Jim Palmer was a fundamentalist evangelical preacher with a huge congregation.  He now works to free Christians from toxic religion.  My journey on a tiny scale has been similar.  Though I have continued to work in a Christian religion, to me Jesus fleshing out both God’s Love and our spiritual journey to unconditional love are the heart and soul of my spiritual life. I get uncomfortable sometimes when Jim seems to consider Jesus unimportant and also to assume every person is able on their own to experience spiritual metanoia. We all have some very basic differences when we are born so our journeys may be ultimately similar, but very different in the timing of the process. We also get broken in different ways that need healing to free us to make the journey to wholeness. Being loved is central to healing and freedom to grow. And sometimes in our unfinished world love is scarce. To me the person of Jesus is a both a source of the grace of Love and his life reflects our journey to loving unconditionally.  For me his presence with us even now has been healing and freeing. I feel sure God is not limited to Jesus. The Spirit of Love is at least dormant within us all and its awakening and growth can happen in many different ways. But Jesus freed from the distortions of centuries of male dominated human religion is a key to spiritual evolution not just for me but for many, though not all because of cultural and personality differences. God doesn’t throw away billions of his children on the technicality of when and where they were born.

But many of us need and are open to Jesus as our particular source of grace. That said, Jim’s journey has been similar to mine though on a much larger scale. And I greatly value his wisdom, courage, and commitment to freeing us from toxic religion. For me personally, it’s been important to separate Jesus from the warped limits of religions, but the person Jesus is still the heart and soul of grace for me and I believe for many others.