While I was raised in the Lutheran church, the fact is that I spent some time being, at best, an agnostic. Why that is requires a bit of a story.
The pastor who confirmed us at the age of 13 (we had relatively larges confirmation classes then) so emphasized the many sins we all participated in, and the consequences of those sins, that I was convinced that God could never accept me. If He hated sin and sinners alike, He wouldn't want me anywhere near Him. Our pastor did not talk about the "grace" side of the equation. Believing that I was already sentenced to hell, I might as well have some fun along the way. College of course did not help. Getting married too young did not help either. I got divorced 10 years later and remarried. I was materially fairly successful, but I was also hollowed out inside. There was no purpose to life.
That was the beginning of my search for...what I wasn't quite sure. T. S. Eliot's poem Ash Wednesday haunted me during these years. There Biblical references abound, but secular readers and critics will not see them, which is too bad. We joined a church in Virginia, and I attended there for a while, but I was not ready to fully embrace the One who would save me. That required a bout with alcohol addiction. and a book called The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel is a journalist and investigator who was initially atheist, but became a Christian on the basis of his investigation into the man Jesus. Strobel pointed out that the canonical writings in the Bible were written within 60 years of the actual events by eye witnesses to the events. This is better than many other texts that are readily accepted though they were written hundreds of years after the facts contained in them.
All that was many years ago now. I passed on Strobel's book to another who was seeking something he could not define. But Strobel is still at it. You can see a video of an interview of him here. I hope gentle viewers will watch it.
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