Legalism--driving away the spiritually inquisitive for centuries
I got a bee in my bonnet the other day because of a convergence of faith-oriented circumstances that simply made me incredulous. The first was a conversation that happened at once of my workplaces between two coworkers, who were talking about how they have a desire to find a community of faith, but how stringent rules around divorce, annulment, and baptism left them feeling sneered at and "unfit" for certain congregations they visited. (Honestly, I'm about as big an opponent of divorce you will find, especially when the family has children. But this post will go way off into left field if I start down that road, which isn't what I'm hoping to talk about. The point is, the church's attitude about previous divorce in people's lives, and the fine lines between what they recognized as a marriage and what they didn't, too often sours a person's perception of faith in general.)