Paul,

I’m a little confused by the implication that a person would “believe in Christianity”. What does that mean? For me the #1 problem I have with Christianity is that it has become something we are asked to “believe in”. The original idea was that we would gather a community around the belief in Jesus’ vision for a new world rule (the kingdom of God). We were supposed to have faith in the vision of Jesus for change not cultivate a belief in a 1st century understaning of God. At some point, the message became twisted into believing that a set of principles about how the universe worked and a particular definition of God’s nature or “his” attributes.

I think that beneath your 7 difficulties lies this one main concept. What if being a Christian isn’t about getting any particular beliefs correct or forcing our modern minds into denial about the working of the Universe? What if many belief systems about God or the working of the universe are completely compatible with the idea of joining a community built around the vision of Jesus for a new rule/kingdom on earth? Doesn’t that make items #1-7 go away as problems and still keep the beauty of the story in tact as a story that presents the vision?

Lastly, would it be possible for you to shift your hope from being hopeful that a particular story is true into being hopeful that the vision communicated within the story will BECOME true? I think that the difficulties we all have experienced with traditional Christianity are self-inflicted wounds. It doesn’t have to be so hard.