These Bible thumping liars help no one. Guilt, shame, and fear only lead to more of the same. The solution is to get away from those whose goal in life is to destroy human nature and self-worth.
Just so; after all, the doctrine of Original Sin is nothing but a condemnation of human nature itself. This is why I reject the idea that Christianity’s teachings are good but the church is in the custody of Pharisees — get rid of the Driscolls, Caners, Tchividjians, on and on, and everything will be just fine.
No, it won’t. The sickness in Christianity is ontological, it inheres in what Christianity is — and that sickness gets harder and harder to suppress and hide as an ever-evolving world leaves it behind.
I discovered Gerencser’s blog just a couple of weeks ago, by the way, via a Twitter link, and am often startled by how closely the conclusions of a former pastor track my own conclusions formed by living in an intensely Southern Baptist environment. Y’all would do well to add his RSS-feed to your regular reading list.