I came across this post by Addie Zierman last week. There is a lot I can identify with in Zierman’s post, although its conclusion  – that if church people are loving and honest about their own darkness and doubts, maybe the departed cynics will “find our way home” – felt a little too neat and tidy to me. Maybe I’m just overly attached to that quote from J.R.R. Tolkien: “not all those who wander are lost.”

Still, there’s so much I loved in Zierman’s post, like this:

After all, there’s not much you can say to us that we haven’t already learned in some Sunday School classroom somewhere. We know the Bible stories. We heard them over and over, year after year until they became part of our blood, part of our bones.

We’ve heard a thousand sermons. We recited Scripture on Wednesday nights and earned shiny little jewels for plastic crowns. We know the “right answers.” We know the Ten Commandments and the Fruits of the Spirit and how to “lead someone to Christ” with five Bible verses and a three-minute testimony.

And this:

But this is not about a program. We will see right through that flyer you stick in our mailbox. We have been bait-and-switched before, and we’re suspicious. We were raised on a steady of [sic] diet of ads and commercials, after all – we know when you’re trying to sell us something.

But you should follow the link (here it is again) and read the whole thing, if this conversation interests you.