A Friend Dies
By Brother Greg Image by Harry‧黃基峰‧Taiwan via Flickr This is something that happened during high school that I wish I had looked at more directly earlier in life – it might have helped me leave Christianity much sooner than I ultimately did. I should mention that this high school was an American school based in Taiwan. In Taiwan, when I lived there, there where there were a large number of white missionaries supposedly there to convert Chinese people to fundamentalist Christianity. I had a friend in the high school– let’s call him Mike. Mike was a nice guy. He was also quite human. He was proud of his high SAT scores . He was in love with a girl at my high school, and the love was unrequited. He was very opinionated about music, about performing artists, songs, and lyrics. He was someone I could agree with or disagree with, but I respected his intelligence. One day, Mike invited a friend, Steve, and me to a Christian weekend retreat for high school students, run by missionaries, and