Unfortunately, Christianity itself has contributed to the decline. Beginning with the fundamentalist movement early in the last century, Christianity has evolved into a religion of belief in unviable outdated doctrines, dogmas, creeds, and theories. There have been warnings that have literally been ignored. As early as a century ago Pierre Teilhard de Chardin warned of the need to modernize and update Christology. Literalism, a hallmark of fundamentalism, has created a dualism between believers and nonbelievers, setting up an artificial division among Americans, creating an opportunity to be exploited by savvy self-promoting politicians. As Harvey Cox has observed it is time for the age of belief to be ushered out and the age of faith ushered in. What can be done about this situation Christianity now faces? Two centuries of theories, doctrines and creeds have made the faith largely unintelligible. Confusion exists over the nature of God and unbelievable stories of Jesus’ short life challenge the modern intellect. Years of warnings by theologians have remained largely a discussion between academic colleagues and not filtered down to the denominations, churches and cults. Meanwhile for most of the 20th century churches were artificially buoyed by supplementary forces unrelated to the faith itself. And since 1990s the church has failed to successfully respond. Perhaps it is time to go back to the very beginning of Christianity.    This book is about the end of a Christian Journey. It’s not about the journey itself, but where the journey has led after eight decades of being a Christian. Those decades included years in Lutheranism with its faith vs. works and credal statements, in Presbyterianism with its emphasis on God’s sovereignty and governmental structure, with Methodism and its practical challenge to do no harm, but all the good you can, and its quadrilateral guide for understanding scripture, with the Southern Baptists and their absence of credal statements but emphasis on literal biblical interpretation, and with Congregationalism and its liberalism and emphasis on action. The journey includes 50 years in various lay administrative and teaching positions in these churches and twenty years as a senior academic administrator in a Roman Catholic university. After reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters from Prison and Cost of Discipleship in my early thirties, I began a multi decade habit of reading religious authors with such diversity of thought as from Tillich and Kaufman to Borg and Crossan, from Schillebeeckx, Kung and Kierkegaard to Gutierez, Spong and Wink, from Teilhard de Chardin, Cox and Delwin Brown to Mclaren, Rohr and Robin Meyers. While all of this may seem exhausting, the point is that this journey has encompassed a broad sampling of Christian writings, teachings, and practices. It is with this foundation, unbridled by academic convention and clerical limitations that I propose an open Christianity that steers clear of preposterous claims and transactional incentives while reconstructing a faith one can truly believe.