Thanks for reading and responding, Luke. Some of my friends attend a Unitarian Universalist Church. It’s a great group! The Bible to me is an amazing book, full of wisdom, inspiration and the story of Jesus as told by eye witnesses. But I believe it’s a mistake to worship the bible as if the book itself were God, or to use the Bible to spread a message of division or hate.

I’ve run into Christians from all over the political spectrum, as diverse in their beliefs as anybody else. A person could probably find a church full of people that espoused almost any opinion.

As far as the church diminishing in numbers, Jesus indicated that Christians would never be popular. In fact, he said Christians would be misunderstand, criticized and persecuted. Those words don’t really jive with the prosperity doctrine that some Christians profess. They seem to have mistaken material prosperity with the spiritual richness that comes from exercising the kindness and compassion that Jesus told us to exemplify.