Vox Populi, or Your Turn

The time has come in this blog for an evaluation. To those of you who have been regular readers or even part-time readers, I want to say a big thank you. You have listened to my description of my church experiences and my evaluation of the American evangelical scene which resulted from those experiences. Now the time has come for you to judge what I have said. Therefore, I have three general categories of questions for you:

1. Have you experienced abuse within a supposedly “Christian” church? Was that church a typical “evangelical” church? What did you do about it? Have you since joined another church? How did that work out?

2. This blog, TH in SoC, has discussed several problems relating to modern evangelicalism. Do you agree with my assessment? Do you see any other problems with modern evangelicalism?

3. Do you believe the modern American church is a safe place? If not, what are two or three things that would make it safe?

Last week I sent these questions to a number of bloggers whose blogs deal with power abuse in church settings. I will post their replies as they come in. For readers in general, feel free to answer as little or as much as you like. And if you have a blog, feel free to mention it. One blog which I forgot to mention in last week's post is The Blog of Lema Nal (http://lemanal.blogspot.com/), written by a person who endured an abusive experience in the Plymouth Brethren-styled cult started by the Asian man I mentioned in my posts, “A Tour of the Fringes” and “Finding (and losing) Rebekah.” Because this is the same cult that sues its critics, I am going to modify this person's replies to my questions slightly, if they grant permission, to remove the actual name of the cult. I don't want to have to hire John Grisham as a lawyer! Next week we will move on from a diagnosis of problems to a discussion of solutions.

One other thing: if you are a church pastor reading this, I'd like to suggest that you be primarily a listener rather than talking. Perhaps after next week it might be appropriate for pastors to try and answer for themselves, but for now I'd suggest that you just listen. But if any pastors or so-called pastors use this occasion to post advertisements for their own personal “cult recovery” ministries, I will delete your posts out of hand. I don't mean to be harsh, but this week's post is not an opportunity for you to build up some “ministry” for yourself.

A Righteous Kick In The Pants

The Bible commands Christians to associate with each other for mutual encouragement, and that we may stimulate each other to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24-25). Most people who read this Scripture in Hebrews take it to mean involvement in the life of a church. Yet for the last few years, I have not been a regular church attender, because of the damage I suffered through long-term involvement in an abusive, cultic church, and because of the rather scary supposedly “mainstream” evangelical churches I sampled after leaving my old abusive church.

My lack of church involvement used to bother my conscience somewhat, because I felt somehow that I was missing out on involvement in the things of God. But over time I was able to strike a deal with my conscience. This blog, TH in SoC, is that deal. You see, when I became a Christian, I was instructed by books, tracts and other Christians that I needed to find a solid, Bible-believing church so that I could grow in sanctification and spiritual maturity.

But as I began my journey, my personal pilgrim's progress, I found myself tripped up by punji stake-filled pits carefully placed along the path of life by devils, to trap those who were trying to make their way from earth to Heaven. That's how I describe my old abusive church and the many other abusive groups and cults that trap sincere believers. That's how I describe the wicked, narcissistic, damnable leaders who create such groups, who ensnare sincere people, who devour the energy and strength and talent and best years of their deceived followers. That's how I describe the big-name personalities who are trying to use the Christian faith to further their own selfish ambitions and lusts for earthly riches and political power. Being jacked by an abusive church hurt a great deal. What made me even angrier was finding out upon my departure from that church that there are many others in the realm of American evangelicalism who are busy digging pits and filling them with punji stakes in order to trap people.

I believe that much of American evangelicalism is now unsafe. I don't know all about how it got that way and I don't much care. All I know is that I promised myself that before I tried to get heavily involved in the life of a church again, I would do what I could to make church safe, by doing what I could to expose those who were making it unsafe. This blog is my little gift to these people, my way of administering a much needed, righteous kick in the pants to such people.

And I must admit that I have had a good time writing this blog. It has been a lot of work, but I have genuinely had a good time. This isn't supposed to be a “nice” thing to say, and in fact, I have encountered many blogs written by victims of spiritual abuse who say things like, “I just want to humbly, lovingly entreat the perpetrators I have encountered,” or, “It is with great grief and heaviness of heart that I must write these things,” and so on. I can't say that I feel any grief or sympathy for the perpetrators, who have been warned many, many times that what they were doing is wrong, and who have not changed their ways. My only sorrow is that the world in general and the American evangelical world in particular have turned out to be such dangerous places. Yet the danger exists, and in facing the danger like an adult, I have decided that I'm going to have a good time doing what I can to ruin the game plan of those who try to make my life unsafe. I think of Saul Alinsky, a 20^th century social protest organizer who stood against injustice, and how he admitted that he had a very good time doing what he did. Let this blog serve as a two-by-four upside the head of certain people who badly need it. Judge its effectiveness by whether or not we hear some of these people say “Thanks...I, uh, needed that!”

But if the perpetrators will not listen to this blog, there are many others blogs and websites on the Internet. Many of these name names. They are all written or hosted by people who have been jacked by an abusive church, or they are written because someone known to the blog authors has been jacked by an abusive church. And these blogs are multiplying like rabbits. These should serve as a wake-up call to many leaders in evangelical circles that they can no longer continue business as usual. Many of these leaders look on their flocks as their own personal possessions; yet they will soon find that the sheep have an entirely different view of things. I've got news for some pastors: I'm not your property. Knock off your stupid grandiose view of yourself, because I won't let you live in your delusional dreams. And I am not alone. More and more of us sincere Christians are tired of playing stupid church games in order to build up some supposed pastor's ego. We're not going to take it anymore. Do we have your attention yet?

Below is a partial list of blogs and/or websites hosted by other victims of church abuse. In next week's post, we will hopefully hear from some of these survivors. And next week will be a chance for readers of TH in SoC to sound off as well.

http://galewarnings.blogspot.com/2008/04/when-to-hold-em-when-to-fold-em_19.html

http://brisbanechristianfellowship.blogspot.com/

http://recoveringfromchurch.typepad.com/my_weblog/

http://undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/

http://notnewtestamentchristianchurches.blogspot.com/

http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/292884.html

http://willyoulistentomystory.blogspot.com/

http://nailschurch.blogspot.com/

http://racistchurches.wordpress.com/

http://www.regainnetwork.org/

http://www.ex-pentecostals.org/

http://groups.msn.com/LBC-WCBC-IFBSpiritualAbuseRecoveryZone

http://www.citybusinesschurch.org/blog/

www.geftakysassembly.com

http://www.batteredsheep.com/pdf/think04.pdf

Lust And Discernment, or Living By Wishing Upon Stars

There is a well-known tendency in humans to alter their perception of reality when faced with an overwhelming desire for something they cannot have, or when faced with a painful problem that cannot be escaped. This tendency can range from daydreaming to paranoia and other dysfunctional “coping mechanisms,” going even as far as living in a constant wish-fulfillment fantasy whose most severe manifestation is psychosis. Those who live in a fantasy consisting of things as they'd like them to be have renounced their ability to discern things as they really are.

Life is difficult. This is not just a quote of M. Scott Peck, a famous American psychiatrist. Actually, the Bible stated this very truth long before Peck was born. Job 5:7 says, “...but man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” Trouble and difficulty are an especial part of the life of the righteous while they are on earth. Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” Matthew 7:13-14 says, “Enter in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter in by it. How narrow is the gate, and restricted is the way that leads to life! Few are those who find it.” Acts 14:22 says “...that through many afflictions we must enter into the Kingdom of God.” Romans 5 talks about how trials produce character in those who are receptive to the formation of that character.

This view of life has been the historical view of the Church in all times and all places until recently. It is seen in the writings of people such as Dante Alighieri, thirteenth-century author of the Divine Comedy, and John Bunyan, seventeenth-century author of the Pilgrim's Progress. Such people as these recognized that life is difficult for everyone, and that it is especially difficult for the righteous as they seek to grow into the character of Christ while living in a fallen world. But from the time of the Industrial Revolution and onward, there have been people who have unwisely tried to remove some of the difficulty which the righteous must face on their journey from earth to Heaven. Nathaniel Hawthorne provided a biting commentary on such people in his short story, The Celestial Railroad (Twice-Told Tales collection, published in 1843).

This attempt to smooth the way and widen the road to Heaven really kicked into high gear during the 20^th century – especially during the latter half of that century. Jesus Christ said hard things to His followers and commanded His followers to do hard things. But within the last few decades “scholars” have arisen who have sought to explain away all the hardness and difficulty of the hard sayings of Jesus, in order to make the faith more appealing to a larger audience (or, as some of them would now say, “to reach the unchurched” by allowing them to keep more of their pre-salvation baggage).

One example I saw in my church-finding explorations of the last few years is the proliferation of “Christian” martial-arts clubs and martial-arts “outreaches.” One particular group, the “Smith Family Martial Arts Outreach,” proclaims that “Jesus is our Master.” Their leader is a “Grand Master/Governor of the Eastern U.S. for the Koreja Do Christian Martial Arts Association.” From their website you can learn the plan of salvation, while from their classes you can learn how to kick someone's groin out or collapse their windpipe.

I'm not a professional theologian, so perhaps I can be excused if I find this hard to swallow. All I know is that Matthew 5:38-39, along with other passages, teach Christians to be non-retaliatory. This is why I don't own a gun. Why invest in something if you believe you are prohibited from using it? This applies to learning or teaching martial arts in my opinion. Or maybe there's more to the Sermon on the Mount than I read, and I missed the part that was written in invisible ink? Somebody help me here.

Another thing I have been seeing for a long time is the changing evangelical stance on divorce and re-marriage. Matthew 19 is quite restrictive, especially the part where Jesus says, “I tell you that whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and he who marries her when she is divorced commits adultery.” But through “creative” interpretations of passages in other parts of the Bible, modern-day pastors, teachers and theologians have relaxed restrictions on divorce and re-marriage to such an extent that a greater percentage of evangelicals than non-Christians are opting for divorce (27 percent Christians versus 25 percent non-Christians according to a 2007 study by the Barna Group). Fourteen percent of clergy have been divorced, and most of them have re-married, according to a 2005 Ellison Research study. One pastor teaches that something as intangible as “emotional neglect” is sufficient grounds for divorce! (“What God Has Joined,” David Instone-Brewer, Christianity Today, 5 October 2007).

Someone reading this post may say of me, “Oh, you're just a fundamentalist conservative, and that's why you are criticizing these things.” But I want to remind you that lust always involves a violation of others. In my first post on Lust, I stated that those who indulge in lust always violate someone else, whether it's a violation of God's rights or a violation of their fellow human beings. Those restrictions which have been placed on Christians by the mercy of God are being rationalized away by people who are bent on distorting reality in order to silence their consciences. Lust is not a victimless crime.

Take divorce, for instance. Here I am not just speaking as an “amateur theologian” when I say that lust involves violating others. On the contrary, I actually have “skin in the game,” because I grew up in a broken home. It was no fun witnessing the verbal and physical confrontations between my parents while I and my siblings were little kids. It didn't get any easier when I entered adolescence. In fact, there were nights when the tension hung in the air like cigarette smoke, because I had learned to read the signs of coming trouble. It was no fun not having a dad around during high school. My relationship with my dad is still strained, decades later.

But my parents had an excuse, in that they were not “saved,” though they were churchgoers. What excuse do people have for this kind of behavior when they say that they have come to know Christ and that they believe that their marriage is a picture of the bond between Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5)? I wonder especially how anyone can listen to a so-called pastor or elder or other religious head honcho who has been divorced and remarried.

The problems cited above are examples of the distortion of reality by evangelicals in order to silence their consciences. There is another distortion, which is somewhat related to this first distortion, although it has somewhat different manifestations. This distortion consists of the teaching that God is some giant ATM machine in the sky, and that if we only have the right PIN number, we can have anything we want. Examples of this teaching abound, from the Rev. Creflo Dollar to Joel Osteen to T.D. Jakes. I saw how well that teaching worked when I was growing up and knew a relative who religiously watched Rev. Ike (“You can't lose with the stuff I use!) on Saturday night television. She also sent away for a “prayer cloth” from some “Brother Al.” But to this day she hasn't gotten rich like she wanted to.

This teaching is also to be seen in the peculiar wedding of religion and patriotism promoted by the Religious Right. In their view, America is God's chosen nation, and we can do no wrong. Our material prosperity is an undeniable sign of God's blessing and choosing of this nation. The back-story of that prosperity is ignored – the fact that our standard of living depends on the exploitation of the resources of many poor nations under terms which are not fair to those nations. If this back-story is mentioned at all, it is explained away by what I call a “cultural Calvinism”: the teaching that just as God has chosen some to be saved and some to be damned (at least, according to Calvin), God has also chosen certain nations and races to be prosperous, and He has consigned the rest to be servants of the blessed nations. In their view, any crisis large enough to threaten the United States with serious suffering would automatically mean that the Rapture and the end of the world were not far off, because God would never let us suffer deeply.

But as I have so often said, the world in general, and America in particular, are facing functional, structural limits to growth, material prosperity and increased consumption. America is in a precarious position, with an economy that runs largely on oil at a time when oil supplies are tightening. We also have a debt of over 9 trillion dollars, and this debt is owned by foreign countries. Our financial system is going into shock due to bad government policies and the pillage of this country by the rich. We have made a mess of the environment. I think we'd better start facing our impending suffering as adults, rather than hiding under the pillows like children.

Regarding the end of the world, the Good Book itself says that “no man knows the day or hour.” I am a Christian; therefore, my prayer is Maranatha! But I know that the adult thing to do is to continue to live my life day to day with the expectation that on the next day I'll have to do it all again. God has not promised to rescue this nation from all difficulty. After all, just in the last century we went through two world wars, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and the Cold War, and the world didn't end. God has not promised to rescue us from taking responsibility for our actions.

I have no interest in returning to a strict, legalistic church. But if I am going to be part of a church, it must at least not water down the Faith. It must not try to sweep me off of the straight and narrow into a seat on some “celestial railroad” which doesn't actually quite get to Heaven after all. We need to live in this world with the understanding that a thing isn't true or right just because we lust for it.

Note: All Scriptures are quoted from the World English Bible (http://www.ebible.org/web/), a public domain translation. No royalties are owed to anyone for its use, and it may be freely quoted in all settings, both public and private.

Lust and Boundaries, or 'Scuse Me While I Kiss...

Around two or three years after my “escape” from an abusive, fringe church, I checked out a Quaker church near my house. I had been doing a lot of church hopping in the intervening time, but had not been able to find a place that I was comfortable with. What I was looking for was a nice, traditional church (yet attended by with born-again Christians), that was not invasive or trying to be “cutting-edge.” The rather old meeting hall of this Quaker church seemed to me to be a sign that perhaps this place might have what I was looking for.

As I walked in the door, I spotted a rather large elderly man in the vestibule, who greeted me and began approaching me as he saw me walk in. “Does this church have a traditional service?” I asked.

He threw a big fleshy arm around my shoulders and said, “Sure!” He continued talking, but I don't remember anything else he said, because I was frankly more than a bit distracted by his arm around my shoulders. I was thinking to myself, “We've known each other for thirty seconds. Just who on earth are you?” I disentangled myself from his embrace and stepped back. As I stepped back, he began advancing on me. I remember trying to get details about when the traditional service was, backpedaling toward the door all the while as this man continued to advance. Finally I said, “Thanks, you've answered my questions, goodbye,” and made a hasty exit. As I walked away I was inwardly on the verge of exploding, and wanted more than a little to pop this guy in the jaw.

As I calmed down, I began to think about this incident in a more analytical fashion. I had asked this man – a total stranger – a simple, objective question, a simple request for factual information, much as if I had been at Lowe's or Home Depot and asked one of the floor clerks where the galvanized 16-penny nails were. Yet he had treated me as if I were some obviously distressed soul who needed a dramatic display of “affection.” As Jimi Hendrix is mistakenly quoted as saying, “'Scuse me while I kiss this guy!”

The only explanation I could come up with for this incident was that somewhere, while I had been kept out of touch with the larger realm of American evangelicalism, some famous evangelical must have written a book or produced some teaching video series telling churchgoers to hug every stranger that comes through their doors. Someone must have been teaching that strangers don't usually visit a church unless they have a “felt need,” and that the best way to “reach” these people is to start to relate to them immediately on a level of advanced emotional and physical intimacy without having gotten to know them first.

This is really very strange. Truly everyone needs other people, and no man is an island unto himself. But our society has evolved rules, norms and expectations which govern acceptable ways of establishing intimacy between people who begin as strangers. Those who violate those rules and norms are met with disapproval, and find themselves excluded from the intimacy they seek, because by their violations they brand themselves as unsafe people. So it is that at work, for instance, it is acceptable to get to know others first as co-workers. If in the course of working together, two or more people find that they share similar interests or views, they may even become friends. If two co-workers of opposite sex find that they are really fascinated by each other, their intimacy may progress from an initial co-worker relationship, through the friendship stage, and onto romance. But everything proceeds according to societal norms, rules and expectations which are designed to keep one party from harming the other or forcing himself or herself on another person without their permission.

This concept of acceptable and unacceptable approaches to other people was strongly ingrained in me when I used to live in California and worked at two technical offices. Every year we went through harassment training, in order to comply with California employment law and for the purpose of meeting company insurance requirements. One company named its training program, “The No-Zone.” The programs at both companies did a very good job of teaching circumspect behavior, and contributed greatly toward making work a safe place for everyone.

The principle of social rules and norms which govern intimacy extends beyond the work environment. Total strangers properly educated in these norms proceed with caution and courtesy when they first meet. It is not expected that a person must immediately bare his soul or tell his deepest secrets to a perfect stranger, nor is it expected that a person must tolerate a total stranger who tries immediately to jump to the deepest level of intimacy, bypassing all other stages. Rather, when strangers meet, the expectation is that they proceed properly through the opening stages of acquaintanceship and trust-building. Behaving in a trustworthy manner is the price of admission into higher levels of intimacy. And this is the way it should be, since after all, we live in a fallen world, and “not all men have faith.”

It seems that many modern, “cutting-edge” churches have never heard of the No-Zone. These churches are instead teaching the deliberate short-circuiting of long-standing norms of intimacy – from the Sunday morning “greeters” who maul visitors – total strangers – in unwanted bear hugs, to the discipleship “grace groups” which demand that anyone who joins such groups agree to share his deepest secrets with the other members of the group, to the people who quote Acts 2:44 and insist that everyone at their church must unconditionally share all their possessions with everyone else. I remember one house church I visited where a couple was insisting that we should all greet each other with a holy kiss, and they talked about a man they knew who practiced this greeting on everyone he met at his church. 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy!

These churches teach by example and by selective use of Scripture that Christians are to have no boundaries, that we are each to be completely open and accessible on all levels to anyone who calls himself a Christian, even if we have just met. Those members of or visitors to these churches who insist on establishing boundaries which cannot be passed until trust is earned are usually met with disapproval, because they are not being nice. Churches which seek to tear down wise boundaries use proof texts such as “All who believed...had all things in common,” (Acts 2:44), “Give to him who asks you,” (Matthew 5:42), and of course, “Greet one another with a holy kiss” (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20).

But these churches and teachers fail to recognize a few things. First, while the Lord Jesus does certainly command Christians to fervently love one another and to share our resources with those in need, He also recognized that there would be those who tried unjustly to “work the system.” He did not leave the Church defenseless when faced with such a threat, but told us that if a brother sins against another brother (as in violating the other brother), the church is to follow a method of discipline which will lead to the expulsion of the sinning brother if he does not repent. This process of discipline is to be started by the brother who was violated. (Matthew 18:15-20). This teaching is usually neglected or distorted by obvious fringe, cultic churches, but it seems increasingly to be neglected by some contemporary praise-band styled churches as well.

They fail to recognize also that the apostle Paul, seeing how certain so-called Christians were freeloading off of the charity of churches, wrote thus: “Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks in rebellion, and not after the tradition which they received from us. For you know how you ought to imitate us. For we didn’t behave ourselves rebelliously among you, neither did we eat bread from anyone’s hand without paying for it, but in labor and travail worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you; not because we don’t have the right, but to make ourselves an example to you, that you should imitate us. For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: 'If anyone will not work, neither let him eat.' For we hear of some who walk among you in rebellion, who don’t work at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are that way, we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.” (2 Thessalonians 3:6-12, World English Bible, emphasis added)

Finally, they fail to recognize that Christians are not obligated to instantly believe everyone who says, “I too am a Christian,” without checking that person out first. Revelation 2:2 states how the Lord commended a certain church because they tested the claims of certain men who tried to pass themselves off as apostles.

Now don't get me wrong. I am all for intimacy. Churches should devote themselves to becoming places where strangers can enter into intimacy through the reconciliation which is in Christ. But churches must use wisdom in fostering that intimacy. Boundaries and the building of trust by trustworthy behavior are good things, because they provide protection for believers who have to live in a world of sinners, where not all have faith. Intimacy can't be rushed. Those churches which insist on tearing down personal boundaries are churches where people regularly get hurt, places which are often deliberately set up to turn their “sheep” into lamb chops. What sort of advertisement is a church that is not safe for its members? No stranger in his right mind will visit such a church.

One other thing. If you see me visiting your church, remember that I don't hug dudes, man.