"The Giant Sucking Sound"

Bro. Benincasa...

I want you to know I do care what you think... I really do, I do care what your convictions are, and I thank God that you have them and I hope that He helps you stand by them. I really do.

But I also am not new to this. I've been in this for 13 years and I have seen more hypocrisy and judgementalism in those 13 short years than I ever wish to see the rest of my life or ever wished to see ever. I know how it works... I've seen people, rather than getting help from the church, being scorned because they sinned... 16 year old girls who get expelled and punished and basically excommunicated and shamed publically while the 18 year old boy who got her pregnant has not one thing done to him even though EVERYONE knows he is the father...

kids who have serious drug addictions just brushed to the side and ignored while they infect entire youth groups with thier problem from the inside because no one cared enough to reach out to them... No one cared enough to move thier faith beyond following the rules hwen people were watching (even high they knew how to follow the rules) to an honest relationship with God...

See, the high school I went to... Maybe 10% of the kids who go there (and from what I know the % is less) are still in the church. That's counting from 3 grades under me to 3 grades over me... All graduated from high school, all in thier 20s.... and the vast majority of them (and this is a UPC high school) as far as I know aren't in the church...

I know the game you play, I know how all of this works, I've seen it and dealt with it for years now. I get that you tell yourself that I couldnt' care any less about what you say because I disagree... But, see, bro, the difference is that I know the truth...

The truth is that you don't care what I have to say and you just tell yourself that I don't care so you don't have to worry about how the way you act makes me or others like me feel. You don't have to worry about those who you force to backslide with your bad attitude because you keep telling yourself that they actually had the bad attitude when, in reality, all they wanted was a real answer, they were ready for something more than milk something more than walls, and you refuse to give it to them because that scares you.

you can see it in your posts... Not once on this board have you ever spoken to me as an equal, you speak down to me like you think that somehow because you preach you are worth more and your opinion matters and mine doesn't... But that isn't how it works and you know it. There is no first or last, and if there is, its the opposite of how we see it here on this earth...

I don't think a lot of myself, bro, even though sometimes I know it reads like I think I have all the answers... I know I don't, most of the time I'm really just asking, but I know if I actually ask and dont' actually defend the position of my question, I'll never get an answer... But I read your answer, sometimes I even beg for the answer that's in the manual, because things would be so much easier if it weren't just a man-made bunch of rules. Things would be so much easier if the sources of our hypocricys and our secrets that we hide were actually Biblical and something we could justify...

But your response to people like me who are just asking, is proof that they aren't... You can't speak to me like I actually could be right, because you can't admit that you could be wrong... and that's fine and you can keep on going on with a weak flock...

but I refuse to be weak... I refuse to know man's rules rather than God... That's why I ask what I do, that's why I think like I do... Because I don't listen to things because some guy says it (although I do care that he thinks what he does and I respect those views because he thinks them and he is entitled to them)... but don't act like the way you think is from God because you can put "evangelist" in front of your name. And don't act like you actually care about what I think when its plain to everyone who reads how you talk down to me that that's the furthest thing from the truth.