Imagine a good religion:

A religion that teaches you how to love yourself and love others really well and how to experience the love of the Divine.

Now image the opposite of that:

Say hello to American Evangelical Christianity.

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I snark, but I am dead serious.

Lately I’ve grown cantankerous (again) as I’ve been reading about the myriad ways that Christianity as we experienced it was the very opposite of a good thing. As to the actual details of this, you can pick a topic and fill in the blank: the image of Jesus as a bloodthirsty warlord, marriage advice almost guaranteed to prevent the flourishing of intimacy, the constant and adamant defense of governments that oppress and imprison and kill the vulnerable, etc etc

The list goes on.

Yet,

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I still call myself a Christian most days.

I still believe there’s something about the whole “God became a human named Jesus” story that makes sense of this fucked up world.

I still believe there’s a way to interact with the Divine that is good and beautiful and life-giving.

I want to tell you about that.

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A week or two ago I dug my microphone out of a box in the basement and spent an hour talking with Anna Dimmel from the “Behind the Mirror” podcast.

We talked about all this stuff — the growing up in the cult, the disillusionment and loneliness of leaving, the doubt, the heresy, the systemic injustice of American Christianity, the hope for a God who is Love and a Gospel that is Good News.

I know many of us are having similar conversations every single day, wondering if there’s a way to follow Jesus even when Christianity has apparently gone all to hell, wondering if we’re the only ones wondering.

You’re not alone.

This is for you.

Listen:

Behind the Mirror on Podbean

Behind the Mirror on iTunes