Dear church:
Some of you posted on Facebook, statements like “how can anyone call themselves Christian and vote for ____.” Some of you got upset when I responded that my faith in Jesus-not my vote-made me a Christ-follower, a Christian. Some of you have taken pride in standing for what you believe is right… and trying to push others to believe what you do through humiliation, name-calling, mockery, and guilt-tripping. And I cry.
You see, I did some of those things too, once. Not over who to vote for, but over even more minor things. I questioned your Christianity, your faith, because you didn’t wear certain clothes or do your hair a certain way. I questioned your faith because you didn’t believe what I believed, and I knew I had to be right. You’d have said (some of you did say) I was in a cult at that time. But now… now I see you saying such similar things, using such similar tactics for things you believe or think all Christians should do. And you don’t realize that it’s the same wrong attitude.
You don’t understand why your statements make me angry or sad, and you haven’t taken the time to sit down and think through what you’re saying. I understand how you must feel, because I spent 19 years doing what you’re doing. And repented. You rejoiced when I left that attitude behind. When I humbly accepted that I’d been wrong to be part of that and treated you like I did. It may be time for you to do the same.
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Author: Through Grace
I was raised in a somewhat unhealthy church group within the Nondenominational Christian Church. After graduating high school, I began attending a United Pentecostal Church (UPC). I've been a member of four UPC churches and visited many others. Of the four of which I was a member, I was "encouraged" not to leave the first and then later sent to the second; attended the second where an usher repeatedly attempted to touch me and the pastor told me I should not care about the standards of the organization and was wrong to do so; ran to a third at that point, which threw me out after a couple years; and walked out of a fourth. For these transfers and because I refused to gossip about my former churches, some called me a "wandering star, a cloud without water" (Jude 1:12).
I love the fact that when the blind man was healed, questioned by the Pharisees and temple rulers, and expelled from the temple, Jesus went and sought him out. He very rarely did this once someone was healed, but for this man, he did. I believe God has a special place in his heart for those who are abused, wrongfully accused, or condemned by religious leadership. I believe He loves those who are wronged by churchianity--yes, churchianity, not Christianity, because those who do these wrongs follow a church, not Christ.
1 John 4:7-8
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
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