Brad ODonnell - Where to Now Saint Paul?: Why Were Quitting Church

B rad O D onnell

WHERE TO NOW
SAINT PAUL?

W hy W ere Q uitting C hurch

Copyright 2022 by Brad ODonnell

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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or manner, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Created in the United States of America

ISBN:Softcover 979-8-88622-121-3

eBook979-8-88622-122-0

Republished by: PageTurner Press and Media LLC

Publication Date: 03/16/2022

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To order copies of this book, contact:

PageTurner Press and Media

Phone: 1-888-447-9651

info@pageturner.us

www.pageturner.us

With undying gratitude to my two best friends and contributors,

Terri Austin

and

Christopher Stewart

Contents

1. Why Is Our Reli gion
   Roman Christianit y?1
2. A Religion of Love He Came
   to Announce to the Worl d37
3. The Crisis of the
   Churchs View of Death

Preface

When you watch a Point/Counterpoint-style debate, youll see a confrontation between two closed-minded combatants; each has absolutely no intention of learning anything from his opponent and will only concede his position over his cold, dead body.

When opponents debate, argue, or fight over religion, its much worse. Religious differences have caused more wars than any other single issue in history.

Thats not the case with this writer. My father once told me never to criticize anything unless I truly believed I had a better solution that would improve everyones situation and to always be big enough to admit if I was wrong. I promised him, and I take that oath seriously now.

Ive presented my case and drawn some conclusions that are outside the box. Many will disagree. Many will be shocked, yet Ill happily concede if anyone can show me why Im wrong. But in turn, Ill ask that you read this with an open mind and that if your conscience tells you its true, youll be honest enough to admit it to yourself, despite a lifetime of conditioning to the contrary.

I apologize for criticizing the church, but I must when I deeply believe theres another path that promises to help people have a more positive outlook on life and the world to come.

Chapter 1

Why Is Our Religion
Roman Christianity?

On a December episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon, a brainiac geek, was asked by his roommates if he thought they should celebrate Christmas that year. He asked, Why? Its just a holdover from paganism.

Theres never been a time when a comedy could get away with such sacrilegious murder. It was the no. 1 sitcom in 2013, and yet there was no public outrage over the slam. There would have been thirty years ago

The issue here is that our culture is more educated than ever before. Sheldons a brilliant young man with Aspergers syndrome. This mental condition is not rare. Unfortunately, a classic symptom is that individuals tend to be shockingly honest and make a lot of socially inappropriate remarks. Watching how the other characters react to the raw truths that Sheldon exposes is the baseline humor of the show.

When he said that Christmas was just a holdover from paganism, unfortunately, he was just blurting out another socially inappropriate fact. The show got by with his crack, because for the first time, many Americans are savvy enough to know something about Christmas just being rubber-stamped on the Roman sun gods birthday.

When churches tout that Jesus is the reason for the season, sadly, its just not true. December 25, the birthday of the sun god, had been the primary religious festival for thousands of years before Christmas. Unfortunately for the church, educated people are also learning that Easter, judgment, Satan, and Hades are also just holdover(s) from paganism. These were all elements of Roman Mithraism long before Christianity. As Rome conquered other regions, it forced its culture on the annexed territories. And when it commandeered Jewish Christianity, it merged its Mithraic religion into what became Roman Christianity.

Clergymen assure us that Christianity is the only original religion and never copied from others, but Roman Christianity is an oxymoron. The Greeks and Romans were fanatical pagans. The Romans were obsessed with taking over the world and making it Roman. They did the same with Christianity. As their empire was collapsing, they accepted it, but made sure their pagan traditions were preserved in their compromised version of the religion. So modern church Christianity is Roman Christianity.

Still, there are many Christians who dont know the truth and/ or dont want to know the truth. Youd think mature, responsible people would want to deal with the truth head-on as Christians, we shouldnt be afraid of this information, because these facts dont discredit Jesus or His original Christianity at all!

Episcopal Bishop John Spong of Newark, New Jersey, criticizes many churches for wanting people to be born again. He says, When youre born again, youre still a child. The people dont need to be born again, they need to grow up to accept responsibility for themselves in the world.

The issue for many boomers is that they dont want to be childlike Christians numbly regurgitating sanctimonious myths. They prefer to be informed adults discerning what Christ really intended.

So church attendance is down. Spong addressed the crisis in his best seller Why Christianity Must Change or Die . He also said,

The traditional church always fights every new intellectual insight, making it difficult for educated people not to stray ... When knowledge collides with traditional faith, change is inevitable. I welcome it, and if the church cannot engage this intellectually driven change, then it probably should die. ( Washington Post ; March 3, 2008)

How Spiritual Are We?

According to the ( Parade Magazine ) poll, 69% of Americans believe in God, but 50% say they rarely or never attend worship services.

What Americans are doing today is separating spirituality from religion, with many people disavowing organized practice altogether ... In fact, 24% of respondents put themselves into a whole new category, spiritual, but not religious.

As Americans ideas of spirituality have become more expansive, so have their attitudes toward people of different faiths. Even though the notion that ones own religion is the sole means of salvation today only a small fraction are so fervent. A scant 12% of respondents said that their own religion was the only true faith, and 59% said all religions are valid. ( Parade Magazine, October 4, 2009)

The Fuller Institute started a project in 1998, seeking why the church has become culturally irrelevant and was in decline. Most of the statistics tell us that nearly 50% of Americans have no church home.

Every year more than 4,000 churches close their doors compared to just over 1,000 new church starts!

This translates into the realization that people are leaving the church.

What has happened? (Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development)

Two thousand years ago, people were oppressed by the brutal military control of the Roman Empire, which was not unlike the Nazi occupation of Europe. They were also consumed with the fear of their wrathful, vengeful pagan gods.

Christ countered that fear on the Mount when He proclaimed that God was a loving god who simply asked that we love one another. It was a revelation that fulfilled aching souls. And so He founded His faith of love, forgiveness, and brotherhood. Rome hated it and made it illegal. They executed anyone who professed the faith for three hundred years!