Tag: conversion attempts

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on November 30, 2014.

Like ships in the night
You keep passing me by
We’re just wasting time
Trying to prove who’s right
And if it all goes crashing into the sea
If it’s just you and me
Trying to find the light.
– Mat Kearney, Ships in the Night

So much religious noise, all around me…

“No, Eleanor, you have to receive the Holy Ghost and speak in tongues, and be baptized in my church, because it’s the only true Pentecostal church in Colorado Springs. I know you’re a Christian, but you aren’t Apostolic.”

“I’m a five point Calvinist. Human beings are utterly depraved and cannot be saved except by prompting of the Holy Spirit.”

“You don’t love Jesus, because you don’t obey his commandments.”

…I live in Colorado Springs, ok? Dubbed the Christian Mecca, due to Focus on the Family, Compassion International, the Navigators, and New Life Church.

And I have friends from nearly every denomination, and many friends of other beliefs.

Since I’m friendly and very extroverted, I often get well-meaning people trying to convince me of this or that doctrine. Or try to get me to go to their church when I’m not seeking another place to attend. My friend Cynthia B. calls this “church cannibalism.”

It all feels the same at the bottom – do you see me, do you value me as an individual? Do you care about me outside of earning brownie points for your church or god?

And if I don’t agree, then more convincing is in order.

It’s like the opening lyrics to Relient K’s song “Failure to Excommunicate.”

It’s the principle, it’s the issue / that your principle would dismiss you. / Because you don’t fit into that All-American Box, / that coffin created for creative thought.

I’m not denying that objective truth exists. But as imperfect humans, how do we know that we are properly interpreting that truth?

Academic research in 2009 indicates that humans have a strong tendency to make God agree with us, to anthropomorphize our deities.

Shouldn’t Christians be different, if we believe the verse we quote so much:

“For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”

I think this is where fundamentalism for any belief becomes Pharisaical, looking for outward signs when no one knows anyone else’s heart.

One of Relevant magazine’s latest pieces, “Wrestling with Faith and Doubt,” addresses this:

“We never find Jesus calling someone a heretic because they interpreted an Old Testament story figuratively when it was supposed to be read literally or vice-versa.”

And the writer points out that in these details, we miss the endgame of Jesus’ message, loving God and our neighbor.

What if we were all just truth-seeking together, admitting sometimes we get it wrong? I admire people in the church who can say their well-meant methods didn’t work.

One of my pastor friends said at a conference last spring:

“I have a master’s in Christian education, and I thought discipleship was you get a bunch of people together and you do a Beth Moore Bible study, or a Henry Blackaby Bible study, and that’s what I did for years, but I was wrong.”

He discovered discipleship in community, bonding with others, not rote memorization.

Most of my spiritual journey has been finding where I got tangled, reaching for the light on the other side.

Rather than forcing change on everyone else, I’d rather seek out where I am wrong, to find spiritual healing for myself. The plank-in-the-eye metaphor is actually helpful here.

Because, like my pastor friend said about following Jesus:

“Some people make this complicated. It’s real simple. It’s so simple, it’s subversive.”

I crave more of this subversive simplicity.

This is exactly how my stepdad has felt about many of the conflicting, unhealthy spiritual influences that have played a role in his life. Having had prior unhealthy Baptist and United Pentecostal Church experiences was bad enough, but to have had people pushing these beliefs on him all at once made things even worse for a time.

My stepdad’s mother was very pushy about her particular beliefs to the extent that she thought she could dictate where he went to church and what he had to do to express his commitment to Christ. Her constant harping on him to start attending an “approved” (IOW, Baptist, or Pentecostal) church every Sunday lead to him being very put off on the idea of attendance that persisted for a long time.

My stepdad refused to attend any church for a long time and was fervently believing that every single one, without exception, was a cult. During this time, his daughter and son-in-law got caught up in the UPC with their family. The combination of his mother’s constant nagging whenever she got him on the phone and his daughter’s new-found enthusiasm for the UPC was like throwing gasoline on a wildfire.

The family members of my stepdad that were in the UPC made life very difficult for him for a while. Get-togethers were often a bit of a trial because they simply couldn’t refrain from interjecting their preaching at every chance. When my stepdad’s younger son got caught up in it for a while, it was a question of whether he or my stepdad’s son-in-law was worse with bashing other groups and trying to usurp Jon’s position as head of the household whenever they were invited over.

Another unhealthy influence was one of my stepdad’s aunts, who is close to him in age and was like a sister to him as a kid. Even though she lives in the Houston area, she would visit Odessa from time to see family or friends still living here, and her visits would always include heavy pressure to attend a UPC service with her. Unfortunately, at this point, he hadn’t gotten to where he would just politely decline.

Things with the UPC members in his family finally came to a head after my stepdad’s mother died. When he was having to deal with arranging the funeral, clearing out her house, and dealing with some other bad things going on at the same time, his aunt did something downright hurtful – she told him that if he didn’t join the UPC, she would have nothing further to do with him.

Ironically, after all the turmoil he went through with his kids over their UPC involvement, they ended up leaving the group of their own choice. He has no contact with them due to some non-related issues that arose afterward. My stepdad would finally start taking some “baby steps” towards recovery from spiritual abuse, but it’s been a long time coming. There will be more on that in the next post.

I think, in retrospect, a lot of my stepdad’s conflicts over religion with family members had to do with a lack of boundaries. His mother never respected anyone’s boundaries and tried to find ways around them when they were set. His kids and son-in-law, likewise, also had no respect for boundaries.

When religious differences are sharp, boundaries that you enforce are essential. If you won’t attend their church under any circumstances, they need to hear a polite but firm “No.” No waffling, no non-committal, vague answers. When discussions of religion become a problem, they must know that that subject is off the table.

While boundaries don’t always fix things, they can help make a world of difference for your own peace of mind.

God agrees with ME!

Will All of You Please Give It a Rest, Already!