I want to welcome you to the Restorative Faith Blog! Every month there will be posts coming from this website highlighting themes and topics that drive our sense of purpose and community. This blog will provide opportunities for us to dig deeper into issues that have only been covered peripherally in the Restorative Faith book or podcast. This blog will be a source of continuous reflection on the problems that impact the Christian religion and the changes that need to take place to restore Christianity into a faith that is viable in the 21st century.
But enough about the function of this blog. Let's talk a little bit about you. If the ideas you are encountering on this site resonate with you, then it is likely that, somewhere along the way, your faith has been shattered. You didn't want it to be shattered. You didn't want to end up in a situation where you felt disconnected from your faith, but, at some point, it just became hard to look in the mirror and say with absolute honesty, "I still believe all of this."
Perhaps you feel guilty. Perhaps you feel sad. Perhaps you feel free. Perhaps you don't feel anything at all. Whatever you feel, I'm here to tell you that you are not alone. There are tens of thousands of people just like you who have walked away from their faith because it just didn't add up anymore. My goal is to heal some of those wounds and provide you with a different way of thinking about the Christian faith. One that feels like you aren't having to compromise yourself, which is the central point of this first post.
The Great Compromise
Perhaps one of the biggest issues that I see with the modern Christian faith is that it requires people to unreasonably compromise their values. For instance, if you value intelligence and reason, often the Christian faith will ask you to check those values at the door. Because Christianity is built on a foundation of beliefs (ideas and events that cannot ultimately be proven or disproven), you should not approach the faith with too much rational scrutiny. As a result, anyone with a data driven, skeptical posture towards the world is often driven away from the faith because they ask too many questions.
Another example is when the Christian faith requires you to compromise your tolerance. The Christian faith is full of rules. Some rules are found in the Bible. Other rules are derived from tradition. And still others are completely made up. These rules may have functioned in prior generations, but in our fast paced world, where the culture shifts at exponential speeds, these rules can feel draconian and unreasonable. There's not a lot of room in the rules of traditional Christianity for someone who is attracted to a person of the same sex or who feels like they are man born into a woman's body. If you're the type of person who says, "Who am I to judge another person's sexuality?", the Christian faith often compels you to make such a judgment. Thus, in the face of intolerance, you would rather let go of the church than let go of your friends.
In my opinion, these, and many other compromises, are driving people away from the church. Every time Christianity requires an unreasonable compromise from its adherents, they end up repelling far more people than they attract. For Christianity to survive, we must rescue the Christian faith from the antiquated doctrines and beliefs that are suffocating its potential.
The New Gospel
I've been working hard over the last five years to create a new kind of Christianity. One where we aren't going to be forced to let go of the values that drive our modern society. This new version of Christianity is really getting back to the roots of the original Christian faith. Not the Christian faith you've been taught your entire life, but the Christian faith as it was intended. My hope is that, together, we can build a new kind of Christianity. One that changes the world for the better and compliments the progress of society rather than fighting against it.
If there are issues that you feel need to be addressed on this site, please don't hesitate to send me a question or a comment. Your idea may be the spark that opens the door to an entirely new way of thinking about the Christian faith. In this way, this journey is not mine alone, but ours together. Therefore, without further ado, let the journey begin...