Denying Christ

This is a piece I wrote back in September in response to the sad news that two compassionate, intelligent people of real integrity announced to me that they could no longer believe in Jesus., not only not believe in Christianity, or the Bible, or the teachings of the church but they could no longer believe in Jesus. It disheartened me and I wrote this in response but did not post it. Today I think it needs to be aired.

Please read this and respond to the question I posed in the final sentence.
Thanks and God Bless.

The Impossibleape


We have been through an extremely challenging month of debate initiated by Chris's Human Sacrifice Post(http://romanticparadox.blogspot.com/2006/08/human-sacrifice.html). Two of the contributors to the discussions confessed (here and on their own blogs) that they have lost faith not only in Christianity as it is imperfectly expressed by its followers, not only in every 'jot and tittle' in the Bible as God's literal Word, not only in the paradoxes that are a hallmark of discussions about things beyond the 4 dimensional confines of our experience, but most significantly in the Deity of Christ. I am a disaffected evangelical hoping for better things to come in our experience and understanding. I genuinely sympathize on an intellectual and an emotional level with people who find it hard to believe all the things we say are necessary to be card-carrying Evangelical Christians but I was surprised and deeply disheartened to watch two very fine individuals surrender their allegiance to Jesus right before our eyes. Even though I can not accept all the Bible literally interpreted as the direct and defining Word of God, I do confess and believe it to be the ultimate guide to spiritual truth and to Christian orthodoxy and orthopraxis. So I am left with concern for those who have once believed but now say they can not. I believe in radical grace and a love that covers a multitude of sins because it is what the Bible teaches but it also says that it is impossible to re-reconcile a person who has tasted the good things of the world to come and then turned away from it. I think we all can admit that we run hot and cold through out our life of faith and I imagine there are times when we all are close to turning in our 'I Love Jesus' bumper stickers.
I was wondering if anyone has a story from their own life or from a person they know who, for whatever reasons, gave up their faith but later returned to a new and perhaps even more vibrant commitment to Jesus? If so could you share your story?