I’ve learned to push the boundaries and challenge myself to see why I believe the way I do, why I live the way I do, and why I act the way I do. many christians lose sight of what Jesus would really do, We can speculate as to what he would do in today’s world But I know he wouldn’t be happy with a lot of churches these days

I actually just interviewed a Druid for an article I’m writing, and he talked about how they had already done all of their egg dyeing for the Spring Equinox. And also, as most people know, the Christmas tree is a pagan tradition as well. But pumpkin carving is inviting the devil in? Wat?

I wrote a post about Easter as a guest post a long time ago. Easter is probably the holiday that is most entrenched in Christianese. (If we did an Easter drinking game we’d all be plastered within the first ten minutes.) The problem is that it gets lost in all of the Christian verbiage. Yes, I got it, He’s risen. But what does that mean anymore? After all the cantatas, and the Easter sunrise services and lunches, what does it actually mean?

Also, yes! A bingo card!

@Deanna
Being a guitarist is so weird. On one side, you get people putting you on a pedestal and paying you awkwardly pious compliments (i.e. “You have been anointed by God to play guitar”), and on the other you have people treating you like a commodity and auto-committing you to the Sunday rotation, special services, out-of-town events, and whatever else comes up that might possibly benefit from a stringed instrument.

At the last church I was going to semi-regularly, I kept the whole musician thing under wraps to avoid something like you described happening, and I felt like I was lying about myself. It really is a no-win situation (unless you have the time/energy/desire to join the band, of course).

Deanna – Nice to meet you! McGookey sent me to your blog, and I’ve read the first three posts where you talk about your experience. It makes me miss my yearly chat with the Barna people who called my parents’ house.

The follow up questions are killer. Some of them, I won’t have a good answer for; some, I’m just trying to figure out a polite way to say, “No, this specific doctrine is asinine and you’d have to be a sociopath to believe it.” Mostly, I just don’t like being part of a group that feels the need to ask all of those questions to begin with. Someone once described this as, “reducing faith to a series of propositions,” and I love that description. It’s like filling out a scantron in that only one answer is correct and there is no room for nuance. Incredibly frustrating.

Deanna – Nice to meet you! McGookey sent me to your blog, and I’ve read the first three posts where you talk about your experience. It makes me miss my yearly chat with the Barna people who called my parents’ house.

The follow up questions are killer. Some of them, I won’t have a good answer for; some, I’m just trying to figure out a polite way to say, “No, this specific doctrine is asinine and you’d have to be a sociopath to believe it.” Mostly, I just don’t like being part of a group that feels the need to ask all of those questions to begin with. Someone once described this as, “reducing faith to a series of propositions,” and I love that description. It’s like filling out a scantron in that only one answer is correct and there is no room for nuance. Incredibly frustrating.

While I understand that they are trying to “get people involved in the church community”… It seems like there’s something missing. The most recent church we went to, when they found out my husband played guitar, without even getting to know him they took his email address and set him up on the schedule for the worship team.

The college thing was huge too. I remember our parents being so concerned when we indicated that we wanted to go to a “secular school”. The professors would surely sway us from our faith and clearly all we wanted to do was party, because, why else would you ever want to go to a non-Christian school?

Guiltguiltguilt.