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The reason I write: To promote Christian truth and help Jesus get His Christianity back.

Tag Archives: false Christianity


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Reading the Bible with clear eyes

For many who read the Bible, they read it through figurative church-made glasses. These glasses have a special filter that consists of the Bible interpretations they’ve heard in church. As they read the Bible, the words they read go through this filter. In some cases, the words are modified by the filter so that what reaches the mind conveniently matches up with what they’ve heard in church.

Yet if they notice a conflict between what they’re reading and what they’ve heard, they may attribute the conflict to their apparent inability to understand the “complex” messages in the Bible, messages only seminary-trained pastors can understand, or so they may have been told.

Nagged by the conflicts I’d noticed while reading the Bible—conflicts between what I had heard in church and what I was reading—I gradually removed those church-made glasses and, for the first time, read the Bible with clear eyes. That’s how I came to find true Christianity, the Christianity that Jesus lived and taught. You can read about what I found in my book, Beneath the Graffiti: A De-churched Christian’s Search for Christianity.

https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-Graffiti-churched-Christians-Christianity-ebook/dp/B0DK7VD71B


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What’s beneath the graffiti of modern Christianity?

Jesus Christ created a masterpiece when He lived and taught what came to be called Christianity. Then, over the centuries, men splattered graffiti on that masterpiece, graffiti in the form of manmade rules, doctrines, beliefs, and traditions. Today, the manmade often obscures the God-made to the point where, in some Christian circles, Jesus’ masterpiece is barely visible.

MockupSensing that the Christianity I’d been experiencing was influenced more by man than God, many years ago I left church and stepped off on a multi-year journey in search of the masterpiece. My book, “Beneath the Graffiti; A De-churched Christian’s Search for Christianity,” is a record of what I found when I peered beneath the accumulated graffiti of the past 2000 years, graffiti painted by church history and human nature.

What I found confirmed my suspicions that, when we look on the surface of modern Christianity, we don’t always see what Jesus lived and taught—we don’t always see the truth of what it means to be Christian. Yet, by scraping off the graffiti and revealing Jesus’ masterpiece that’s been hidden beneath, I hope this book will help reverse the decline of Christianity in the US—I hope this book will help Jesus get His Christianity back.

You can follow this link to get a sneak peek at Chapter 1.

And if you’d like to be notified once the book is available on Amazon, please click Follow in the right sidebar, or follow my Facebook page.


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There can be danger in manmade versions of Christianity

I just came across a post on Reddit showing an example of the harm inflicted by manmade versions of Christianity. The title of the post is “Goodbye Christianity,” and here is, with a few bits edited out:

“I first joined Reddit because at the time I was very evangelical. Now that 4 years have gone by along with events in life that involve the church, I have come to the conclusion that people who profess the name of Jesus Christ are untrustworthy and rotten to the core just like everyone else. … If you all can stay in this religion with peace in your heart and you’re not a terrible person towards others, then God bless you, as for the rest who do not have the aforementioned trait then you can only blame yourself and people likewise yourself as a sole reason why Christianity is on the decline, not the devil, yourself. So long my former Christian brothers and sisters, I’m gonna live my life now.”

Upon reading this, I first felt sadness for the person who wrote it. I then felt anger, anger toward the true root cause of what has led this person to leave Christianity. It’s not the people who the writer claims are untrustworthy and rotten, for those people are just more wounded victims. The true root cause is a manmade version of Christianity, a version of Christianity that promotes such things as judgment, hypocrisy, bigotry, and arrogance.

Manmade wounds - Jesus healsBut, where manmade Christianity inflicts wounds, true Christianity, Jesus’ Christianity, heals wounds. So if I were to try and comfort the person who wrote that post, I’d encourage them to leave their painful experience in the past, turn to God and Jesus and their words in the Bible, and pray.

And as Brother Lawrence said in the book “The Practice of the Presence of God:”

“It isn’t necessary that we stay in church in order to remain in God’s presence. We can make our hearts personal chapels where we can enter anytime to talk to God privately.”


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The Wall

prison wall 2

All the surveys find the same thing: Christians are leaving church. Some surveys report that millions of Christians stop attending church each year. These people aren’t leaving Christianity; they’re just leaving whatever church they used to attend.

Yet something is driving people away. The surveys speak to that as well, giving several reasons why people leave the church. But it all simmers down to this: people are leaving because of a lack of truth within the church. The messages in some churches have drifted away from the truth of Jesus Christ. And what is preached is either a false Christianity, or no Christianity at all.

These false messages are like large stones in a prison wall, mortared together by pride, holding captive unwary believers. Yet as the surveys show, many climb over the wall and escape. But wounds remain.

Most church refugees I know, including me, carry wounds from their experience behind the prison wall of false Christianity. Healing comes from true Christianity, an intimate relationship with the One who heals all… Jesus Christ. A relationship given to us, and living with us, by His Spirit within us.

Did you crash into the wall and come away wounded? A while back I started a Facebook group with the hope that it would help provide healing for other wounded Christians … For Wounded Christians – A Place for Healing. Yet I now realize that no Facebook group can provide the healing we need. Only a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit can do that.