Above is a church with a back-porch bar, where authentic rational discussions and encouragement based on the teachings of Jesus replace the traditional Sunday morning worship service.

I’ve shared many times that I left evangelicalism in 1990 to seek factual truth and authenticity. My pilgrimage first took me on an intriguing journey through the halls of history, the history of Western Civilization, then the history of the church, circling back to studying the Ante Pacem church (before the period when Constantine turned it into a religion), then up to the American Evangelical Movement. I, for the first time, understand why the brand of Christianity I was with had gotten it so wrong, and so dishonest. That was my purpose: to try and make sense of my thirty-year religious experience.

But then I turned to studying science. This led me further away from the Christian God… at first. But as I continued pursuing my curiosity, it led me to an atheistic impasse. To make a long story short, I came back to believing in the Christian God (not based on proof or an irrational leap, but on the high probability that there is a God).

Having observed how history has shaped the simple teachings of a Galilean carpenter into a monstrosity of a religion, with a very checkered past (estimates that the Christian church has murdered hundreds of millions of people and has tortured as many). I know that both Protestants and Catholics see their own institutions as God’s institutions; history testifies that it was humans who created the culture, not God. This has given me the great freedom to live simply, from a theological or doctrinal perspective. The simple teachings of the carpenter in a created cosmos of unimaginable mystery, which I learned from science, not religion.

Here I must pivot to explain the MO of my writing. Religious cultures, like most human-derived cultures, are systematic approaches to finding meaning and significance by following a set of spoken and unspoken (mores) rules. It becomes very competitive by nature. The fastest way to feel significant is by comparing oneself to others. This is the impetus of all the Christian wars, inquisitions, and hatred, including the cultural wars against LGBTQ, Muslims (now that’s an old war), and others who are different. Within the Christian community, the competition continues over who goes to the correct church and has the correct 1,000 doctrines and who acts most spiritual.

Because competitive piety is the dominant MO of religious institutions, many new readers assume it is my MO as well. It is not. I measure others’ Christianity by the teachings of the simple carpenter: how they love others, especially the marginalized. With this yardstick, and with clear eyes, I have no delusion that I am superior or even average among Christians. So, what I write here is not to prove I’m better, as Christians are doing when they debate doctrines and other silly things.

I left Christianity once, not because I was a bad guy and a disappointment to God, as I’ve been told, but because I recognized something terrible, nasty, within the church. This left me confused for years, as I had been falsely taught that the church, unlike other human institutions, was directly from God.  So, this implies that the abuse, the emotional dysfunction inside the church, which is typical of all human-derived institutions,  represented God, since it was derived by God… right?

That’s how studying history, sociology, and psychology helped me to realize that the institutional church IS a human-derived institution, and that is why it has the same abuse and dysfunction you would find in any secular institution.  We should not be surprised when a young girl says the youth pastor molested her. It is horrible, but the same awful things happen in secular institutions. The only difference is that, because the Christian institution believes they are from God (thus perfect), they tell the girl she’s a liar because such things would never happen in a God-derived institution.

Now, I must be clear. No, I am not the enemy of the church. Most of the greatest people I’ve ever known are part of an institutional church. I’ve said many times here that the church I go to now is the best church I’ve ever attended, has the best pastor, and has some of the best people I’ve ever known. I have no reason to criticize those who love the church just the way it is.

So why do I criticize the church?  No, I’m not a religious person, so my MO is not spiritual competition, me saying the church is inferior because I’m somehow superior.

I am often attacked; I have been so for thirty years. Some of the attacks are brutal, deeply personal, and hurtful. Someone from my church, in this past year, after reading this blog, told me that I am mentally ill, and he assumes I’m a horrible father and husband. But I’m confident that everyone who has attacked me has done so because they do participate in the game of religion, competitive piety. They assume that when I say things like God is not the author of suffering, that I’m competing with their idea that God has providence over all things, including suffering, and I’m asserting that I’m better than them. Therefore, they feel compelled to hurt me in return… the same mindset of the religious wars but on a smaller scale. But that last person who attacked me, I know, is better than me in the way he loves the poor. So, I do not feel threatened by either his love for the poor or his idea that God is the author of suffering, and I therefore have no reason to hurt him in return.

I’ll ask again, why do I criticize the church and religion?

It was a common idea in Appalachia, in the Bible belt, that when someone is a church member and then switches churches, it is because “Their feelings were hurt.” In our little Baptist church, there were members who left when our outstanding Christian man, director of Sunday school and the choir, sexually molested their sons, which he had a bad habit of doing… for decades. And the church people would say of them too, in a condescending attitude, “Oh, they got their little feelings hurt… God bless their hearts.”

Yes, I’ve had my feelings hurt in a church setting, countless times. But it wasn’t over trivial things, like being left out. And not like someone suggested that I’m just too sensitive. It is because I write controversial things in a public space that I have a bullseye on my back for religious people. It is typically when someone invites me for coffee and then starts yelling at me that I’m the devil, a God-hater, and antithetical to Mary Poppins: “Mike Jones is practically imperfect in every way.” All for the things I write here.

But I do not criticize (I prefer the term deconstruct) religion because my feelings have been hurt. I do try to protect myself from a mental health standpoint. I avoid “spiritual context” at our church, such as Sunday school or small groups, where I could easily be the target of an attack. If you e-mail me and say you want to take me out for coffee or lunch “to get to know me better,” I may not come. Too many times, such invitations were a trap, someone sitting with notes in their hand to prove I’m satanic. I am nervously testing the waters of a small group now.

So, no. I do not deconstruct religion because I’ve had my feelings hurt there. Then, why do I?

I left the church once (emotionally and intellectually, not physically, as my wife wanted to keep the kids in church and I kept attending). When you leave a religious group that had been your whole world for decades, it is like stepping off a cruise ship full of people onto a deserted island, and watching the ship sail on over the horizon. It is a horrible, disorienting feeling. But now, after thirty years of study, I’ve made sense of it all. Not perfect sense, but reasonable sense, and I have a lot to say to those who are leaving or considering leaving Christianity now to help them make sense of it all.

Right now, the Christian church is shrinking at an average rate of 16% over three decades. But those polls only capture the tip of the iceberg. I would place it at 50%, at least, who have left the simple teachings of the Galilean carpenter. Virtually all my old evangelical friends are now Trumpian and Christian Nationalists, believing things that are antithetical to the simple teachings of the historical Jesus. In churches like mine, while it is a blend of ideas, there is a growing swath of the Richard Rohr-type of Christians, who have too abandoned the simple teachings of the historical Jesus for an ambiguous, postmodernist spirituality.

The best illustration of this “migration” (to use a term of Rohr’s) is me suggesting I want to teach a Sunday school class on the simple requirements of Christianity, reducing it down to 1) There is a personal God who created the cosmos, 2) Jesus lived in history, was God’s anointed, and we follow his teachings… full stop. Yet our Sunday school committee thought that would be too divisive, as one of them said, “Some of the best Christians I know don’t even believe that Jesus ever existed because they think scientifically.” Let me digress for a moment to say that most, even atheist scientists and historians, believe that Jesus was a real historical figure.

So, to be clear, unlike the old evangelical Mike, I don’t condemn these people, nor do I use them as a fulcrum to push down to lift me up to prove my own superiority. I do not play the religious game. I do not think they are bad people or going to hell. It isn’t about that.

So, finally, Mike, why do you deconstruct religion?

It is simple. For most of those leaving Christianity, they describe themselves now as “nones.” They no longer have any belief system. They just do not think about it. But there is also a growing practical depression, coming from the loss of meaning and an absolute basis for morals. You can only pretend there is meaning in a godless cosmos for so long.

My son had a poster on his wall that read, “Life Sucks… Then You Die.” This is the motto of this generation. They have this point of view, not because they are inferior or bad people (as religious people like to claim, as part of their religious game). If you look at the reasons they have rejected a belief in God or Christianity, it is because of the culture. I would say over 90% of what we call Christianity- going to church on Sunday mornings, singing hymns, buildings, smiling a lot, and the list goes on and on- is EXTRANEOUS! So, why are we forcing kids out of the church for cultural reasons? Pushing them onto the deserted island of nihilism?

Okay folks, this is what keeps me up at night. This is why I write. This is why I try to deconstruct the Christian religion down to its fundamental core.

I have five children, wonderful people, very smart, who are now nones. It is not because we didn’t take them to church… it is because we did! There is so much bullshit that is part of the Christian culture that makes it unobtainable for most people of this generation, especially those who are thinkers, those who are curious, those who are authentic.

For ten years (1995 to 2015) I tried to work inside the traditional church, to reform it for the sake of those leaving. I came out bruised and with nothing to show for it. Now, I write from a vantage point outside the church, not wanting to change or hurt it, but to plead with it to tolerate us. Keep your traditions and culture; God bless you. But for this generation, give them space.

Here is example of what the traditional church could do to make space for people like me and those leaving. 1) Do not condemn us when we think differently, especially when we value reason, candor, and science; 2) Christian gatherings, if you follow the Bible, have only one purpose: to encourage each other toward love… full stop. Therefore, keep your traditions of Sunday morning worship for those who love it, but create space for those who don’t. Here is my idea: a group that meets in a bar on Saturday night with a culture of encouragement, fun, and deep thought, and doesn’t expect them to show up for the traditional services that the rest of the church loves.

This is way too long, so I will stop here. I may write more about how the traditional church could make room for those who are leaving, what I would call the Church’s back porch.

Respectfully, Mike

I once wrote that, for some analytical people, the only way to avoid squashing their natural pursuit of a divine creator is to keep them as far away from the game of religion as possible. Now I’m starting to wonder if I’m one of those people.

The major difference between the evangelical church and the progressive church is that in the evangelical church, they will berate and scream at you if you do not conform. In the progressive church, they will softly explain to you that you are spiritually inferior if you do not conform.