Lately I’ve been getting a lot of notices from Christians telling me that they no longer want to be Christian. It’s remarkable how many people I know—people who for years if not their whole lives have been Christian—who have been so beaten into the ground by the relentless toxic rhetoric of the Christian right that at this point they’re just … giving up on Christianity.



Their hearts have turned away from the faith. They feel like, “If Christianity is so good, how come so many Christians are such complete dickweeds? If the Holy Spirit is supposed to be at works in the hearts and minds of Christians, why isn’t the Holy Spirit doing a better job of making a lot more Christians be at least decent human beings?”



As one of the kindest, most patient and intelligent Christians I know put it in a comment to yesterday’s post: “Is the whole thing [Christianity] just BS?”



Ouch. (If you’re Jesus, anyway. Or … well, me, for one, given what I believe.)



And it’s happening all at once, too. That’s the astounding part. I’ve been Joe Online for a long time now, and, as far as I can tell, ditching Christianity is going viral. In the last two weeks I’ve heard the same thing from I’d say thirty Christians, who’ve written to me either, “I give up; I’m no longer Christian,” or, “I’m about to give up; I don’t think I can take being Christian any longer.”



Oucheth! LINK.

John Shore (who makes sure to tell us he's straight) is the author of UNFAIR: Christians and the LGBT Question He is founder of Unfundamentalist Christians, and executive editor of the Unfundamentalist Christians group blog. John reports his two blogs receive about 250,000 views per month. John is a pastor ordained by The Progressive Christian Alliance. And he's alarmed by what he's seeing. Here's the quote: He is referring to the issue of homosexuality for the most part, I'm sure, although perhaps just "unChristianlike" behavior itself (whatever that means). I've said it before , as has Robert Price right here , this issue, more than probably any other one, will be the undoing of the conservative right wing church and the church itself. John Shore just doesn't know that yet. He thinks he can reinvent the church stance on homosexuality and still be faithful to the Bible. Reinventing theology has a long history in the church. Doing so is like trying to reform the KKK from within. Why would anyone do that?