What is a Christian? Questions from a freethinker - God Discussion
August 15, 2009
Posted by Dakota O'Leary in Bloggers and Columnists, Dakota O'Leary, Featured Articles on 04 13th, 2009
This article might be offensive to some who consider themselves conservative Christian, but after a year in close quarters with some conservative Christians I used to go to church with on my Facebook, these questions seem to me not to have any ready answers from the people who consider themselves to be Christian. I have asked these questions of the Christians I know, and have been met for the most part with derision and downright hostility, even though I meant no harm when I asked them. So now I am appealing to you, the audience of our God Discussion, to answer these questions for me. Some of them are partially political in nature. Some of them are wholly religious. But all of them are important questions to me, and the lack of a good answer is one reason I am not a conservative Christian any longer. And no, neither am I an atheist. By ‘conservative Christian’ I mean evangelical Christians, conservative Catholics, conservative Methodists, Pentecostals, and charismatic Christians. I mean the followers of Pat Robertson, TBN, Jerry Falwell, Rick Warren, and Dobson. I am asking the hard questions having seen these questions unanswered both as a conservative Christian, and as a person outside the church.
O'Leary asks questions that many others are asking of us. Whether they are or are not 100% fair does not nullify the fact that they are being asked honestly.
Perhaps there are answers to most of them, even to those that seem to be baiting an argument.
It seems that if we really are concerned about our neighbors, we would be willing to dialogue around such questions and answer them as honestly as possible.
O'Leary has done us a real service by laying the questions out for us so that we can consider them.