This was probably 3 years ago when my wife was on staff at the old church. She was reading a book with her team by some pseudo intellectual evangelical scholar. My wife brought the book home and couldn't make heads or tails of what the point was and asked me to read it and see if I could figure it out. I was annoyed I had to pause the Wire marathon I was watching but I grabbed the book and checked it out. I read a chapter and told her what the point was and even surprised myself at the insights I had. After sitting through sermons for years where the pastor weaved in subtley that only someone as smart as he could have spiritual insight, made me wonder if this was a control mechanism they use to put up a fence to keep people from wandering away from the fold.
This revelation started me down a path of reading all perspectives in theology and inspired a year or so of agnosticism to cleanse my evangelical palete. I was on a crash course with becoming a none once I figured out the intellectual power my old pastors had from the pulpit was based on fear and intimidation and had nothing to do with the truth. Jesus and hell were merely variables to control and scare you into submission. Little did I know I would emerge with a much more Orthodox faith and understand how difficult it is to find and maintain that. It requires you to be a theologian, scholar, historian, and not rely on popular flavor of the week pastors that are one wide stance away from disgrace.
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