This is heartbreaking (and heartbreakingly unsurprising) to hear, Christy. Many of us either have or feel like we might be on the cusp of experiencing similar treatment.
If you in particular are facing any withdrawal of financial supports that you had been depending on as a result, is it too awkward or inappropriate to ask here where support could be sent that would be support specifically for you and your work without any chance of such directed support being misdirected by any misguidedly partisan church boards overseeing you? I could ask in pm, but I’m betting that there would be more than a few lurkers around here that might potentially jump at the chance to send at least tokens of support your way.
No doubt social media has negatively affected social relationships, but I think it’s more about magnifying pre-existing conditions than creating new ones. Either way, I’m sure the leadership of that church would look sideways at any statement that says reasonable people are not (necessarily) going to believe the Bible… and Calvin would agree with it (this view about how belief in the Bible is not based entirely on reason)… despite his inconsistency with theonomy.
David French had an article about the fundamentalist pirates, which is a great word picture for one extreme, and on the other end of the spectrum are the self-righteous theological liberals.
This is hard to talk about, but pastors shouldn’t be terrified of Jesus or terrified to talk about it (sin, hell and all the rest of the hard teachings). These are the agonizing things that people fight with. Dealing with them is part of the soul-care of real people.
I know you’ve been dealing with this and more for a long time, and you’re not alone. Yet you seem to have some sort of hope left. And I understand that trite Sunday-school answers won’t work for you. I’m not sure what answers, if any you’re looking for. You’ve mentioned elsewhere no longer asking questions, but you seem to be holding a few pieces that don’t quite fit into the puzzle. I hope one or more of the pastors you’re working with these days is able to work well with your hard questions and love you while being challenged.
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Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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One superb priest at Launde Abbey fully agreed! But no parish clergy.
PS Not in Anglicanism. Steve Chalke and two other Baptists I’ve met are perfect, but at least a hundred and twenty to twelve thousand miles away.
PPS There are no answers. Seriously. Apart from after I flatline. There is no puzzle. I have no pieces that don’t fit for me. I must serve where I can regardless, under the banner of my patron saint, Puddleglum. And die bravely for my wife and kids if I’m still compos.
PPPS I’m in a theology group, but … : ) Still don’t feel that I can have the conversation. I mean good, clever, liberal guys. But. Very cerebral, in to John Behr, who is very good. But.
Merv, that is so kind. We were fully funded, but minus our church, we will be at 88% of what we are supposed to have raised. Here is the Wycliffe donation link “with preference for” our ministry account. (The IRS has all sorts of rules now about how things are worded for non-profit funding) https://www.wycliffe.org/partner/F2C14E
We have a Facebook group where we post about what we do: Redirecting... (You have to friend me or my husband to be let in, it’s private for the security of people we work with. We live in a cartel controlled zone.)
I hope this isn’t inappropriate too, please PM me if you want more or different info.
The whole metaphor of “we may have just handed a loaded weapon to a four-year old” in reference to the “re-tweet” style innovations of social media, is a powerful and probably accurate image. But - as I’m here self-righteously declaring that, and thinking of all humanity as in the throes of such stupidity, I dare not forget one thing: I am that stupid four-year-old. I am not some removed, benevolent overseer objectively looking down on all my “more stupid” brethren. The people promoting and spreading these insights (like I am here right now) must take this self-reflection on board too, or we end up walking around with planks instead of spectacles for our vision.
Sounds like this church suffers from a good case of Pharasee-ism. Politics have no place in the pulpit. And judging others based on their views on non-doctrinal issues is certainly troubling. The question is whether you should stand and rebuke the error or just walk away?
My church had a sermon series called creation or evolution. It was very troubling for me. I met one on one with our head pastor ahead of the series. I copied a statement from Got Questions that said that it was not heresy to believe that the earth was
Not created in 6 days. The good news is that it did have an impact. There was an open discussion in spite of the fact that the guest speaker actually suggested that there were dinosaurs on the ark. It turns out that I was not alone and the series created a rift in the church which could have been disastrous, but somehow the Holy Spirit stepped in and our church accepted alternate opinions.
My advice is not to give in but resist with the truth.
God will guide you.
That’s great that your church was open to dialogue and making space for Christians with different interpretations to recognize what is central and what is peripheral. At my church just raising concerns was seen as some kind of act of insubordination that needed to be dealt with punitively. It is certainly dysfunctional.
That is great to read! I talked with my pastor about it. He felt that it cast the “simple” message of the Bible in doubt. However, he didn’t say I wasn’t a Christian. He did ask why I thought it was important. I realized that many people never run into the question. I don’t want to make it hard for them–only easy for those who need to grapple with it.
Very sad this is happening to you. It provides no comfort if you recognize you have become another victim of fundamentalism. Your post provides the kind of details common to fundamentalism…Commonly, fundamentalism is described by doctrines, but fundamentalism is also about what is believed about a set of beliefs. When certain things are believed about a set of beliefs it becomes a fundamentalism in the same sense as fascism, Nazism, and communism are forms of fundamentalism. All fundamentalist holds to these tenets.
Truth is singular.
Truth is knowable.
Truth is ultimate.
And usually includes that Truth can be described in a declarative statement. Because it is Truth that is ultimate, it is permissible to do whatever it takes to secure and support that Truth. This is what you and Aaron have experienced from fundamentalist who have know you since childhood. Their Truth is more important than you are. We should feel sad for them and pray for them. Their behavior is the result of fundamentalistic preaching of their Truth rather than the proclamation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus…
God - I’m so glad we just left our old church instead of having a big conversation with everyone about it. I don’t believe anyone there would have said the horrible things you are describing but I’m just glad I didn’t have to get into it. We had been slipping away from the church for awhile anyway (because of COVID) and I think that made it easier to just stop going without any questions.
Once we realized that they were not going to do anything about racial reconciliation we decided to stop trying to change the white church and just serve at a black church instead. The relief every week of not having to square my politics and my thoughts on the bible with everyone going there is amazing. We don’t agree on everything there, but it’s just nice to know that I don’t have to argue with anyone about race anymore. It’s the issue that tugs on my heart more than anything else so I can deal with the other stuff I don’t agree with.
I’m glad you found a place where you can feel like you are contributing to the things that matter. I agree you don’t have to be on the same page about everything to be unified around a mission you can support, but everyone has some stuff that is a dealbreaker. We tried to express that this isn’t just us, that churches all over the country are not listening well and people like us are just running out of grace and benefit of the doubt and finally walking, but I don’t think that message was heard. It was us “demanding our own way.” I just want to get to the other side of this massive shakeup and hopefully something new and better will come out of everyone’s collective disillusionment and departure.
There has to be some kind of breaking point. Every time I bring up the point that people are leaving because churches are refusing to address modern issues I hear instead that it’s because the church isn’t preaching strongly enough about “truth” - that we are too wishy-washy and that people are craving “hard truths.”
It’s so sad to see people who I once looked up to as great leaders with their heads so far in the sand…
Yes, the narrative of our church is that we have let go of the truth of the Bible and are distracted by peripheral “political” issues. Unfortunately I think they imagine “the truth of the Bible” not to be the message of the Kingdom but things like inerrancy, presuppositional apologetics, and modernist constructs of knowledge, absolute truth, and certainty. So any questioning of their “the Bible clearly teaches…” assertions is questioning the Bible itself, not their epistemology, exegesis, or hermeneutics. It’s all a bunch of catch-22s.
It does seem that what you do here can possibly make a difference at least for those who find their way here. I hope people will share if they find their way into reformed church communities.
I am so sorry to read this, Christy.
We have not had quite the same thing, but my mom’s church (from childhood) dropped us when I was a teen, because the pastor said they could not support anyone that wasn’t solely a church planter (my dad was a surgeon in an area that had no surgeons for hundreds of miles). We were saddened, but I think that it illustrates that it’s easy to make Christianity into what C S Lewis called “Christianity-and-water,” a hitching of the gospel onto another, popular wagon. I guess I’m just as guilty of all this tendency sometimes. I give tremendous kudos to my parents, who always illustrated a Christlike attitude to people like that–never emphasized hurt, always showing kindness and humility to people who had a beef with them for some reason (both on the field and in the US). Prayers for you and your kids as you move on, and try to maintain love with the folks who will; and for your kids not to feel hurt from that. I remember the difficulty of trying to keep up the support and funding, too. My ideal always was that I’d have loved to support our family without depending on anyone!
The “sending church” kink is an interesting one, too. That makes it all the more difficult. When we were thinking of going over seas on a permanent basis, I honestly felt rather “owned” by our church, when they told us they wanted to not only be our sending church with 15% of the budget, but direct and require a rather large amount of control on what we did. There can be conflicting emotions there.
I can certainly see how that is a real problem, even in my present church. Seems sort of cynical, but even in churches the Golden Rule is followed: " He who has the gold makes the rules."