Goodbye old church

I decided to not come back to my church back at home again. It was a hard decision to make, considering that it was the church I grew up in.

There are two pastors who work with our youth group at our church. One of them is very logical and intelligent pastor (with a degree from the University of Chicago and devotes his life to theology), the other is charismatic.

The logical pastor recommended I start going to a Reformed Presbyterian church in my college town, and I found it to be a great match for me. I came to meet two very well equipped pastors with degrees from Cornell and Yale. Of course, that's not to say the degrees speak for themselves, but they definitely are bright individuals.

I have learned far more from this church than I ever have in my life and it has brought me to question how much I know about my own religion and beliefs. I realize now, that my old church at home has little to offer for spiritual growth and that I need to find a new church.

But what I'd like to know is how the logical pastor at my hometown church can stay awake, listen, and nod in agreement to what the charismatic pastor preaches every week. Truly a gift of pacifism - one that I really need to start working on. It's definitely a question I will mail to him, because I would really like to know what kind of mentality he has going to church every week.

Anyway, before I get any more off track, the charismatic pastor and his wife serve at our church with a very ungrateful heart. This is not just from my opinion, a respectable teacher that I know at church thinks the same. They make claims about the bible that do not make any sense. I honestly have a hard time believing that they could make a sermon that would make some logical sense even if they tried. And additionally, the claims they do make are not consistent with beliefs that I know to be true. In my opinion, these are some seriously misled individuals who believe they've been "called" to do God's ministry, as they say.

I had a long argument with the pastor's wife the second day of the winter retreat a few days ago and I was not content with the answers she gave me. (I know I am not giving concrete examples of the statements I've been making, I don't want this place to become a place for me to vent my anger. But I feel this part is necessary.)

What I asked had to do with her opinion on the role the Holy Spirit plays in her life. She explained to me, and I told her that you can never know if it's the Holy Spirit or your intuition. She tells me, it's a part of my intuition and the Holy Spirit's help. So I asked, how do you know this? She said, faith. The rest was an argument about how faith is ignorance.

Quick question right? Long ass time to get an answer (She talks on and on, gets off topic, forgets what we're talking about, doesn't answer the question but keeps talking, etc.)

How will I share God's word with logical people that I will be around for a long time in academia who expect logical reasoning, when I cannot justify my own religion and beliefs? I realized that the better question to be asking myself at home was, "How will I be able to learn God's word for myself when every other week at home when I'm hearing a simple minded pastor who believes that are simple answers to complex ideas?"

Luckily for me, the other pastor here is careful enough to give me very thoroughly backed up evidence about some questions I have without making a definite claim, because he's able to acknowledge that there are some questions that just do not have answers.

I considered not going to church altogether, but my mom convinced me this was a rash decision. She reminded me that I would not be where I am right now geographically, mentally, and spiritually if it was not for the grace of God.

This is a wake up call for me. A wake up call for me to stop being an ignorant Christian or maybe for me to change my attitude.