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What if Salvation is More Like an Ambulance Ride?
It started with a podcast. I’ve been mentioning Alisa Childers on my Facebook page and blog for a couple of months now. Her podcast and its interviews of various incredibly-smart-Christians has been rocking my brain. And I love it. My husband, who also started listening to Alisa Childers, found this particular two-part series first. Consistent with his systematic approach to life, my husband started at the beginning and has been slowly working his way through the episodes in numerical order. My approach is more haphazard. Basically I just scroll through the options, see what sounds interesting, and listen to that. Anyway, my husband asked if I’d listened to the podcasts…
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The Value of Losing Our Faith
I’m not sure what I believe these days. I think I’m losing faith. I don’t even like going to church. I don’t know how to be a Christian any more. Scarily honest statements. Beautifully raw. Terrifying to admit even to ourselves. If you said them to the wrong person, they might have freaked out. And you may have gotten an earful of Christianese — those secret phrases and well known statements that only make sense to other Church People. There may have been panic on their faces. They might have interrupted you with Bible verses and prayer chains. I’m sorry! Perhaps you have kept your doubts and questions to yourself…
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The God Who Wants to be Found – Pt. 2
If you read yesterday’s post, then you know that I am treading on some shaky ground according to some conservative Christians. Asking some slightly heretical questions. 😉 That’s okay! Questions are good! Let me clarify some things before I continue. I don’t believe that sincere faith in just any religion guarantees access to heaven. I do believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father. I do believe in a literal hell. But I also agree with C.S. Lewis. “We do know that no person can be save except through Christ. We do not know that only those who know Him can be saved by Him.” C.S. Lewis, Mere…
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The God Who Wants to Be Found – Pt. 1
Is God truly loving? And if He is, then how can He condemn millions of people to hell? If God is really good, then what about all the people in the world who have lived and died without ever hearing the gospel? How can people be responsible for their sin if they never knew anything different? What if they were sincerely following their religion? Shouldn’t that count? If God condemns people to hell who aren’t responsible, then He can’t be good and loving. He must be angry and horrible. Who wants to believe in that kind of God anyway? “The space between doubting God’s goodness and doubting His existence is…
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Fireflies, Chili, and Hope
“You are the light of the world…No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket…” Matthew 5:14-15. How strange would it be…if you sat on your porch one summer evening and watched as one firefly after another flew into an open container. Instead of floating free, blinking their lights in the summer dusk, the fireflies huddled together. Willing captives in a jar. And yet, I think many Christians do the same thing. Somehow, protection and safety have become more important than being the light of the world. They huddle together around common ideology and values. Protecting good things like marriage, family, the sanctity of life, and moral…
