My reaction to the things I saw and heard in the churches I attended as a child was to become an atheist for 40 years. I studied various belief systems but never considered myself a Christian and had no desire to take part in organized religion. A little over a year ago, in order to indulge my wife, I agreed to visit area churches and, much to my amazement, found myself walking up the aisle one Sunday and turning my life over to Jesus Christ.
Unfortunately many of the attitudes and behaviors of organized religion that pushed me toward atheism are still in place.
This was again brought home to me as I read the April 13 issue warning of the threat “The Da Vinci Code” poses to the Christian religion. Various correspondents stridently listed the novel’s factual errors and poorly drawn conclusions. Allow me to point out that the book is a novel and that novels are fiction.
After I was saved and started attending church, I was told by a pastor that probably 90 percent of Christians have never read the entire Bible. In one of your articles, Steve Scoggins makes the statement that “men won’t always read but they will go watch Tom Hanks.” If we have sunk to the level of researching theology at the movies and studying at the feet of Dan Brown and Tom Hanks, then perhaps the church has already failed.
As I read daily papers and Sunday School lessons, I am struck by how much time and energy we waste on evolution, same-sex civil unions, politicians’ grandiose public displays of religious fervor and trying to control the behavior and beliefs of others. So far, in my study of the Bible, I haven’t found where Jesus told us to set up political action committees, to force people to comply with our ideas of right conduct or to sit in small groups evaluating the shortcomings of others. I did read where He told us not to judge or condemn others. The time I spend judging your morals is time that I’ve ignored mine.
Harell Coley
Munford, Ala.
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