A:  You are right, I am not a big fan, but it is not that the Church is not filled with  generous and loving people.  Most religions are filled with people  seeking to be better and kinder and generous.  The world is really a  very religious place.  It is not about the American Church, for me, it  is about Religion in general.  When our Savior, YaHshua, walk in the  flesh his debate and arguments and accusations were pointed at the  Religious leaders and how they were misleading the people.  No one can  deny that the Church of that day, called the Synagogue, was filled with  people of the Living God, in fact, the people we call the Chosen  People.  In YaHshua's home town, after a meeting at the Church, and  YaHshua reading from Isaiah, his own people tried to take Him and throw  Him off a cliff (Luke 4:29).  Apparently, after this YaHshua continued to go into the various synagogues along the way, but never  went  back into his home town church, or synagogue.  Later when He enter Jerusalem he went to the Temple to teach, also on the Mount of Olives.  In fact, Paul has a teaching that we are to be  like Him and go outside of the walls -- He was litterally put outside, and this could happen to anyone who would dare suggest the relgion of the people has something wrong with it.  It is the religious people of the  world we need to fear.  It is religion that can get you killed and people with the best of intentions given enough power would put you  outside the wall, even kill you like they did Him, and as believers have been killed in the past -- even in this present day, those who disagree with a particualr religion, in other primative countries, are being killed in the name of their god.   (Heb 13:12)  Therefore YaHshua also, that He might sanctify the people through His  own blood, suffered outside of the gate. Let us therefore go out to Him  outside of the camp, bearing His reproach. For we don't have here an  enduring city, but we seek that which is to come.

This teaching along with what we know about the Woman that rides the Beast -- Revelation 17:5-6 -- past and  future, is a religious organization that has an historical tie to the  Babylonian system of religion, and the we are told we should come out of  her, that we should, for our own good, come out of the church and being  outside of her gates so we do not suffer what is to come on her from  the Wrath of God the Father.  

Paul understood that unity can bring strength, as in the gathering  together, and it is Paul that gives us both teaching in Hebrews.  Paul  saw what would be a benefit but was a realist too, and seeing what  religious people did to our Savior and know this, he followed up his  teaching about how our Savior found Himself, alone, outside of the  Church, the City of God, outside of the membership called the Chosen  people.  

You see Greg, it is not about the American Church, it is about all of  them.  Who can deny that the Christian Church has not had a positive  effect on many lives, but it has also had a damaging effect on just as  many, so much so as to drive its youth to other religions.  I could go  on and on about this, suffice it to say, a House divided cannot stand,  and the Christian Churches are about as divided a House as you can find.  

Anyway, there you have it, my view of why I believe in being the  Outsider, and sometimes this can mean your own intimate family as well  as the local Church or groups who given the right circumstances would  have you put in stocks for daring to suggest they are praying to another  messiah, a different Messiah, than you.  It would not be your  suggestion that they are wrong, it would be them correcting you, even to  death.  One day, the Church that sits on many waters will be loosed  again.  Right now that religious power is growing ever closer to  including and incorporating the other world religions in to some kind of  diabolical union, of which many Protestant Christian churches are  already members, and when the circumstances develop, as they once were  in the past, then people like you and me had better watch out because  the outsiders, those outside the wall, will be subject to correction,  maybe even death -- Revelation chapter 13.  

Today we live in a tolerant society, at  least in the USA, but what will happen if the power of American Freedom  is ever taken away, out of the way, and the evil is released, once  again?   Religious people can be and are very nice people, full of love  and tolerance, until you get them in a group, until you get them into a  crowd mentality.  This is one reason why our Savior warned us to be  wise, and cautious, even about to whom we present our pearls -- Matthew  7:6.  This is one reason the Webs is titled Removing the Fog of Religion -- Looking for the 7,000  It  is for those of like mind and Spirit, those finding themselves outside  the walls, and sometimes not knowing why.  However, I do not say anyone  should avoid going to their local Church and gaining from the  fellowship, but what I have found is that this only works if you go  along to get along and compromise for the sake of peace, and in certain  situations this may be acceptable but sooner or later the individual is  going to faced with a rejection of some sort.  

Peace, Dan   dan@servantsofyahshua.com