A Personal Relationship with Jesus

Sometimes it still hurts when another human being accuses me of never having been a real Christian.  To know that they haven't taken the time to get to know me before pronouncing judgement on what I believed as a Christian. To say it like it is a swear word, "You weren't a real Christian like I am. I have a personal relationship with god"


It seems to be utterly unfeeling.  They aren't even trying to look at it from my point of  view. They can maintain their superiority. Humility goes out the window and hard-heartedness flies in.  It doesn't matter who you brush aside when you are a real Christian like them.  The only people who count are themselves and maybe a  few other people who they think are getting the Jesus thing right.


Well, I was a real Christian and now I am a real atheist.  And I hope that you will find your way to being a better human being despite your Christian beliefs. While you are busy patting yourself on the back for having a personal relationship with Jesus, I am busy looking into the mirror of my soul and trying to understand others through understanding who and what I am.  


Keneth W. Daniels addresses this idea of a personal savior in his book "Why I Believed".  He quotes Kenneth Green:  The use of the term "Personal Savior" isn't very harmful in itself, but it shows a kind of mind-set that is willing to "invent" terms, and then allow these terms to be preached as if they were actually found in the Bible.


Daniels goes on to quote Robert Price from "The Reason Driven Life":  The greatest irony of the whole thing is that the "personal savior" piety to which Warren reduces the whole of Christian worship, indeed the whole of Christianity itself, is never so much as intimated in the New Testament.   Also:  There is simply nothing implicit or explicit in such texts suggesting that the believer has an ongoing personal acquaintance with Jesus.


This concept of "personal savior" just isn't in the Bible.  Just like the term "original sin" or any number of other ways of making up the Jesus concept as you go along.  You can then preach whatever you would like.


Perhaps you could consider being less of a preacher and more of an example.  However, I won't be rejoining you in a religion that thinks that suffering is the better part of life.