There’s nothing holy or redeeming in a choice out of fear of the alternative. Even if that did seem to jibe with the God I was learning about in Sunday school—a God who seemed to use fear as his go-to tactic—there was discord in my soul about wondering whether this was what my interpretation of God should really be. It’s the same kind of dissonance we all feel when God is misrepresented by those advocating on behalf of corrosive and hateful things.
