The Tipping Point - Leaving the Church

There's good and bad in everything, and it is no different with the church.  As long as the good outweighs the bad, people will stay and survive... and even thrive.  But if a tipping point is reached where the bad outweighs the good, their reasons for staying will be outnumbered by their reasons for leaving and they will stage their own personal exodus.  It is often calculated and pre-meditated, since there is usually painful fall-out that comes with it.  The inevitable loss of lifelong friends is one of the most painful consequences.

Staying

There are a lot of good reasons why people will stay in the institution.  For many, it is a family tradition that is comfortable and familiar and their is no good reason to quit.  For others, their social and emotional needs are met by the company of good friends and like-minded birds of a feather.  Others find common ground in doctrines and dogmas that make sense to them ideologically.  They may like the political platform of the church.  Many will attend to get close to God and enjoy the kindred spirit of corporate worship.  And the list goes on.

In my opinion, when people feel happy and safe in the church environment, they should continue as long as they can...  for a lifetime if possible.

Leaving

There are also a lot of good reasons for leaving the church, and many of them have to do with the reverse of everything good.  If they don't fell safe there, if their emotional and social needs are not being met there and there is no sense of community, if they don't have friends there, if they take issue with the doctrines and dogmas there, if they can't feel close to God there, and so on, they have good reason to leave.

Why would anyone want to keep attending a club where they are not welcome?  Why would they continue to contribute to an organization whose values are not consistent with theirs?  What if they are made to feel like a misfit or an outcast, should they keep going for the sake of the institution?  What about abusive situations where they are being condemned or guilted into submission by domineering leaders or doctrines?  

I would not recommend that anybody continue in a setting where they do not feel safe, where their spirit is continually broken by destructive teaching and demeaning doctrines which give overbearing leaders a license to lord it over their people.

On the other hand, some may quit out of simple burnout.  Do you realize that if you attend the church three times a week plus board meetings, potlucks, and camp meetings, you will have been there 10,000 times by the time you are 50?  For some, that's more than enough!  Everything just starts to sound like the same old same old.

My Tipping Point

I attended and was embedded in the church for the first 60 years of my life, and was blind-sided when my own tipping point arrived.  I did not expect it and would never have predicted it.  I was a lifelong volunteer and leader in the organization.  My dad, my brother, and my son-in-law and several of my friends were pastors.  I was happy and thriving, even though I was at odds with some of the conservative platforms of the denomination and the local body.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was an ideological one:  I woke up to the fact that my church and I were no longer moving in the same direction, and I had to decide whether I would continue to contribute to and perpetuate a religious organization whose values were different than mine.  I maybe had a few years left of life and didn't want to waste it kicking a dead horse, as it were.  I would have to tolerate a lot of cognitive dissonance.   (Also, there were critics who were openly pointing out my non-compliance and urging me to shut up or get out of the way.  Birds of a different feather are often ultimately kicked from the nest.)

I chose my own spiritual and emotional well-being over the that of the institution.  I quit.    Here's to health and freedom!

But it's not as simple as that.  There were major contributing factors that led up to my exodus.  I have written about them extensively in other posts, but I'll briefly touch on a few of them here:

Pacifism.  From the age of 18 I was a pacifist in keeping with Jesus' teachings to love your enemies.  I kept quiet about it for most of my life, but -  even though my denomination had roots in Anabaptist and Mennonite pacifism  -  the church has become increasingly political and militaristic in the last twenty years and my dissidence has grown correspondingly.   I view the separation of church and state as a good thing (not to mention constitutional).  The rise of nationalism in the church is anti-Christ.

Women's rights.  It seemed to me that if the church could dismiss the Biblical grounds for slavery as no longer culturally relevant, it could just as well ignore Paul's teachings on the submission of women by removing all limitations on women as leaders in the church.  I lobbied for it unsuccessfully.  In my (former) denomination, it will be a long time coming.  It will happen, but not in my lifetime.

Tithing.  There is no New Testament mandate for the collection of a 10% tithe to be given to the church.  Yet, it is perpetuated as an expected discipline, even a compulsion of the believer.  That is un-sanctified hogwash.  Unholy crap.  (My apologies to the swine.)

Amazing Grace.  Though the evangelical community is founded on free grace and every speaker gives it a cursory nod, ironically, much more attention is given to the need to work for one's salvation.   Mine is a more generous orthodoxy that makes much of redemption and little of sin.  If you want to know, I think Jesus could be said to be "soft on sin".  He was called the "friend of sinners" after all.

That Damned Hierarchy!  There are many other points at which I have been a dissenter for a long time, but the granddaddy of all false doctrines that pervade almost all denominations is the teaching of the hierarchy, an idea which Jesus expressly banned in his teachings to his disciples. (Matt. 20:25-26)

It was the church leadership's unwavering adherence to the doctrine of submission-to-authority in the church that ultimately blew up my local congregation and precipitated an exodus of 2/3's of the constituency about six years ago.

Though every organization has its structure, the church has spiritualized its logistical framework with a contrived doctrine that ends up giving license to domineering leaders and abusers and compels the good people who believe it to do bad things.

I see the doctrine of the "God-ordained" hierarchy in the church as one of the most dangerous and destructive ideologies that have poisoned the church for the last 1700 years since Constantine implemented it in 313 A.D.  It has destroyed a lot of people.

Now here's the thing:  We need to differentiate between the institutional church and the Body of Christ, the True Church, which is all believers everywhere.  In the Body of Christ, all the parts of the body are answerable directly to the Head which is Christ. (Eph.4:15)  There is no multi-level echelon or chain-of-command.  We submit to Christ and to one another out of love (respect) for one another.  All have equal standing; no one has rank.  (Think you have automatic spiritual authority because you were appointed to a position in the church?  Think again!)

I'm Done

It's probably quite evident from this, that I no longer fit in the evangelical church.  My ideologies have become too honest, too Christlike, too purist to accommodate the way things are in the man-made institution called the church.

When my local parish blew up as a result of a destructive decision made by church leadership, I helped launch an appeal to the next level up the chain of command.  Though it was a legitimate step that was provided for in the by-laws, I was confronted in a lengthy and venomous reprimand and labeled as rebellious.  My "spiritual leaders" worked to smear my reputation behind the scenes.  They made sure we all knew that "no individual is as important as the institution."  (More institutional BS)

At the time, I marveled at protestant leaders telling other protestants that they shouldn't protest.  Huh?  Protestantism was born out of protest against church doctrine and hierarchy.  If protestants who protest are "rebelling against God" they are in the good company of reformers like Martin Luther and other church fathers.  Questioning is essential to sound doctrine.

Still, I could have forgiven all that carnality (maybe somebody was feeling a bit threatened?) and stayed on to feed the machine.  No tipping point there. (Read more about that church blow-up here.)

But ultimately is was ideology that was my tipping point.  I could have searched for a more liberal church, one with a more generous orthodoxy, but I have emotionally run out of gas.  I'm tired of the whole thing.  I have joined the "Dones", a growing multitude of exiles who, for one good reason or another, have come to their own tipping points and are just...

Done.

The Water Story

In my previous post I pledged to give an account of a supernatural experience that I have had, the sort of thing that prevents me from ever questioning my belief in a supreme being. I would have to deny my own senses to do so.  Here's one that happened a few years ago.

The Water Shortage

In the middle of my teaching career I arranged a one-year leave of absence from my rural public school teaching job so I could try a more "missionary" assignment serving the  underprivileged in an underdeveloped country.  I took my family to the Dominican Republic to teach in an international school for a year.

My sixth grade class of bilingual international students at Santiago Christian School

Infra-structure was sub-standard in the city of Santiago, and services were limited.  The electricity went off for several hours almost every day.  And though we were unaware of it for the first few weeks, there was a severe water shortage.  Our rented house was equipped with a large in-ground holding tank where the intermittent city water would be stored and then pumped into the house as needed.  Without our knowing it, our tank was slowly emptying as our carefree usage far exceeded the scant incoming flow from the city water supply.

One day we were without water and I lifted the metal lid on the backyard cistern to investigate.  It was empty.  And there was not the slightest trickle coming in from the supply pipe.

I reported our situation to the administration at the school and they conveyed our problem to the city water department who said they would send someone to take a look.  In the meantime, the school ordered a tanker truck sent to our house and the cistern was filled again with fresh water...  at a cost about equal to a month's rent!  Yikes!

A profound truth became clear to me at that moment:  Americans use a lot of water.  We quickly implemented water-saving measures that I assume the rest of our neighbors had probably been following for years.  The premier conservation rule:  Save the Flush.

The city did send a service man who discovered that our house didn't have a water meter. At the time of construction the builder had made an illegal connection to the city water main without a permit and a meter.  The worker got out a shovel and pick axe and dug a hole in the hard-packed street large enough to accommodate a water meter, cut out a corresponding section of the supply pipe to the house... and then left without installing a meter.  Our line was disconnected and stayed so for several weeks.

Eventually, the inevitable end of our temporary water supply arrived and we were again nearing the bottom of the tank.  And so was our bank account.  We had no money for another tank fill.  I was at a loss to know what to do in this foreign land.

An Answer to Prayer

In desperation I called home and asked for help (maybe somebody would be inspired to donate money for more water?)   There was a Global Prayer Group meeting that Wednesday night at the home church and they said they would pray about our situation.  And they did.

Thursday morning Kaye got up for her early morning journaling time but returned to the bedroom shortly.

  "Should there be water coming into the water tank?" she asked me.

  "It can't happen," was my groggy reply.

  "Why not?" she said.

  "Because the water line is disconnected at the street."

  "Well, it sounds like there's water running into the tank."  She turned and headed back to the other room.  I stayed in bed for another hour until it was time for me to get up for school.

When I arrived in the kitchen I could hear the familiar sound of water running into the backyard cistern.  I opened the back door, stepped to the water tank and lifted the lid.  

And there I saw a refreshing and steady stream of crystal clear water flowing from the supply pipe and dropping about 7 feet into the nearly empty tank!

I immediately spun and headed down the sidewalk alongside the house and looked down at the hole in the street.  Yes, the hole was still there and it was powdery dry as it had been for several weeks.  Not a drop of moisture anywhere near.

Impossible!  I walked all around the house looking for another inlet to the water tank when it occurred to me that the city water wasn't even flowing on our street.  In fact, nobody in the neighborhood was getting water.  Because of our repair, the water main was shut off at the end of the street.

Nonetheless, the water ran steadily for two days while we went about our business until Saturday morning when it stopped.  I went out and lifted the lid to see that the tank was full.  Yes, the tank was full to the top.  It had filled from a miraculous stream of fresh water that had flowed continuously for 48 hours from a water line that was disconnected at the other end... and while no one else on our street received any water.

A few days later the city service guys returned and installed a water meter... and opened the main valve at the end of our street so that the water supply could flow again - however infrequently - and we didn't have any more problems.

Those who know me are aware that I am a very practical person.  I believe in reality.  I could not wrap my head around what I had seen and heard with my own eyes and ears.  I studied the plumbing in that house and on that street every which way until I had to conclude that there was no possible way around it:  We had witnessed a very real miracle of God's provision, and a direct answer to prayer.   Real water that we flushed and laundered and bathed in.  With a new sense of gratitude...  and conservation.

Our three daughters did their homework on the front porch of our tropical home.

I Don't Need Faith... or Superstition

I recently shocked a friend of mine by stating that my belief in God has little to do with faith.  It is because of the actual facts -- real experiences that I have seen and heard and touched -- that I cannot deny the existence of a higher power.  Though my initial desperate request for prayer may have seemed like an act of faith, it was a very practical step based on previous real answers to prayer.  With the water tank newly filled, reality is what flushed away the poop.  Not faith.

And not superstition.  One of my atheist friends refers to the stories in the Bible as superstition, fairy tales.  But here's the thing:  I did not flush my Dominican toilet with superstition.  I flushed it with real water that was supplied by a miraculous source.

When you are experiencing these sorts of realities, miracles become a fact of life...  and an undeniable operative in one's theology as well.

For those who have experienced such practical manifestations of the supernatural, belief in God is entirely logical.   Belief is a product of experience.

This is reality, Greg.*

_______________________

This is only one of several accounts I could share of apparent miracles I have seen -- and not the most fantastic.  Maybe I'll post more another time.

*"This is reality, Greg."  is my favorite line in the movie E.T.  Greg asks Elliot why the extraterrestrials can't just "beam up"  the abandoned E.T. like in Star Trek.  Elliot replies, "This is reality, Greg,"  -- right before they ride their bicycles into the sky across the full moon.  Hah!

Experiencing God -- Or Not

In the previous post I listed some things I have learned from (or about) atheists, agnostics and freethinkers.

Now I want to share why it will be impossible for me to ever honestly become an atheist or agnostic.  (I still do consider myself a freethinker.)

In my encounters with all kinds of thinkers I have noticed a common thread regarding how it is that people get to their various intellectual positions, and this is it:

Our beliefs seem to be a direct result of our experiences.

Most of the atheists and agnostics I have met have made a statement something like this: "God has never revealed himself to me."

-- From this statement atheists conclude that there exists no supreme being.  Along with it they are obliged to believe evolution.  Most are quite willing to do so, seeing nothing miraculous about the existence of the universe and everything in it.

-- From this same statement agnostics go to the possibility of a supreme being whose existence can be neither proven nor disproven.  They are at liberty to accept creation or evolution or a combination of the two; they may see the divine design in the universe but, since they have never personally experienced God, they will say he has withdrawn from any kind of interaction in human affairs.

Whether or not an individual has experienced the supernatural seems to be the operative function for becoming a nonbeliever (most atheists and agnostics I've met are former believers).  Here's what they have not experienced:

• Miracles or supernatural happenings
• Healings
• Answers to prayer
• Paranormal activity
• The miracles of nature

Really, there's probably no need to categorize this stuff; it all boils down to one thing:  The supernatural -- whether we experience it or not.

Excuse me a minute; I'm getting a message from God!

And this is why I will never be able to deny the existence of God or of His activity in the world.  Because I have personally experienced the supernatural -- thousands of times over.

• I have seen thousands of answers to prayer in my lifetime -- at times almost daily.
• I have personally experienced miracles -- occurrences that defy any other explanation. (I will describe one of these miracles in detail in my next post.)
• I have been physically healed many times and have seen the healing of others.
• I have had "visions" in which truth was revealed to me, truth that was always eventually proven, sometimes before the day was out, sometimes within months.
• I have not experienced the paranormal, but I believe the accounts of those who have.  My dad, a lifelong minister in the church, was the go-to guy for exorcisms, and he told me about a few of his first-hand experiences.  His exorcisms were always conducted in the name of Jesus and produced consistent results --"deliverances".  He was also called upon to "cleanse" houses from manifestations like doors that opened and closed on their own, lights going on and off, levitations of furniture, icy-cold zones in the house, etc.  He referred to these as poltergeist (playful ghost) activity, which always ceased when he invoked the name of Jesus -- and never returned.

Is an unseen power trying to communicate with us?  Is it just our imaginations?

I have lately puzzled over the reason for God's apparent selectivity about who gets to experience him and who does not.  I have had friends tell me that they searched diligently for some sort of revelation -- and never got any kind of sign that God was communicating with them in any way.

Do some people just lack the connectivity that it takes to hear from God?

Am I one of the lucky ones who is blessed with a sense of the supernatural?

Does God love some of us more than others?

When I talk with other believers about this, most of them assert that God will always be found by those who seek him with all their hearts.  I'm not so sure.  I know people who have prayed and prayed, and waited and waited, and got nothing.

I don't know.  Maybe some people are just supposed to trust the testimony of others.  If that's the case, I am here telling you now, that there is a God and he sometimes interacts with human beings.  In fact, in my life He is right in the middle of everything.

And that's why I could never not believe in God.  I would have to deny my own senses and my own experiences to dis-believe in Jesus.

It's been said that experience is the greatest teacher.  For my non-believing friends, it seems that the lack of experience is pretty powerful too.  It's how they get to a state of non-belief.

Believe me.

What I Am Learning from Atheists

I have made good on a pledge I made to myself the day I realized that I would not likely ever return to church.  I said that, having spent the first 60 years of my life enjoying the company and serving the needs of believers and religious insiders, I would spend the rest of my life hanging out with non-believers and outsiders.

So Kaye and I started attending meet-ups for freethinkers, agnostics, and atheists (actually, we were doing that before we left the church).  We have made some great friends, and we have met a few real jerks  -- It's just like at church.

Here are some things that believing and non-believing thinkers have in common:

• We are real people who live real lives.  We love, we hate, we are proud, we are humble, we laugh, we cry, and we all make mistakes -- and a few of us admit it.

• There are all personality types in both camps.  It's no different than any other cross-section or grouping of people.  Some people are fun to be with, others are not.

• There are closed-minded, dogmatic people in both camps.  You would think that folks who label themselves as freethinkers would be a bit more willing to entertain another's point of view, but it's not always so.  Atheists can have made-up minds that ignore the facts just as well as religious folks can.

• Both are people of faith.  That may sound like a contradiction in terms, but many of the non-believers I have met are full of faith.  One big unproven thing in which they have a lot of faith is evolution (though they are quite confident about it).  I mean, think about it, they must embrace the idea that we evolved from one-celled slime molds to the intelligent, high-functioning human race that we are today -- by pure chance.  Or rather, by an against-all-odds string of random chances that is nothing short of miraculous.  That is highly counterintuitive and takes more faith than most of us can muster.         On the other hand, many believers take literally every story in the Bible, including an account of a flood that covered the whole earth to wipe out all but eight people and the animals.  There are big logistical problems with that one, but hey, believers are big on miracles.  So both groups are obliged to embrace some really fantastic stuff.

• We make un-deserved and demeaning statements about each other.  Atheists belittle believers as lacking intelligence.  Yet atheists number less than 10% of the US population.  Are they all in the 90th percentile or above in IQ?   No.  So a basic glance at statistics indicates there are are far fewer intelligent people who are atheists than those who are believers.  Both camps are populated by great minds, and both camps are populated by imbeciles.        On the other hand, believers label atheists as evil, angry, unhappy folks who are just mad at God for some reason.  Well, not the ones I know.   My atheist friends are mostly nice, normal people who are out to make the world a better place.  It's probably just the odds, but I have known more angry Christians than angry atheists.

• Both groups come up with some really dumb ideas.  I've heard some really bazaar statements made in both groups.  I once heard an atheist say he couldn't believe in God because a few centuries ago the church castrated the young choir boys to keep their voices high as long as possible.  It must have been a sensitive spot for him.  Still, I think TV and camp meeting evangelists get the prize for the most outlandish zingers made  -- don't even get me started.        On the other hand, both groups are capable of coming up with some really good stuff.   I guess that kinda comes with all personality types being present.

• We look alike.  Believers and non-believers come from the same cross-sections of society (although there are more atheists in academic communities) and really aren't that much different than each other.  You can't tell by looking or listening, and many atheists don't willingly share their minority beliefs in casual settings for fear of unpleasant reprisals.  For believers, it's much like witnessing, but believers have a far greater chance of acceptance simply because they are in the majority.

I have really enjoyed my encounters with free-thinkers, atheists and agnostics, and I'm planning to continue.  Kaye and I have made some friends at these meetings who we hope will be life-long friends.  As an independent thinker, I have found the discussions much more fascinating than those at the church Bible study.  Maybe it's just that at church I've heard it all so many times, re-hashed and re-articulated, but always within the same parameters.  I like thinking outside the box, and have been fortunate to bump into some wonderful outsiders who are like me in that.

Would you like to try something different?  Maybe start with a visit to Meetup.com and do a search for Freethinker, Atheist, Agnostic and see what comes up in your neighborhood.

Disclaimer:  You should really think about whether you are ready for this before visiting such a group.  Are you willing to listen to beliefs and points of view that are radically different than your own?   Truth is a wonderful thing, but it can also be very disturbing if you're not ready for it, and of course, not everything you hear at one of these meetings will be the truth (again, very much like church).  You need to be able to sort things out for yourself -- or with like-minded friends.  What's your motivation for going?  I was looking for some interesting and refreshing conversation with people who didn't always fill in the blanks with religious cliches and pat answers.

Have a good time!   And if you don't have a good time, then try something else.  Maybe just let other people tell you what to believe all your life.  It's a lot easier.

Reviewing the Exile Part 5: Winning the Turf War

This is the conclusion of my thoughtful review of my spiritual journey at the 5-year anniversary of my dismissal from the church.  (Scroll down to read Parts 1 through 4.)

______________

In the winter of 2009 the local congregation split over philosophical issues and 150 people left.  It was a nasty split because the arguments turned into personal attacks.  Dissidents were labelled as rebels by the leadership and were put in their place - and quite disrespectfully.  (Okay, I haven't said anything surprising yet, right?')

The remaining 75 were left with our heads spinning, and Kaye and I were wondering if there was any hope that our life-long church home would rise out of the ashes and once again become a viable force in the spiritual world and the local community.

Six months later, in September of that year, an interim pastor hosted a series of meetings in which the faithful were to re-establish the mission of the church.  His first presentation was a summary of a concept called the Life Cycle of a Church, and we were supposed to plot our location on the bell curve of church progression and see if we could establish a Sigmoid Curve that would be a platform for renewal.  From the visual chart we could easily see what had divided our church (although I was quite aware that we were really two churches under one roof and had been for a long time).

Vibrant and growing churches put a high value on People and Relationships and assume that sound doctrine will follow.  People feel they are loved and cared about, their needs are met, and the church grows.
On the other hand, stable and dying churches put a high value on Structure.  When in competition, sound doctrine, programs, and property win priority over relationships and the needs of the people.  Consequently, people feel they are undervalued and they go elsewhere, and the church stagnates or declines.

Over the previous 20 years our church had slowly polarized between these two camps of people that I call the Progressives and the Traditionalists.

  The Progressives placed a high value on people.  They were visionaries and outreach types.  They wanted to reach the neighbors and maintain an active presence in the community.  They were all about the “Go” factor in the Great Commission and were interested in what happens outside the four walls of the church building.  On a hot summer day you might find them passing out popsicles at the county fair.  Their vision was simple:  " We just want to love people."
To their downfall, they didn’t care much about rules and regulations.

  The Traditionalists were all about what happens inside the four walls.  I have often labeled them as the Fortress types.  On the marquee out front, you will see the word "Come" but never "Go."  They protected the facilities by putting up signs on the walls:  “Please do not take food and drink outside the fellowship hall”,  “No one under 18 may sit in the balcony without supervising parent”,  “Your mother does not work here; please wash your own dishes” in the kitchen, and so on.  They had regulations for every detail of how the place could be used, all the time unaware of how threatening they had made their church environment.  Visitors were afraid to do anything for fear of a reprimand.  Their vision was equally simple:  "We just want to protect this place."

Along with that, preserving the denominational doctrinal distinctives was given high value.

It came time to select the next Senior Pastor, and the masses wanted to promote the incumbent Associate Pastor to the position.  He had been there for over 20 years and he was the young visionary, a people person who cared much more about loving people than he did about following rules.  This man was seen as a champion of the Progressive movement and he was very popular.  But his disregard for the status quo had made him the pariah of the Traditionalists.

The governing board of the church was under the control of the Traditionalists who represented at best a fourth of the constituency, mainly their own families.  They would not allow the congregation to vote on this man for their senior pastor though he was popular with most of the people.

“He’s not a good fit for this church”,  they said when announcing their decision to the congregation, and everybody knew what they meant:  “He is not traditional enough for us.” and furthermore, "We don’t like him (partly because we can't control him)."

And the people, by association, felt that the judgment was being made about them as well.  They did not “fit” at this church anymore and the message was clear:  They were not welcome anymore.   Reluctantly, 150 good people left.

Most of those visionaries joined or started house churches and five years later, only a few have returned to an institutional church.   They invited that popular pastor to be a sort of traveling elder for their house church network, and they support him financially.  Now everybody is happy. 

__________________

Well, back to that September membership meeting where we were learning about the life cycle of a church and that the sign of a dying church is that it puts a high value on Structure rather than People.  Kaye and I looked around the room and saw 40 people whose priority for their church was Structure.  They were intent on protecting their doctrine, their programs, their property, and their sanctuary for the saints.  They were all about the fortress and said so.  “We want this place to be the same familiar place for our kids and grandkids that it was for us.”

No mention of people and relationships; it was all about the institution.

Hope died for Kaye and me that day.  We could see the handwriting on the wall... and on the dry erase board.  We drove home in defeat.  Then we set up a meeting with the interim pastor letting him know that we were not going the direction that the church was apparently going.  As visionaries ourselves, Kaye and I had better ways to spend our remaining time on the planet than doing regular maintenance on a religious machine that was obsolete and no longer viable in the culture except as a safe haven for the saints.  We told him that we would probably only return for special occasions, family events, and such.

He suggested we not come at all.  Seriously.

Well, okay then.  He spoke the honest truth that we had guessed was the case: “You are no longer welcome here.”

So opposing philosophical camps fought over our church, and the Traditionalists won.

Thank God.  They are welcome to it.

I am not a Traditionalist.  I’m not a legalist.  I like to think for myself and ask questions, and I don’t like to be handed pat answers or cliches.  I don’t think God and Christianity can be reduced to pat answers and cliches and rigid doctrines that abruptly end every attempt at intelligent conversation.  And I don't believe that the mission of the church can be carried out by fortifying the traditions that are perpetuated within its four walls.

So, I really do not fit there.

Again, Thank God!

At the last board meeting that I attended subsequent to my resignation as an elder, I was pointing out the realities of the direction they had chosen for the church, when one of my counterparts interrupted me, “Bob, when are you going to give it up?  You guys lost!”

To which I replied, “We all lost; there are no winners here.”

But, five years later, I have made a turnabout and hold the exact opposite view and believe that we were all winners:

• The Traditionals who placed a high value on Structure won their church back and were able to control the direction she would go.  To them the struggle was all about protecting their fortress, and now they had their familiar buildings, property, programs, and doctrinal platform back under control.  And really, it was appropriate that they would be the ones to win that 10-acre corner property, because they were the ones who valued that kind of stuff.

• The Progressive exiles were also the winners, because they didn't put a high value on the buildings and property and traditions.  They were now free to pursue their vision of an incarnate Church that is truly the salt of the earth.  Meeting in their house churches, they do not own church buildings (and the responsibilities that come with that), they do not have a budget, they do not hire staff, they do not sign their names on any denominational statement of faith, and they are not subordinate to any designated leader who assumes authority over them.  Wow, they really do enjoy a lot of freedom!

• I was a Winner too, but not in the way I had hoped.  I had wanted to stay there and spend the rest of my life trying to change the institution from within, and that’s what I would have done if I could have.  That thought just scares the crap out of me now.  If I had not been banished, I probably would still be there.  And I would live out my days in never-ending frustration and disillusionment while fighting the traditional powers that be.  Forever and ever, amen.

I am so happy to be outside now.  I am not sure how I am viewed by those who are still inside, but I feel like an escapee.   As I exited, the door slammed shut behind me and smacked me in the virtual rear end.

It stung for awhile.

But not anymore.

After all, this September I am celebrating five years of liberation!

Footnote:  With a more objective viewpoint now - having been outside the institution for five years, I believe that the growing exodus from the church nationwide is to some extent a departure from exclusivism, and I think it is a healthy movement.  There needs to be a blurring of the lines between the 30,000-plus Christian denominations that have an unavoidable tendency to divide the Body of Christ.

Structure be damned, the church needs to get back to loving people...  at the expense of doctrinal distinctives which must take a back seat to compassion and good will.

When you hear people yearning for the good old days in their particular denomination, know that you are listening to someone who is part of an aging institution that will continue to become less and less relevant to the needy world outside their walls.

Read Reviewing the Exile Part 4 here.

Read Reviewing the Exile Part 3 here.

Read Reviewing the Exile Part 2 here.

Read Reviewing the Exile Part 1 here.

Thank you for reading!

Reviewing the Exile Part 4: Church War PTSD

This is Part 4 in my intentional review of my spiritual position on the 5-year anniversary of my expulsion from church.  (Read Parts 1, 2, and 3 by scrolling down at the bottom.)

I'm hurt.  And I may never be normal again.  The personal and relentless verbal attacks that were launched upon me at the time of my expulsion from the church have left me with latent psychological and emotional issues, a sort of church-fight Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  These issues are not manifested all the time, only at random and unexpected moments.  More than one social worker has tagged this phenomenon as Post Traumatic Church Syndrome (PTCS), and professional counsellors recognize it as a very real and not uncommon condition.

  After our violent exile from church, the first time that Kaye and I approached the front doors of a neighboring church that we were obliged to attend (because of a family event), we were both suddenly afflicted with upset stomachs and a sense of dread.  Several of our fellow exiles have reported similar symptoms that are brought on by any encounter with the former church setting. These symptoms do not evidence themselves exclusively in association with thoughts or memories of the people who viciously expelled us, they carry over into every aspect of our subconscious beings that may or may not be related to the former church life in any way.  Here are a few that I've seen:

• Anger toward the people who hurt us - and disgust for everything they represent.
• Anxiety issues related to proximity with all things church.  We may get nervous near religious people and institutions.  Church potlucks can even seem threatening now.
• Fear of recurrence.  Avoidance of former church friends.  We spot them in the store and quickly dart to a different department to avoid them and the unpleasantries that might come with a chance conversation with them.
• Antipathy toward worship music.  Listening to Smile FM is repugnant and results in a quick twist of the tuning knob to any other genre of music - even Country!
• Aversion to the Bible.  Some former pastor friends of ours have barely picked it up since their expulsion.  It is associated with the pain they have experienced.
• Resentment toward the entire church world.  Just driving past any church can bring up feelings of angst.  A former pastor friend's daughter gives a wave every time she passes the church that ousted her dad; it's a wave that features the middle finger.
• Reversals of political position.  If the church is for it, I am now against it.
• Avoidance of confrontation.  We take extreme measures to not place ourselves in situations where any kind of reprimand may take place.  At work, at family reunions, in public locations, even on Facebook, we avoid any setting that might result in condemnation.
• Disgust for dogma.  We have been known to de-friend Facebook friends who post radical political or religious rhetoric.
• Contempt for religious cliches, slogans and pat answers.  That stuff just seems sappy now.  Denominational orthodoxies seem hollow and superfluous.

  And finally...

• Disdain for God.  Many victims of church abuse throw the baby out with the bathwater and walk away from God.  Many of the atheists and agnostics that we know personally, were once church members and were deeply injured in some way by their closest friends, and all in the name of some dogmatic religious point of view.

  

  In the past, I did not understand or empathize with people who left the church after being hurt in some conflict.  I remember saying that they should just get over it, that they should make every effort to reconcile with their adversaries, that the church was more important than the feelings of any of its individual constituents.  But I was wrong.

  I have changed my mind.  And, though I have forgiven and gotten past the anger with the folks who abused me, I have discovered that the underlying psychological feelings are not so easily fixed.  Time and space are great healers and my hurts are not an overbearing force anymore, but I will probably have recurring symptoms for the rest of my life.  And I do not blame any of my fellow exiles who demonstrate similar symptoms.

 They can't help it, any more than a traumatized soldier can easily get over the effects of the trauma that he has experienced on the battlefield.

  Nor will they readily return to that dangerous environment.

  The church will never again be a place of pleasant worship or sanctuary for me and my wife and our friends and thousands like us.  Understand this.  And if you are still in that environment, try not to be the next dogmatic bully that calls forth the next fight that results in another battlefield strewn with church fight casualties.

  Put a higher value on the individual than the man-made institution.  Put your relationships ahead of your religious orthodoxies.  Or you may be the one responsible for the next mass exodus and accompanying spiritual and psychological casualties.

And now the good side...

  Those who know me often hear me say, "There's good and bad in everything," and the same is true here, so now I'm going to come back to what's good about church fights and the resulting emotional upheaval. 

  My expulsion from the institution has caused me to examine what's real about my faith.  I have jettisoned the harmful traditions that I grew up with, and I have rejected the oppressive doctrines that give rise to the dogma which encourages the abusive behavior.  (In the church, behavior is often dictated by belief, so a belief in bad doctrine results in bad behavior.)

  The very essence of an exodus is that it leads to freedom.  Though I had to struggle through hell and high water to get here, I would not trade my liberty for anything.  The emotional wounds are reminders of a former life to which I will never return, and I am really happy about that.

  I may have battle scars, but I am free!  So, as my dad used to say, "It's shoutin' time!"

  

Reviewing the Exile, Part 3: A Viable Bible

Since I have left the institutional church, I am able to read and believe the Bible in a way that is honest and viable.  I was not fully allowed to do that when I was an elder in the local parish; before I could register my points of view I had to anticipate how my views would be accepted by the local pastor or other authorities in the church.

Most of my leaders and peers would insist on a literal interpretation of scripture, though none of them really applied it across the board.  There were many inconsistencies and exceptions to their rule; I could list dozens of them off the top of my head, but I'm not going to get started here, although I have cited some of them in earlier posts.

Basically, I concluded a long time ago, that absolute literalists were hypocrites to the extent that they did not apply a literal interpretation to all scripture and lifestyle.

So, I have not held an across-the-board literal interpretation of the Bible for much of my life. Years ago, my dad, a life-long minister in the same denomination, gave me permission to approach the scriptures through a more liberal filter, starting with Genesis chapter one and a creation account that allows for an old universe.

The problem with the liberal approach, of course, is that when you question the application of one passage of scripture, you open all of it to new scrutiny.  Hence, the slippery slope of which conservatives are so fearful.

Over the years I have proved to myself that I do not need to view every verse through the same lens.  In fact, I can be more honest about all of it if I recognize the varying and unique purposes of contrasting passages.  Some of it I see literally, some of it I see symbolically.  Really, the literalists do the same thing - they just don't admit it.

I suppose the danger is real, but that's why God has given us the Holy Spirit "who will lead us into all truth."  God's Old Testament people who wondered how to live right would go to the Law for answers.  God's New Testament people who wonder how to live right go to the Holy Spirit.  This method has worked for me for a lifetime.  Honestly.

Last week I happened upon this beautiful and insightful post from Brian McLaren on Patheos.com that I found very helpful in pinpointing my own position from which I read the Bible.  I copied and pasted his text along with the accompanying chart for the benefit of my readers.  I am a visual thinker, so this was like discovering gold for me.

Here's Brian:

"Earlier this year, I blogged my hunch that this would be the year of the Bible.  I felt we were reaching a tipping point after which the cat would be out of the bag, by which I meant that important conversations about the Bible would escape from the seminary classroom to the local congregation.  With important releases by Adam Hamilton, Peter Enns, Steve Chalke, and many others (including, I hope, my newest book), that hunch seems to be coming true.

Many people, of course, think there are only two ways to read the Bible: their way and the wrong way.  But there are actually multiple options, as this matrix shows.







Within these four general categories there are countless locations or points of view, and many of us move back and forth from one quadrant to another, depending on our mood or context.

There's one other feature to the diagram that's relevant to ways the Bible is being re-thought.  While some people read the Bible as an academic or intellectual exercise only, many of us - as indicated by the shaded circular space that overlaps all four quadrants - read it with some sense of personal need, maybe even desperation.  In this circle, we are seeking guidance and wisdom for how to live our lives because we are aware that as individuals, families, communities, nations, and civilizations, we are always on the verge of tipping over into self-destruction.

In other words, those of us in the gray circle aren't primarily seeking information from the Bible.  Rather, we're seeking meaning, hope, guidance, perhaps even salvation from something that threatens to destroy us.  And -- dare we say it? -- we may even be seeking revelation, some encounter that gets our minds into realities too big to be contained within our minds.  We feel ourselves to be in trouble, in a predicament, on a quest, and we're ever vigilant for news that might help us cope with the mysteries and challenges in which we find ourselves.  So the shaded circle represents a personal or predicamental approach, as opposed to merely an academic, doctrinal, analytic, political, or informational approach.  It can bring people from all four quadrants together.

As a boy, I was introduced to the Bible from the lower left quadrant.  When I got older, I moved to the lower right quadrant and gained new insights.  I was never attracted to the upper left quadrant, but I read many  authors who wrote from that quadrant.  From them I gained the freedom to apply critical thinking to this text that I had come to love.  Finally, I found myself at home in the upper right quadrant, where I can enter the Bible as a library, a literary collection containing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and other genres, and where I have complete freedom to ask questions about the Bible's sources, development, internal tensions, biases, accuracy, cultural context, and genre.  In my movement from quadrant to quadrant, I have remained in that shaded circle of reading personally, because I still feel myself deep in the mysteries, dangers, and wonders of the human predicament."
(End McLaren's text)

My Position on the Matrix

Now I am going to tell you that, for the most part, I think my own location on this chart is the lower right: Innocent/Literary.  Though I have thought about it many times and am not afraid to ask questions, I don't really care about the reliability of the source or cultural context of the scriptures, because I have a personal relationship with the Lord through the Holy Spirit that bears witness to the validity (I didn't say "inerrancy") of the Bible.  The proof is in the pudding, if you will (I'm inside the gray inner circle of experience on the chart).  I have personally experienced miracles and countless answers to prayer.  As with almost all people, my experience influences my beliefs.  Hence, my position on the chart is Innocent.

Further, I have never really interpreted all of the scripture in a literal manner, so my position is also Literary because I allow that much of scripture may be poetic or allegorical and not meant to be taken at face value.

The big picture is important to me.  I believe in the Redemption Story of the Bible.  I have experienced it in my life a thousand times over.  This is reality for me, so I am not troubled by the many inconsistencies of the scriptures; I filter them through the cross and the redemption of Christ -- and my own experience.

Since leaving the church I no longer feel the pressure to conform to the platform of my literalist friends.  I never did conform, really, being the independent thinker that I am, but there was always a pressure for unanimity (called "unity") in the church that came from the pulpit and from my fellow constituents, and that is not present where I am now in the post-church wilderness (although it sometimes rears its ugly head in Facebook posts).

So, where do you find yourself on the chart?  Do you actually "move back and forth from one quadrant to another, depending on... mood or context" as McLaren says?  Have you  migrated from one place on the matrix to another during your lifetime?

This is good stuff, man!

Here's the link to McLaren's original post.