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4 Common Objections I Often Hear To "Shedding Religion" 

(and how I typically respond to them):

1. You don’t go to church anymore

If a person’s involvement in a church feeds and reinforces a message and perspective that hinders their knowing God, then it makes complete sense not to involve yourself there anymore. Many Christians receive their understanding about God through the institution of Church and when they discover this understanding is deeply flawed and they see how this flawed understanding has damaged their lives, they remove themselves from their church. The reason most people object to this is because these confuse leaving one’s church with leaving one’s faith. Research shows that “church leavers” grow stronger in their faith, as opposed to digressing in their faith. The issue is also controversial because people wrongly equate “church” with their specific form of church. There are an endless number of forms of church ranging from highly organized to practically no organization at all. Many people who leave organized church eventually connect in smaller, more informal types of community, which may not comply with the letter of the law when it comes to institutional church but fulfills the true spirit of “church.”

2. You are reading some really weird books

Many Christians in the “shedding religion” process will read books that: a) looks at their Christian faith with a critical eye, b) promotes spirituality over religion, c) offers a different and fresh view and perspective on faith and God. Shedders will be drawn to authors who offer something beyond institutional Christianity and offer the prospect of knowing God and following Jesus as a way of life as opposed to check-list Churchianity. many of these authors, including myself, get hammered by the Christian establishment. If you mess with city hall, you’re going to pay for it. People criticize such authors as having “bad theology.” In my opinion, many of the criticizers have “bad theology,” and so I’m not sure where that argument ends. People who are “shedding religion” are also drawn to books that promote and speak to spirituality over religion or books that focus on nurturing your inner world. You’d be surprised to know even how many church-going Christians secretly read Eckhart Tolle books but would never admit it. For some people, reading one chapter from The Power of Now was worth more than one year of sermons. This is also the reason why some Christians become interested in Buddhism and Eastern spirituality; these seem to speak more deeply to the root condition of humankind and one’s inner spiritual world as opposed to the focus of a lot of pop-Christian writings. At first, some people are not aware that there is a rich Christian tradition of contemplatives and mystics who lived a very robust Christ-centered spirituality. A few contemporary examples might be Thomas Merton, Ricahrd Rohr, Bede Griffiths, and Flora Wueller.

3. You are in danger of going off the deep end

Perhaps one of the most annoying things (to those who judge them) about people who are shedding religion is that they begin thinking for themselves. Some Christians have come from churches where the idea is fostered that congregants should only expose themselves to church-approved leaders, teachers, writers, musicians, politicians etc…because doing otherwise would be the equivalent of purchasing a one-way ticket to the flames of hell. Apparently, only a very select few people are capable of discerning truth on their own, the rest of us are ill-equipped for doing so and would be easily lured into all kinds of error if left to our own. I know this may be difficult for some to believe, but people are capable of being exposed to all kinds of differing views of God, and can discern for themselves what truth is present in these views, and what of these views seems inconsistent with truth. I have a Buddhist friend; i have detected truth is things he believes but i did not become a Buddhist. I have an Atheist friend, and I totally agree with this person’s views on all kinds of things, including some of their objections to God, but i did not become an Atheist. I have a N.Y. Yankees friend, i agree that the Yankees have some of the best baseball players but I did not become a Yankees fan. People are truly capable of doing this sort of thing.

When people begin thinking for themselves and base their opinions on firsthand personal experience, they realize that the world doesn’t fit so nicely into all the labels and boxes that religion is sometimes prone toward imposing on things. Religion and politics seems to share a difficulty in disagreeing with others without demonizing them, and wants to slice up the world into the “us” and “them” camp or the “right” and “wrong” camp. I’m not talking about turning a blind eye to evil in the world, or pretending that one’s beliefs doesn’t fuel such evil. All religions, including Christians, have justified evil in the name of God.

4. You can’t give a straight answer

Lots of questions aren’t so easy to answer anymore for Christians in the “shedding religion” process. For example, questions like: “Are you a Christian?” or “Do you believe in the Bible?” or “Do you go to church?” or “Do you believe in the gospel?” are no longer “yes” or “no” questions for a person who is “shedding religion.” He or she is immediately wondering what is your definition of a “Christian,” and what is your interpretation of the Bible, and how you delineate what “church” is, and how do you understand the “gospel?” By not answering “yes” or “no” it is not a sign that the person is “dodging the issue;” they legitimately cannot answer with a simple “yes” or “no.” It would be better to ask more open-ended questions like, How is Jesus Christ relevant to you?

- Jim Palmer

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"

Obedience to law principles to have a good life 

is disobedience to God for it is called FORNICATION by HIM . 

We cannot be MADE PERFECT by observing the commandments of the LAW.
(Col 2:20)

- Bertie Brits

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"

‎12 Things It's Not:

God is not a belief system.
The Bible is not a book of theology.
Church is not a place you go.
Love is not a theory.
Grace has no exceptions.
Jesus did not start a religion.
Your humanity is not the enemy.
Being you is not bad.
Being a woman is not inferior.
The abundant life is not a checklist.
Transformation is not behavior modification.
Ministry is not measured in numbers.

"

- Jim Palmer

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"Grace AND truth is what came by Jesus!! 

Unfortunately the AND TRUTH part can easily be used to slip in some law 

if truth is not understood. 

Some think the LAW is the TRUTH and Jesus is the GRACE. 

It is not so..."

- Bertie Brits

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"The need for another revival dwindles in the light of the revelation of man revived in Christ.

If people can see and believe this truth about what happened in Christ, 

the 2000 year old, never ending revival, will manifest in them."

- Bertie Brits

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"Scripture divorced from the living God of the scripture 

becomes impotent and deadly. 

Even the infallibility of the text is a dependent infallibility."

- John Crowder

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"The blood of Christ is not a magical amulet that protects you from the fury of an angry God. 

His blood is the evidence that God has never been angry with you, 

but has loved you throughout eternity! 

It's also an eternal testimony to the fact that there is *NO* length 

that God won't go to in order to rescue that which He loves! 

(Rom 5:8, Rev 13:8)" 

- Jeff Turner