thought-provoking

Growing up in a family divided, both by divorce and differences in perspective, I have spent significant time in my life trying to make sense of the Christian message that God is Love; yet, homos and prostitutes and addicts are bad and unlovable (I don't buy this, by the way. I simply am regurgitating the tapes that I heard played over and over again in the ultra-conservative, fundie church in which I was raised.)
As a teenager, I moved to a new home and started attending Catholic church. Now, far be it from me to misrepresent here... I don't think organized religion is perfect. And I honestly haven't found one that fits me, perfectly. But the Catholic experience was so different (and yet, in many ways, similar) to the Fundie Conservative Church of America... I don't know. I don't actually have a "one is better than the other" statement to make here.

This is what makes me want to wear a button that says, "Ask me about my ongoing faith identity crisis."

The linked article in Salon does sum up nicely some of the thoughts I have on faith -- including whether that Fundamentalist wing I remember from the early days of my upbringing will start opening their minds a bit, or if the much-balleyhooed uproar in the Evangelical church will just send the Evangelical organization further into its phobias (by the way, Evangelicals... Jesus totally hung out with the prostitutes, tax collectors, and other scandalous people of the world. And he ate with them and talked with them and just loved on them. So, lesson learned, all ye literal interpretors of scripture...)