Thou Desireth Truth . . .

Recently I have read Losing My Religion, by William Lobdell.

His story is a lot like mine. He and I were evangelical Christians. He and I faced a crisis of faith.

When all is said and done, he became an atheist, because he lacked the faith to believe in a personalized deity.

He and I diverge on that point, as I have always had some kernel of faith in my heart, even as a small child. As Christianity was the faith tradition that was available, I embraced that one for the time.

But subsequent to my crisis of faith, I have come to the conclusion that there is a personal deity in my life, as there always has been. What I have dumped is the Christian theology, rubrics, and infrastructure, along with dumping the guilt and manipulation.

I see no reason to have a blood sacrifice to have access to the deity. The deity has always been intimate with me, even before I acceded to evangelicalism.

And, as Jesus said, "you will know them by their fruits," I have looked at the raison d'etre of the leaders and participants of church infrastructure, and it appears that the primary function of that infrastructure is to maintain power by subjugating and brainwashing the adherents and sucking them dry of their donations, as power is money. And the evidence is clear that in the church infrastructure a believer's relationship with the deity is conditional, predicated upon the approval of the church leadership, and that violates big portions of what they hold as scripture. It appears that all churches have their own form of "indulgences" except they do not call them that.

I have come to an "agnosis" where the deity who will not be named will be just that. That deity is personal to me, and loving. And her/his grace to me is given unconditionally, i.e., requiring no rubrics and genuflecting on my part to gain access to the deity.

That's how I see things for this moment. Whether I transform to another POV, only time will tell.