Reformation, etc.

I like to think that I've become more open-minded in recent years. I thought that I was ok with a variety of biblical interpretations and Christian interpretations. I thought that I was in the "Jesus is still all right with me!" camp, and that I wanted to focus on preaching the gospel to non-believers more than infighting with other Christians.

Until I sat through Baptist chapel this morning.

Besides the poor asthetics (slow, boring music followed by long, boring sermon), I was completely shocked by the message! Our school board director spent 30 minutes reading verses from Psalms outlining how we should "fear" God. Which is a wonderful idea, except that the summary message was that we fear God by being good, making good choices, praying a lot, etc. Ok, also pretty much true. Then Santiago, bless his heart, spoke up.
"But we're just kids! we can't be perfect all the time! What if we mess up?"
Ron's answer (with a perturbed look that said he didn't want to be interrupted) was that we should just pray harder. No kidding.
Then, he gave an example of a time when his family was driving past a car accident where someone had been killed. This was an example of God's faithfulness, bc they weren't hurt. So, my thought was - did the other man not pray enough?
Also, Ron's kids are his step-kids. Their real father died of cancer. So was their 1st dad just not a good enough CHristian, so God had to kill him & replace him with a better dad?

This theology isn't inherently wrong - it's just not Christian. Muslims believe the same thing - pray harder to be good; bad things happen as a punishment for sin. Where's the Jesus? Where's the grace? What's the point of being a Christian if God only loves me as long as I am good and everything bad that happens is a punishment from him?