I'm going to assume no one reads this.

My grandma and grandpa were made for each other, by some twist of fate, and enjoyed over 50 years of happy marriage. She cooked, cleaned, and loved on the grandkids, he brought home a steady and rather large paycheck to give her the house (and life) that everyone dreams of. What they lacked in passion, they made up for in gentleness and hand-holding and secret laughter that only they knew the meaning of. They truly were a dream couple. And when she died, my grandpa died too, in the most complete way possible. His body still roams the Earth, but the flesh is lonely without a soul to keep it company.

Maynard Sikes's fullness depended singularly on my grandma being there to love him. And so she has done since before their high school graduation. She is his life, even in her death. So, then, what I fail to understand is how his heart has room for anyone else.

I love Mary Bookhardt. But she will never be my family.

Wesleyanism

If you don't mind, I'd like to ruffle some feathers.

There is a fundamental problem with Methodism, along with most other Protestant denominations: their doctrine is not Jesus' doctrine.

And that is not an attack at the basic theology of the protestant movement, though I could say a few things about that too. But how can you call yourselves a biblical body of Christ when you are following the beliefs and research of John Wesley or John Calvin or Martin Luther?

This is what I love about my church: the doctrine is the Bible. It isn't John Wesley. Members of the Church of Christ don't believe in prevenient grace as salvation because it is not biblical. We don't believe in infant baptism because it is not biblical. We don't believe in salvation through a "sinner's prayer" because it is not biblical. When I asked Pastor LeAnn a few months back why only pastors could bless communion, she gave me John Wesley's answer, not Jesus Christ's. This is why I left St. Luke's; because it doesn't even seem that the leaders, who have been through seminary, are able to give me scripture when I ask for it.

I disliked the sermon this morning for the same reason I dislike most of what the protestant movement has to say: it appealed to the emotional, and not to the truthful. It made people feel good, it gave the message that God's grace is there whether you choose to respond to it or not, and that is not biblical. God's grace is a gift. Yes. But it is a gift that you can choose to accept or reject, and that is why infant baptism is wrong. God's grace is not going to be sufficient when you get to Judgment Day after living your life without repentence. God is not going to show you mercy when he plays every single one of your sins back to you in front of your eyes and then sends you to hell because you thought your baby baptism would suffice and the rest of your life didn't reflect what baptism is supposed to mean. God is not okay with people living for 80 years without ever cracking open the Bible. He hates divorce and hates sexual sin, which, yes, includes homosexuality. He calls us to examine our hearts before we take communion, so it makes no sense to allow elementary schoolers to take it (unless they are extremely spiritually mature). And what's more, communion isn't just a prayer time, it's a time to picture the cross and the sacrifice and the blood and the nails and the crown of thorns and remember the amazing grace and amazing sacrifice that was made so that we could choose a life in Jesus.

These are the things that St. Luke's won't tell you.

And it pisses me off.