What It Means To Be Accepted

I was born in Italy in a Catholic family and environment. My parents cared a lot about my spiritual wellbeing, making me go to Sunday school every week to learn the teachings of Jesus. From as early as I can remember, I could feel a difference between things I used to hear at Church and things I used to see at home. As I grew up, I struggled a lot with my faith. I came to a point in life where I was so mad at the majority of the Catholics that I happened to meet on Sundays. Very naïvely, I had thought they were going to be as accepting and welcoming as my parents.

Everywhere I looked, I saw a world that was out of touch with the world we live in today. Church standards seemed outdated. People seemed so sure of all the rules God had supposedly set up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those people who just takes the verses of the Bible that she wants and ignores the rest. But I usually read the context of what is written. Just as I don’t believe that slavery should be condoned today, I believe that homosexuality is a valid expression of human sexuality. I believe that divorced people are just as worthy of the love of Jesus as anyone else. To cut a long story short, I have never felt welcomed in my Church back at home in Italy. I cannot share much with that community, in terms of values.

So when I finally arrived here in Essex, I was surprised to find a group like the Progressive Christians. Here the Bible Study sessions are always analyzed in context, with reference to theological texts and other studies. Suddenly, I was free from the strict standards of a more literal interpretation of Scripture. I felt relieved that I was no less of a Christian, This was a place where my faith would not be undermined.

The Bible study this year at the Progressive Christians society is based mainly on how Jesus would read the Bible - how would the accepting, loving, non-violent Jesus read the Old and New Testaments? In order to do so, we’re relying upon Michael Hardin’s ‘The Jesus Driven Life’.  I can’t stress enough how important and eye-opening it has been to finally have a closer look at the Scriptures under a different light. How enlightening it has been to read the verses and analyze the different interpretations, looking at the translations, and then relating all of this to the Jesus that we know from the Gospels.

I’m at the beginning of this new-found journey and it has already helped me massively. I’m more in touch with my faith, which gets stronger as time goes by and I keep searching and studying. For the first time in my life, I feel like I belong, and I’m accepted as I am. I feel like I’m getting to know Jesus, and I'm starting to have a clearer picture of what it means to be a Christian and act according to the example of Jesus: with love, compassion and acceptance.


This blog is part of a new series around this year’s Student Sunday theme ‘All Are Welcome’. You can download our resource toolkit here and help to plan a service for students on 19 February.

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