It wasn't the summer that brought an end to my doubt, but it was the summer I encountered a different Jesus, a Jesus who requires more from me than intellectual assent and emotional allegiance; a Jesus who associated with sinners and infuriated the religious; a Jesus who broke the rules and refused to cast the first stone; a Jesus who gravitated toward sick people and crazy people, homeless people and hopeless people; a Jesus who preferred story to exposition and metaphor to syllogism; a Jesus who answered questions with more questions, and demands for proof with demands for faith... a Jesus who healed each person differently and saved each person differently; a Jesus who had no list of beliefs to check off, no
doctrinal statements to sign, no surefire way to tell who was «in» and who was «out»; a Jesus who loved
after being betrayed, healed
after being hurt, and forgave while being nailed to a tree; a Jesus who asked his disciples to do the same...
On an earlier comment, Sam talked about «insider theology» where a group has a hidden
doctrinal statement that is not written on paper, and you don't know what it is until
after you trespass and get burned for it.