Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Members of Reach America, please sign in

If you are a member of the Christian youth organization, Reach America, whether you are a student, staff member, or Gary Brown himself, welcome.

You might have noticed that your Facebook page has come under a bit of verbal abuse lately, from the likes of those like YouTuber, TheAmazingAtheist. However, you will not find that here. However, what you will find, admittedly, is a disdain toward religion, particularly Christianity. Why Christianity? Because, being a former member of the flock, I am more familiar with it than any other religion.

You may say to yourself, "There is no such thing as a former Christian," to which I say, bologna sauce. No one spends hundreds of dollars on books, tapes, and going to lectures if they don't really believe it. No one gets up at 7:00 AM on a Sunday morning to go sit in a pew for 2 hours, then Sunday school for one more hour, then fellowship afterward, if they don't really believe it. No one spends hundreds of dollars on Evangelism Explosion lessons if they don't really believe it. No one spends hours per week in the prayer closet if they don't really believe it. No one gives 10% of everything they earn if they don't really believe it.

After hearing all of that, you might say to yourself, "No wonder you left Christianity; you were miserable in trying to earn your way into Heaven," to which I might remind the reader, faith without works is dead (James 2:14-17).

Before we go much further, I have a question for you. Have you noticed anything about Reach America's Facebook page that might seem a little odd? Like everything there is a little "too" perfect? Have you noticed that there aren't a whole lot of opposing ideas there that last more than 24 hours? Have you noticed that there is no free exchange of conversation or ideas? That the only people who are allowed to post comments there are Christians?

I made a post there a few days ago that was a little unpopular. In that post, I challenged the youth of Reach America to begin asking tough questions, and I even accused the Reach America staff and Gary Brown himself of indoctrinating them. I stand firmly by that sentiment, and offer any of them, including Gary, to take me to task over this.

Trying to get any kind of dialogue going with Gary Brown and the staff members at RA, I sent an e-mail directly to Gary, himself. I even posted the video below for Gary, hoping that he would respond.



I waited for a few days, fearing that he wouldn't respond, until one day I logged into my Facebook account and saw that he did e-mail me. However, the gist of his e-mail was that he did not want to correspond to me, nor did he want to have any kind of contact with me, either through Youtube or e-mail.

I sent him one last e-mail, wished him farewell, but also informing him that I would be monitoring RA for factual errors and holding his feet to the fire, and if there was a site that was running their information, I'd be there to challenge their beliefs and claims.

Anyway, if you're a member of Reach America, welcome and feel free to browse the information you find on this blog. If you so desire, please feel free to challenge any of the things that I have posted.


Regards,

Matt