Response to the Skeptic

Here is my response to the Skeptic

Hmmm..... You have said a lot, and I'll try to answer in the best way that I can. I hope you forgive the spelling/grammer/syntaxt errors.

First, I would not read Hitchens or Dawson. They are both very smart, but idiots when it comes to athieism. If you want so really good arguments against the existance of God read Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche. You could also read some Satre and Camus. These guys gave true and good agruments about society's misuse of the idea of God. I wonder if I should be sending you in this direction.

I agree that God has been used to justify many evil acts. God has also been used as a reason for many good acts. King and the Civil Rights Movement, Dorothy Day and the Workers Movement, Oscar Romero and his work for the poor, and on and on. Augustine described the church as a mixture of saints and sinners, the problem is many people in the church forget this. On the other hand many people outside of the church forget this as well (mostly because of the self-righteous attitude of many within the church).

Yes, many people in the church are jugemental and that is wrong. I think this is a symptom of humanity. Yes the Catholic church is institutionally messed up, but so are every other church and every other institution: case in point, Unions.

I continue to work with the church for the same reason we work with democracy. It is flawed, broken, but the best thing out there.

As to questions of faith, you are asking some great questions. When I was in my second year of seminary I asked many similar questions. I was in a serious place of doubt. That is when I did my little hike on the AT (and got lyme disease and almost died... thanks a lot, God!). I went on this hike looking to wrestle with many questions. I think the wrestling is very good.

In the end I came out not sure if I believed in the existence of God. I can't prove that God exists. I cannot prove that Jesus exists. But I came to the honest realization that I need God to exist. That is where I am now, I don't know with certianity that God exists, but I need God to exist. It is not something I am completely comfortable with, but it is honest.

As to the Bible, I read the Bible as a collection of stories, rules, songs, ect. that speak to an interaction and wrestling with God. They are told by people, interpreted by people, and biased by people. But they are about these people trying to understand their relationship with God and Christ. That is a vague way of looking at the text that allows for the contradictions.

I no longer believe in hell, the devil, and am still working on salvation.

In the end, I continue to preach because I have found a faith that I believe goes deeper than the crap that is often taught. It gives me a profound hope for my life. I continue to preach because I believe that the faith I have found, based on Jesus Christ, is something good, something that others should have as well. I continue to grow and learn and struggle, but in the end, I believe and my belief is why I preach.

That is kinda a bunch of immediate thoughts. I ran out of time, so if you want to push back and go a little deeper that would be fine.