Dear God,

I was thinking today. What is Christianity really about? You'd think I'd know after 21 years of going to church and four years of following You closely, but I still don't. My church tells me that Christianity is about changing your life and changing others' lives. What they mean is making people behave. And apparently that's a middle-class thing--so says my book. It says, "Because love is unconditional and because the time frame is the present, the notion that discipline should be instructive and change behavior is not part of the culture in generational poverty." But on the other hand, "middle class to a large extent requires the self-governance of behavior." My book's not about Christianity, but unconditional love, changing behavior, discipline and self-control are all part of Christianity. My basic question is, is Chrisitanity about changing behavior or not? What is Christianity really about?

I wish we hadn't made following You so complicated. I wish You hadn't left us so it wouldn't be as complicated. If You were here, God, You could explain things to us.

Most people I know would say You are still here with us, but that isn't what I meant, and that's a way of dancing around the question. The issue is You aren't here in any kind of way that is helpful to figuring out the answers to all the questions that divide us. Everybody thinks they hear You correctly and everybody hears You differently.

My roommate and I both think we're right all the time, even when we disagree on core issues. Especially when we disagree on core issues. "No, this is how I learned it, so that's the answer," we both think but don't say. "I'm right and you're wrong." I just don't understand how we're supposed to get past this--not just me and my roommate, but the world as a whole. "I'm right and you're wrong," say the Christians to the rest of the world. "I'm right and you're wrong," says the rest of the world to the Christians. And the world thinks we're even worse than wrong because of our not-so-stellar history of conversion tactics (and yet we still think we hold the truth and that everybody else needs to accept our truth).

I'm just...fed up with this whole Christianity vs. the world thing. It seems so completely, utterly pointless to argue and yet that's what we continue to do. All. The. Time. For 2000 years.

Why can't we all just get along??

Your discouraged child,
Stephanie

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