The key, and the deep challenge, I believe, is to not only separate God from the church, but to reconstruct one’s concept of God, Jesus, etc., which was imprinted in our brains by that very church. I don’t believe in the traditional concept of God that was imprinted in my brain as a child, yet I still find myself wanting to believe that there is some sort of higher power, maybe even some sort of continuation of the soul. The key word here is “wanting”. That doesn’t make it true, but it does provide some form of justification for leading an ethical life with integrity. As if any such justification was necessary. That was part of the brainwashing though.