by Tim Hale I have to keep this short for now but my story goes something like this... I was born and raised in a Southern Baptist household in the south. I believed everything I was taught by my family and church and "accepted Jesus" at the age of 9. After going through my early teen years, I felt like I hadn't really been old enough to know what I was doing at age 9, so I "accepted Jesus" again at age 15 - just to make sure it had taken! Around the same time I began to realize that I had sexual feelings for boys rather than girls, and would pray every night to be healed from this sin. By the time I was 21 I was very confused. I hadn't had sex yet - explaining to my church friends that I was holding off until I got married. At age 21 I went on a drive with a guy I worked with so I could witness to him about jesus. He was very actively sexually (with women), and I thought he should stop this sinful lifestyle - what a hypocrite I was! In

by Stephen S. (Likeafish) (dedicated to the members of the Open Forums) “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.” Luke 11:24-26 About a dozen years ago in a major US city there was a large feminist conference dedicated to the idea of re-imaging the divine. As anyone can guess, this didn’t sit well with people of the religious status quo. There were protests, talk radio bashing, and bellowing condemnation from pulpits all over the state. I knew a few people who went to the conference. It sounded like a lot of hand-holding, hugging, singing, poems, with some scholarly lectures thrown in—kind of like bible camp with a hefty serm

by Chain Breaker If you are anything like me, you will be pleased to hear I am going to make this very short and to the point. The point of this is to encourage ex Christians. It may encourage new ex Christians, who are perhaps a little shaky in their new found skepticism, to know that I departed the fold after 31 rocky years as a Christian, but immediately following a time when my faith had never been stronger, and I had never felt more secure in it. The really weird thing is, I remember clearly praying this prayer several times: "Dear God, please let me know you as well as I can possibly know you. I do not want to know anything about you that humans can't know and are not meant to know, I only want to know what I can know." The rest, as they say, is history. I am absolutely staggered and amazed at the change in my life and in my thinking. My testimony is powerful and amazing, and yet it is the exact reverse of the Christian testimony, I am sure we have all