I was familiar with the Church and Christianity from the time I was quite young. But I didn't really involve myself in it until I reached high school. This was back in the early 1970s when the "Jesus Movement" was really starting to gain momentum. I was heavily involved with my youth group, helping teach Bible studies, leading prayer groups, etc. for several years. My friends and I used to travel regularly to the Hollywood Paladium to listen to Christian concerts by luminaries such as Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, Love Song, The Way, and many others. I was also a musician and played the guitar. So these trips were satisfying to me in a number of ways. After these concerts, we would all pick up stacks of a Christian publication called The Hollywood Free Paper, which would always be outside the Paladium for our distribution. I can't stress enough that my life was saturated by Christian concerts, books, tapes, lectures, meetings and discussion.

I went to college at Pacific Christian College in Fullerton, known now as Hope International University. It sits right across the street from Cal State Fullerton. My interest and involvement with Christianity and the Church increased exponentially after this. I spent three years there, heavily involved in Christian activities, classes and organizations of one kind or another. My whole life was defined by Christianity. If anyone could be described as wholly committed to Christianity, it would have been me. I went to scores of churches, listening to hundreds, possibly thousands of sermons, taking notes and using it to solidify my own faith. I studied Greek and New Testament books in class. My major was in preaching. My intent was to become either a youth minister or a senior pastor at a church and devote my entire life to spreading the gospel.

This denomination likes to style itself as "nondenominational" but in all actuality, it is simply another brand of Protestantism. These independent churches came out of what is known as the Restoration Movement, which occurred during the Second Great Awakening during the first half of the 19th century. Its roots were in Presbyterianism and its founders were Thomas and Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone. They abandoned Calvinism in favor of free choice and took the position that they were going to revive personal Bible study. They had no systematic theology, leaving the nuts and bolts of their beliefs up to the individual. Originally, this denomination became The Disciples of Christ, based in Indianapolis. In the early 2oth century, many of their churches split off, calling themselves the Church of Christ, because they believed the Disciples were too liberal. Later in this century, a number of churches split off from the Church of Christ calling themselves the Independent C

During my final year at PCC, I got a job as a youth minister in Thousand Oaks, California at one of the independent Christian churches that supported Pacific Christian. I got married and 6 months later I enrolled in seminary at Emmanuel School of Religion in Tennessee. It was here that I began to question some of my basic beliefs, primarily because the professors there encourage their students to actually think. There are two other seminaries, which are supported by these churches. One is in Cincinnati, the other is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Both of them are quite a bit more conservative in their views than is Emmanuel. . There is a humorous little saying about going to Emmanuel repeated within the Christian Churches. It goes, "If you want to teach, go to Lincoln. If you want to preach, go to Cincinnati. If you want to lose your faith, go to Emmanuel." How true this turned out to be for me!

After completing about half of my Mdiv degree, I moved back to southern California to the same church from which I had originally come in Thousand Oaks. I was rehired there and intended on finishing my degree at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. But before I could cement these plans, my marriage abruptly ended, throwing me into a personal tailspin. I resigned from my position at the church, left town and ending up working in various secular jobs for a number of years.

This event actually worked in my favor in the long run. It made me question my basic presuppositions; i.e. that if you follow God, He will make things work out for you. Obviously in my case, this premise was faulty. But it made me begin to think that perhaps my world-view was not constructed correctly. I also began to read voraciously. I devoured books on philosophy, history, comparative religions, as well as science. Slowly, incrementally, my beliefs about the Church and God began to teeter. I remember one event quite vividly that occurred one evening after a question/answer session with the pastor at evening church services. One of the elders, whom I had known for 20 years, came up to me and said simply, "Rick, sometimes you just can't ask questions about these things. You must just accept them on faith." I was utterly shocked. This guy was essentially telling me that I couldn't think about these things but must just keep my mouth shut and believe blindly. Eventually, I

The final outcome of this journey of mine was that I left the church entirely, seeing it as an irrational, illogical haven for people who did not want to think for themselves. Though I still have Christian friends, I refrain from engaging in religious discussions with them because they frankly cannot endure listening to any other views than the ones they have ingested en toto from their pastor. My beliefs in man's place in the universe is much more rational now. I am open to changing my views when new evidence is found. I am much more tolerant of other world-views. I do not try to convert people to my way of thinking as I used to when I was a Christian. They must come to a point of doubt on their own, much like a flower must open on its own without forcing it. I found that I could not argue anyone into leaving the church. It is much too frightening and threatening to them to do this. It takes a slap in the face from living in the natural world to make some Christians re-eval

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