The Evolution of My Christian Beliefs

It’s not hard to put into words what I’m thinking and feeling—verbally. Writing it down is another story.

A lot of what I believed previously has changed and evolved. I no longer buy into the fundamentalist teachings of yore. I also don’t buy much evangelical teaching either. Apparently, there’s a group of #exvangelicals on Twitter. These are former evangelicals who no longer associate themselves with fundamental Christianity. Maybe some of them are still Christians, of which I am one. But others have become atheists, agnostics, or have decided to pursue a different religion altogether (eg, Buddhism). A friend who has become an agnostic exvangelical sent me a helpful link that defines who falls into exvangelicalism.

I’m a weird mix of Calvinism and progressive Christian beliefs. How do you merge Calvinism with progressive Christian beliefs? I actually don’t know. But I do it.

I still kinda believe that some people were predestined for salvation before the beginning of the world. But what does “salvation” mean? Is it heaven? Is it an enlightenment of God when one is born again? Salvation, I have come to believe, does not necessarily mean some people were selected for heaven. Or it might. I don’t know; I need to read the Gospels and explore this some more.

I’m a firm believer in God. I’m also a firm believer in Jesus. I do believe Jesus was a man who once existed, and if the Bible (all 4 Gospels) said he resurrected after his death, I believe that, too.

Regarding Christianity, I believe only in the 4 Gospels. Someone on Twitter said it best:

When I realized Christ was the Word and not scripture. Scripture was a record of how different people (or groups) interpreted what was happening.

Yasss yasss yasss! Even in the Gospels, it was Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s interpretation of the events that happened with Jesus. The cool thing about it is that many of the similar stories jive up with each other with few contradictions. Matthew doesn’t really negate what Mark says—he just provides a different perspective.

I believe this is true of the Old Testament, too. The writers, especially in the Psalms, were expressing their thoughts and feelings about the situation around them. Or they were records of conversations. Conversations between God and man. Conversations between humans.

Why does God allow evil in the world? I don’t know. I believe that God is God, and really, He can do whatever He wants. Just like me as a writer of a novel. I’m the creator of the book and I can decide what the characters do. I can determine in advance that they boogie on the dance floor or I can determine that they go through sadness and hardship. Why would I do such things to my characters? Quite frankly, it makes life interesting. If everything were perfect and went our way, life would be rather dull.

But I can’t explain away death. Senseless acts such as abuse, school shootings, mass genocide, fatal natural disasters. There’s a lot I can’t explain. Even if one believes in science, science doesn’t answer the question of why death exists and how to end it. Science tries to work on extending length and quality of life, but in terms of someone dying? There’s no cure for that. The Fountain of Life does not exist.

I can’t help but look at nature and the universe and think that something extremely complex is out there. That everything had to originate with SOMEONE. I don’t believe in happenstance or random chance. As trite as it sounds, I do believe everything happens for a reason. I also believe that people and events are predetermined and that there is a Higher Force—named God—who exists to oversee and rule everything. And I’m OK with that. A book was created by an author. To me, it makes logical sense that the world, the universe, everything that exists, was created by a Creator.

I also believe God has been extremely good to me. He doesn’t have to be. I feel very blessed and feel thankful every day for the life I have. It could be shattered in an instant. Losing my dad was one of the hardest things I’ve had to endure. But I believe there was a reason. (Maybe he would’ve had a heart attack anyway once Trump became president? Who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I feel obligated—compelled, even—to thank Someone for the blessings (or wonderful things) that have happened in my life. It’s harder to thank God for the difficulties in life as well. So hard. But there have been times when I’ve been able to see and get an answer to why things happened the way they did. Sometimes disappointments turn into things that work out for the better. Yet, I still fear losing everything I have like Job. Would that shake my faith in God? I don’t know, and quite frankly, I really don’t want to find out.

My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones. I can’t imagine the grief of losing my husband and feeling alone. He’s the person who understands me best in this world and to lose that would feel like losing everything. I’m sure losing my kids would be the most devastating thing ever. More than my husband in a way because it would be a life cut short. All the potential. All the growth that would never be seen or realized. There’s something that hurts so much and so deeply when it comes to losing a child. I think most of us are wired to believe that kids are special and deserve extra care and attention. Or that people with special needs deserve more care and love than the normal average person who can function on their own.

I’ve also walked away from many of the fundamental beliefs in Christianity because, as many of those who have left the faith say, the Bible has been used to uphold messages of misogyny, bigotry, and in some instances, downright hate toward other people. To me, this is antithetical to Jesus’s teachings and how he treated people. Jesus gathered up disciples, including the 12 apostles, who were total ragamuffins. They were societial cast-offs. The lame. The blind. The tax collectors. The thieves. The swindlers. The women. The lepers. I fully believe that Jesus would embrace our modern-day cast-offs. The LGBT community. The homeless. Those with mental illness. Those with special needs. Those who have been abused. But also, the Republicans. The Democrats. Those inside and outside of those parties. He’d cross political boundaries. He’d reach out to all minorities. Those who are oppressed and rejected. Love is the message that Jesus sought to teach. Love your neighbor. Love even your enemies. Belief in Jesus is the only way to God. (If you think about it, if you don’t believe in God, how would you get to Him anyway?) And belief in God doesn’t necessarily translate to going to heaven. What is heaven anyway? What is hell? These are the core beliefs that Christians have.

Why do I believe in heaven and hell? It’s actually quite simple: I have to believe that if I take my own life, there are consequences for that. I have to believe that an unrepentant murder or abuser doesn’t get away scot-free once they die. I have to believe that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t escape judgment. Maybe on earth, but not before God. I have to believe that evil against self and others doesn’t go unpunished.

The Protestant belief is that works don’t earn us salvation. Sola fide. It’s by grace through faith alone in Jesus per Ephesians 2:8-9. But how do you reconcile James 2:14-26: “faith without works is dead”? Well, I still subscribe to the belief that Jesus does all the work BUT once we believe in Jesus, good should come out of our belief (our salvation). A faith that belittles the differences in other people is dead. “Christians” who are homophobes have a faith that is dead. “Christians” who are racist have a faith that is dead. “Christians” who think that men are better than women have a faith that is dead.

Let’s talk Ephesians 5:22-33:

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Let’s take the context of this. Back in Paul’s day, women didn’t always marry because of love like we traditionally do today. Men saw women as property and married the women they wanted to marry. Women were often forced into marriage. Some were arranged marriages. A woman may not have loved the man she married. The verse about submission is so that a woman does what her husband says based on the societal belief that men were superior to women.

Now, let’s look at Ephesians 5:25, 28:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy… In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.

This admonition is for husbands to actually try and love their wives. Again, men saw women as a possession—something to own. For their own pleasures and for their own desires. They didn’t necessarily need to love their wife when they married her. They were status symbols. Also, in this day (and throughout the Old Testament), many men had multiples wives and concubines (see: side chicks). The first woman a man married may not have been the woman he loved or even cared for deeply.

To be honest, I don’t know how the Christian LGBTQ community reconciles the Bible with who they are. To me, these verses are a clear repudiation of homosexuality:

Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable. –Leviticus 18:22

If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. –Leviticus 20:13

Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. –I Corinthians 6:9-10

We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. –I Timothy 1:9-11

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. –Romans 1:21, 26-27

Not sure how you reconcile the Bible with those verses and the following verse:

Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. –Romans 1:32

Guess I’m just as bad for accepting the homosexual lifestyle.

But if we want to take a closer look at Leviticus, I want to know how many modern-day Christians practice the following:

Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death. Because they have cursed their father or mother, their blood will be on their own head. –Leviticus 20:9

Do people always say nice things about their parents?

If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death. –Leviticus 20:10

Are Christians still killing people who do this?

If a man has sexual relations with a woman during her monthly period, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has also uncovered it. Both of them are to be cut off from their people. –Leviticus 20:18

Are Christians always adhering to this? (Granted, I think it’s gross, but this is the inerrant, inspired word of God, right?)

You must therefore make a distinction between clean and unclean animals and between unclean and clean birds. Do not defile yourselves by any animal or bird or anything that moves along the ground—those that I have set apart as unclean for you. –Leviticus 20:25

Are Christians avoiding eating chicken?

A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads. –Leviticus 20:27

Those who fully believe the Bible are commanded to kill psychics and other mediums. Why aren’t they doing this?

Should we follow all the things the Bible said? God spoke to people during a certain point in time but has remained silent and only makes Himself known through events and the interpretations from the authors of the Bible. Is it fair to reason that these rules and commandments were for directed for that period of time and not throughout the rest of history?

These are the thoughts swirling around in my mind. I don’t have answers. I’m just exploring what I now believe.