It's been four years since I was booted from the religious empire of the institutional church, and I marvel every day about the difference it has made in my life. The sense of freedom and well-being that I feel now is like nothing I knew before. I feel like scales have fallen off my eyes as well.
I'm an outsider now, and I feel like I can see better; there's more light out here away from the shadows of contrived doctrines and orthodoxies. I am living now in wide open spaces with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness... and a whole lot of grace.
I have left legalism and judgementalism back there in the shadow of the steeple, along with obligation and guilt. I am traveling a road with an infinite stretch of freedom on the horizon in a land where there are no clouds of dictated doctrine and tedious traditions blocking the sun. Ah, rest and relaxation, just what the Doctor ordered!
There is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1)... and who have made it outside the church!
My sister and brother-in-law went ahead of me and told me it would be like this, but I didn't believe them. I stayed and stayed longer and longer, trying to change the old wineskins from within. But Jesus was right; He said it couldn't be done (Matt. 9:17), but I didn't believe him. I kept trying to bring some balance to an off-balance system. I persisted in attempting to moderate the extremism, mitigate the dogmatism, and truthify the evangelical platform, but I couldn't ultimately make much difference.
And not only were my spiritual eyes sensing a pervading darkness there, but then my nose started to take notice. My sniffer became more sensitive as the years passed and the traditions prevailed. I started smelling doctrinal dung everywhere.
- I smelled it on Sunday morning when the pastor spoke on tithing, a practice that is certainly Biblical... it's just not Christian. And it is absolutely not obligatory as he seemed to indicate.
- The smell was there at the holiness camp meeting when the evangelist delivered the required dissertation on the holy life and it became evident that he didn't have a good grasp of this very nebulous doctrine... or hadn't yet realized it himself.
- I smelled something fishy every time a seminar speaker got going on the structure of the hierarchy and "God-ordained authority" within the church, another late-coming idea stretched to infinite levels of rank and echelon by licensed theological extrapolators (always male).
- And the odor grew worse during every election year when the right-wing Republican pastor got going on which candidate was God's choice to lead God's country for the next four years. Yep, God's choice always seemed to stand in direct contradiction to Jesus' teachings on peace and loving our enemies - although he loved unborn babies.
- And the poop seemed pervasive when the lovers of God and of their neighbors in the assembly started expressing their condemnation for gays and lesbians whom they had never met... while blindly persisting in their own indulgences that are banned in the scriptures, like gossip and lying and divorce and overeating. What hypocrisy.
But that's only the beginning. There are much deeper fundamental problems with the institution of the church. Let me paint with broader strokes:
Practically and philosophically speaking, every believer is positioned at a certain spot on a continuum that ranges from Grace to Law, and the evangelical church is far over on the side of Law. I ceased to be a conservative evangelical many years ago while I was reading the book of Galatians (long before Rob Bell came along).
Paul's first letter to the churches is a challenge to the never-ending inclination that humans have toward wanting to earn their salvation. He claims that it is for freedom from the law that Jesus came (Gal 5:1). He says the law never saved anybody (Gal 2:16). He states that the entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor (Gal 5:14). He says we are saved by Grace, not by good behavior (Eph 2:5-8). Then he asserts that those who are led by the Spirit are not under law (Gal 5:18).
If we are living in the book of Galatians then there are no rules but the law of love. No obligations, no expectations, no have-to's, no long list of required moral behaviors. And as a result, no guilt and no condemnation. We are free to live without feeling that anybody is looking over our shoulders with demands and expectations. Not even the pastor. Not even God, actually.
Yet much of the environment in the church is all about expected behavior. It is about law. This is a serious and widespread foundational flaw in the church.
Pastors in this realm manifest schizoid behaviors on this matter, preaching grace on the first Sunday of the month and law on the other three. Or, more often, they start out a sermon on grace at point one and move to law for points two and three... followed by the altar call.
And I think I know where this comes from. Paul himself - and Peter and James and John and a bunch of other NT writers - had trouble themselves with grace versus law. So when you study the New Testament you see that Jesus replaced the Old Testament (and the entire legalistic culture that came with it) with redemption and freedom, and Paul understands this when he is writing to the Galatians and the Romans. But later, when he is writing to the Corinthians and others, he has to pull back because they have carried their freedom too far and have ruined their testimony, so he gives them boundaries. He summarizes this dynamic in I Cor.6:12 when he states, "Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial." And pretty soon, when you start qualifying grace with: "Yeah, but what about this and what about that?", the law prevails.
It's a difficult tightrope to walk. Law versus grace, and humans are inclined toward law.
I have concluded that everything in the New Testament needs to be read and understood through the filter of Christ and the cross.
So when Paul says gays will not inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor 6:9), we must immediately filter his comment with the grace of the cross and the forgiveness of Christ. Apparently all that one needs to be part of God's kingdom is to believe in Jesus (Romans 10:9). Like every other sinner, gays are forgiven and need not worry about their place in the kingdom; their sin is no more special than the sin of the bigot, the self-righteous hypocrite and the typical American going after the American dream without regard for the poor next door - since the greedy are included in the same list as the gays (I Cor 6:9-10). "For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24). According to this verse, all have sinned, and all have been saved. It seems that the evangelical world is forever stuck in Romans 3:23 - the fallen-ness of mankind - and never finishes the sentence: Romans 3:24 - the restored-ness of mankind.
A Christo-centric dynamic should be present throughout biblical interpretation and Christian practice and ought to permeate the whole of Christian culture. Christianity must be about the grace of Christ.
The work of Jesus is freedom, and the work of the law and legalism is bondage. And how we tap into grace and law affects every scripture we study and every way we live our lives every day. Will we live in freedom or oppression? Most people within the church will live in oppression to some extent, based on what they hear from their leaders who generally have more to say about righteous living - through living up to a host of noble expectations - than they do about living in grace and freedom. Shoot, it's hard to speak on grace and love every Sunday and never challenge your listeners to behave better. But the product of the gospel of self-improvement is self-righteousness and imagined self-redemption and it flies in the face of the cross.
Okay, I realize I have made some grand generalizations in this post, so just let me say that nobody has this figured out. And those who say they do are not to be listened to or trusted. The Bible is full of apparently contradictive stuff like I have touched on above, and we all must choose what we will focus on. We must prioritize.
Some will put a high value on 10 commandments in the Old Testament, while ignoring the other 604 similar commandments in the same scriptures - and the New Testament words stating that the old laws no longer apply.
Some will put the 5 references on homosexuality at the top while ignoring the 50-60 teachings condemning adultery - and the 600 verses on helping the poor.
Some will place a high value on Paul's directives to the troubled churches at Corinth and thus put limits on what women may do in the church, while ignoring the counter-cultural gestures that both Jesus and Paul implemented lifting women from cultural oppression.
Again, I am barely scratching the surface when it comes to the inconsistencies of the religious empire. Jesus said not to judge (Matt. 7:1), but judgement, rather than grace, has become the banner under which Christians march to war.
The church is a man-made institution that works great good and great evil in the world, depending on who - or what doctrine - is in charge in a given time and place.
Practically and philosophically speaking, every believer is positioned at a certain spot on a continuum that ranges from Grace to Law, and the evangelical church is far over on the side of Law. I ceased to be a conservative evangelical many years ago while I was reading the book of Galatians (long before Rob Bell came along).
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| Where are you on the Grace - Law Continuum? |
Paul's first letter to the churches is a challenge to the never-ending inclination that humans have toward wanting to earn their salvation. He claims that it is for freedom from the law that Jesus came (Gal 5:1). He says the law never saved anybody (Gal 2:16). He states that the entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor (Gal 5:14). He says we are saved by Grace, not by good behavior (Eph 2:5-8). Then he asserts that those who are led by the Spirit are not under law (Gal 5:18).
If we are living in the book of Galatians then there are no rules but the law of love. No obligations, no expectations, no have-to's, no long list of required moral behaviors. And as a result, no guilt and no condemnation. We are free to live without feeling that anybody is looking over our shoulders with demands and expectations. Not even the pastor. Not even God, actually.
Yet much of the environment in the church is all about expected behavior. It is about law. This is a serious and widespread foundational flaw in the church.
Pastors in this realm manifest schizoid behaviors on this matter, preaching grace on the first Sunday of the month and law on the other three. Or, more often, they start out a sermon on grace at point one and move to law for points two and three... followed by the altar call.
And I think I know where this comes from. Paul himself - and Peter and James and John and a bunch of other NT writers - had trouble themselves with grace versus law. So when you study the New Testament you see that Jesus replaced the Old Testament (and the entire legalistic culture that came with it) with redemption and freedom, and Paul understands this when he is writing to the Galatians and the Romans. But later, when he is writing to the Corinthians and others, he has to pull back because they have carried their freedom too far and have ruined their testimony, so he gives them boundaries. He summarizes this dynamic in I Cor.6:12 when he states, "Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial." And pretty soon, when you start qualifying grace with: "Yeah, but what about this and what about that?", the law prevails.
It's a difficult tightrope to walk. Law versus grace, and humans are inclined toward law.
I have concluded that everything in the New Testament needs to be read and understood through the filter of Christ and the cross.
So when Paul says gays will not inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor 6:9), we must immediately filter his comment with the grace of the cross and the forgiveness of Christ. Apparently all that one needs to be part of God's kingdom is to believe in Jesus (Romans 10:9). Like every other sinner, gays are forgiven and need not worry about their place in the kingdom; their sin is no more special than the sin of the bigot, the self-righteous hypocrite and the typical American going after the American dream without regard for the poor next door - since the greedy are included in the same list as the gays (I Cor 6:9-10). "For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24). According to this verse, all have sinned, and all have been saved. It seems that the evangelical world is forever stuck in Romans 3:23 - the fallen-ness of mankind - and never finishes the sentence: Romans 3:24 - the restored-ness of mankind.
A Christo-centric dynamic should be present throughout biblical interpretation and Christian practice and ought to permeate the whole of Christian culture. Christianity must be about the grace of Christ.
The work of Jesus is freedom, and the work of the law and legalism is bondage. And how we tap into grace and law affects every scripture we study and every way we live our lives every day. Will we live in freedom or oppression? Most people within the church will live in oppression to some extent, based on what they hear from their leaders who generally have more to say about righteous living - through living up to a host of noble expectations - than they do about living in grace and freedom. Shoot, it's hard to speak on grace and love every Sunday and never challenge your listeners to behave better. But the product of the gospel of self-improvement is self-righteousness and imagined self-redemption and it flies in the face of the cross.
Okay, I realize I have made some grand generalizations in this post, so just let me say that nobody has this figured out. And those who say they do are not to be listened to or trusted. The Bible is full of apparently contradictive stuff like I have touched on above, and we all must choose what we will focus on. We must prioritize.
Some will put a high value on 10 commandments in the Old Testament, while ignoring the other 604 similar commandments in the same scriptures - and the New Testament words stating that the old laws no longer apply.
Some will put the 5 references on homosexuality at the top while ignoring the 50-60 teachings condemning adultery - and the 600 verses on helping the poor.
Some will place a high value on Paul's directives to the troubled churches at Corinth and thus put limits on what women may do in the church, while ignoring the counter-cultural gestures that both Jesus and Paul implemented lifting women from cultural oppression.
Again, I am barely scratching the surface when it comes to the inconsistencies of the religious empire. Jesus said not to judge (Matt. 7:1), but judgement, rather than grace, has become the banner under which Christians march to war.
The church is a man-made institution that works great good and great evil in the world, depending on who - or what doctrine - is in charge in a given time and place.
All right, this is getting too long. Anyway, though I didn't do it voluntarily, it turns out that the easiest way for me to free myself from the pervading darkness within the religious system was to exit to the light of day - where, as it turns out, the air is fresh too, but with a rather strong aroma of redemption.
When you step outside you can see the truth better. And you can breathe better too, because there's nobody here piling the unholy crap higher and deeper every Sunday morning.
With the help of the Holy Spirit and the Word - and in the company of open-minded friends - think for yourselves, folks!
I know this is provocative stuff for a lot of my friends and family. Thank you for reading with an open mind! I believe in Jesus.
With the help of the Holy Spirit and the Word - and in the company of open-minded friends - think for yourselves, folks!
I know this is provocative stuff for a lot of my friends and family. Thank you for reading with an open mind! I believe in Jesus.
