Dear Freedom from Religion Foundation,

I recently saw an ad for your recent commercial. The last line broke my heart so I decided to further investigate your foundation and came across your Facebook page. I was further disheartened by the comments from those “defending” Christ. 

I am a follower of Christ but I do want to apologize for some of the hateful and childish comments I read. You are not, “idiots”, “delusional”, “weird” and so on. You are just someone who does not believe in God. 

I spent many years hurt by the Church. I searched for answers in agnostic groups at school. I eventually realized that it was religious people who hurt me and not God. I took my anger out on Him. The religious people were the very same people who crucified Christ. So many churches today are filled with religious people. That is not the nature of Christ and true Christ followers. We are not perfect by any means but Christ was the very opposite of hateful and childish. 

We are both people of faith. You have faith that there was an accidental burst of energy millions of years ago that created atoms that evolved into the universe as we know it. I have faith that the burst of energy was God who purposefully and intricately created the universe and everything in it. 

I do believe in science but science is constantly changing. It was around 500 BC when it was first proposed by Pythagoras that the earth was a sphere. Even up into the 1400’s it was still believed the earth was flat. The prophet Isaiah wrote, “God sits enthroned above the circle of the earth (Isaiah 42:20)” which was written in the 700’s BC. That is just one example of the Bible holding scientific truth before science could prove the theory. Gravitational pull (Job 26:7), the stars are innumerable (Jeremiah 33:22) and the water cycle (Job 36:27-28) are just a few others. 

We are not all that different. We are still human beings trying to understand our existence. I believe my existence is to follow and live as Christ which means sharing my faith. I am sorry if religion and religious people have hurt you. They have hurt me. They hurt Jesus too. I just want you to know that I love you and even though you do not believe in Him, God loves you. 

I do not wish you to Hell. I pray you will feel the love of God. If you ever want to try out a Church, you are welcome to sit with me. First Baptist Church in Lenoir City, TN will welcome you with open arms. Even if you still leave not believing in God that is ok. You can sit at my table. We will still love you and so will God!