In your opinion, am I still a christian ?
I was risen in a Pentecostal church. During my adult life I was almost the last one from my family really involved in church life. I had a turbulent adolescence but church canalized my energy when I was 16 and found a teenage group in which I felt perfectly integrated. When I look back to that time I feel a benefic energy and I am greatful for that. But I also am horrified by the ideas that were thought to me : being a Christian gives you a responsibility because you know the truth and everyone else who does notbelieved in that particular truth, is lost... Also I see the gender teachings (man being superior to the woman, misunderstanding of homosexuality...) As big errors I was taught and I needed a lot of time to understand it differently. In my adult life, I went regularly to church and different activities, worship and prayer meetings... But I never felt really accepted. I felt like a mask everyone wore to fit church interactions. And I was very curious I attended a lot of seminars in a lot of countries of Europe, get close to 24/7 prayer movement and tried to be a bridge between different Christian beliefs.
Everything changed after my divorce with my first wife. I felt so hurt that couldn't go to the church anymore, I couldn't listen to the worship anymore. So slowly I stopped to attend church, I started to meet musicians and first went to jazz clubs, I felt again true relationships... I started to meet other people and get interested by other philosophies and spiritualities as Zen Buddhism and Sufi Islam. Mindfulness meditation and Qi Gong helped me a lot to have a better knowledge of myself and canalizing my energy. Sufi Islam showed me other really strong devotional music and prayer. I also discovered the Alevi believers who live in Muslim area (Turkey) but are very egalitarian, women by exemple can lead the meeting which is only music and dance. On of their founders is known to have said "My Qur'an is my saz" (musical instrument).
I know still believe in God, I consider myself to have a Protestant culture, but recognize God in every human I meet but also in the universe as part of the ecological balance. I think God is freedom and balance and we, humans are separate from God when we broke this balance and build walls to separate, not recognize the other are being part of God. Not only humans but all the balance of the Universe. Water, forests, animals... Everything that we are dependent of. On human taking power over this balance is separating from God. One man considering himself as superior on others, on other genders, on nature, on other sexual practices is breaking this balance
I think Jesus was a very inspired man who revolutioned a way of thinking but was co-opted by people who wanted power and made a religion who was compatible with imperialism. The early writings were modified to fit this policy and finding censored writings as in Nag Hammadi shows Jesus was not only the one we know through the New Testament.
So, what do you think ? Am I still a Christian ?