SANTA ANA, CA — A local professing Christian notified his friends, family members, and everyone who attended his church that, while he was not removing Jesus from his life, he was leaving religion behind.
"I'm just leaving religion, not Jesus," said Trent Jennings. "Jesus will still be an integral part of my life, I'm just going to get rid of all of the traditional ways people have maintained their close connection with Jesus throughout the entire history of Christianity. It'll have no effect on my faith. Jesus and I will still be super tight. I just won't do all that praying, reading the Bible, going to church stuff."
Though his friends expressed concern that removing all vestiges of historical, time-honored, religious practices from his life would likely result in the rapid deterioration of his relationship with Christ, Jennings was not worried. "Being a Christian is more of a mindset anyway," he said. "The Bible is such an antiquated document comprised of the thoughts and opinions of so many different writers. It's not like it's an actual rulebook you need to follow. I can totally still follow Jesus without doing any of the things the Bible says to do if you want to follow Jesus."
At publishing time, Jennings had made a follow-up announcement to let his former church know that he had deconstructed his faith, no longer believed Jesus was a literal historical figure, and was exploring the idea that "God" was actually a man-made construct that arose out of white supremacist ideology.
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