After being scolded with the following message (name withheld), “Wish we would have known the Real Ed about 25 years ago. You put on a good show I will give you that.”I responded with these words: “Though you may not like where I am on my personal journey, it is patently unfair to insinuate that what I preached and believed was a fake. That is untrue. During most of my life I was convinced that the Evangelical way of looking at things was correct. I don’t believe that anymore. My views have always leaned to the liberal side. If I had been, as you say, “the Real Ed” (I take that to be as I present my thinking today) then what difference would that have made? Only because one believes the same as you do is/was the criteria for gaining access to family and friends who are Christian? If so, I am offended.” (Some of the above was edited from the original message due to a few minor grammatical and syntax errors.)

Truth is hard to come by. There seem to be those who believe the truth they espouse is the only truth and that attempting to understand one’s faith from a different perspective is somehow worth insulting with little understanding. Though the above is mild by comparison to several others I have received from “friends”, I find it interesting that one would be inclined to distance themselves from my perspective without asking why or attempting to understand. I can only conclude there is little or no interest in exploring faith’s foundations, except as taught within the system. “It must be so because I have been told it was so”, and if one has always been told one thing there cannot be another.