Is the Result Worth the Cost?

As Beau and I have undertaken this long and lonely journey, we have been very curious to see if any of our friends have taken or are taking this same path. We have found a few who have come to a lot of the same conclusions, and this has given us great comfort. However, there are others who have arrived at these same conclusions but have not let these conclusions alter their behavior, as they are still doing what they have always done; taking their kids to their local Protestant church service, teaching them that Jesus died for their sins, and endorsing the belief that God needs sacrifice to forgive.

This puzzles me a great deal. I understand completely that it is very hard to leave the comfort and fellowship of one’s home church or denomination. “Being an Adventist” has always been very important to me! But when it comes right down to it, I just choke up at the thought of teaching my kids that “ God needs a bloody sacrifice in order to forgive.” Furthermore, there is no way on earth that they would accept being told that they should “pretend to drink Jesus’ blood and eat his body.” Why do something, even symbolically, that is heinous in real life?

What makes some people embrace change and others shy away from it? I believe what it comes down to is evaluating one’s own personal cost-benefit analysis. Here is how mine looks. On the cost side, I have:

1. Losing my home church; my community, my sense of belonging.
2. No longer being able to participate in very important family functions that revolve around church.
3. Not having an outlet for my music; in fact, pretty much having to put aside a whole library of music I have loved because I no longer believe the doctrinal beliefs contained in it.
4. Losing the significance of my heritage as a 6^th-generation SDA.
5. Losing friends who no longer feel they can relate to me, and who cannot understand my choices.
6. Watching my children feel left out of major holidays such as “the religious significance of Christmas”.
7. Being made to feel like a nutcase over and over because people do not want to understand the choices I have made and why I have made them.

It is easy to see the common thread of loss in all of these items; loss of identity, loss of pride, and even loss of culture. It is finding that where I am, my beloved family members and friends are not. It is an utter sense of loneliness.

Have you ever gotten the impression that God is really trying to tell you something through a dream? On very rare occasions, I have. Some time ago I woke up from one such dream, very troubled. I had been in a regular suburban house, with all of my friends and family around me. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. The house was fairly nondescript, except for the fact that the entire floor was covered with this sticky, gloopy black stuff, much like an oily tar. I tried to wipe it off my shoes, and left the house. One little bit was left on the sole of my shoe.

As I exited the building, I wiped the remaining little patch onto the front step. I watched in horrified disgust and amazement as this black goop began to multiply to the point where it covered the whole front lawn and started running down the street! My one prevailing thought was, “Think of how much of this horrible stuff is still in the house with all of my loved ones!”

The meaning of the dream weighed heavily on my heart. After realizing how much pagan practice, ritual, and belief still permeated my beloved Christianity, it was not a stretch to understand that the “goopy black stuff” represented these pagan beliefs. Furthermore, far from being removed to the distant past, they still permeate every aspect of our doctrine and practices! Consider the whole “blood of Jesus” issue; being washed in the blood of the lamb, eating and drinking Christ’s blood and body, one man must die for the sins of another, and the absolute worst, “God requires the death of one animal or person to forgive the sin of another person. Mere repentance is not enough.”

This, then, was the bulk of the gloopy substance – the paganism we still hold dear.

In the dream, I was so very relieved to be out of that house containing all the icky black stuff – but I felt so bad that my loved ones were still in there.

I remember listening to a sermon at a very large Adventist church several years ago. The very popular pastor had spent a lot of time preparing for the children’s story, and had some sort of mock-up of the Hebrew sanctuary. Right in the middle of his story, surrounded by children, he went through the motions of stabbing a lamb, telling them that this is what God wanted from his children; that this was God’s “plan” of salvation.

I was horrified! I remember thinking that it was a very good thing that my children were not there because I cannot imagine how much it would damage their psyches to visualize God in that manner. Is this really what we want our children to take away from our message about “God” – that God is a demander of death and blood?

This brings us to the “Benefit” portion of my personal cost/benefit analysis, which comes down to one thing: All of the gloopy black substance has been washed off of my view of God! No longer do I have to try to convince myself that bloody sacrifices were somehow “beneficial”! No longer do I have to rationalize that “it’s just too mysterious to understand – but surely, God incorporated sacrifice into a “requirement” for salvation so that I could understand how “heinous” sin is.” (In effect, negating a heinous activity by doing something even more heinous.) No longer do I have to try to sell this monstrous and detestable doctrine to my compassionate children, and no longer do I have to secretly shudder at the thought of trying to make the entire book of Numbers “relevant” to my Christianity.

In a word – with the cocoon of paganism stripped away, I now have the privilege of seeing my Creator as a beautiful, compassionate, merciful and kind butterfly. And that, my friend, is priceless.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling sorry for myself. I was sorry that I had come on this journey; sorry that I was all alone in my beliefs, and most of all, sorry that my friends and family members thought I was nuts. I had a really nice pity party going until the Eternal One put an end to it by dropping eight simple words into my head.

“Would you rather still be in the house?”

Instantly, I was transported back to the sense of horror and repulsion I had felt being surrounded by all of that black gloopiness; symbolizing my previously pagan beliefs and views of God.  Just as quickly, my “pity party” was over, because I had nothing but thankfulness to express for the fact that my beloved heavenly Father had honored my request for truth, and had brought me out of my house of paganism into His glorious light!