Learning from an Ex-Pastor's Charges Against the Church

While doing some research for a Bible curriculum I am writing, I decided to make a quick survey of introductory Bible videos one can find on Youtube just by typing in something like "Introduction to the Bible". What I found was a strong absence of solidly produced and written Christian introductions to the Bible, but that's another issue. During this search, one of the first videos to appear was a Bible 101 Seminar put on by Houston Atheists and led by Mike Aus. (You can watch the video HERE)

I was intrigued by how an Atheist would present an introduction to the scripture. I watched for 20 minutes and then noticed that another video was available from Mike Aus entitled "A Pastor's Journey to Atheism". I clicked it and watch the majority of it. While I clearly disagree with many of Mike's conclusions and current beliefs (as well as many of his particular arguments about the Scriptures), he shares some fairly damning feelings about his time as a pastor. He says that the dirty little secret of Christianity is that most (he says 98%) of the lay level doesn't even read the Scriptures. He never met a lay Christian who could talk with him about the general narrative thrust of the Bible. 

Mike believes that the Christians he encountered not only didn't read the Bible, but that they truly didn't believe in prayer either. Most of his congregation were mostly solipsistic Christians thinking that God spent the majority of His time carefully crafting the day for each person so that they find the right parking spot, win at chess, or some other helpfulness in their daily activity.

What do you think of these accusations? Do you think there is truth to what Mike thought Christians really believed? I unfortunately think there is a lot of truth to these particular charges and unless the Church addresses these issues, we can look forward to many more videos like this one in the future.