Thanks for the reasons Kent. The things you wrote are spot on, as far as what lessons people should take away from the Bible.
Do you think churches are the best way to teach these lessons? Are these even the lessons that churches are really teaching?
It would be a really interesting social experiment, I think, to go to several dozen churches and record the sermons to see if they mention these same values that you just have.
If churches are out there telling people to celebrate life, to get along better, explaining how other religions aren't things to fear, teaching people to stay out of debt, etc., I'd be all for that. But I bet if you recorded ten sermons and analyzed the lessons, churches would be teaching something entirely different. In fact, I bet ten different Christian churches might be teaching ten different things, some of them contradictory.
I know it's a bit unfair to group all churches together when looking at this issue. Not all churches are the same, by any means. I realize that there are some very loving, open minded, joyous churches out there.
An interesting indicator of how truly loving and accepting a given church is would be their response to 1. an atheist joining, and 2. a gay couple joining.
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