No Such Thing As A Former Christian

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Once you are in you can’t get out.

Once you are saved, you can never be lost.

Once God’s hound dog, the Holy Spirit, tracks you down you belong to God forever.

Or so says Charles Smith:

If you scour the world-wild-web for any amount of time using atheism as your search term, you will undoubtedly find pages and pages of sites laced with the famous proclamation, “I used to be a Christian.” While this may be intriguing to the seeker, desiring a glimpse at the testimony of a formerly professing believer turned cynic in hopes of discovering reasons to remain religiously repulsed by Christendom, or possibly the opposite – looking to see if their retroversion experience is sensible – one thing is certain…there’s no such thing as a former Christian.

Cultural Christianity is quite the phenomenon of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries…

After “leaving the faith,” these misguided, false-converts then find their voices in the blogosphere, social sites, chat rooms, discussion boards and every other form of digital media outlet known to man – exhaustively expatriating as many “cardboard Christians” as they can sink their flaw-full claws into. Ironically, if they would spend as much time truly investigating and begging with a contrite heart, “God, please show yourself to me!” they would discover that He is absolutely faithful to do so – and the door the Lord has once opened, can be closed by no man.

These poor misinformed “ex-Christians” were never truly reborn of the Holy Spirit of God. They followed the crowd in church, were dunked under water, consumed crackers and gulped grape juice, sang songs, talked the talk, looked the part, memorized verses and so many other religious acts, but never came to a saving faith found in a relationship with the only begotten Son of God. Like so many of their contemporaries who weren’t led to the foot of the blood-stained cross of Calvary, they never saw their sins in the mirror of the ten commandments and consequently, never realized the magnitude of their debt – owed to a God who, because of His perfect love and justice, must punish sin – and they never saw the spotless Lamb for who He was and is, the ransom payment – the sacrificial substitute – who carried their sins before the Father and said “I will take their punishment.” Their prideful hearts of stone never crumbled under the weight of such a love and therefore, they simply socialized and enjoyed the music and learned to get along. But, of course, anyone who goes through a “phase” knows, it wore off and they moved on and Jesus wept…

Let the reader understand, just as you can’t become unborn once you have evacuated the womb, you also cannot become un-born-again. It is impossible to un-ring a bell, un-cook an egg or un-kill the living. If you are a spiritual seeker, please know that there is no such thing as an ex-Christian and if you want the truth, please look in a good Bible teaching church for assistance. If after reading this you still claim to be a “former believer,” you just do not understand…

Oh, I understand. Believe me I do. Christians like Smith can not fathom anyone walking away from their Jesus.

But I did. Others have and more will continue to do so.

Evidently God didn’t want us bad enough to keep us.

Personally, God is not the problem for me. The Evangelical conception of God is the problem. God is not the problem…Smith’s God is the problem.

Smith is certain that his God is THE God and that his truth is THE Truth.

God Has a Purpose

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god_of_love At a recent family gathering a relative told me, upon hearing that I had MS, that God has a purpose for everything.

Really?

If God is the divine cause of all things I have a lot of questions.

If God is the divine architect, the grand mover, the source and the power of everything I have a lot of questions.

Not really. I don’t have any questions about this issue.

Reason tells me this can not be true.

I am left with two choices.

Either I go with a God who inflicts people with pain, suffering, and death because it is all part of his purpose for humankind.

or

Life is cruel and hard at times and pain, suffering, and death are all part of being human.

Life happens.

Bad things happen to good people.

Good things happen to bad people.

People I love die.

People I hate live.

War, disease, famine,pollution, and disaster ravage the earth, yet it is all according to God’s purpose?

What kind of God afflicts his creation? Would it not have been better for us if we had never been created?

What kind of God watches his creation suffer and does nothing?

At best, God is an absentee father too busy with his mistress the Church to give any attention to  the real problems the world faces.

God is absent without leave.

All the religions of the world are certain they have found Him.

A ravaged earth tells a far different story.

I Am Not A Problem That Needs Fixed

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problem I am a human being.

I have feelings like everyone else.

I love and hate like you.

Just like everyone else I know what it is to be arrogant, proud, and envious.

I know suffering and loss just like you.

I am in every sense a human being.

I will live and then I will die thus going the way of all humans.

Why is it then, knowing that we are all alike, that we all walk along the same, well trod path called life…

That my life is reduced by others to a problem that needs fixed?

My politics, religious beliefs, and social constructs are in need of fixing.

My mental state, physical look, and style of dress are all lacking to someone, somewhere and are an embarrassing problem that needs fixed.

Why is it we rarely accept one another where we are, how we are?

Why do we tend to view those we disagree with as a problem that needs fixed?

No I am not perfect and neither are you.

It is our imperfections, our quirks, our contradictions that give full expression to our humanness.

Life is far too short to be investing time in fixing problems that aren’t problems.

I am not broke so I don’t need fixed.

I am who I  am.

Welcome

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Welcome to Restless Wanderings.

Restless Wanderings is a blog dedicated to one man’s journey through the common experience we call life.

Thanks for reading.