Category: distorted view of God | Page 6

Exclusivity or Inclusion?

Seven years ago, I left a spiritually abusive “church.” By the time I left, the group had undermined my self-confidence and my desire for a close relationship with Jesus. I saw God as angry, punishing, and legalistic. In order to survive, there were things I radically changed my views on that others consider orthodox… and began experiencing a whole new side of exclusivity and elitism forged under the banner of Christianity. They weren’t Christian, but it was hard not to begin thinking of church in terms of those things, since they seemed reflected in the eyes of so many who called themselves by that term and who attended and even led those gatherings.

When I moved the first time, I hoped to find a church. Instead I found coworkers who told me that because I didn’t share their (locally predominant) views of Christianity, I wouldn’t be able to do my job well enough and excluded me from conversations, then came back later to explain what they disliked about others in their larger group. Local church members seemed unwelcoming and unfriendly, leaving me feeling excluded and unworthy. And then I moved again.

I thought that in moving back to the area I was raised in, I would find a good church. That didn’t happen. One Sunday School class drastically decreased in size after I asked a question regarding a member’s repeated condemning statements about their child. Several were ‘fluffy’–there was very little discussion about the Bible or God, and a whole lot of talk about pop culture or politics or how bad the world was getting.

Some organized mainly to fulfill outreach programs (while failing to reach out to each other), and others were simply social clubs. Another preached several sermons on Katelyn Jenner and began inserting media clips of his favorite shows and commercials into sermons rather than Bible, leaving me completely lost –I am virtually clueless about pop culture and didn’t go to discuss any current high profile figure’s statements, operations, or daily lifestyles. I went to discuss and share Jesus, but those conversations were missing.

And then came the elections. By the time a pastor’s wife friend of mine posted to Facebook “I don’t even know how someone can call themselves a Christian and vote for someone who [supports certain political stances]” and Christianity began being used (again) as a political platform–“vote for me! God bless America!” (which translates “See, I’m a Christian! I used the word God in a sentence, so I should get your vote!”) I’d had it. How can I call myself a Christian and take a different political or social stance? Perhaps because I hold a different perspective on what holding that stance actually means. But my gut reaction was “Then don’t. Don’t call me a Christian. I don’t want any part of this.”

I’ve spent several years now feeling like a religious outcast, perhaps a leper. “Unclean! Unclean! I voted this way!” “Unclean! Unclean!!! I don’t think people are condemned to hell if they drink a glass of wine or live in a monogamous relationship without a marriage license or don’t make it to church every Sunday or don’t give 10% of their gross income to the church… hey, I don’t necessarily even believe in your version of hell to begin with! Unclean!”

Being outcast by the group that is supposed to be known for and represent love takes it’s toll, perhaps especially when you have done everything that should make you part of the group… except to remain silent and refuse to talk about things that matter or to consider other viewpoints to the issues being discussed.

I’m tired of religion. American churchianity has exhausted me and left me with less understanding of God than I started with. And I was done with it. Until… until I visited one last church last weekend. And met a group of people who agree to disagree, who don’t say only one mode of baptism is right and don’t fight over grape juice or wine. They compromise nicely, it seems so far, on many points that people may view differently, even when using the same scriptures. And though compromise is a bad word in many religious circles, they explain it and view it as loving. It isn’t that they don’t have opinions on some of these issues. They do. But instead of force-feeding those opinions to others and then making a list of everyone who disagrees and shoving them into their personal version of hell, they offer open discussion and acceptance.

There is immense healing in that -the kind of healing that borders on miraculous.

How Long Is Your Skirt? (Er, How Holy Are You?)

I can assume this picture was made to be comical…but with what many in the “holiness/apostolic” movement teach, it really isn’t.

It’s even declared as a heaven and hell issue.

That’s scary. That is VERY scary.

Not because it’s true…it isn’t. It’s scary because men, in His Name, declare it as truth.

Teachings like that are abusive towards women. It’s emotionally abusive. It’s also spiritually abusive. It tells women that they can only be fully accepted by both the church, and by God, if they dress a certain way.

I’ll even go a step further and say that such teaching is abusive to men, also. It teaches them an improper way to look at a woman. It teaches them an erroneous way to look at God. A man under this teaching will influentially see a woman as holy – if she wears the proper outfit.

Again, I’m thankful to be free from the influence and massive pressure that declares “Apostolic Identity” over striving to be a simple and modest Christian. (A follower of Christ.) With that, I am going to lay my question out as plain as I can.

Is Holiness determined by skirt length?

Is Holiness for a woman determined by wearing a skirt?

If so, where did Jesus teach this? Where is it in the Gospels? Or our Bible?

It’s not in there. Teachings like this are not biblical, it is denominational tradition. It’s man’s tradition because it’s a teaching that originated from man. Nothing more. If it’s taught as truth, or even a heaven and hell issue, then realize it is a lie.

I’m sure many under the holiness/apostolic traditions will attempt to avoid the simple phrasing I used, but realize that no matter how they word it, that is the basics of what they teach.

Doctrines like this, and the passion put into declaring it as a universal truth for women – it’s crazy. It’s legalistic. It’s definitely NOT biblical.

Not to mention, it’s wrong.

How Long Is Your Skirt? (Er, How Holy Are You?) Pt. 2

More on “I got to have your money” Financial Greed

A couple years ago I sat one evening around a camp fire reminiscing with a young man (we’ll call him Ryan, not his real name) that I knew from the United Pentecostal Church that I had left almost 30 years ago.

I had worked in a factory job with Ryan’s Dad and served with his Dad in our church in ushering duties. I believe his Dad might have been the head usher. We’ll call him Bill (not his real name).

Bill was what the pastor called one of them chronic seekers. Rarely missed an altar call. Bill would be the last to leave the altar, walking away with defeat in his eyes. No matter how hard Bill prayed or long he prayed, no matter his hours of service given and no matter how much Bill gave financially, he could never seem to please God enough for God to save him. Bill lived under the condemnation of the “never good enough gospel” that so many struggle with in sick churches like this one.

Something happened in time with Bill. I feel some of it was brought on by living in such a state of mind that you constantly feared you were lost. Heading for a burning eternal hell.

I’d guess Bill was in his 50’s, healthy in his physical body. But his mind began to slip. He’d from time to time be admitted to a mental health institution.

Bill and wife had always been one of our churches most generous givers. I think in part Bill may have been trying to earn that holy ghost tongue talking experience that had alluded him for years, with giving way beyond our required tithes.

Sitting around that campfire that evening with Bill’s youngest son, Ryan, he shared with that one time his Dad had gotten some better and came home from the mental health hospital.

Bill had been laid off from his factory job. No money coming in. Car payment and house payment going out. Groceries to feed his wife and two boys were getting more difficult to pay for. Bill goes to see the pastor of our growing UPC church. Bill tells the pastor he wants to donate some money to the building of our new million dollar church. (This is in the mid 1970’s.)

The next day Bill’s wife, after having been told by her husband, of what he done, goes to the pastor. She asks why, why did you let him do this? You know he’s sick. You know he’s out of work. You know we have nothing left to live on. The cupboards are bare. WHY? Please give it back.

Now who reading this, could believe that FINANCIAL GREED could be so strong in someone. Someone that was supposed to be watching for the good of your soul.

Could you believe that he told her he couldn’t just give it back. He’d have to ask the board.

I told Bill’s son, Ryan, I was on the board at that time and this is the first I have ever heard of this. To my knowledge, the pastor never asked or told the board of this.

The money was never given back. THIS IS SPIRITUAL ABUSE.

Ryan doesn’t attend church anywhere regularly. I could understand if he hated God, preachers, churches and the people who fill the pews. But he doesn’t. I think he loves God. I think he’s come to realize the God that we were taught to FEAR (for lives and soul) was a false misrepresentation of God.

In the New Testament, as I understand it today, God requires one thing of you to be saved. He does not require works. He does not require a certain percentage of your finances. If you think he does, please just google ‘tithe‘ and read something and learn for yourself.

God’s only requirement for your salvation does not and can not come from you. What God required came from his Son. Jesus paid it in full. It is finished.

Just as Abraham believed, that is all we need to do. Read of Abraham in Romans 3 and 4. Read it with your mind open. This was NOT Paul telling only tongue talking believers how to Stay Saved as the UPC teaches. This was Paul REMINDING Christians HOW they GOT SAVED.

Reminding them just as he scolded the Ephesian believers. Believers who thought what they did or what they gave impressed God.

He reminded them how THEY GOT SAVED: Eph. 2: 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Even the very faith that saves us is a gift from God. It is not our own.

Shalom. I thank God I am free at last.

Is Your Pastor Ruinous To Your Spiritual Life?

…it was not just the Pharisees’ false authority that made them dangerous but also their false teaching. They taught a false view of God and a false way of serving him. They pictured God as a legalistic judge, favoring those who kept his religious rules and despising those who did not. Modern preachers who make God’s acceptance contingent upon religious performance are the Pharisees of today. Jesus says, in effect, that high-sounding religious lies spoken by respected leaders are ruinous to spiritual life.

The quote is from Ken Blue in his book, Healing Spiritual Abuse. It is a good book on spiritual abuse and this ministry has given away many copies over the years.

I have been posting quotes on the Facebook Page that are from books on spiritual abuse. This one stood out due to the last sentence. Some people do not take spiritual abuse seriously. They have this misguided thought that people are just crying about things that do not really matter and that they should be able to easily set aside. Some believe people only have hurt feelings and need to develop some thick skin and just get over whatever it was that happened. And, of course, others think we were foolish for remaining as long as we did. We weren’t held captive in our former churches.

What these uninformed people do not realize is that while there are more minor cases of spiritual abuse, where some people escape mostly unscathed, there are thousands and thousands of other cases where people have been severely harmed, some irreparably. There are people who can no longer read their Bibles. There are people who cannot attend a church. There are people who cringe and have panic attacks when certain things happen which remind them of their former churches. Some are scared to death of taking communion.

There are people who are confused, who do not yet know what to believe. Many have developed trust issues. There are people who suffer in silence because previous attempts to share how they were sexually abused were not believed or they were told to keep their mouth shut for the good of the church. There are families who have been torn apart due to interference from church leadership and doctrines that teach shunning. There are people who developed PTSD and CPTSD. There are those who can no longer pray. There are others who believe they will be cast into hell because they left ‘the truth’ and cannot live up to the expectations of their former group. Yet others cannot get past the warped view of God they developed due to their former church involvement. There are so many things that can be added to this list.

Yes, a pastor can be ruinous to your spiritual life. Some do not speak words of life, but of death. Some are building their own kingdoms instead of following God. Some only care about themselves and will do whatever they have to in order to keep everyone doing what they demand. They do not serve, but wish to sit in the honored places and be served. They have not the heart of a servant, but rather are harsh taskmasters and lords over people. They can leave your spiritual life in shambles, creating in your mind a distorted view of God and his love for you.

Stumbling block: a little about what happened to me

Some years ago, I was thrown out of a church because the pastor falsely accused me of things and wouldn’t allow me to even say I hadn’t done what he accused me of. He told me that if he said I did it, he was a Man of God, and God had obviously talked to him about me and revealed the wickedness in my heart. He also preached that I would walk out of church the night he kicked me out and immediately go and cut my hair and wear pants and makeup. I felt like I was betraying him by NOT doing those things, proving that he was a false prophet. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I believed THE Truth, so I didn’t cut my hair or put on pants. I simply found another Oneness church and tried to act like nothing had happened.

The new pastor told me to just forget about what had happened and move on. But I couldn’t. What happened had created a lot of questions and doubts in my mind, things that I needed to work through and discuss. I needed time to heal. They wanted to act like there was nothing to heal, and that hurt worse.

I always felt condemned for not doing crazy things in church. After being kicked out, something disconnected. I went to church, and would shake “under the power of God.” I’d never done that before. People would tell me how close I must be to God. I didn’t feel close to God. I’d been kicked out of a church, but they didn’t know that, so I felt like a hypocrite. I also knew the shaking wasn’t God, it was me wrestling hard to reconcile what I believed was The Truth with what I had seen, heard, and experienced that blared that it wasn’t. There was such a deep grief and so much condemnation associated with praying, fasting, and studying the Bible… and especially with worship. The new church was very pushy about how much I should worship and exactly how we should and shouldn’t worship. That didn’t help me at all, because so much of what he told us we needed to do seemed unnatural or just plain weird or wrong to me.

It took me years to untangle what had happened in the church I was kicked out of. I had been happy in a way, and spoke in tongues often and danced a lot. When I was kicked out, even though I went to a different Oneness Pentecostal church (where the pastor assured me I was fine), things just weren’t the same. I doubted pretty much everything I was feeling, because the pastor who kicked me out said I was backslid and terribly wrong. If that were true (and of course it must be- he was a Holy Ghost filled preacher) then what I had felt, and the speaking in tongues and the worship I was doing must be all wrong, too. How could sweet and bitter water come from the same source, after all? I almost ‘got past that’ but then with all the show and people really hurting people in the altar of the new church, I started re-looking some things.

At the same time, I went through a time when every time I tried to pray, I’d pretty much immediately fall into heart wrenching grief and start sobbing and speaking in tongues. I knew that wasn’t right. There is joy in the Holy Ghost, and what was happening couldn’t have been considered intercession. I’d focus on God and say “I love you” or think of a recent service or have a happy thought that I’d be able to stay in that church for the rest of my life… and suddenly start bawling, when I hadn’t been sad before that word of prayer or that thought of thankfulness! A week of that would have been one thing, but that went on for a month or more. And I couldn’t seem to pray at all at church. By the end of that time, I knew something was terribly wrong, but I didn’t know what (or wouldn’t admit it) for a few more years.

For the last few years, there have been many false accusations and labels placed on people in my former church. There was a lot of spying and gossip.

The pastor bragged about the spying from the platform, and encouraged people to tell him if they even thought something MIGHT be wrong with someone else. He said if they didn’t tell him, they’d have blood on their hands. So people, from the oldest to elementary school kids, would go in alone or in groups to say they thought they saw someone do this or that. The person they told on would then be called in and chewed out. They were not asked if they did it, or if they denied it they’d be told they were lying. There was no escaping the hurtful words.

I’ve sat in my former pastor’s office sobbing uncontrollably many times as he, my ‘shepherd,’ my ‘man of God,’ my ‘pastor’ would tell me that I didn’t deserve anything but hell, that I was worthless, that I could leave like the other “garbage” (‘backsliders’ were called “garbage” and the churches they went to were called “trash cans”).

In all of this, even when I was sobbing, even when I tried to say something to defend myself, he would continue to pound on me with his words. Where is the mercy or the compassion in that?

If any pastors or leaders read this, please consider. I didn’t leave a Oneness church because I didn’t believe the doctrine. I left because the church stopped believing in me. I got to a point where if I’d stayed I would have stopped believing in God, because the God they preached and showed through their own lives was an angry, hateful, distorted god, not a God of love and mercy.

Mt 18:1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2And Jesus called a little child unto him… 6But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. 7Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!

1 Jn 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

I’m not bitter. But some things need to be heard. For too long in churches like the one I left, members didn’t have a voice. It’s time someone listened.