A new creation.

Oh my God.

The reality of the last several weeks has just slammed into me. I'm a completely different person. I gave up who I was to become who these people have told me I ought to be.

That's inaccurate. I gave up who I was to accommodate my discovery that God deserves my submission, and love.

But still. I came down here with a full belief that conservative theological ideas would be the death of Christianity. I have argued many, many times that unless the church ceases to hold theologically and politically conservative positions, it will die. I argued that the light was in accepting the metaphor of Christ, not the reality.

How is it that I now see the illogicality of that argument when only a couple of months ago I was passionately convinced by it?

I read Spong, yeah. But I also read Lewis, and N.T. Wright, and Scripture. Clearly, I was reading with an agenda. But it all seemed so right. I wanted to get a degree from a seminary or divinity school. I loved theology, and talking about theology.

I still love theology. I'd still give serious thought to seminary. But now everything is different. I am different.

My adviser was (probably is) worried that I'd join up. And I have.

I believe that Christ literally died, and literally rose again, to atone for my sins. I think my sins are more than glitches on the backdrop of evolution. I'm about to get baptized in a pentecostal church. I don't really understand any of that stuff. I have sufficient logical explanations for it. But the weight falls in my heart. It is in my heart that I believe.

What about the rest of my life? I didn't come here believing this. My life has taken a sudden detour, and now who am I? I mean, this is big. I didn't just change my hair color, or lose some weight, or join the ACLU. Any of which would be fine with my friends, by the way. My Dad might have a stroke about the ACLU thing, but...

How do I make the transition socially from one to the other? Am I making too much of this? There are all kinds of Christians. What kind will I be?

Oh, my God. I moved to Southern, MO, and accepted Christ. And now my life is being turned upside down. And oh my god. How did this happen? I went to James River because I thought it would be a fun, sociological field trip to see how the crazy, southern, megachurch people worship. I wasn't wildly fond of most Christians. Even less fond of most pastors. I thought that the majority of both were messing it up, and missing the boat on the "true" Christianity. And now...

Is this for real?

Father, please.