Free Range Believer - What it Means To Me

Jim Palmer took the words right out of my mouth with his recent Facebook post describing Five Things Not to Feel Guilty About on Your Spiritual Journey.  These five things accurately describe my journey since my exodus from inside to outside the walls that began abruptly six years ago.  In the header of this blog I tag myself as a Free Range Believer.  I think this describes what I mean by Free Range.  I believe in Jesus, but I am not an advocate or participant in any organized religious entity.  I am a man without a religious country and enjoy freedom I never would have imagined before.

Palmer says:

"As people shed religion and walk in freedom, they can feel guilt about the changes they are going through. Thinking about this I identified 5 things not to feel guilty about on your spiritual journey."

"1. You may discontinue your active involvement in a church or religious organization. This doesn’t necessarily have to be some sort of judgment or condemnation against the church or organization you were part of, but a choice you make because your involvement no longer relates to or supports where you are on the journey, or may be an obstacle and hindrance to it."

"2. You may grow weary of incessant God talk. It’s possible there will be times when you grow sick of the constant theological discussion and debate, and the never-ending wheel of new and improved concepts, beliefs, understandings, teachings, etc. At some point it all might sound like, “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…” You might fall dead to the need to be constantly figuring out things with your mind or in your head. One day you might wake up and say, “Okay, I’m done!” Don’t feel bad about this. It actually may be a very important milestone in your spiritual journey. In my view, theology is not even the best way by which God and spiritual truth is known. It may be that subject of “God” as a whole feels a bit overdone and boring, but this is only because you were taught to equate God with all that blah blah blah stuff."

"3. You may find that the very people your religion judged and condemned are the people you find the most interesting and enjoyable. Once you come out from under the judgmental labels, views and stereotypes you learned through religion, you start realizing how much you truly like and enjoy the people you were taught to hate. This is a good and liberating aspect of shedding religion. For too long you were shut yourself off from a lot of beautiful and extraordinary people in this world to enjoy and learn from."

"4. You may find and express a rebellious or defiant part of you that has been dormant. Don’t feel bad about this. Too often religion turns people into nice, complaint, repressed, timid, inhibited, mannerly, obedient, fearful, amiable, submissive people. By the way, I would not use any of these words to describe Jesus. Here’s the deal, you can be a loving, compassionate, respectful and kind person AND be a rebellious, defiant, passionate, disobedient, subversive, nonconformist, mischievous, self-willed, fully expressed, freethinker, heretic, and free spirit human being."

"5. You may find less fulfillment in religious things, and more satisfaction in human things. It’s okay and good to be human, and to enjoy each moment of your human journey. Religion caused many people to create a false division between “sacred” things and “secular” things. There is no such line. All of life is sacred, spiritual, and divine. There’s no need to defend, theologize, or spiritualize your human experience. Just live it! That is enough. Life is made complete by you living each moment. There’s no need to maintain a running commentary about how God is part of it. God IS part of it. Life and God are inseparable. End of story. It’s okay to enjoy life, experience delight and pleasure, do the things you enjoy doing, and that breathe life into you, whatever those things may be."

- End Jim Palmer quote

Find Jim Palmer's blog here.http://jimpalmerblog.com

We Are the Anti-Christ

Was Jesus wasting his time by coming to planet Earth?  Is the condition of the human race any better now than it was in his day?  Was God's plan to redeem mankind an exercise in futility?  Did he really change anything?

Nothing Has Changed

The nature of mankind has always been one of selfishness.

First, we compare, then we compete, then we hate, then we are in conflict, then we are at war.

Always and forever.  It was that way from the beginning when jealous Cain killed his brother Abel, and it is that way now.

Jesus was called the friend of sinners and was critical of self-righteous religious leaders whose prevailing theme was legalistic judgment and condemnation.

He spent his life and ministry teaching a better way:

• "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:39)

• "Treat others the way would like to be treated." -  The Golden Rule. (Luke 6:31)

• "Do not judge, or you will be judged." (Matthew 7:1)

• "I don't condemn you," he said to a woman caught in an act of sexual immorality. (The sentence according to the old Mosaic Law was death by stoning, the same as with homosexual offenses.)  He chose mercy. (John 8)

• "Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone." (John 8:7)

• "Be merciful just like your Father is merciful" (Luke 6:36)

• "Forgive others... If you do not forgive others, your heavenly Father will not forgive you." (Matthew 6:15)

• "He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked." (Luke 6:35)

Today's religious followers of Christ are not kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

2000 years later, most everything is still backwards from Jesus' teachings.  His followers still condemn their "wicked" neighbors rather than loving them.

His houses of worship still put burdens of legalistic rules upon their constituents.  They encourage bigotry and prejudice against those who are less holy than themselves.  Verbal stonings issue from their pulpits every Sunday.

It seems that what goes around comes around.  After all this time, the Pharisees still exist and are making new prejudicial laws against "sinners" in the state of Indiana.

You would think that political leaders in one of the most "Christian" locations in the world, would have a better understanding of the way of Christ.

The way of Jesus is all about humble service.  It is about redemption.  It is about love (respect).  It is about considering others better than ourselves.  It is about not judging.

It is not about refusing to serve those who don't conform to our standards of morality.

Business owners who refuse service to gays have joined the ranks of the Pharisees and hypocrites.  They are as anti-Christ as their ancient predecessors who crucified him.

Have not all believers been the recipients of undeserved mercy and grace?  Yet they will not extend it to others.  They extend judgment instead, exactly as Jesus said not to.

Just as in Jesus' day, the religious world is run by condescending hypocrites.

But Jesus still says, "Do not judge, or you will be judged."

The Coming Persecution

A dozen or so years ago a friend of mine predicted that when Christians finally lose their freedoms in America, they will have done it to themselves by their unholy treatment of gays.

I can now begin to see the wisdom of that claim.  The backlash that has resulted from the adoption of the Religious Freedom Restoration law in Indiana (and 19 other states) may be a foreshadowing of things to come.

Christianity in America is viewed as hateful, judgmental, bigoted, anti-gay, and too political.  

At some point the masses will likely become fed up with the hypocrisy and lack of goodwill from Christians and will start to limit the legal rights of the religious.

Christians will have become the architects of their own demise.

All along, they will think they are representing Christ.

They are not.

It may be time for another purging of the religious temple.

There Is Still a Better Way

If Christian leaders in America will humble themselves and return to the way of Christ, this downward slide can be reversed:

• Christians should re-read the gospels taking special note of the red letters, the words of Christ.  Let love be our prevailing guide.  (The rest of the Bible should be filtered through the cross and the redemption of Christ.  This is essential if you want to maintain a redemptive view of the Bible).

• Christians should consider quitting political activism unless they can do it in a Christ-like, respectful manner that champions the rights of all Americans, not just the righteous.

• Christians should consider tuning out political talk-shows that promote prejudice and hatred.  They do not represent the way of Jesus, they represent a biased political platform.

• Christians should give up the idea that America should be a Christian nation.  Jesus never had that in mind.  He already has a kingdom, for he dwells in the hearts of  men (Ephesians 3:17)  He does not need or want an earthly political state to rule over.  Again, God does not want America to be a Christian nation.  Throughout history, in every country that has ever declared Christianity the state religion, there has followed a collusion and then corruption of the faith.  It's the same here.  Government and religion should never be in bed together.  Their love child will be a deformed monster.  (I can see its ugly head emerging already in America.)

• There is no political party that exists in America at the current time that honestly and truly represents the way of Christ.  Christians should not imagine that there is.

If you want to represent Christ, you may have to do it entirely on your own and without the help of a political action committee.

You may even have to remove yourself from the sounds of the voices of those who claim to be doing something for Christ.  His way, from the start, is the way of the minority, the un-powerful, the non-political, the non-influential, and the underdog. 

His way is more of an undercurrent rather than the mainstream.

It is more of an invisible life-giving stream, an underground movement flowing along on the bedrock of love.

If every American Christian would simply love (respect) his neighbor - whether saint or sinner - as Jesus suggested, we would calm the unrest in this country in a short time. 

_____________

So, back to the beginning:  Did God waste his time trying to redeem a fallen human race?

The answer comes down to you and me.

What god are we representing in the world?  The god of an imagined Christian nation?  Or the God of love for all human beings, whether or not they have faith or creed or morality?

They are not the same.

Choose wisely.

And Above All... Be Nice!

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal. 5:1) so there is no list of rules for believers to live by, but if there were it would be a short one with only one directive, and it is this:  Love your neighbor.  Paul said that the entire Law was summed up in this single command.(Gal. 5:14)  Or as I would paraphrase it...

Be nice. (St. Robert 1:1)

It's a really simple concept that we try to teach our kids before they head off to kindergarten.  Treat others the way you would like to be treated (Matt 6:33).

Yet, many of us, as we get older and more mature in the faith, become less nice.

That's partly because there are doctrinal and religious operatives that come into play that have a mitigating effect on our kindness.

Kindness Killers:

1. "Accountability"  It's a buzzword in the religious world right now, and it turns nice people into confrontive "truth speakers" who are taught that their destructive openness with their mentorees and wayward friends is legitimate and necessary as part of the discipleship process.

The unfortunate truth about accountability is that confrontation rarely ends well, at least for the confronted.  The confronter may move on after a confrontation feeling righteous and satisfied in his ability to speak the truth in love.  The confronted withdraws with a sense of injury and defeat.  The hurt may linger for a long time and effect their sense of self-worth and spiritual well-being going forward - maybe for a lifetime.

The discipleship concept of Accountability is a destructive idea that needs to die a quick death.  Let's not offer our advice unless it is strongly requested, and then, only in the gentlest manner.  "A bruised reed will he not break." (Isaiah 42:3)  

Be Nice.

2. Submission to Authority in the Church  This doctrine is a widespread and deep-seated practice that has caused untold destruction to millions of believers across the world.  Good and godly leaders turn into inadvertent tyrants and evil manipulators as they legitimize their actions through contrived scriptural methods.  I have said a lot about the evil of this orthodoxy in other posts, so I'll let it go at that for now (See "Harmful Hierarchy" or "Submission to Authority" in the left sidebar for more on this).

Be Nice.

3. "Hating the Sin" (but loving the sinner, of course).  This idea is used to rationalize mean behavior as a form of "loving the sinner".  The rationalization goes something like this: "I know that my job is to love people, but how is it loving if I don't tell my gay friend that he is destined for an endless eternity in hell?"

The problem here is that truth-tellers are doing the work of the Holy Spirit when they point out sin in their friends.  The one job of the believer is love.  Not conviction and not judgement.  Not even truth.  Just love.  It is the Lord's job to bring conviction if he wants to.  We should leave that work up to him.  "Hate sin" in your prayer closet and nowhere else.

Be Nice.

4. Church Discipline.  This is another endemic belief that causes a lot of destruction among believers.  Thankfully, it is not implemented very often, but when it is, it is often applied for unnecessary and illegitimate reasons.

 I know of a man who was excommunicated from his church because he was financially irresponsible, an unfortunate byproduct of his bipolar disorder; when he was manic he would spend money irrationally.

 Excommunicated.  Seriously.

 Another dear missionary friend of ours in the Mennonite Church told us that he was called home from Thailand to answer to the church council why he wasn't teaching a dogmatic compliance with the ordinances on head coverings for women, and the wearing of jewelry.  Really, the church spent thousands of dollars to fly him home for this.  Unbelievable.

Church discipline is a denominational weapon too often used to strategically remove non-conformists ("purging sin") from the local theological domain.

Be Nice.

5. Politics.  There has been a marked increase in political activism in the church and by believers since Jerry Falwell founded the "Moral Majority" in 1979 following a speaking tour of America during which he reversed the long-standing Baptist practice of the separation of church and state.  Consequently, the increased political rancor that has infected Congress has likewise infected the church as a sense of nationalism grows. 

Sensationalist talk show hosts have shouted angry partisan rhetoric and conspiracy theories in our ears starting virtual fires everywhere. 

Otherwise loving and thoughtful believers have taken to posting inflammatory messages on Facebook and love and respect have become a thing of the past.

The church podium has become a militaristic bully-pulpit in the worst way.

Where's the love?

Let's bring back a humble respect for another's point of view.  Let's quiet our own political and religious rallying cries and re-instate an atmosphere of goodwill.

And let's remove political campaigning from the church; people will vote their values without any reminder from the pulpit.

Be Nice.

6. Submisson of Women   Though liberal churches accomplished this a long time ago, there are many places in the religious world that have not yet eradicated the oppressive teaching that makes the church an unsafe environment for women.  Perhaps appropriate in an ancient Middle Eastern culture when the New Testament was written, this idea is out of place in our modern Western world.  It is a monster that can give license to misogynistic men who dominate their wives - and their constituents - with a so-called scriptural mandate. (Any big-name bullies from Seattle come to mind?)  I've mentioned this in other posts so won't say more here (Look for "Submission of Women").

Be Nice.

7. Preaching  Public discourse - homiletics - became an art form that was developed by the ancient Greeks.  The spreading of religion (and politics) has forever been riding on the back of this valiant steed.  It is an attractive mount to people who love to hear the sounds of their own voices, including all kinds, most of them honest and motivated by a desire to change the world.

The problem is that there is no good method of screening out the others:

 - those who are insecure and cannot be questioned due to their position of leadership

 - those who have a proverbial axe to grind

 - those with psychological or emotional issues (that manifest in their sermons)

 - those with abusive tendencies (they love to preach submission)

 - those who are uneducated or gullible and who believe outlandish conspiracy theories.
 - those with a mean streak (they love to preach hellfire and condemnation)
 - those with controlling tendencies (they have a directive for every detail of their constituents' lives.)

 - and so on.

 Any of the above are hard to challenge; If you question them, you are "rebelling against God".

 Just about anybody can start a church or ministry in the USA.  And that makes preaching a dangerous proposition for the listener.

Be Nice 

8.  The Business of the Church   Man-made denominations and independent churches are businesses.  They are built with organizational structures and business models that determine their day-to-day operations.  And so they must manage their staffs.  Unlike the New Testament church, they hire and fire workers.  And this is where countless thousands of Christian employees are destroyed every year.  The careers of mega-ministers are built on the backs of their paid staff and their volunteers.  It shouldn't be, but the business of the church is a dog-eat-dog world.  A grievous amount of unkindness is perpetrated every day - whether intentionally or inadvertently - through this ungodly system.

Beliefs determine behavior

I think it comes down to this, folks:  If your beliefs or orthodoxies (methods), whether political or religious, are causing you to be unkind, then there is something wrong with your beliefs and practices and it may be time to re-examine them.  This may be hard to do when you are still sitting under the teaching of a convincing preacher in a conservative environment.  

(Yes, there is an underlying message here:  Unfortunately, the conservative religious environment is one of the most likely places to erase your kindness, explaining it away through "timeless scriptural principles".)

It is possible, although a challenge, to think for yourself and study the Bible on your own and draw your own conclusions even when you are surrounded by voices that claim to be speaking for God.  I did it.  Millions have done it.  You can do it.  (But it's easier if you first remove yourself from that environment.)

Here's the thing:  There are thousands upon thousands of Christian denominations in the world.  They all have their own doctrines that differ from the church down the street.  They all believe that theirs is the correct interpretation of scripture.

But they can't all be right.  In fact, they are all wrong at some points.

Knowing this, give yourself the freedom to question your local religious "authorities".  If there are teachings that somehow propagate an atmosphere of unkindness, consider removing yourself from them - or at least removing them from yourself.

Kindness is the thing.

Be Nice.

Disclaimer:  Jesus was nice to sinners and the ungodly.  But he wasn't nice to self-righteous religious bullies.  And you don't have to be either.  What tone of voice do you suppose He used when he called the Pharisees "sons of their father, the devil"?  I don't think he was sweet about it.

So, be like Christ:  Stand up to bullies.  But to everyone else...

Be Nice.

The Spin on Israel - An alternate and more accurate Biblical view

This is a copy of a recent Facebook post from a pastor friend of mine.  He is a "liberal" Bible scholar in my (former) conservative denomination, The Missionary Church.  Sometimes I wonder how long he will last there since he doesn't conform to the mainstream of end times (and other) doctrines in his church.  He very often speaks for me as my orthodoxy has become more "generous" over the last 20 years.

Rev. Bill Barnwell says:

"Israel, the Church, and so-called "Replacement Theology"

First of all, what exactly is "replacement theology" anyway? The New Testament does not teach that the church "replaced" the Israelites. What it does teach, over and over again, is that the New Covenant is the fulfillment of the Old. Jesus taught that he was the fulfillment of the Law. He declared Himself the new "Temple." Christ clearly fulfills the sacrificial system and temple worship. Jesus predicted the fall of the Temple and the end of the Mosaic system (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). Hebrews says there is no need for a tabernacle (which was the forerunner of the Temple) and that Christ Himself is our high priest. Paul repeatedly says a true child of Abraham is a person of faith in Christ, whether Jew or Gentile, and that just because one has ethnically Jewish blood running through their veins does not make them a child of Abraham. Jesus took direct aim at Pharisees who thought their ancestry made them Abraham's children. 

Paul spends all of Romans chapters 9-11 describing the election of the Gentiles and that they have been grafted into the covenant of God, warning them not to get arrogant in their newfound acceptance into grace because they could be "cut off" just as the "natural branches", were cut off due to unbelief. And yet, Paul says a remnant of Jews continued to believe and that one day that fullness of believers would result in "all Israel being saved." In other words, who is the "people of God?" It's Jew and Gentile united in Christ. "In Christ" being the key operative words there.

So if that's "replacement theology" then the Bible itself is in error.

As far as the promise to Abraham, it was to Abraham and his descendants, and the same promise was fulfilled most directly not in the re-establishment of secular, national Israel in 1948, but in the New Covenant of Christ in 33AD and throughout history. 

This notion that if anyone criticizes the modern nation state of Israel is in danger of being "cursed" by God is utterly absurd on both Biblical and political grounds. In support of this notion, believers hold to a view being suggested by the image accompanying this post. That God's promise to Abraham (in the singular) in Genesis 12:3 means that today, if any believer disagrees with any of the goals and aims of the far-right of the modern and secular Israeli government of 2015, that God will curse them. Here we see how theological beliefs can have major real-world implications for how believers see the world, and how they form their political beliefs.

And as far as the entire theological system of dispensationalism where all this modern prophetic speculation comes from, not a single person ever taught it in church history until the 19th century, around 1830 when John Nelson Darby began systematizing a theology so many American Evangelicals accept without questioning.*

Other than pointing to a single questionable source from hundreds of years ago (that may not even be authentic, see Pseudo-Ephraem), dispensationalists cannot find any credible sources that document their theology at any point in church history prior to the 19th century. That it would take so many centuries for believers to discover this "clear Biblical truth" should make one pause on its own.

That people would denounce historically sound theology as some sort of dangerous heresy and pump up their own relatively modern and consistently discredited system as "Biblical" is very sad irony. 

Thus if anyone is being "liberal" and playing fast and loose with the text, it's the dispensationalists. 

But people wrapped up in this have way too much invested into it to ever question their theological presuppositions. And naturally, such individuals wed their erroneous theology it to their political philosophy and it then begins defining their foreign policy. So now, it's not only a sin to criticize a secular nation state, but America has a responsibility to never go against, even in the slightest of ways, what far-right wing Israeli hardliners demand. 

There's perfectly good reasons to support Israel from an American perspective in that they are our allies and we naturally see our interests closer align to theirs. But arguing that they can never be questioned or challenged without risking God's wrath is pure nonsense. And ignoring the plight of Christian Palestinians in particular, who have no allies in the region, neither from Israel or their Islamic neighbors, is a sin of American Evangelicalism. Many (but not all) of them are far more obsessed with Israel because they think it has something to do with the end-times and receiving God's blessing than they are Christians in the region. 

Critics of "replacement theology", who ironically refer to it as a "heresy" frequently believe in what is essentially a form of "dual-covenant theology", and believe that both the Old and New Covenants are both still actively in force. If anything is heretical, it's this, though I consider such individuals well-meaning, yet misguided and not "lost." 

The Scriptures are objective, not subjective. Just because a doctrine sells a lot of books or gels with someone's political philosophy doesn't make it true. Dispensationalism simply is not supported by the Biblical text and those proudly patting themselves on the back for adhering to it would do well to put their faith before their politics and make sure their theology does in fact line up with Scripture.

Proponents of dispensationalism claim to take the Bible more "literally" than non-dispensationalists. But while all Scripture is making "literal" points, it sometimes uses figurative language to accomplish this. For example, dispensationalists like to point out that God made promises to the ancient Israelites (including land boundaries in the Middle East) that would last "forever." Since someone like me doesn't "literally" believe this, I don't take the Bible as seriously as them, they would argue.

But numerous times in the Old Testament the word "forever" is used in a non-literal sense. See for example Jonah 2:6, I Chronicles 28:4, 2 Kings 5:27, as just a few examples. Context needs to control for the overall verse and in the broader context of the entire Bible. Again, regarding God's promises to Abraham and Israel collectively, God's fulfilled His promises and they have eternal and everlasting application. 

And the promises He made in the OT are given far grander effect now. There's no reason to cheer on some "Third Temple" when Christ Himself is our Temple. We don't need "revived animal sacrifices" in this hypothetical third temple since that insults the once and for all sacrifice of Christ. There's not a single verse in the New Testament about "rebuilding the Temple." The verses about it in the Old Testament are about the rebuilding of the Second Temple, the same one renovated by Herod that Jesus correctly prophecized would be destroyed. Any other references to tabernacle/Temple worship is in the sense of it being sized up for destruction or its obseleteness. When the New Testament talks about "the abomination of desolation" taking hold in the Temple, that was in context of the Roman siege on Jerusalem in 70AD, not some indefinite time into the future when a "new Temple" exists in the 21st century. 

Not only that, far more than a piece of Real Estate in the war-torn Middle East, God promises in the New Testament a New Heaven and New Earth. There is no need to make pilgrimages to a Temple when the Holy Spirit has been poured out upon all believers and can be accessed anywhere, at all times, anywhere in the world. And there's no need for a "High Priest" to make sacrifices on our behalf since Jesus is our High Priest. And there's no need for animal sacrifices since Jesus not only our High Priest, but also the "once and for all" sacrifice. 

I could go on and on, but the point is that, yes, God DID fulfill his promises to Abraham and Israel, and He did so in a much grander way than they were ever expecting. 

There is nothing at all radical or new about what I'm saying. What I'm saying above is completely in line with historical theology and I think far better tied to the Biblical text. Dispensationalism is actually the new kid on the block. Even though it's what a lot of people have always heard during their lifetimes, it simply wasn't found or believed anywhere prior to the 19th century. And even today, only a minority of Protestants hold to the view. Numbers and might don't make right, but I'm just trying to point out that there's nothing subversive about my eschatology or "unbiblical" about it. 

I grant that good people can differ on these things. I think when it comes to future happenings nearly all of us probably have some things wrong. Which is why it's good for believers to have a degree of humility about such stuff, rather than trying to excommunicate other believers out of the Christian movement. After all, nearly all people had gotten details of the First Coming wrong. Perhaps it should cause those looking towards the Second Coming and related events to be a bit less dogmatic and a bit more charitable towards believers whose theology doesn't exactly mirror theirs. 

(This is adapted from some comments I've made on another thread that I figured I'd put out for everyone else who is interested in the topic)"

--(End Barnwell's comments.  Emphases and footnotes are mine.)

*The doctrine of the Rapture sprang forth at this time as well and is attributed to John Darby.  There is no mention of rapture theology anywhere in church history before 1830.

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!