Sent in by Kyle

I was raised in confusion. My mother, a devoted Southern Baptist, demanded that I attend church services every Wednesday night. On the weekends; however, I lived with my father, a devoted Southerner. Although some might think that these two worlds could peacefully coincide, nothing is farther from the truth. Monday through Friday I was a squeaky clean little boy. I didn't curse, I used my manners. The weekends were a different story. At my fathers house, I could (and did) curse excessively; I could drink if I wanted; It was pretty much anything goes.

Church was never optional but devotion was. I never had faith and I still don't. That is until I was saved. After a screening of the overdramatized bullshit cake of "The Passion of the Christ", I asked the lord Jesus to come into my life. Finally, my life had direction! I didn't have a care in the world because Jesus would take care of it. It was a wonderful and magical feeling and I left the theater with a feeling of invincibility that lasted until I woke up the next morning, at which point I relapsed into a feeling of sameness that had plagued me my whole life.

So for months nothing changed about my life. But my hometown church got a new pastor, who invited his younger brother to become youth pastor. That's when my "faith" got more serious. It seemed to me that these two guys were on the level about there religion and I really thought I understood "church" for the first time in my life. It was a glorious six months.....What happened next hurt me for a very long time afterwards.

Our youth group was very close, like a big family. Even our adult counselors (The people who we were to look up to for spiritual guidance and advice) were more like friends than adults. Which is why I was hurt and confused when I found out that one of those counselors had lured one of the younger girls from the group out to his house where he molested her. He also offered her a ride in his car a few months later and parked in a secluded playground where he molested her again. I was enraged and immediately called my youth pastor and told him what I had found out. He called a meeting at the church that afternoon with Two deacons of the church, the molester, the molested (accompanied by her mother and father), and me. I sat in the pastors office directly opposite of the Counselor and was horrified when the outcome of the meeting was this: The molester was not punished at all. Nothing changed. The young girl stopped attending church and apparently no one lost sleep about it.

Basically the system failed. God did not protect this girl. Jesus did not come down and wave his magic nails to make everything better. Once again, confusion fell on me. I was treated as an outsider for blowing the whistle on a very sick man.

Christianity is an excuse. An excuse to do nothing but sit back, close your eyes, speak your problems to a man who does not exist, and believe that he will take care of everything. It's bullshit and I have not believed for over two years.