This morning, I was thinking about how I am so much happier being free to be who I am, instead of always feeling like I need to check if it’s okay with God first.
No matter what people say to try and seduce you into Christianity, the Christian god is a judgmental god.
There are a lot of modern Christians that try to emphasize the relationship over the religion, but beyond the feel-good exterior, there still exists the same rules of conduct that have always been characteristic of Christianity.
I’ve been part of a grace-focused church. The idea of grace is very enticing. It doesn’t sound the same as the your-sinfulness-causes-natural-disasters preaching style of the Pat Robertsons of the world.
The latter approach says, you are bad and god will punish you. The former says, you are bad and god will forgive you. But the message is the same: you are bad.
So, god’s grace will free you from your sins, but it’s not real freedom. You are still held prisoner by the idea that you are bad.
Well, you’re not. You’re okay, maybe even good.
But, you can never really feel good if you believe that you are not good without god’s grace because it’s conditional. And at it’s heart, the message is you are not good enough on your own.
Here is how I look at Christianity:
God created you and he loves you. But, you are not good enough to be around god because you fail to live up to god’s standards (which is a natural quality of being human). In other words, god made you, but he also set standards that you cannot possibly meet. But, that’s okay because if you worship him and love him with your entire mind, body, heart, and soul, he will forgive you for being the way he made you. You will be made worthy of having a relationship with him, but not really because every time you act human, you need to ask his forgiveness for not being good enough, so he can make you good enough through him.
What a dysfunctional, co-dependent nightmare of a relationship. If god were my boyfriend, you would tell me to get the hell away from that jerk as quickly as possible (probably in more colorful terms).
How about this?
You are not an inherently bad person; you’re just fine. Stop trying to live up to unattainable standards and be yourself. Try to be nice and don’t hurt other people, and you’ll be fine. Now, stop worrying about what God thinks of you and do what makes you happy.
There, isn’t that better? You’re welcome.
