Blasphemy or Brilliance?

I haven't attended church in many years. I leave them or they leave me.

One church banished me because I was living with my fiancé. We had planned to get married there, but they kicked us out. Ironic.

I left another church because it was obviously under God's judgment and I didn't want to go up in flames with it. I had begged the elders to make a corporate call to repentance, committed in my Spirit to be the first woman to come forward, but I was told that they didn't consider it to be something they would ever deem necessary. 

I challenged the pastor of a church who wanted to preach against the movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, based on the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis. Ministers all across the country were being told to advise their congregations to shun the movie because of it's blasphemy. When I heard this, I wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper, lamenting the censure based on misconceptions. Pastors had received a short clip from the movie, depicting Jesus falling asleep with his head on the chest of Peter, after they had engaged in an emotional argument. By reading the book, or watching the entire movie, or having a passing familiarity with Nikos Kazantzakis - an earthy Greek author - anyone would understand that the purpose of this scene was to describe the forgiveness and restoration between them. The pastor saw my letter to the editor and invited me to tell him about the story. I visited with him, telling him that I had read all books published by Kazantzakis, and had read The Last Temptation of Christ several times and it had enhanced my faith.  I lent him my copy so he could make an informed judgment. Imagine my surprise during the special evening service in which he told us that no Christian should watch this movie because it contained blasphemy. That was the last time I attended.

Years later, I left another church after being asked to lead their Women's Prayer Class. I had just finished writing a thesis about how the quantum mechanics of the electromagnetic spectrum proves the existence of God and the power of prayer. The Women's Ministry Director was skeptical, so I sent her my manuscript. Upon our face to face meeting, she withdrew the offer for me to lead the prayer class and admonished me to reconsider the connection between science and faith. My answer was, "If I can't find Christ in everything I study, then he's a liar. And if this church can't find God in Science, then your God is too small for me."