This weekend I was a visitor at a church. I had a mix of feelings about it. When they took up the offering they talked about who they would donate it to (unless the check was marked as tithe). I've never been to a church where the money was directly donated to an organization or relief aide or something. I think there are so many churches in Birmingham who don't need all the fancy things they have and here is one that is giving money away instead of building a room full of PS3s or something.

Jaime and I were driving to Nauvoo this weekend and as we drove through some of the poorest parts of the state we past countless churches. BIG churches! Fancy signs and large parking lots. Even in parts of Birmingham where things aren't quite so poor looking the churches are huge. I know of not one but two churches in Birmingham that have large yellow slides inside them for the children to go down on their way to Sunday School. Why do people spend so much money on things that don't really matter when other people are obviously suffering?

Giving money to help people in Chile after the earth quake. That seems like a pretty good thing to do. You don't need a slide. You don't need a game room with tv's and pool tables and video game systems.

I was so pleased with the giving and the donations that would be made to a cause I thought was worthy. And then the sermon. I had such a difficult time during the sermon. So did a lot of people, he went over by about 45 minutes. It was uncomfortable to sit for so long and listen to someone who was very very passionate but perhaps not very knowledgeable. His entire sermon was about the rapture. I'm not very sure where I am on the topic of the rapture which is why I think I was uncomfortable. I'm still working my way through lots of different ideas and rapture just wasn't up there on my list this weekend. The man who was preaching, who was a visiting preacher not at all the regular pastor of this church (we can give them some grace for this unfortunate choice), was very insistent upon us not wasting our lives in sin and filth but living for God. He was sure that most Christians felt like they could sin away their lives and then at the last minute ask God for forgiveness (before the rapture) and then everything would be ok. His reason for why the Bible says that Jesus will come within the disciples lifetime was because he knows that God's people are procrastinators.

I'm not sure where his logic came from but what I deduced from listening to him was this. I'm struggling with things on a religious level. (which I think is important) I'm questioning things about God about Jesus and about the Bible. Deep things. If Jesus were to rapture us all right this minute and I was called up to stand before God I doubt very much that I would feel like I've wasted my life. I do not think that I would be ashamed for having doubt (another thing I've heard "Christians" aren't supposed to do). Because of this I felt a large disconnect about what the pastor was talking about. Why would I want to go out and sin my life away just because I have the time. It seems to me that people who want to go out and sin their lives away aren't really believers in the first place.

I could be wrong. But then it also brought up lots of different questions. The Devil left Heaven and took with him angels. Lots of angels. What must God be like if these angels left his presence? In all my days of learning TULIP I never once heard that angels had free will. I always heard that angels were jealous of us for having free will. Then how did these angels "fall away". I know the answer to this is probably very clear and obvious and possibly dangling in front of my face but for right now I just don't get it. It's probably something like "it pleased God to have them leave His presence" or something like that. The man that was speaking at this church obviously meant for us to think... wow that devil must be a very good deceiver because he even got angels to follow him. He must have meant for us to be afraid that the devil was going to trick us somehow. But instead all I could think was.. how come the angles wanted to leave God's presence? Am I the only one that thinks things like this? After the sermon was over I went home and laid out in the sun (I'm working on that base tan for the beach trip later this month) and I wondered about what I believe and how listening to the sermon today made me think of the Bible as a lot more like Greek and Roman mythology than what I've always thought it to be. And is it that different? Would it be more interesting? More exciting?

Jaime said that the way the Bible actually explains the end of the Earth is that there is a great war between good and evil. I like that idea much much more. He also says that I should read Issac Asimov's Guide to the Bible, which I should. And that I should have taken his BP class at Samford, which is probably true as well. I figured I should write Samford a letter and say that the BP class I took was horrible, I learned nothing, and I remember nothing. So can I audit another class for free?

The good news is that my Madeleine L'Engle books arrived on Friday and I'm about to start A Circle of Quiet.