Obviously as a pastor I believe that I am the best version of myself within Christianity, but I also understand how so many people have experienced Christianity in such a way that it made them worse people, or made them feel worse about themselves, that they felt they could not flourish within it. I mourn that as a terrible failure of the church for which we need to make amends.

Truth, Jesus teaches, sets us free, and if the truth of your lived experience is that Christianity has done much more harm than benefit to you, then an embrace of that truth can indeed set you free. Such truth, I think, is a more reliable cosmic insurance policy than a Sinners Prayer or a Bible tract. Truth is, was, and will forever be much more than that.