Problems with Christian Church

[Jenny A]

I have a few questions regarding your perspectives on the church and Christianity..

I'm especially interested in your responses to the first question!!

**What are the big problems/issues you see in the Christian church today?

There's no such thing as the church or even Christianity as a whole.  There is the Roman Catholic Church, various protestant churches including evangelicals, fundamentalists, Amish, Mennonites and others, the Mormons, The Jehovah's Witnesses, The Eastern Orthodox Church, The Anglicans (who are mostly Catholics without the pope), and many I'm sure I'm forgetting.

As an outsider my problems with some churches include:  racism and homophobia claiming to be a virtue; anti-feminism; the desire to inflict prudish views about sex, liquor, and drugs on others; denial of scientific theories; denying children proper secular educations; the proposition that human life begins at conception; terrorism; preaching abstinence but not birth control or disease prevention; denying children proper medical care; rewriting history and faking archeology; shunning; attempts to create a christian state or nation; protection child molesters from the law; claiming exemptions from employment laws; tax exempt status; collections for charities with closed books; indoctrination; and general intolerance of others.  And those are just the biggies.

**Is your perspective of the former question from the inside (ie, your background was in church) or that of an outsider looking in? What took you away from church, if your background was church?

I can't remember ever believing, but I was raised in a very actively Christian household.  First Presbyterian, than Lutheran.  Neither church believed in factual biblical inerrantcy, though both believed in spiritual biblical inerrantcy (a nonsensical idea but better than factual inerrantcy I guess).  Neither was waiting for the rapture.

**What do you think about the person Jesus Christ? Is he real, historical person? Faked?

Jesus was a real rabbi who preached around Nazareth and was crucified for sedition in Jerusalem.  He probably preached the coming of a real kingdom of god on earth within his lifetime which is why he was crucified (the Romans would not have crucified him for violation of Jewish religious law).  Most of what is written about him in the bible is myth which grew out of telling and retelling orally as well as doctrinally motivated additions and subtractions.

**What is the point or purpose in your life? What do you live for?

There is no purpose to my life in the sense, that my life was not begun for a purpose on any cosmic level.  I live to enjoy living which generally means to do interesting and useful things (not merely wine, men and song) and to provide joy, companionship, aide, and comfort to family and friends.  I hope to leave a few beautiful things behind: