A reader writes: Response to On Being

I just heard your interview with Krista Tippett from the Wild Goose festival, 2013 and felt the need to write to you to say thank you.
… I come from a family of “born again Christians.” I’m on mom and dad’s prayer list because I, self admittedly, don’t want to belong to an organized religion nor do I claim to be “born again” or “saved”. I have a really hard time wanting to claim, “I have the truth”- in the face of friends and family who might not share the same truth that I would claim…making them wrong, me right, and they burn in hell. I can’t get back to that place of rightness because of it’s divisiveness. It doesn’t make sense to me… Catholics go to hell (my husband), my gay niece goes to hell, my atheist/homeless/prodigal-son brother is pre-destined to go to hell according to the church I grew up in… I just can’t.
When I heard your interview, it shook me to my core. You exist!?!?! These ideas and beliefs exist outside of my head?!
Thank you. We are expecting our first born in July this year and religion/spirituality isn’t something I can even talk about without feeling completely anxious and on edge. Unless we are talking about the absolute wonder and heaven that we are surrounded by in nature and through the wonder of the human condition. I can’t take the divisiveness modern day American Christianity stands for, yet have not familiarized myself with any other options… I feel like your interview has prepped me to begin exploring outside the institution that I grew up in.

Thanks for writing. I’m so glad you heard the On Being interview … and I hope through this website you’ll find lots of resources to help you explore what I call “a generous orthodoxy” or “a new kind of Christianity.” I especially think you’ll like my next book, We Make the Road by Walking.