An Update on my Ever Evolving Theological Reflection

here is an interesting note of my own deconversion, dialoging with Becky Beam: Becky, I think my problem with Evangelical Christianity is not the people, but its internal cohesive and closed teaching. At times, it lacks integrity. But what bothers me most is the lack of touch with reality, especially when the reality of life hits. My own deconversion occurs slowly after I began my university training. I took two courses, one in Biblical Hebrew, and the one that afftects me the most is 'Early Christian Writings'. At that time, I did not realize it, but now I see the hand of the Lord in it. Heberew allows me to read Genesis text without having someone to interpret for me, which I rehearse over the years, reading Psalms and Isaiah and Genesis texts. In this class I came into contact with Documentary hypothesis. And the Early Chrsitian Writings taught the redaction technique and other tools which eventually allows me to see that biblcal authors were human beings trying to answer a bunch of difficult questions, including why this Yaweh failed to come to rescue his people and the exile of Israelites, and that many letters in the New Testament have questionable authorship. But I did not stop being a Christian. I live my life as if there is an Evangelical God. When I was in school, I constantly prepare for the day that I will head for the seminary and become a biblical scholar, possbily to retranslate bible passages into Chinese. In that time, I came to know a few liberal scholars, but they are good people, and having a tremendouos emotional traumatic experience at the local CMA church, I went back to mainline denomination churches, I still toe the line, reading my bible and AW Tozer. My study at Harvard began my deconversion in a realistic way as I came into contact with scholarships of the last century, and the study of Syriac Christianity and contrasting it with Roman Christianity allows me to see tht what we cherish as doctrines are not the firm ground we stood on. eg, the concept of the original sin (Augustinian concept), and trinity as a doctrine is quite different in their faith.This has not touched my inerrancy of the scripture though. I came to also see the inconsistency of Christian behaviours, particularly in the greed of the Evangelical Christianity (CMA churches, and my own folks). I was always told that we ought to look to Jesus and not men, and men will always fail. That is what kept me sane since I firmly believed in the new life - conversion theory fed to me by my EV friends and churches. But I do not see that life changing event real nr permanent. It was at the excitement of the moment and slwly but surely people are the same before and after that life changing event, if they were terrible folks before their conversion, they remian terrible afterwards. If they were nice folks, they remain the same. There is little that seems to transcend their humanity. But I still held on. I did not change because of what I saw in the churches. Then life events brought me to a place I do not want to do. When I met my wife, I was certain this is the one that God sent. I was told that I need to look for money and more. Both wife and I came from similar Presbyterian background, our grand parents went to the same Taiwanese semianry in the 1800s, and knew each other, and she has no qualms about me dropping dentistry and study theology. My folks pullthe god thing and the 5th commandment, and began their oppression. I dropped every theololgical research found work. Indeed I have been working since. I began the doubt that my relationship with God is real, or helpful. That God is nto there when I call, and that we ought to fed for ourselves. I more I read the bible, Kierkegaard, and others, the mroe I realize that truth is a subjective event. That is, what we were taught as objective truth in the Evangelical circle, is not true at all. Truth must be experienced, and courage is what we need to do so. After the marriage, I held on to what was left of my Evangelical Christianity, when I had time, I spent hours translating biblcal passages of Isaiah and Psalms, using Latin and Syriac, plus LXX as my guide. I still had the most reverence for God and Christ our Lord, and the last part iof my journey began when Tim MacKensie visited my and Ohlhuaser asked me to join the board. That was the last coffin nail. I saw that not only Christians claim of moral superiority is not real, but they deceived themselves and mixing capitalism with their faith, wanting to aimlessly expand their earthly empire. Indeed PBI is such a head quarter, and their offcie building began to take shape and look like Willo Creek. All throughout that experience, I stubbornly held onto the last straw that God is there, that he answers prayers, and called for patience. But I began to see that this inconsistency that is ever so common in the Christian communities is actually the norm. Human beings are going to behave what they are, after centuries of evolutionary changes. Germans (like Ohlhauser) are trained to be precised, mechanistic and absolute. That is what their environment make them into this. Americans are always going to have a bit of capitalism in their religion, because this is the free market economy. And while faith can cover some of this inconsistency, but it cannot change people. Predators are the same before and after the conversion event, Pedpphiles continues to damage kids before and after their conversions. Power hunger church leaders are the same before and after their conversion event. At this point I began to read Spong, Geering and Ehrman of God. They helped to dismantle my last faith in a person God. That God is a tribal God made for the defeated Jews in exile. That God is not there. and he is silent. That God died on the cross,rotted in the common graves with theives. That God has nothing to do with human suffering. Our prayers are in vain, and we asked in silence. After coming to terms with possiblities that Scriptures are human products, and out dated, and homophobis and misogynic, etc, I began to treat scriptures with this new light. Saw this allows me to appreciate Jesus of God, that he was a human, that he had human father (s), and that he died in the hate of his Roman occupiers with the blessings of his kinsmen. He was betrayed, much like I was betrayed by my Evangelical faith and its people. I choose life, I choose my family and I return my faith to the earth. I am still a Christian, for that is what I am, and that is my name. I no longer trust in the afterlife, or prayers, or liturgies. I trust the solid ground, 'this terresterial ball the earth'. As Geering taught me in his series of lectures, that if I were ever to lose my faith, I would put my faith in the world, afterall, the world is greater than I, and I may add, this is the earth that nourishes me before I was born and shall continue to do so, after long I was gone. Hope this proviode some reading, incae you often wonder why this radical views about God and Christ our Lord, the Jesus who becomes a God. Jesus is God, for me.