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.

Church attendance, music, and worship

Tonight I read an article about the way churches manipulate music and atmosphere so that people achieve feelings of well-being and peace. It’s not the first time I’ve read something like this, though most of the articles I’ve read focus on Charismatic or Pentecostal experiences. This one didn’t. And being written by a musician, it went into more detail about the way the music manipulates emotion… and not just music in certain churches but music in general.

I think this sort of thing is why I still have trouble with prayer, Christian music, and church, in part. I see this sort of thing — manipulation of atmosphere, music, volume, tone — I want to join in slipping into that ‘state’… and pull back. What I always thought of as ‘feeling God’ has become a dangerous thing to me. When I’m in that state, I’m highly suggestible. It’s easy to believe anything I’m told. I want to believe, and because I feel a certain way I think I should believe whatever is being told. The feeling makes me feel special, and I want to think that everything is right about where I am.

And yet… and yet it isn’t. Not for me, not any more. For me that state, that feeling that church is safe and that God is near (in a Pentecostal church way, not in a “God is omnipresent” way) and that I’m special isn’t right and isn’t safe. Part of me wants to slip back into that place in what must be the same way that an addict wants to go back to their drug of choice. Another part of me wants to resist. It’s hard to resist, though, because to do that I shut down and block things out.

It’s hard for me to go to church. I’ve tried churches more or less like the one I left, fundamental churches, evangelical churches, and more liturgical churches. I’m frustrated. In many I feel the same feelings and see similar emotional or mental manipulation by way of music and atmosphere that I did in my former church. In others, I feel completely foreign because they are so very different than anything I’ve ever known.

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A still small voice

I’ve been told by some that I’m judgmental, and I’ve worried that I might be judgmental because of my struggles with church and church related things. Our own individual experiences and perceptions may appear to be judgmental to others with very different experiences and perceptions, but saying we should be careful and aware that these may not be God himself (not that they aren’t of God, or can’t be used for good, but that they aren’t God himself) isn’t wrong, though at first glance I know that can be upsetting. (I’m a former Pentecostal. Believe me I know.)

But watch:

1 Kings 19:At that moment, the LORD passed by. A great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and was shattering cliffs before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a voice, a soft whisper. 13When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

It doesn’t say that the wind, the fire, the earthquake and so forth weren’t associated with God or that there wasn’t great power in them. It doesn’t say we should run from them or fear them or never experience them. What it does say is that there is something beyond those things that may not be what we expect — a still small voice, a whisper. And that may be even more powerful than all of the rest of it put together.

It might be good to remember: whereas one person may have enjoyed the excitement of a bonfire or a minor earthquake or even a larger storm, another may have had their home flattened by the fires, earthquakes, and storms of life. It’s a bit harder for that person to trust them or approach them with anything but caution. But we can all still enjoy the still small voice when we hear it.

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What happens when your answer to prayer… isn’t?

I hated the huge push for quick marriages, and it is actually one of the reasons I didn’t marry. Then, too… well, “God will give you someone if you’re right with him and you ask hard enough” is all fine and good. And then someone comes and he’s abusive or a stalker or just downright disgusting, and they say that this is the will of God, because God is giving you what you want. Uh, no. THAT is NOT what I want, and abuse is NEVER the will of God.

And then… then you pray and you get a husband or a child or whatever and it isn’t good – the man is abusive, the spouse meets an untimely death, the child is chronically ill, you lose the dream job and go bankrupt, or whatever…. and then the same people say you asked amiss or you did something wrong. Or you think you must have because you heard for so long that you’d have this or that if you did more, prayed perfectly, etc. No. Those things aren’t God’s punishment or our faults, either. It’s easy to cycle into a performance trap with stuff like this, and a downward spiral of self-blame.

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Answers to Prayer?

I was told way too often my prayers weren’t answered because I was somehow wrong. I prayed I’d get married-“you aren’t married, there must be some sin in your life. Work through it, seek God first, and he’ll give you what you want”. Just one example. I heard it until I was so angry. Good ‘wouldn’t let’ me marry because of sin while others fornicate, gossiped, lied, etc and got married?!?! And people in church said I wasn’t because of sin? What a terrible representation of God — giving non-believers what they want and what would be ‘normal’ to want, while withholding them from his children in order to get them to do more.

People say stupid stuff because they don’t know what else to say, or to be dismissive, or whatever, but NOT because it’s fact. Even ‘pray and wait’ upsets me. I did. I prayed and waited way too long, and though I’m glad I didn’t marry in that church because that would have been horrid in a lot of ways, still… no one should have told me that.

Statements like “pray and wait” or “you must have some secret sin” or “just have more faith” are dangerous because… well, so we pray and wait and have faith and it doesn’t happen, or we repent of even breathing and still… nothing. And then what? Those sort of statements bounce around in our heads and can undermine our faith. They leave us with nothing but guilt and shame.

The truth is, what we pray for may happen or may not, even if what we are praying for seem like things that nearly everyone has. And it’s not going to be easy to deal with if those things don’t happen, even without unhelpful comments.

What I finally decided in my own life is that all the asking is fine, but nothing I do ensures God doing what I want, particularly when I want it. And so it’s not my job to pray harder, repent harder, believe more, but just to eventually come to a point of saying, “OK, God. Either way, OK.”

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Taking every thought captive

There are also some things I was told I had to do to be saved. I was taught to just stop thinking about some things, “taking every thought captive.” However, refusing to think about certain things, particularly problems in the church, is NOT what the Bible means by 2 Cor 10:5.

Thought stopping, or refusing to think about certain things, is not healthy. Yes, if our thoughts are coming in torrents it is good to slow them down and work through them systematically rather than panic, but to simply refuse to recognize thoughts or questions is very unhealthy and is almost always identified with unhealthy situations that include someone not wanting the one they are teaching to think for themselves. God himself gave us the ability to think for ourselves when he created us. And no, that wasn’t a bad thing. God made everything good.

But even as I write that, I remember a tangle of verses and partial verses that would seem to prove the opposite:

-I’ve been taught not to trust my own thinking. “The heart is deceitful and wicked above all things…” I was told, indicating that my heart was evil and my thoughts therefore, if they didn’t line up with the church’s teaching, must be evil, too.
–Don’t question the ‘man of God,’ I was told. “How can they hear without a preacher?” Well, I heard and responded to God. That doesn’t mean that I have to do anything that anyone who calls himself a preacher says to do for the rest of my life. All that verse says is that someone must tell others before they hear about God, which makes sense.
-But the pastor will ‘give account’ before God. That’s not what Hebrews 13:7 is about. No human being is going to stand before God for us and give an account, either for the good or the bad… I find it odd now that the pastor would have said he would give account of us before God at the judgment, because the way it was always discussed, he would be telling all the bad things about us… which gives him the role of accuser of the brethren. That’s not a role any human should want to choose or tell others he would have.
-But Adam and Eve used their choice to sin. And that’s what it boils down to.

If we are given free choice, we’ll sin. Sin is bad. Therefore… if we don’t think or don’t question, if we don’t make major decisions without checking in with the pastor, if we are accountable to someone else, if we make extra rules to keep ourselves ‘safe’ from sin… we’ll be OK, right? WRONG! For starters, none of that stops people from sinning. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden every evening. They had the greatest ‘accountability partner’ possible. Eve made the first extra rule — don’t touch the fruit. It didn’t work. And… there are a lot of people who would disagree, but maybe it wasn’t supposed to. God knew when he created us that we would make the wrong choice sooner or later. But he still chose to give us that choice. And when he created us with the will to choose, he still called his creation (us) good.

I’m going to repeat that. God made us with the ability to choose. He knew we would sin. AND HE STILL CALLED US GOOD. Not because we were only going to be good for a little bit of time. Not because he didn’t know what would happen. He called us good because he loves us… and maybe, just maybe because sin is not the horrible problem to the almighty, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal God that we humans have been led to believe it is.