Adventist/Christian because some Adventist tend to think of even other Christians as bit less holy) I do not intended to write about how we are just sooooo judgemental about those not like ourselves. Instead I want to look at the questions that the existence of good Non-Adventist/Non-Christian people raises in regards to the role of Jesus. So.... "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." So does my Muslim friend who embodies all of these qualities has the Holy Spirit? No? Some Christians would agree, others not so much. Lets say she is given the opportunity to accept Christ, and instead remains loyal to Islam?...

What I really wanted was a fight. That is one reason why I stopped writing this blog and why I locked it. I realized I was trying to pick a fight. I was hoping someone would challenge me with the same false arguments I have heard before, and that I would be able to rip them to pieces. I had a lot of bitterness towards the way I was brought up to believe. I wanted to win a fight with the people who still believed that way. Why? So I could feel better about myself. So I could feel right? Who knows. But as much as I honestly tried to explore my spiritual questions and ideas there was a part of me longing to pick a fight. I had a lot of good motives for this blog. It opened up really honest conversations between me and a lot of people. It gave me a chance to put down what I had been thinking. It let me know that even people with different views than me are still loving and interesting in learning and growing together, but still, some where in my heart, I had the fantasy of i...

I am not entirely happy with all the stanzas of this poem, I am not even going to include the last three stanzas in this post. If you want them you must dig up the 1999 issues of the Legacy.(SAU's poetry journal) JESUS IN A BOTTLE "Taste and see that the Lord is good!" Buy him in a six pack now Or place a little offering in the vending machine Push the little red button and WOW! Drink him up and drink him down Feel the Spiritual Caffeine You'll buzz with Jesus for an hour or so Get a rush from the Nazarene Talk to your pastor, talk to your priest They might be holding a sale Discount coupons given out Free Samples in the mail Some claim our soda is a fake That our sellers are not sainted They say Jesus Christ was crucified But never carbonated. The poem goes on from here, but not in a good way.