Vagrant Writer

Before I began a serious pursuit of Biblical study I had become familiar with the basics of the Bible over the years through friends, family, and, primarily, the media. Armed with this loose “knowledge,” I would read articles, commentaries, and opinions and I would watch videos related to all things “biblical.”

I believed I had a grasp of everything, I believed that these videos and articles allowed me to truly understand what God wanted. In honesty, that “understanding” is what I wanted to believe that God wanted. I never bothered to crack open the Bible, even to simply read. I would find myself in public spaces or with friends trying to defend or promote the Bible and Christianity with no real, first hand knowledge of what the Bible actually said. My foundational understanding was nonexistent, which made me ill-equipped to understand even the basic truth or fallacy contained within those articles and videos that I used to fervently serve my faith.

I had created my own vision of Christianity built on the half truths and misinformation spread throughout a system perpetuated by man.

This mentality seems to have permeated everything in the Christian sphere. The internet has become a wasteland of people who have nothing but a cursory knowledge of scripture, either choosing to rely on hearsay from others or lean upon the unlearned “public unconscious awareness” that we all seem to have for Christianity in our country. There is little real, working knowledge of the Bible in the greater, Christian public. Surfing below the fold in the comments section of any loosely Christian related article or page on the internet will yield a myriad of participants claiming to have the truth, or a deep understanding of what the truth really is. Sadly, they speak with a hateful spirit to those that serve the same ends. Instead of discourse, there is intellectual one-upsmanship, that turns into lecturing, that turns to argument, which degrades into pure hatred.

All supposed Christians.

Every “contributor’s” comment claims to know, adamantly, the truth. But, almost no two comments are the same. They’ve all built their own version of Christianity.

In a Christian space there should be no “truths,” just simply “the truth.” This emerges when we begin an exploration for ourselves without compromises, fears, or prejudices towards the subject matter, just an open heart and a desire to seek an understanding. We must develop that first hand knowledge so that we can recognize the truth for ourselves and separate the disinformation built by those that refuse to know the one and only truth.