All my life I was told to respect the church and believe and I did. When the clergy abuse scandals started coming to light I was horrified. I couldn’t believe institutions that professed to be about the truth and love covered it up, hid it and denied it. Then the media was blamed. I then did what I was always taught to do, I went and talked to someone in the church about it. In the end I didn’t get any kind of answers that satisfied me in any way. In fact I was purely disgusted! I got a retread of what was in the papers and the pass-the-buck-blame-game.
After a lot of soul searching and thinking I was close to making a decision about what I wanted to do then one action pushed me to one: the church asked the CONGREGATION to assist in paying off a judgement. Oh NO! NO WAY! NOT ME! Not only did they cover it up, allow it to continue, blame everyone else, do nothing about it, let the victims suffer, do nothing for the victims, etc. but now they had the GALL to ASK the congregation to pay for THEIR mistakes. I was DONE! D-O-N-E! I come from a large family who goes back countless generations with that religion but I was through. I didn’t just leave, I formally resigned with a letter that stated clearly, with no ambiguity, why I was resigning and how appalled I was by what was done.
No, it wasn’t easy. I got personal visits from clergy and other church members. I got calls from relatives (I was under 18 at the time). They tried everything but I was gone, G-O-N-E! No more for me. The disgust I felt for the institution knew no bounds. They may do some good acts but it cannot, in my opinion, make up for how it treated the most vulnerable of its’ followers.
At that point I still did believe in God. I bounced from church to church trying to find one I felt good in. I couldn’t find one. Either I was ignored by all, had their doctrine shoved down my throat, was creeped out by over-religious members that tried to reel me in like a fish on a hook, listened to sermon after sermon where the thing most mentioned was money and how to be sure you tithed, how they were right, blatant politics from the pulpit, having a rigid belief shoved down your throat with no room to question and everyone else was wrong so they were going to hell. In that exploration I heard, from a religion that is supposed to be about love and peace, some of the most hateful and nasty things about certain types, classes, kinds, etc. of people that I was horrified. I couldn’t believe the hatred and nastiness coming from places of worship. In the end I gave up, deciding to just be spiritual without a church.
I sat down and did what so many tell you when your faith begins to falter; I read the bible and anything else I could about my religion. In the end all that came from it is a great deal of confusion. Suddenly things I had never questioned and took as-is made no sense. The more I read the more it made no sense or came to me that it just couldn’t have happened or if it did where is the proof. The more I tried to find that ‘truth’ the more I was driven away. Finally, the inevitable happened: my faith died.
In the end I did find a faith that I believed but it wasn’t in the religion I grew up with. Then, from that religion, I am now seeing the worst yet again. Not only do people try to do the heavy duty conversion with me-trying to bring me back (that hard sell does the opposite with me sorry) but like so many others of my faith we see the worst of the hateful nature of that faith; being called the foulest of names, getting the superior attitude, out and out discrimination in so many cases, hatefulness and in some cases pure threats and meanness! It was so bad that those of us around here had to get an order of protection against several church groups! So much for peace, love and understanding…
Despite that I am finally happy with my faith and at peace with it. I made my choice and it suits me.
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SS,
Thanks for sharing your story with us. I am sorry that you have had to go through what you have gone through with the church but it sounds like you have found an expression of faith or religion that suits you. I would love to hear more about that part of your story if you would be willing to share.
Tim
I am a Christian and my faith in Christ is not shaken. But like you, I sometimes get disgusted with His Bride — the Church. I have been struggling with John 8:32 which reads, “And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Freedom is something that all of us long for and just a few verses further, in verse 36 we read, “So if the Son sets you free you will INDEED be free.” Truth and freedom lie in Christ.
What makes me struggle with these verses is that those in the world who sense their bondage are not looking for freedom in the institution of the church. Oh, they are seeking to be free! But they are not looking at us as the source of that freedom nor do they consider us as free. For sure the world offers many attractive counterfeits to true freedom but if Christ sets us free indeed then our freedom ought to be evident to others and it ought to draw freedom-seekers towards us.
John 8:34 states, “I assure you that everyone who sins is a slave of sin” so that which binds us and separates us from freedom is sin. So my fear is that many Christians have given up their freedom in favor of quick pleasures and “minor sins.” “Minor sins” grow up until they produce death — “for the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). A warning to Christians that should keep us from this folly is found in Hebrews 3:12-13. “Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God.” Note the key connection here between unbelief and sin.
There is something about the connection between unbelief and sin that is deadly to true Christianity. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31) – Christ clearly places a high priority on belief. In fact, it’s the cornerstone of our faith and crucial to all the gifts of a relationship with Christ, including freedom. In fact, we find yet another verse on belief in the same chapter as we find Christ describing freedom. John 8:24 states, “for unless you believe that I am who I say I am, you will die in our sins.” That leads me to believe that if the church has lost her freedom, she must have lost her belief.
I’m not sure if I’m making my point clearly but an earthly example is this: Our forefathers used to believe in the phrase “until death do us part” and this was evidenced by marriages that survived until the death of a spouse — this belief helped couples to weather incredible storms and survive insurmountable obstacles. Today, we don’t believe in those words and that is evidenced by our current divorce rate. Oh, Christians believe in the phrase “until death do us part at some level. But their belief is not significant enough to produce external results (as evidenced by a divorce rate that is not significantly different from that of non-Christians). If you follow this line of thinking and you surmise that that church is as bound as the world, then you must conclude that the church has lost her belief in Jesus Christ and who He is. Perhaps we have not heeded the warning found in Hebrews as listed above.
Sin causes bondage, bondage leads to death, bondage is eternally broken through Christ and freedom from sin, death and bondage can only be found by believing in Jesus and who He is. We the Church ought to be a haven of freedom that release the multitudes from the bondage of this world. Since this has not been your experience, let me ask you for forgiveness. Forgive us for neglecting to remind and rebuke one another on a daily basis as is clearly outlined for us in scripture. Forgive us for letting sin take root and sap our life-blood (the blood and grace of Christ) from our lives. Forgive us for losing touch with the understanding of who Christ is, why He came and what He offers both to us and through us. Forgive us for losing touch with the truth that can set us all free.
I hope I have heard you correctly and been clear enough to offer my regret on both a personal and corporate level. I pray that God’s grace will be upon you through the blood of Jesus through which we all find the remission of sins. Take care and may God truly bless you. Amen.