GOD-centric :

A life centered on the pursuit of a good and fair God of love

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Ch. 5 The Quest (continued)

Protestantism

  Certainly, I was familiar with Protestantism and knew going in what the outcome would be but, with a Protestant church on every street corner, it seemed remiss to not explore. I attended mainline Episcopalian, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian USA services. I was scared of the Baptists in my mistaken belief that they were all Southern 'round these parts.

  The Protestant in me embraced the priesthood of all believers which held great appeal to my strong belief in God's fairness. I, too, did not believe in transubstantiation and actually found the idea quite disturbing when I first heard of it in college. I agreed that prayer should be direct communication with God and not mediated through a host of patron saints.

  In addition to my creedal issues, I was not a Protestant because I was opposed to predestination, election, and salvation through faith in Jesus alone for the obvious lack of fairness these ideas ascribed to God. I did not believe that humans were totally depraved and unable to better themselves without the intervention of divine grace. Talk of sola scriptura or biblical inerrancy made me wonder if the speaker had even read the entire collection and considered what many biblical writers were really suggesting to be true about God. Now that I have read the entire Bible, my feelings on this matter are even more passionate. While I appreciate the passages that connote God's loving nature and desire for us to live out that love with each other, I consider many other biblical passages to be blasphemous attributing outrageously awful qualities to God.