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I ran across this post in another blog. I think it's our wake-up call. Remember what Nathan told David after his sin with Bathsheba? Wake up, church, sure we're 'saved by grace apart from works', but our neighbors/friends/acquaintances/co-workers/enemies are watching how we live. They are looking for a 'religion' which will positively affect those areas in their life in which they recognize genuine struggles. Read.
How I Stopped Being a Christian
from tolerance_for_all
I was raised a Christian and up until the age of 15 was definitely a strong believer. Church, youth group, mission trips, you name it, I was there. My youth pastor, a man I'll call Jeff, was a trusted mentor and someone that really gave me a lot of my ideas and beliefs about God and following Jesus.
Imagine how surprised I was when I get a phone call saying that Jeff had resigned and was being investigated by the FBI. It turns out that pastor had been involved in recieving and distributing child porn for a long time. As you can imagine, all my ideas about Christianity were sort of blown out of the water. How can I follow the teachings of a man who can't practice what he preaches? At that point, I didn't turn my back on God but I did decide I needed to step away from the church. After having someone else tell me what to believe my whole life, it was time for me to start figuring it out for myself.
During the following years, I went to church occasionally and had nothing against those that did, but I knew that I really needed to find my own faith. I needed to question to be able to grow. So upon entering college, I did not join a church. The hypocrisy and intolerance were things I really didn't want to be around, and I saw no problem with taking a little time to do some soul-searching.
Well, I met a Christian boy at school, and even though I consider myself agnostic I didn't think it mattered. Let me just say that I do not drink, I do not do drugs, I do not sleep around, and I am headed toward medical school so that I can become involved in Doctors Without Borders. He, on the other hand, drank, smoked pot, and was with many girls. But he informed me, often, that I was headed straight for Hell.
When I saw that those who I was learning from weren't exactly taking me down a path that made sense, I started to study things for myself. I studied the Bible in depth, as well as the Koran and Torah, and I am still learning. So these inconsistent men didn't necessarily drive me away from Christianity, but they did cause me to take a deeper look, and I didn't like what I found.
You can question how strong my faith was in the first place since I fell away, but I can honestly say that I hope to never have a "strong" enough faith that I continue to blindly follow, even when things are clearly not as they should be.
So those were the two main situations that made me step back and say 'Wait a second, this religion isn't making a whole lot of sense'. I think that too often, people use religion as a reason to persecute other people and preach lives they aren't living. I don't want to be told that I need church in my life, or told what to believe - nobody has the moral authority to decide what is right for anyone else. Maybe, just maybe, it's time for the Christians to step back, and examine how they are living their lives before they condemn someone else.
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1 comment:
let me say this carefully,
my heart breaks for this person and i would love to have a chance to sit and speak with him/her, but i HATE this kind of junk....and equally HATE how Christians jump all over this.
please understand that i would not state this as bluntly to the person face to face....however,
i've had multiple experiences where men i trusted very much were later found to be in sin. i volunteered under a youth pastor who concealed for years that he was homosexual and shortly after his senior pastor was found to be sleeping with the secretary. yet, somehow my "strong" faith stayed strong as did the church....who survived and continues to reach people. certainly, this is the worst situation, but i found that i have sat under the instruction of leaders who have taken money, committed adultery, were lazy and even became heretics. somehow, my faith remained strong.
how is that?
because the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints is Biblical.
consider the following...
both the youth pastor and the college student were completely wrong for their actions...there is no doubt about that. however, if they taught that the gospel is a message of fallen men being forgiven on no merit of their own. and while the youth pastor's actions were not in line with the gospel, there is a gospel centered response.
but for the grace of God, there go i.
what is unfortunate is that this person either never heard a faithful gospel witness from these people...but supposed self-righteousness that later proved absent. or possibly this person did hear hear faithful gospel messages, but they just weren't listening. their own self-righteousness (which i believe can be heard in this entry) kept their eyes blinded from the truth.
but why i hate these kind of posts....
--the pastor and college student are either believers who have wasted a significant portion of their lives and will find much of this ministry burns up lack chaff, rather than surviving through the fire (1 cor 3). if they do not know Christ, they have a scary combination of sin, self righteousness and a powerless form of godliness.
--the church, who thinks stories like this are to motivate us toward holiness. it just doesn't work. guilt is not a godly motivator. and the judgement of a lost world (as they scold us) pales infinitely to the judgement of a perfect, holy, righteous Savior. what about not being ashamed at His return? what about the joy of hearing "well done good and faithful servant?" what about the crown that can be received?
these stories tell us nothing new. people sin. pastors sin. God hates sin. He judges ALL sin violently (either by Christ on the cross, or by the sinner for all of eternity).
--this poor person that posted.
while they continue to scold the church and think they have some sort of defense, they will find themself defenseless before the Savior. they will stand before Him and hear, "but what about your sin?" this person will not be given a pass. and the Lord will not applaud their "strong" faith.
but instead of the church loving this person enough to say, "what about you?" instead of the church saying, "someone else's sin does not negate yours." instead of members of the church should be saying, "you should not be surprised that these people fell. our gospel proclaims the total sinfulness of men. but you must consider your own sin."
too often though, the popular thing today is one of two responses:
the church goes into the fetal position, lamenting her ineffectiveness, as if the Lord did NOT say, "I will build MY church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it."
or the church goes on the offensive. they commit the same sin as this person and immediately begin pointing the finger at others. "of course they were sinful and wicked, we would never act that way," we tell them. we ignore that we are all capable of that kind of sin. we all act like it is so much below us. we try to convince them that we are so different.
both responses dishonor the bride of Christ. neither response gets to the heart of this person. neither response will cause the church to pursue greater purity.
praying you took the chance to lovingly turn this attention from others' sins to his own.
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