Ok so I've just got done reading Dale's blog and the comments posted on his "Nasb is so two months ago" post. And I gotta say that in some ways it was the funniest thing I've read in a while and in some ways it was the saddest thing I've read in a while and in other ways it was a great challenge to me intellectually and most importantly (to me at least) spiritually.
A digression. I'm not a big fan of anonymous commentors - it seems kind of sneaky to me. Please understand that there occasions when knowledge of a name will cloud the message given and I understand that. And there are times when a name would be innapropriate and I understand that but as a general rule I don't really care for anonymous commentors. Digression over.
I'm not particularly into disillusionment, I don't like it personally when I'm disillusioned, I tend to react wrongly to people I have been disillusioned about and then I don't like myself either. All in all it tends to be a vicious cycle.
I also do not like ignorance, more than anything in my life it irritates me more than I can possibly say when people don't see their own shortcomings and the shortcomings with their own belief system.
As a belief system Christianity (from a human viewpoint) is one of the easiest "religions" to reject. because it makes so little human sense. It doesn't make sense to willingly sacrifice dreams, ambitions, desires, opportunity, fun, to deny yourself pleasures, to love others more than yourself, and to do it all because a book written a long time ago seems to tell certain people that. And for a long time thats all I understood about Christianity was this list of things that I had to give up. You might even say that I had Christian illusions. But my big problem was that I did see Christianity as a belief system, I saw it as a religion because, frankly, for the most part thats what I saw in the Christians around me. And if I'm choosing a belief system based on what I have to do and rewards and everything, believe me it would be a lot more tempting to be an LDS or a Catholic or even a Muslim than it would be to be a Baptist.
What I missed was that Christianity isn't about a system, it is about my relation to God. And he is willing to accept me WITH ALL MY SINS as a son of his. This was extremely powerful to me - when I was saved God knew all the sins that I would commit in the future and in spite of that knowledge, God still desired to save me. In a sense I lost my Christian illusions.
(I will now wrap this up ASAP) This Christian disillusionment led to a disillusionment with the same Christians I saw around me living a belief system - the proscribed ritual of the Christian life. And for a while it was tempting to reject them because of their beliefs. But God does not promise to work the same path with everyone - only that His desire is for to everyone to believe on Him and to continually draw closer to Him. And so I have to learn to love those people even as some of them seem to reject me.
If you want to talk about this I'd almost prefer if you didn't leave a comment. you can email me at piano_player21@hotmail.com if you want (there's an _ in between piano and player).
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I will comment only with a quote that will lend itself to the thought of your post, in regards to Christianity not being a system, but a relationship:
"A.W. Tozer is quoted as saying this about the unique Christian experience and the worship of God: 'A Christian is an odd number, anyway. He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen; talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see; expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another; empties himself in order to be full; admits he is wrong so he can be declared right; goes down in order to get up; is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest, and happiest when he feels the worst. He dies so he can live; forsakes in order to have; gives away so he can keep; see the invisible; hears the inaudible; and knows that which passeth all knowledge.'"
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