“I Grew Out of Christianity”

David Bowie’s drummer got my attention with this: “I was raised as a Methodist and I really got into it.”

Woody Woodmansey* had me hooked with his next line: “I was even thinking about becoming a minister at one point.”

His experience sounds familiar: “In church we’d discuss the nature of God, and where religion fits into life.”

And then this: “By the age of ten I was asking things like, ‘Does God have a mother, if we’re created in his image?'”

How would we handle that? I hope we’d do better than this: “I was told not to come any more because I was disrupting them with my silly questions.”

And if that’s not enough: “I also noticed one of the members of the congregation taking money out of the collection box at a point when we were supposed to have our eyes closed.”

The result: “That clinched it for me. I grew of Christianity pretty quickly.”

Lots to say in response.

For right now, my hope and prayer is that we’re not sowing seeds like that in our churches today….

*Spider from Mars, My Life with David Bowie, by Woody Woodmansey, St. Martin’s Press, p. 11