In late 2006, I left the church, disillusioned with the self-centered nature of the Christian experience and the church’s near inability to reach out to those beyond its own walls. For a brief period, I was part of a local iteration of the Emergent Church movement, though that was short lived, as the group I was a part of were interested in a kind of faith experience that did not appeal to me.
Around the same time, something happened that raised in my mind a number of questions that I considered very serious, which completely shook my world and threatened tremendous possible ramifications for my faith as a Christian. A series of unexpected sources of inspiration, confusion, and clarity took me on a journey filled with numerous difficult questions, considerable doubt, ample inaction, and far too much wasted time. I questioned Christianity at a level more basic than I had ever before thought that I would, and as my old roommate Dave recently said to me, “I tell you, if you’ve never had to question even the most basic tenets of Christianity, it can be brutal. Really brutal.” Dave was unequivocally correct.