Within the assurance of this freedom, many religions sprouted. The founders of this nation were not what we refer to today as nondenominational. I accept that people deny the Judeo-Christian God and Jesus Christ, and that He came to earth. People cannot believe that Jesus went to the cross for the sin of man. The people of ancient days had many gods. Even those that call themselves Christian serve other gods. There’s more than a bit of the “rich young ruler” in the spirit of the American. Anyone denying this truth would be a liar. I grew up without much discussion on religion. My mother simply took us to church, or made us go to church. If the circumstances deemed it, my mother had a habit of saying “Gracias a Dios.”, or “Si Dios quiere.” By her expressions of thanksgiving, I guess I can say I knew the name God. Yesteryear, Americans grew up hearing about God. They went to church. They had fellowship with fellow church goers and so forth. Church was part of the socialization process. For me and my family, it was the Catholic Church that shaped my faith. I grew up surrounded by practicing Catholics and Catholics in name only.

This country of ours is founded on the premise of religious freedom and for good reason. The Founding Fathers belonged to various organized religious groups. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” If someone was looking to live in a country where they could worship as they like, this was the country of choice. When I was young every religious group was trying to convert me to their respective faith. I was actually converted to Mormonism when I was fifteen. Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses were the two most assertive groups I encountered. At eighteen I was dating a guy that introduced me to a group of warlocks. Let me tell you, I ran for dear life. I was introduced and converted to the Baptist faith by the brother-in-law of a friend. That same friend then followed her brother-in-law to a nondenominational church group. I too followed. That’s where I have leaned for the last forty years. I have since learned the difference between the various factions within the nondenominational label and to me, there is more sensationalism then truth in the various groups. Jesus didn’t care for the Sadducees, or the Pharisees. They represented the corrupt religious leadership that Jesus knew would demand His death.

So for me to make sense of Christianity today, I have to accept that evangelicals are Pharisees. They are full of themselves. They are not focused on God’s people. Their main concern is to preserve the traditions of men. They want to preserve their place in a world that is not our home. We are in the world, but we are not of this world. They don’t truly believe that God is in control, that God appoints leaders, that God works all things according to His will. They believe that God wants to give them the desires of the heart, and that includes a moral society. My Bible says no such thing. The world has always been in the church, but the last thirty years, church leaders allowed the world to take over the sanctuary to seduce the people of God and turn the house of God into a den of thieves. I caught some man on one of those ridiculous talk shows say that “If we don’t return to biblical value the greatest experiment in human history is going down in a massive ball of flames (something to that effect.).” He was talking about America. America is not and never was God’s experiment. To return to biblical values, presumes we at one time were a nation that lived out Biblical values. I do not consider, slavery, discrimination, racial prejudice, social injustice, etc. to be Biblical values.

be blessed. More later of making sense of Christianity.