Leaving American Christianity

John Pavlovitz writes,

I am not losing my mind.
I’m not losing my faith.
I’m not failing or falling or backsliding.
I have simply outgrown American Christianity. 

I’ve outgrown the furrowed-browed warnings of a sky that is perpetually falling.
I’ve outgrown the snarling brimstone preaching that brokers in damnation.
I’ve outgrown the vile war rhetoric that continually demands an encroaching enemy.
I’ve outgrown the expectation that my faith is the sole property of a political party.
I’ve outgrown violent bigotry and xenophobia disguised as Biblical obedience.
I’ve outgrown God wrapped in a flag and soaked in rabid nationalism.
I’ve outgrown the incessant attacks on the Gay, Muslim, and Atheist communities.
I’ve outgrown theology as a hammer always looking for a nail.
I’ve outgrown the cramped, creaky, rusting box that God never belonged in anyway. 

Most of all though, I’ve outgrown something that simply no longer feels like love, something I no longer see much of Jesus in..... 

It’s getting harder and harder to love all people and still fit into what has become American Christianity, so rather than becoming less loving and staying—I’m leaving.

Does this mean he will become one of the unaffiliated?  That varied group that includes disaffected practitioners, agnostics, and atheists? We'll be interested to see what he says next.

Pope Francis recently said that fundamentalism is a sickness in all religions.  And, fundamentalist American Christians with their language of war and violence, their endless outrage, their calls for theocracy, are viewed the same way we view Islamic or Hindu theocrats.  They've highjacked the name "Christian" so that it is nearly divorced from its  meaning. Nice job, guys.