It's really amazing to me that so many have walked away from the Christian religion, oftentimes violently. That isn't my story. I was raised a submarine Christian - surfacing in church at Easter and Christmas. Jesus always intrigued me. Especially the claim made by Christians that he claimed to be God. I never bought it but really gave it a go. I found a Pentecostal church that believes in the gifts of the spirit and the speaking in tongues thing and the singing was incredible. The pastor was an intellectual of the highest order and the belief is Oneness theology, i.e. that Jesus is the name of God. Jesus is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. No Trinity, just pure Oneness theology. If I was to be a Christian, this was the way it would have to be.

But no matter how good it sounded, there always came a point where it ceased making sense. And, worse, it clashed with what the Bible actually said. The loftiest arguments were made from the most minute and obscure scripture verses and these far overshadowed the majority of the scriptures stating who Jesus was/is. He did not claim to be God. We may deduce that those who came after him held him in a lofty position that brought him close to deification, but I never could believe that the leap was made. That came later when the Church began its dogmatic battles of truth.

I was baptized and 'filled with the Holy Ghost' (so says the witnesses...to me it was me speaking conscious and intentional gibberish so as not to look like a fool). And so I began intensive studying of the Bible. Began to learn New Testament Greek and really, really going at the word. For a good three to four years it consumed me. And it only confirmed what I already knew. Jesus, unique among anyone who has ever lived, was not God. Human, yes, but a human without sin. THAT is the unique claim made about him. As such, he was not confined to the limitations of 'sin' tainted humanity. And so it was that I painfully and over a long period of time just mentally and emotionally and spiritually quite struggling.

I still find Jesus to be the supreme example and find that in any situation I find myself in I can learn something from the love he displayed (and not from the confused and conflated theology that has come from his actions).

It is lately that I have revisited that great and profound little gem - the Tao Te Ching. I discovered this long before being 'saved' and believe that it influenced my Christianity much more than my Christianity influenced it. It's basic tenets are what I see displayed in Jesus. And so once again I find myself reading the Tao. I find Jesus to be my ideal but I find my spirit resonating with the Tao. Yet labels fall away and I am merely trying to walk along the Path, seeking stillness and the peace that will emanate the same to those around me.

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