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Goodbye Jesus: An Evangelical Preacher's Journey Beyond Faith
Get Free Ebook Goodbye Jesus: An Evangelical Preacher's Journey Beyond Faith
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Product details
Paperback: 430 pages
Publisher: Insighting Growth Publications Inc. (March 26, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0999843532
ISBN-13: 978-0999843536
Product Dimensions:
6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.5 out of 5 stars
45 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#916,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Up front, I would like to say that I know Tim Sledge. In fact I've known Tim for well over fifty years. When he told me he was writing a book about his years in the religion business, my curiosity was piqued. When I finally held the book in my hands and had time to read it, I was stunned. This book is more than a biography of a man of religion, it's an insider's view of the business of religion, the hypocrisy of religion, and the undeniable truth that humans, no matter who they are or what they believe, are fallible and gullible and always, in the end, driven by their hard-wiring. Tim does not hold back. In what I have often referred to as the greatest example of a paradigm shift in a human being that I ever have personally witnessed, Tim has "come out" and faced his demons head-on. And believe me when I say it took one hell of a human being to go through such an astounding change so late in life. In a nutshell, it's a great and very readable bio - and a must read for anyone who is open-minded enough to understand that religion, in the end, is little more than a house of cards.
I am rating the book with five stars. It is well written and edited; that accounts for the first four stars. I award a fifth because Dr. Sledge has given us something original and important. I have not run across anything that gives a non-fundamentalist a better look into the dynamics of the evangelical communities of faith. I came away with a much better understanding of how good people come to embrace such disturbing and destructive ideas about Christianity.I grew up in a small, industrial suburb of Houston that was populated mostly by Southern Baptists and Methodists. There were a few other odd denominations of the Christian variety, but no Jews, Muslims, or Others.My family belonged to the Methodist Church and we only saw inside the Baptist Church when there was a wedding or funeral of a friend who belonged to the “dunkin’ church†across the street. Whenever we did go inside the Baptist Church, we kids were mostly interested in the transparent tank behind the altar with its painted desert scene complete with palm trees on the wall behind. My Methodist parents told us that Baptists believed dunking was required to effect a good baptism. They explained that Methodists felt that a sprinkle of water, done in the right spirit, would have the same result.This was one of my first encounters with a basic difference in the way members of our demographically similar congregations thought about the symbols of faith. Over time, I would come to see that it also extended to the way they thought about the Bible, their morals, the world at large, and how they dealt with inconsistencies and contradictions in the teachings of their faith and real life.Even though the Baptist kids seemed like the popular ones compared to the Methodist, I felt like we had something so much better, although we didn’t know it then: the freedom to use our minds and to follow those little rabbit trails that truth and inquiry would lead us down – not to hell, but to a better understanding of the beauty of a universe so filled with wonder that it stood as its own miracle far surpassing the stories of creation, healing, the parting of the waters, and all those things we read about in the New and Old Testaments.It isn’t that we didn’t have a good measure of that kind of thinking at the Methodist Church, but after reading Goodbye Jesus by Tim Sledge, now I know it was nothing like the kind of hell-reinforced pounding the Baptist kids received.I found Sledge’s book fascinating. I hadn’t expected much when I started reading. Things written by evangelicals are generally of no interest to me and, in fact, I find them insulting, not from any guilt or meaninglessness they imply, but because of their glib treatment of things supernatural and contradictory to experience. You can’t help but feel terribly sorry for the writer who praises God every sentence or two then rejects some of the greatest gifts that have landed in our laps in this creation: science and logic.This book is nothing like that.Dr. Sledge’s story is an honest account of his own experiences growing up Baptist and in his work as an evangelical preacher (extremely successful, by the way). He gave me a look inside the mind of the Southern Baptist that I could not have had any other way. In fact, I could identify with the serious and inquiring young Tim Sledge and even see myself as perhaps following a similar path if I had grown up in a Southern Baptist church, and where the adults whose approval we so desired smiled upon openly devout teenagers. I could see how, in the Southern Baptist world, a seminary degree and a lifetime of preaching and studying the scripture could appeal to an earnest and cerebral sixteen year old as the height of intellectual and spiritual endeavor.Sledge gives detailed accounts of his work as a pastor over the course of four decades. It is an interesting ride. He describes confronting “exceptions to the rule of faith†- those inconsistencies and contradictions - in church and university leadership as well as among the faithful. There are many of these exceptions, some of which seem to be about the Christian basics that ought to be easily managed, and others that are the very behaviors the church most strongly condemns.There are no plot spoilers in this review. The book’s title tells us where this story is headed. Ultimately, Sledge said goodbye to Jesus, the Christ, and became a non-theistic humanist.The reason for reading is surely not for entertainment; it is to get a candid and detailed look inside the mind of a good, decent evangelical fundamentalist Christian, and see what can happen once he begins to think outside the tight box formed by biblical literalism and inerrancy, tradition, congregational social controls, and Hell with a capital H.Reading Sledge’s account of his life gave me something I thought I would never have: an ability to understand Christian fundamentalists with sympathy and to be able to see their destructive intellectual and social behaviors as problems that can be changed with outreach and understanding.Thank you, Dr. Tim Sledge, for helping me understand the people I knew in high school who wore their Christianity like a homecoming corsage, and yet grew up to support people in public office whose lives were, surely, exceptions to the rule of faith
I purchased the book because I felt my journey was similar to that of the author. The first thirty percent of the book seems devoted to his accomplishments – which are impressive. However, it bordered on coming across as bragging and I found myself willing to stipulate that he did really great things if he would only get on to the rest of his story.As his story evolved into his turnaround regarding his beliefs, I found the story fascinating. Since I spent the first thirty years of my life as a fervent Southern Baptist, I could relate to the mischief he experienced from other so-called Christians.When he wrote about the Business Meeting that changed his life, my emotions churned because I knew exactly what he was talking about. A Southern Baptist Meeting is not for the faint of heart. Often the person with the loudest voice dominates and guides the direction of the meeting even when his thoughts are downright silly. Also, the person with the greatest knowledge of Robert’s Rules of Order is usually the ruler of the meeting. In any case, Christian values may have little to do with the business of the meeting.As the author began to closely evaluate his belief system, I felt I was reliving my journey. I commend him on his courage and his logical assessment of the changes he underwent. I wish him all the best.A note of my personal story. My earliest memory is being taken to the local Southern Baptist church. It was part of my culture. At first, I was in the group who believed the Bible was literally true. As I thought more about it during my growth, I realized the silliness of this belief. I altered my belief regarding “literally†as applied to the Scriptures.By the age of thirty, I concluded Southern Baptists preached the Word but practiced the Law. Also, I felt that I often came away from the church service with more negative feelings than good feelings. I dropped out of the church.For the next five years, I did not attend church. Then I befriended a Lutheran pastor and I became a Lutheran. I was more comfortable with this church but after twenty years in it, I began to examine my Christian beliefs.I re-studied the Bible completely whilst also reading more about evolution and Atheism. My professional background was as a design engineer. When creating a new machine, I always applied the final test of: “Does this make sense?â€When I applied this test to Christian beliefs, they simply didn’t make sense. I am now an Atheist. I don’t broadcast it and I am not strident about it. Seeing the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse does not bother me. They contain some good thoughts. I don’t object to the display of a cross or nativity on public property. They don’t influence me. And when someone says, “God bless you,†I take it they are wishing me well within their belief system. It’s okay.
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