Great email.
Ray
Dear Ray,
I've read nearly every article on your website and I am floored at the depth and breadth of your scholarship. Never have I been so helped and enlightened, never have I felt so free, never have the scriptures made so much sense, NEVER HAVE I FELT SO FOOLISH for what I used to beliave and "understand". God has done something in me, I can't explain it properly but something has lifted, I do not feel condemned and guilty nor am I fearful but rather now I know what the "hope" is that Paul spoke of when he describes "the hope of His calling"..
Both my parents died while I was a foolish, carnally minded, immature christian and for years tha thought of them in agony and the torments of hell has plagued me, especially since I blamed myself for being the cause of their rejecting the gospel because I was such an obnoxious hypocrit, fundamentalist, phony. (This I certainly was) I could not reconcile: God is Love with eternal damnation; assured salvation with the teachings of Jesus; literal interpretation of the Revelation with anything remotely resembling common sense. I drifted from church to church feeling like an outsider among so many who grew up in Christian families where mom, dad, grandma, grandpa and all the cousins, aunts and uncles served in the church etc. etc.
Once, shortly after my mother died, I was speaking to someone from church and they said casually" oh was she saved?.." as if then it wouldn't matter that I had lost someone I was close to. I said, "no, I don't think she was" and her reply was just "oh... I see" and she turned and left. The lack of real compassion, the cardboard movie poster relationships (largely due to my own fault) left me hollow and alone. I was angry, hurt, short tempered, defensive and lost. I stopped going to church, I stopped reading the bible I just couldn't face the law of sin and hell that I thought was Jesus. "Good News" my foot, I thought what is the good news that most every one you love will spen an eternity in unspeakable agony, without hope or mercy. (I am rambling now, sorry)
Far from wanting to sin now that I see that the lake of fire is God's judgment of purification, I want to enter into His rest, I want fight the good fight, submit myself to Christ and take up my cross. The funny thing is that being from Canada I'm not as exposed to the radical fundamentalism that so many of your correspondents seem to be, in fact the most pleasant churches I have attended are the old "dead" traditional ones that let you sit in peace, meditate on the word and listen to the organ. No fake smiles, no invitations to attend "small group", no "how's your walk with the Lord?" inquisition, and NO doctrinal dogma - they just don't care as long as you don't
