Father

Others' stuff, Personal, Ministry, Music

Given my recent slew of postings on dark subjects, I thought it time to refocus on the good stuff; the benefits and blessings of knowing God as Father and Jesus as Friend. And so we’ll take a bit of a healthy break from all that darkness. Today, I share a song that has blessed me and many others, in the hope that it will also bring blessings to you, my gentle readers.

As with most people[1], there are certain songs which remind me of specific times in my life. In my case, this is especially true of worship songs, because many of the songs I know and sing, I first learned (and then led) in my church in Leeds before I moved down to Devon.

Even though, then, I was quite legalistic – because I had been taught by my church peers not to know any different – still, underneath all the religious baggage, I had a deep love for Jesus and for my Heavenly Father. And the worship songs I used were more to express that love and devotion to God than they were to express any commitment towards a particular church or denomination[2].

On one day early in June, 1989, God revealed to me in no uncertain terms that I am His child. The Vineyard song ‘Precious Child‘, by Andy Park, came along a couple of months later to really cement that truth into my heart in a song – being a musician and worship leader, that’s always going to be a great way for Him to impart truths to my heart! – and for that reason I have loved that song ever since.

Also in 1989 came another song, this one by Danny Daniels, and another Vineyard song, called ‘Father (I can call You Father)’. This one, too, joined ‘Precious Child’ in cementing that truth into place. I will always be grateful to those songwriters for adding another dimension to that truth that I already knew, by enabling me to sing these songs to express that truth into being even more real to me.

And so, here it is. ‘Father, I can call You Father’; a seminal song in my faith journey and one which means as much to me today as it did thirty-six years ago, because the truth it expresses is just as real now as it was then. It’s performed here by its composer, Danny Daniels, and it’s the first version of the song I heard; right when I first learned it:

 

Father, I can call You Father
For I am Your child
Today, tomorrow and always, you are my Father

Father, how I love You Father
I will sing Your praise
Today, tomorrow and always, for You’re my Father

Chorus:
Father, Father, Father to me
Father, oh Father, Father to me

Father, I will serve you Father
I will seek Your face
Today, tomorrow and always, You are my Father

Chorus

That just makes my heart swell with gratitude, praise and love. And there may also be some spontaneous hand raising going on as well, if I’m honest 😉

I hope this song has blessed you. If you can’t really identify with this concept of really knowing that God is your Father, and that you are His child – experientially, more than just as an abstract concept through a book – then please ask Him to reveal it to you. Your life will never be the same when He does.

Grace upon Grace to you

 

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Or, at least, I think this is the case!
⇧2 Regarding the commitment to the actual congregation, sure, I wanted to serve them, of course. But sometimes, I felt like just giving the whole thing up, throwing my hands up and saying like “Right, that’s it; I’m not doing this any more”. Sometimes, it was actually the case that I loved worship leading so much that this was the only thing keeping me in that environment. Moving me to the South-West was God’s way of removing me cleanly and simply from that situation and giving me a new start, and that on so many levels.

A Dark Testimony IV – Me

Insights, Personal
This entry is part 5 of 5 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

Each of the dark testimonies I have shared so far has been different, and yet they’ve had disturbingly similar features too. We’ll get to that in the final part of this collection, when I write a sort of ‘plenary’ piece in bringing them all together.

And for this last testimony, I will share a few of my own[1] stories of abuse at the hands of a former church. And mine is different again from previous testimonies. Plus there’s a couple of minor anecdotes too 😉

I was a worship leader in a Charismatic Evangelical house church, which had grown to the size where the main congregational meeting was held in a hired public hall. In many ways, I was the worship leader, in that I was the Director of Music for the church, and led the worship group consisting of a couple of rhythm guitarists, bass guitar, me on piano/keyboards and lead vocals, and two backing vocalists, Cathy and my wife Fiona.

Every week, I would lead a congregation of a couple of hundred people in worship, from my keyboard, and the worship was always amazing. People would come from all over the region to join in; we had a reputation for it.

I didn’t have any ego problems, except that being an honest Autistic person (I didn’t know it then) I didn’t have any qualms about knowing how good it was.

And my secret was very simple. I just said that I was going to worship Jesus now, and anyone who wanted to do so was welcome to come along and worship with me. And that was it; everything just flowed from there.

It was quite interesting once… on one particular occasion where the leadership decided they wanted to try a new variation of dishonouring me and, by extension, the rest of the congregation, this time they got in another worship leader – a very arrogant one, as we shall see – and put him on for like a first ‘spot’ during the worship time[2]. The guy, whom we will call Johannes for the purposes of the story, was an existing member of our congregation. He was the leader of a well-known (in Christian circles, anyway) Christian band who had several recordings published in those days, you know, vinyls and cassette tapes[3]. The worship wasn’t bad; the music was good, as you’d expect from a professional musician and his band – but nothing really seemed to be happening in the worship sense.

Anyway, once Johannes had finished his ‘spot’, the leadership then expected me to just get up and carry on as normal, ignoring that I was outside my usual routine and also being deliberately put up on stage for ‘comparison’. Quite what their objectives were has never been made clear to me. I wouldn’t even want to begin to speculate; God’s ways are higher than our ways, we are told, but I am sure that the Elders’ ways were higher even than that 😉

So, as Johannes left the ‘stage’ area, he literally turned towards me, sneered at me, and said, ‘There you go; follow that!’ Really, that’s what he said!

Well, I just grinned at him. This is my calling; to lead others into the presence of God, and nothing on Earth would prevent that happening. I said to the horrified crowd, ‘Let’s just worship’, and stood at the keyboard for my first worship song.

As soon as I played that first chord, the Spirit just came down like a flood. What an amazing worship time it was. Not boasting or anything; that’s just how it happened 😀

Later, I did think it was kind of like that Elijah vs. the Prophets of Baal scene in the Old Testament (1Kings 18:20-40), except no-one got hit by any fireballs, neither aimed ones nor stray ones. Or, maybe, going even further back, it was like the bit in Genesis where God accepts Abel’s sacrifice but not Cain’s (Gen 4:4-5). Well actually no;  I am absolutely sure that God accepted both of our worship sets – it wasn’t Johannes’s fault. He wasn’t a bad bloke really; he had a heart for worship and a real heart for God, but he had an arrogance about him, and to be fair to him it was all a set-up anyway – both Johannes and I had been set up – by the totally incompetent leadership. But God came through despite them.

Well, that’s the story. It isn’t all that much in terms of hurt on my behalf; what happened more was that the congregation, of course, saw the whole thing and must have wondered what on Earth was happening, and themselves been hurt by it.[4] To see their beloved, faithful, reliable and servant-hearted worship leader being treated like that must have hurt them a lot. I’m just glad that they will have found some healing in the worship session that I led that day – because that’s what happens when you’re in the manifest presence of God. Still, though, what confidence does that give the congregation in their leadership, when they pull a stunt like that? Setting up an upstage scenario like that (either way; Johannes upstaging me, or me upstaging Johannes, or even both!) – I mean, really?? And they’d also set Johannes up for rejection too; like I say in one of the footnotes, it kind of put them off Johannes after that. How stupid of the leaders; how senseless!

I mean, I wouldn’t want to be a church leader for any money. But somehow it seems that church leadership are not chosen for their competence, and this lack of competence in leadership shows throughout congregations – and especially Evangelical congregations, where people are told that the only ‘ability’ that is required is ‘avail-ability’ – all across Christendom. In fact, when you really think about it, in the grand scheme of things, these men are essentially nobodies. They’re nothing special, at least in terms of abilities or anointing. At least, this lot weren’t. They’re just ordinary guys[5]. And yet they make decisions and announce edicts and rules and stuff that can seriously affect people’s lives, and all the while forgetting, it seems, that attendance at any church is voluntary, not mandatory[6] and that at any time people can just leave and not come back. Even if it’s in the middle of a song 😉

Speaking of leaving in the middle of something, Fiona and I did once get a bollocking for leaving a service at ‘half-time’. We’d done the music and we went out before the sermon. That was because my parents had booked us to have lunch with them, so we left in order to make that rendezvous with them. So these two Elders  turned up at our house as a team, to air their grievances. ‘You shouldn’t have left at half-time; when you’re there, you’re there for the duration'[7]. I can’t remember whether it was in private or in some sort of meeting; most likely it was the latter because I seem to remember there being a good few other people there too… it may have been at a music group practice? I can’t remember. So anyway we were told off good and proper, and poor Fiona burst into tears. One of the Elders was very harsh: ‘There’s no point in crying about it; you’ve done something wrong!’ sort of thing. And this was in our own home as well; invaded and violated by these two. And it also needs to be said that the harsh Elder in that pair later ran off with another congregant’s wife, so there’s that.

We should really have left the church there and then, after that castigation, but sadly we stayed – mainly because I was still sure that our calling was to lead worship there. And also partly because the Roland JV-30 keyboard that I was playing (which didn’t belong to me; it was the church’s) was a real joy to play and minister with; it was state-of-the-art and such a lovely instrument 😉 [8]

Another time, a preacher got annoyed with me because I had to go and lie down behind the rear seats at the back of the hall after a particularly powerful worship session. When you’re leading, you can’t really let yourself be ‘overcome by the Spirit’ like most congregants can, because people are relying on you to play and lead. You can’t just fall over at the keyboard because a) you might break it, and b) you can’t play any longer because you can’t reach the keys from your new potition on the floor 😉 When I left the stage area after that session, I was shaking all over and could hardly walk, such was the power of the Spirit on me. So I staggered to the back and collapsed there, out of sight.

Except that the beady-eyed preacher[9] had spotted me, and he told me to get up because you shouldn’t be lying down during the sermon. Like, you see, the Spirit has to stop doing Her stuff once the music stops; She’s not allowed to carry on blessing someone and speaking words of love to them, because that would interrupt the far more important words that the preacher was about to say. Interesting how that is almost a precursor for any behaviour where humans’ words are placed on a pedestal above God’s words or, in this case, actions. He was blind to what God was doing with me that day. He’s also the same preacher who, on one memorable occasion,[10] began his sermon, then after half an hour of blindingly dull droning, he said, “Right, so that’s just the introduction!” And I kid ye not, an audible groan went up from the congregation at that point. And he actually didn’t notice! For crying out loud…. 🤣

I remember once, not long after our Church started, during the worship I sometimes used to sit on the front of the piano (this was a real upright piano, not the Roland keyboard I had later) during phases like the ‘collection’ or the ‘notices’; times where there wasn’t a lot of music going on, so I’d lower the lid over the keyboard and sit on it with my feet on the piano stool. Trouble was, I was so poor at that time[11] that I couldn’t afford new jeans, and so there were huge holes shall we say, ‘under’ the jeans. Thus, although I of course wore underpants, the view was apparently quite disconcerting to certain members of the congregation. And I didn’t have a clue about it 🤣😂 So, of course, as is typical in churches (which is why I am mentioning this particular adventure) some of the offended parties ignored Bible passages like Matthew 18:15 (in their own Rulebook, remember!) where Jesus encourages people with a grievance to go and talk privately with the offending party, and instead they went and told the Elders. Those people had probably been like that at school, too; going and blabbing to the teacher whenever they see something they don’t like. And they’d never lost the habit 😉 Anyhoo, one of the Elders (my ‘favourite’ one, with whom I had a close relationship as we went to Bible college together) came to me and shared the ‘problem’ really sensitively and gently. I hadn’t realised there was a problem but I took it well and sorted it. Can’t remember how, though. Maybe I just stopped sitting on the piano 😉 But what he did say was that when they told their tales to him, he did say to them, ‘Have you ever thought of buying Anthony a new pair of jeans?’ One of the great leaders, that man was; it’s a shame that he had to leave the church later because of the way they treated people. This series is most emphatically not about him!

Then there was the time in 1990 when I was musical director for a presentation of the Graham Kendrick Christmas musical, ‘The Gift‘, at Guiseley School in West Yorkshire. After three months of rehearsals and practice, with a very large music group and choir gathered from across all the churches in the area, we were ready for what was sure to be a really big event. Not only was I musical director, but I was also lead pianist, and lead vocalist on two of the tracks.

And they wanted me to buy a ticket to get in.

Yes, they wanted me to pay to get in to my own show. Only in churches, eh? Only in churches. This time I did stand up for myself, though. “What do you call this, then, ‘pay as you play’? I can’t afford a ticket, and I wouldn’t buy one if I could. My dad was a professional musician and he never had to pay to get in to one of his gigs, duh. If you won’t let me in, then the show will just have to flop, won’t it”. They caved 😉 Unsurprisingly. And the show went a bomb[12].

Here’s a photo of the show in full swing, and that’s me at the piano. Back when I had hair. They let me in after all 🤣🤣😜[13]

And finally, I remember once we’d been at a Christian Festival; a week-long camping event that was essentially a clone of the Dales Bible Week, and we’d come back all ‘fired up’ and full of new songs that we’d learned there. Of course, being a gifted musician and fully capable of playing the songs – at least those I liked, anyway[14] – as soon as I’d heard a song once or twice, and played it once through on the piano, I’d know the song for life. Anyway, on this particular occasion, one of the Elders was leading worship and he wanted one of the new songs and he decided to use my gifting – which he knew about – against me, and outside the parameters of its proper use, as far as I was concerned, anyway, which is all that matters when it comes to gifting. We hadn’t practised the song as a band, nor was there an overhead projector slide (Remember those?!) with the lyrics on it. So I gently refused to play it. Very quickly, the situation deteriorated to the point where he was growling and shouting at me through gritted teeth to play the song. Quite what the congregation thought, I don’t know. But I played it, and once again they got away with it. His tirade burst the ‘worship bubble’, though 😂; no-one felt like singing very much after that….

So, there we are. That’s just a few stories of whole loads of ridiculous nonsense heaped upon just one man in just one church[15]. I don’t know a) why they thought they could get away with it, and b) why I let them get away with it. Actually, that latter isn’t quite correct; like I said earlier, I was there because I knew that was my calling. And also for the other reasons mentioned in some of my footnotes. Maybe they knew that about my calling, though, and they knew that nothing they did would divert me from that calling – and took full advantage of that.

I don’t know; I find it hurts my head just to try to think down to that level. Far better for me to live my simple life of faith in the One Who loves me, than to get embroiled in church politics – because that’s what it was.

A far cry from the Grace under which I now live my life 🙂

Grace and peace to you!

[Addendum]: Just after finishing this essay, I had a really surreal experience. I happened across a YouTube video featuring my old pastor, who’s now well into his eighties, preaching a sermon. And I listened to it; he’s still saying the same things and doesn’t seem to realise that God has moved on…. still, the surreal bit was that his preaching is still just as compelling as it always was. It’s not surprising that they had us under kind of a spell. Really really strange feeling to hear that quite-nasal voice again, to see his gestures and mannerisms, and, yes, see the actual warmth of his heart. It’s really really odd. And I know he’s not a bad man; he’s more of a teacher than a pastor is what I think nowadays – and I still love him. But I would still never go back.

Header image is an artist’s impression of a neutron star, the remnant cinder of what was once a huge supergiant star which, once upon a time, more or less ran out of fuel and exploded in a brilliant supernova, leaving a cold, dense, dark core spinning in space forever and warping everything around it. Bright and powerful, then burned out yet still breaking things. There’s a message there, isn’t there? 😉

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Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Just a few of many, believe me!
⇧2 I must make it clear at this point that no-one had told me that this was going to happen; it was completely out of the blue, as it were.
⇧3 This was before anyone had even dreamed of CDs and mp3 files!
⇧4 And sadly, but understandably, they didn’t really like Johannes all that much after that episode…. ‘Follow that!’ indeed! 🤣🤣
⇧5 I can’t remember who it was, but it may have been Douglas Adams, or maybe Terry Pratchett, or maybe even the great Arthur C. Clarke, who said that people who put themselves forward for high leadership positions are usually the very last people who should be in such positions.
⇧6 Except of course in the more high-control churches, but to be fair ‘my’ church wasn’t really like that.
⇧7 Something that they failed to appreciate was that we could have done it in a different and far more inconvenient way. We could have told them that we were not going to be there that week, and simply not gone to Church. And they’d have had to arrange something else in terms of musicians; anyway most of the band was still there after we’d gone, and fully competent they were too. But we could have simply not been there at all. Instead, though, we did what we saw as the ‘right thing’ and turned up to play, and then left when we’d done our bit. There was no further inconvenience to anyone apart from maybe having to do their last song a capella (unaccompanied), although like I said there were still other competent musicians there and they were happy with our leaving at half-time. There wasn’t even a keyboard to pack away as this was before we’d got the Roland synth. If we’d not been there, and made arrangements for cover, we’d not have been castigated; instead, we did turn up and we got a bollocking anyway. How utterly, utterly stupid and irrational is that??
⇧8 Also, it says a lot for either our indoctrination, our reluctance to ‘rock the boat’, or our subconscious reluctance to give them an opening for further bollockings – somehow, you know that if you protest, you will fall even further from their favour – that we let them get away with that, absolutely scot-free. I feel terrible now – remorseful – that I did not stand up for myself, nor especially for my beloved wife, on that occasion. Nowadays, of course, I wouldn’t put up with it at all.
⇧9 And yes, he did have a really beady, disapproving stare!!
⇧10 Only memorable because of what happened!
⇧11 Partly because of having to tithe to the hilt!
⇧12 That means it went well 🤣
⇧13 Interestingly, though, the bloke I had the ‘chat’ with ended up becoming a ‘Grace’ believer. I even got an apology out of him; he volunteered it too. Sorry for anything I did when I was an Evangelical, sort of thing. Very refreshing.
⇧14 For some reason (probably Autism-related), my musical gifting, in terms of playing songs, only extends (musically speaking, that is, not necessarily in terms of lyrics) to pieces I actually like. Songs I don’t like, musically, just don’t stay in my head well enough for me to remember how they ‘go’, and I am completely hopeless at reading sheet music. Songs that have great tunes but dreadful lyrics I can play, but why would I ever want to?? 😉
⇧15 That church is now an unrecognisable shred of what it once was. It is a sad fact that congregations who express the unconditional love of Christ are few and far between nowadays. Much more common are groups where the love of Christ has gone cold, and all that is left is the cold, shrivelled neutron star (what’s left of a powerful supergiant star, once its fuel runs out); a cinder of a church that has had its day; it’s only carrying on going in order to try and recapture memories of its past glories, and it’s about time it closed down completely. I’m sure Jesus stil turns up, which to be honest is likely all that keeps them going at all. It’s interesting that folks in such remnant congregations generally have only sin-policing and dislike of ‘worldly’ systems as their common/uniting factors, rather than uniting in love and letting that love leak out into their community. In a sense, they are closed systems with no new life. Maybe that’s why their fuel has run out…

A Dark Testimony III – Nathan

Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 4 of 5 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

Here’s the third in my set of testimonies from friends; testimonies that highlight the failings and indeed the evils of Evangelicalism, but without judging, without naming and shaming, without anything like that. All I’m doing is presenting stories that have been given to me as facts. I leave it up to my readers to hear what the Spirit has to say to the churches.

This heart-rending piece is by Nathan R. Koppe, and includes the header picture he used in his social media post. I’m not going to comment on it; if I did that it would spoil its effect 🙂

 

To my former religion,

You told me I was wretched, unworthy, that I needed saving from hell.

You said I was covered as long as I was a child, that God was not so cruel as to send a child to this place but once I reached an age that you ambiguously determined, that I was accountable, and I was in danger of hell fire for eternity.

You told me I was born in sin and it was my responsibility to rid myself of it to become acceptable to God.

You said I must become sorrowful for being human and having human urges and characteristics.

Your remedy was to beat me down to humiliation, usher me to water baptism, then find some way to get me to some state, evidently with lots of screaming, shouting, crying, telling me what to say to God.

I saw loved ones wrestle for years to reach this mysterious state, living in fear of hell, until you were satisfied that they had rattled something off that didn’t resemble their spirit

You told me this was my only hope of not being tortured in hell forever.

You could never give me a satisfactory explanation of how a God who is Love could allow this to happen.

It was one of those issues that was swept under the carpet without a logical answer.

You told me this was the only way to be saved and the rest of the world was lost.

Then you imposed standards, with a bar so high, nobody could reach, yet you threatened me with hell if I didn’t conform to them.

This instilled fear, that I could lose this salvation by not living up to these requirements, kept me awake at night and gave me nightmares and depression.

I lived in constant fear.

I tried. I tried and failed.

I tried again and failed, again and again, and you accused me of being rebellious, ungodly, and that I just wanted to sin.

You condemned me when I fell into addiction and drove me to suicidal thoughts, as I ploughed through my life and the lives of loved ones, trying to quiet this fear with which you plagued me.

You blamed me for my horror, and called it conviction and God “dealing with me”

I know in my heart that you thought you were doing what was right for me, but you were wrong.

I do not blame you. I know you loved me the way you were loved. However, I needed more Grace than you offered.

I needed a more loving God.

Deep in my soul I knew He was not the one you were presenting to me.

I’m thankful for the years I struggled with you.

They have brought me here to this place, where I am today.

I know I am loved by God and His grace covers every part of me.

I know He loved me the same when I was at my lowest as he does at this moment.

For all these reasons, I had to leave you.

It breaks my heart, but today I know I was deceived, because you were deceived.

Perhaps we won’t see eye to eye in this life, but I am confident, there will come a time, when all has been restored, when we will…

in the Body of Christ again, built on the very cornerstone that forms our foundation of our belief that God really is unconditional in his Love…

Yes, there is even Grace for you.

 – Nathan R. Koppe, shared with his kind permission.

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A Dark Testimony II – From a Friend

Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

Continuing our sequence of Dark Testimonies, as part of my series on the Problems of Evangelicalism, here is another beautifully eloquent testimony from one of my friends.

My friend has asked to remain anonymous, so I have of course honoured that – but the story still maintains its power nevertheless. Here we go:

Self – Flagellation 

In the church of my youth, self-flagellation[1] was a spiritual discipline.

I’ll explain.

During communion services, men were allowed to stand up, read from the Bible, and expand on their thoughts a little. Women were generally restricted to asking the organist to play a specific hymn/song, or to pray. If they read from the Bible, they weren’t allowed to say anything about what they’d read out, as that would be considered teaching.

Anyway, one Sunday morning, during the communion service, my father rose to his feet and, in a rare display of emotion, announced, ‘I am a sinner!’. Specifically, he told the congregation about some behaviour he wasn’t proud of, but the heart of his confession was this peculiar passion about being a sinner. Reaffirming his fallen identity in public was very much the trumpet blast of his faith, as it was for many in the congregation.

After he sat down, another man stood up to talk about how ‘brave’ my dad was for telling us of his sins.

My father’s passion for public confession was symptomatic of a wider theological fallacy in the church we attended. Men would rarely get passionate about grace, mercy, or the life and ministry of Jesus, but they loved to talk about sin. With the benefit of hindsight, I’ve reached the conclusion that this was the closest these believers ever got to a mystical experience.

The reformed theology of my denomination didn’t allow for joy. It taught us we were ‘worthless sinners’, and that the only reason any of us could approach God was because the torture we deserved had been taken out on Jesus.

We could stand in God’s presence under a ‘cloak of righteousness’, but always in the knowledge that we deserved to burn.

We spent more time, energy, and emotion obsessing about sin than we did focussing on Jesus and what he showed us about the curative, liberating, inclusive, and unconditional love of God. I’m not even sure this form of faith can be described as Christianity.

– Anonymous

Well. How do you follow that? How far had those people drifted from the simple, light and free, joy-filled faith that Christianity – Flying in the Spirit – really brings?

The testimony serves as a stark reminder that being sin-focused, either/both personally or as a church, leads to misery, drudgery and darkness. Sadly, sin-fixation is endemic in many if not most of today’s Evangelical churches. As I’ve said before,

I’ve also noticed that when you start to enthuse about your freedom while talking with a Legalist – whether they know they are one or not! – the first thing they will do is to try to explain to you why you should not be free.

And this is both symptomatic of a sin-fixation and also the ‘thin end of the wedge’ of creeping legalism; the ‘yeast of the Pharisees’. Bit by bit, any kind of acknowledgement that sin is something you should be looking at, concentrating on or even defending against, any hint of that will lead eventually to legalism. And so, it is especially relevant to look at Hebrews 12:1 once again, “…let us throw off…the sin that so easily entangles…” ‘Sin’ entangles not only by addiction and obsession, as most Evangelicals would interpret this passage – and they’d be partly right – but also that it’s the obsession with sin itself that is what really entangles. How can I put this with sufficient emphasis? The actual obsession with trying to not sin, making sure you’re not ‘entertaining’ any form of sin, trying to ‘stay away from every kind of evil’ (1Thess 5:22), and all that sort of thing. The fear that the ‘devil’, who ‘…prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour…’ might just get a look-in and devour the believer[2]. All these things are themselves the problem. As my friend’s testimony so eloquently describes, it’s not the ‘sins’ themselves that made that church service so dark – it was the actual fixation on sin that is the problem[3]. I say ‘is the problem’ because it’s not just limited to the time and place of my friend’s story, but it goes on all the time in the minds and congregations of legalistic Christians. And it was even the main fixation of the Pharisees back in New Testament times, so it’s not like it’s anything new. The constant battle against ‘sin’ is the major defining feature of many Evangelical Christians’ faith. And that’s so sad.

In Romans 7, St. Paul famously writes about his struggles with ‘sin’, concluding that it is Jesus Christ our Lord who sets him free from all that. Notice that he’s not saying that Jesus stops him from sinning, nor that Jesus quiets that notional ‘other man’, the ‘wretched man’ that persists in his desire to ‘sin’. Instead, Jesus sets him free; He takes away the whole problem by making it so that ‘sin’ is no longer an issue between man and God; it has nothing to do with righteousness any more. Because of Jesus, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because the Law of the Spirit of Life has set us free from that Law of sin and death that the ‘wretched man’ of Romans 7 was subjected to. Many preachers I have heard have commented that the allocation of chapter and verse, for some parts of the Scriptures, was not ‘inspired’ in that sometimes the chapter breaks occur at silly and unhelpful places. The Romans 7 and 8 juncture is such a place, because the chapter break interrupts Paul’s logic flow. However, not one of those preachers went any further than to say that the chapter break of Romans 7-8 is not inspired; they didn’t ever once say why they thought that.

Well the reason why is as I have just said above. Jesus has set us free from the need to worry about ‘sin’ because there is now no condemnation. None at all. In fact, given that Romans 3:20 says, ‘Therefore no-one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the Law, rather through the Law we become conscious of our sin’, he’s saying that trying to follow the Law – obeying the Rules, to put it bluntly – is futile and pointless. Now that the Law has exposed ‘our’ ‘sin’, it has fulfilled its purpose. Everyone who believes that they have ‘broken God’s Law’ now knows that; job done, so the Law can now pack up and go home. What Paul does in Romans 7-8, and through all his preceding arguments, is to say that Law is no longer relevant in terms of human righteousness, because that’s all been done by Jesus.

Therefore, being constantly sin-conscious is to deny that there is now no condemnation for those in Christ. Those who are in Christ have been set free from that same Law of sin and death that has no place in their lives any more. He also said – to a different group of believers and at a different time – that ‘if you walk in the Spirit, then you will not gratify the desires of the flesh’. This doesn’t mean that it prevents you from gratifying, or giving in to, those desires, whatever they are[4], but instead that just by walking in the Spirit means that you are no longer walking in the flesh, whatever that means. Walking in the Spirit – walking with Jesus and doing what you see Father doing (Jn 5:19) – is what the Christian life can and should be.

Note that I don’t mean walking around with your head in the clouds singing la-la-la. It’s that the state of being for Christians who realise the freedom of Grace – which is what makes us free to walk in the Spirit in the first place – is that they just get on with their lives, generally conscious that their lives are in the right place with God and that, just by living and doing the right thing, along with things the Spirit prompts them to do, they are living a righteous life. Not by their own efforts, but by resting in the place that God has given them: the place of righteousness, the place of peace, and the place of joy, because that’s what the Kingdom of God is about, not about rules and regulations. Romans 14:17 says that, “…the kingdom of God is not about food and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”. In that passage, Paul is arguing that eating or drinking the right or wrong foods is not what it’s all about; that’s all irrelevant. What it’s about is righteousness, peace and joy. Not about Law. By that point in his letter, Paul had already established that the righteousness needed is by faith, and that that is a gift – a Grace, a charis (Greek), a free gift of God. And therefore his readers have already got it. It’s not something that can be taken away or lost in any fashion.

In Romans 3:21, right in the heart of the passages so favoured by legalists, Paul is actually saying something different from legalism. In that passage he says that the righteousness is apart from Law. It has nothing to do with Law – with behaviour – not even a little bit (Eph 2:8-9). The essence of Romans 3:21 is that the righteousness is almost a new thing, because he says there, “But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify”. Not only does it say, ‘But now…’ as if something has changed – which it has, of course – but also the Law and the Prophets testify to it. This means that the Law and the Prophets have ‘handed over’ that new righteousness apart from Law. It ties in with Jesus’s Transfiguration (Mt 17:1-8, Mk 9:2-13, Lk 9:28-36), where God’s voice says ‘This is My Son; listen to Him!’, meaning that from now on, Jesus supersedes the Law (signified by the presence of Moses) and the Prophets (signified by Elijah), This is an aspect of the Transfiguration that is little understood by Evangelical Christianity, and even if you explained it to them, they would choose not to accept that interpretation. I would say that’s at least partly because they want to retain the rules from the Law and the Prophets.

Well, of course they do; it helps them stay sin-conscious! Where would sin-consciousness be without Moses? 🤣

Header picture shows two mediaeval plonkers performing self-flagellation. You’d have thought times would have changed by now, wouldn’t you? 🤣

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Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Flagellation is being hit with a whip or lash. Self-flagellation speaks for itself; you do it to yourself – Ed
⇧2 As if…. 🤣 He that is in me is greater than he who is in the world (1Jn 4:4).
⇧3 Yes, I changed the tense in mid-sentence there. You got me. Not my normal practice by any means, but it is intended as a literary device in order to show that a past problem continues into the present.
⇧4 In most Christians’ minds, the unspoken assumption is always that it’s something sexual!

A Dark Testimony I – Sonny Ray

Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

We begin our series on the problems with Evangelicalism by sharing some ‘dark testimonies’.

These are testimonies by Christians who were subjected to the dark evils of being part of a domineering Evangelical faith. Testimonies where damage was done, and people were abused to one extent or another. In some cases, there was a happy ending. In other cases, not so much. But I’m going to share them anyway.

The testimonies give great examples of some of the excesses and abuses of Evangelical leadership, their indoctrination methods and their harsh dealings with members of their congregations. As usual, I would emphasise that not all Evangelical congregations have leaders like this; however a potential church member isn’t going to know until they have been ‘netted'[1]. Most new Christians, and also people ‘seeking’ or showing an interest in Christianity, haven’t a clue about the less-than-innocent things that go on in the churches at which they enquire, in their innocence, about the things of God.

As I said in the opening piece of this series, normally I like to concentrate on “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Phil 4:8) but in these cases, it is necessary to look into the darkness to see what it’s really like in there.

So here’s the first of those pieces, an account of the oppressive Calvinist church[2] background of my online friend, Sonny Ray:

Of course, like I assume most American highschoolers of the early 1970s, I was taught Edwards’ “Sinners in the hands of an angry God.”[3] That was the flavor of the “christianity” (note that I didn’t capitalize it!) I grew up with.

We were taught nothing but fear. I was 14 when I “prayed the sinner’s prayer” and “got saved”. But by that point I already had a decade of KNOWING and BELIEVING in the God of Love. Looking back, I realize that I knew what they taught us was not the God of Jesus. The god (note that I didn’t capitalize it!) they taught me was not the Love of 1 Corinthians 13.

But growing up in conservative, rural, Deep South United States in the age of drugs, sex, and rock-and-roll, they kept us almost perfectly in check by threatening us with hell. And I not only got it in church (note that I didn’t capitalize it!). I got it at home. Mama was the image, in the flesh, of the tyrant god that the Calvinists teach. She ruled with anger, shaming, degradation, all kinds of negative approaches. Not to mention extreme corporal punishment.

It took me a very long time to walk away from that lie. To throw out the tyrant slavemaster and abusive father-figure they showed me. To learn again the God I understood as a 3 year old. The God who’s “got the whole world in His hands”. That was a children’s song my mama sang to me out on the front porch of our house one night. It was very probably the ONLY positive contribution she ever made to my faith. For in THAT MOMENT, I knew God was love. And I wanted to know that God. A God who could love me that much was a God I wanted to know. A God I could believe in.

But even having had that epiphany, I had no control over the indoctrination I received and accepted for the next 40 years! Hell, I was a CHILD. How was I supposed to avoid what they forced down my throat? They were meant to teach, guide, nurture and protect me!

But God love them. I can’t be too hard on them. They only passed down to me, the same errors they were taught.

It took me almost 30 years to escape. I’ll save the details of that for some other time. But when I escaped, I set a huge bonfire, burning that bridge behind me. Breaking away from that hell was traumatic. I knew I had to walk away. But I can’t tell you how much fear dogged me. It took a good while for me to get done with the deconstruction; burn the wood, hay, and stubble; and start gradually building back, stone by stone, the foundation and then the structure of the faith I have today — 27 years later!

I could go on. But you get the picture.

[Emperor] Constantine I was IMO one of the worst things that ever happened to the movement begun by Jesus. And we’ve already spent 1700 years, this year, paying the consequences of THAT error. And he was only one of the problems — errors — hypocrisies — heresies — the “church” has succumbed to in the 2000 years since Christ.

– Sonny Ray, used with his kind permission

Note how, in Sonny Ray’s experience, even though he had ‘prayed the Sinner’s Prayer’, still his church and family felt they could threaten him with Hell.

This, to me, has to be one of the worst inconsistencies in all of Evangelicalism. ‘He who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved’ (Romans 10:22; Joel 2:32), claims the evangelist salesman who calls people out to the altar to ‘get saved’. Will be saved. Not, ‘will be saved as long as you behave yourself’, but will be saved. “Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:6) [emphasis mine] and other similar reassuring verses.

And then in a typical bait-and-switch, all of a sudden the deal is changed; now you have to behave yourself as well; if you believe that, then it effectively cancels out those verses they used to sell it to you.[4] The idea of threatening the ‘already-saved’ with hell also has this corollary: the person making the threat is also subject to its effects; i.e. they too could ‘go to hell’ if they put a foot wrong, despite being ‘already saved’. The idea of ‘once saved, always saved‘, is anathema to these people because if that was true then they’d lose their ability to threaten. Maybe also they are so insecure in their salvation that they feel that they too would be condemned due to ‘blood-guiltiness'[5] were they to not ‘point out’ errors and transgressions in others?

He also demonstrates something I have mentioned in my previous work: how the pure Jesus experience, knowing God as Father and all that, how it gets overlaid by layers of toxic church baggage, through intensive indoctrination. It really is criminal, although Sonny Ray is very gracious towards the people who did that to him and doesn’t hold it against them.

Anyway, these are just points that immediately struck me; I will leave you to glean your own conclusions and thinking from the story.

Grace and Peace to you!

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Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 I am not including in this series any examples of church/clergy sexual abuse. These are way outside my remit, and to be honest I can make all of my points without going there.
⇧2 Are Calvinists Evangelical? Opinions differ, but for the purposes of this piece, it doesn’t really matter. The abuse is the same regardless.
⇧3 This is a classic/notorious (depending on your point of view) sermon by nineteenth-century preacher Jonathan Edwards, where he describes the state of ‘sinners’ roasting in Hell. It’s not for the faint-hearted. Google it if you want to read it; I’m not promoting such filth on my website – Ed
⇧4 This idea was actually one of the catalysts for me to begin to realise just what Grace is all about, but that’s my story, not Sonny Ray’s.
⇧5 Blood-guilt is an ancient concept from the Old Testament, which is strongly favoured by legalistic denominations where people are condemned for not doing their utmost to prevent others ‘perishing’, by whatever means their religion chooses. It’s particularly popular among Jehovah’s Witnesses who literally use it to guilt-trip their congregants into doing the door-to-door preaching, particularly now they’re not required to count hours anymore.

The Problems With Evangelicalism

Insights, Star Wars
This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism
Series Description

The time has come.

Yes, the time has come.[1] The time has come for me to put out there, hopefully in a series of clearly reasoned and described essays, a clear set of assertions in which I describe the major problems (as I see them) with Evangelicalism, a major branch of modern-day Christianity and the one in which I spent most of the formative years of my Christian life.

Why would I want to do this? And why now? Well, as for ‘why now?’, the unwelcome visit of two evangelists to my house, a couple of months ago, was the catalyst. Even before the time of their visit, I was already in a place where I was realising more and more the problems of Evangelicalism, already writing about them in my blog, and considering writing more on the subject. The evangelists’ visit was the last straw, and (to bring us to the question of why I would want to do this) in the aftermath of their visit, it got me thinking obsessively[2] of just how bad Evangelical Christianity really has got. I’d been thinking already along those lines, as I said, but now the gloves are off and it’s time to ‘go public’ with how I see things. Those evangelists came to me, proving that I’m not safe from the depredations of Evangelicalism even in my own home.

And so, I think it’s time for me to say something.

I have to say that, at the root of things, the beliefs and behaviours of many in the Evangelical movement do such a huge injustice to Jesus, Whom I love above any other, and my Heavenly Father (ditto), that it really is time to set the record straight. Yes, this may become a series of rants. Yes, this may even be presumptious; who is this Tony guy to tell the entire Evangelical world how wrong they are?

But as John Pavlovitz says, this is “Stuff that needs to be said”. It needs to be called out. They need to be called out. And in order to deny them any ability to respond publicly, which they would do because the Religious just can’t help themselves, I will say right from the start that I am also going to disable commenting for these posts[3].

In addition, so very many of Jesus’s teachings and sayings are examples of where He’s calling out the Religious of His time for the way they behave towards other people, usually those they consider less ‘worthy’ than themselves.

And so, I have decided to make completely public my problems with Evangelicalism[4] and describe what I believe are its faults and indeed its apostasy.

Hopefully, this will give an insider’s perspective[5] which may help others as a warning for those who may be considering joining an Evangelical church.

And it may also help those who are already trapped in there, and need some confirmation that they’re not the only ones who are feeling like Evangelicalism has some pretty serious issues.

And who knows, it may even help some blissfully-unaware Evangelicals to see how way off-beam Evangelicalism actually is; how far it has strayed from the things that Jesus taught.

In this series, I will be showing an eclectic mixture of contradictions, hypocrisies, cognitive dissonances, bad theologies, apostasies, heresies, behaviours, abuses, and all manner of other things wrong with Evangelicalism.

And much of this stuff I will present using arguments from the Bible. Why on Earth should I want to present articles about the dark side of Evangelicalism using the Bible, that book most beloved, and indeed in some cases deified and worshipped, by Evangelical Christians? Isn’t there at least a whiff of irony there?

Well, the main reason I’d want to present a Biblical picture is because many Evangelicals won’t listen to any reasoning unless it’s ‘supported by Scripture’. In my writing, I always try to support my ideas with Scripture because I want to show that my ideas can indeed be seen as Biblical if viewed without preconceptions[6].

I realise that there are many good people in Evangelicalism. And Christianity in general does a lot of good[7]. And for the rest, I prefer to believe that what they do and what they think is more the result of a lack of critical analysis of what they were told as a new believer. In fact, I am fully aware that the only reason I was able to break free from the thought patterns of the cult[8] is because God led me out of it. God revealed to me – almost literally in a flash – the true meaning of the concept of Grace, and once you’ve seen it, you can’t unsee it.On the other hand, I think it’s also the case that you can’t see it until it is revealed to you[9]. So I can’t hold it against the people who are still trapped inside legalism as espoused by Evangelicalism. But what I can do is to bring to the light what Evangelicalism is really like, and what its adherents believe under all the glitz and chrome of its public face. Although, given the behaviour of many modern Christians, that public face is also increasingly being seen for what it is.

Hence, this series. Much of what I write will come from hard experience: personal experiences in church environments; experience of helping people who have been damaged by the Religious; online discussions with hard-nosed Christian Pharisee trolls. And it also means that I will be writing some pretty dark pieces, where normally I love to be upbeat. Concentrating too much on the dark stuff is a sure way to getting a dark outlook; normally I like to concentrate on “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.” (Phil 4:8).  So, don’t be surprised if you detect a little bit of snark or sarcasm coming through, as well as some dry humour;  humour is my way of coping with writing on such a miserable subject. And the articles in the series will also be interspersed with other articles, just to keep things light and also for variety 🙂

Please just keep it in mind that I am writing this series, really, to help people, OK?

For a bit of background, and for a couple of stories about spiritual abuse that has happened to me at the hands of Evangelicals, check out these two posts. You could even see them as being ‘honorary members’ of this series, in fact 😀 The posts are referenced in the above essay, but are included here again in order to emphasise their relevance:

Top Tip: Read the Signs!

The Destroyer of Faith

 

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 The header image shows a scene from Star Wars – Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, with Emperor Palpatine issuing ‘Order 66‘; the order for his Clone Troopers to wipe out the Jedi, the warrior/monk religious class that had been the guardians of peace and justice in the Galaxy for thousands of years. His actual order is, “The time has come. Execute Order 66”. Interestingly, by that time in the history of the Star Wars Universe, the Jedi, while not actually evil, had become atrophied, hidebound, legalistic, culty, self-serving, inward-looking and largely ineffective. I will let you work out for yourself the parallels there with any modern religious organisations – and yes, there are more than one!

While my series will by no means ‘wipe out’ Evangelicalism, of course, (not that I’d even want to if I could!), it will expose in some small measure its problems, shortcomings and yes, I’ll even say ‘evils’.

⇧2 It’s an Autistic trait
⇧3 In the past, I have even had Pharisee trolls trying to circumvent comment blocking by writing to me via the email address intended solely for reporting technical issues. Such commenters should be aware that all comments like that will mysteriously disappear forever, anything I do see of your ranting before realising it is not a technical query email will be disregarded, and all your time will have been wasted.
⇧4 By ‘problems with Evangelicalism’, I mean not only its beliefs and practices, but also the way in which it abuses people both inside and outside the group
⇧5 Albeit an ex-insider’s perspective, but, well, you know churches; they are so hidebound and ossified that they won’t have changed much if at all since last I went to one
⇧6 Not that I do ‘proof-texting‘, of course; proof texting is where people refer to isolated Scripture verses in order to ‘prove’ their assertions. No, I generally use Scripture by giving examples of the things I am talking about, rather than trying to ‘prove’ things from there. There is a subtle difference. The other way I use it – and this is definitely not proof-texting – is if I am discussing a given passage of Scripture, in which case I usually do proper commentary or even sometimes an exegesis.
⇧7 But in Evangelicalism’s case, it is usually with strings attached. Yes, here’s some free food, but you must let us preach the gospel at you before you can have it.
⇧8 Some Evangelical congregations are more culty than others, mainly dependent on their origins, background and leadership, but most Evangelical churches do in fact check the boxes for many of the criteria of a cult.
⇧9 You certainly won’t learn of it from others in Evangelicalism, unless a covert Grace-believer helps you with it.

A Change of Perspective

Aviation, Insights, Others' stuff

As my regular readers will know, one of the basic premises of my blog is that a life of faith has many parallels with the sport of flying light aircraft.

I have a subscription to the excellent ‘Pilot‘ Magazine, and I was even priviliged to have had an article of mine published in it some years ago too. In the July, 2025 edition of the magazine, the Editor, Eugenio Facci, published his editorial and, on reading it, it was immediately apparent to me that he ‘gets it’. Not that this is surprising, of course, because I would say many Pilots feel the same, but he described really well the almost-spiritual freedom and indeed life-changing perspective one gets when flying a light aircraft[1]. I identified with his words so much that I thought, right, that’s one for the blog. Eugenio has kindly given me his enthusiastic permission to use his piece so, without further ado, here it is:

Eugenio Facci

When I was ten, I used to spend a fair amount of time at the local flying club, where my dad was working towards his PPL[2] – and where I would occasionally fly in the back of a PA-28 [3] during his training flights.

One day, one of the club’s pilots asked me if I wanted to fly with him – in a Cessna 152, meaning in the front seat! I was ecstatic! Of course I did: I was ten, obsessed with flying, I (thought I) knew everything about aeroplanes, and the floor of my bedroom was covered with avidly-read aviation magazines.

I said yes, trying to appear absolutely unfazed – I had read somewhere that a good pilot always keeps it cool – and up we went. The Cessna 152 lifted off into the grey October sky. Once level, the moment came: “Do you want to take control?”

It was a very big deal for me. I put my hands on the yoke and looked around, initially just keeping level. Then, a gentle turn to the right. I saw the right aileron move up (what a nerd), the wing getting lower, the world moving. Wow… I was making the world move! What a sense of power, of freedom, of a different existence! The drudgery of normal life seemed so far away; up there in the sky, I felt like I had graduated into an upper echelon of the universe.

The day after, a Monday, I went to school a different person. Life didn’t have the boundaries of before, nor did I. The experience of flying an aircraft had been empowering and (strangely) humbling at the same time. I quietly told my closest friends (I wasn’t sure everybody would really ‘get it’), and those friends saw a different child from just a few days before. Like meditation changes the mind of a zen master, so flying had changed my mind and soul. Most of all, it had given me one of the most precious things in life: confidence, and of the right kind.

This is not something you stumble upon easily. Nowadays, many young people struggle with confidence, and, quite a few studies seem to show that there are rising problems with anxiety and mental health in younger generations – possibly due to the impossibly high standards and constant scrutiny that comes with social media. As it happens, General Aviation[4] can help with this problem, and various organisations are already very active in that regard. Just to name a few, Youth and Education Support (YES) in England, the Take Off charity in Scotland and, expanding beyond the world of youngsters, Aerobility.

This is great, but the positive social impact of this could be amplified if this confidence-building exercise became a formal tool within the education policy of a country. The opportunity is there; most science topics can be explained in a fun and interesting way by using aviation as an applied example, and many children like aeroplanes – so you would not have to impose a boring topic onto them.

In addition, the big wave of investments that will come with rearming Britain and the Western world is the perfect time to ask ourselves: What kind of youth do we want to bring up? After all, a nation is only as strong as the minds of its citizens, and the UK (like most other countries) does little to train systematically its youngsters in terms of confidence, resilience, and emotional maturity – just to name a few key aspects that flying helps you develop.

Personally, I am very grateful for the confidence, energy and sturdiness that aviation gave me while growing up. I think we owe the younger generations the same opportunities, and possibly better ones.

– Eugenio Facci
Editorial, Pilot Magazine July 2025

Used here with his kind permission.

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 I couldn’t speak for flying a large aircraft, of course, having never done it!
⇧2 Private Pilot’s Licence – Ed
⇧3 That aircraft is described in this article – Ed
⇧4 General Aviation is the branch of aviation in which you find things like private pilots (like Eugenio and I), business jets, TV station helicopters, and all that sort of thing. Mainly, then, flying that is neither military nor really commercial, in terms of the big passenger jets and similar – Ed

On Guilt by Association

Insights, Others' stuff

The concept of ‘guilt by association’ – where if a person associates with someone who others think of as somehow ‘bad’ for whatever reason[1] then somehow that person becomes ‘just as bad as ‘they’ are’ simply by associating with them there ‘sinners’ – has never sat well with me. Even writing about the concept makes me feel sick.

My opinion, of course, is radically different from the norm. If someone is ostracised for treating another person as a fellow human being, no matter what their leanings or beliefs, then it is the people doing the ostracising that are in the wrong[2]. Plain and simple. To these abusers – and such they are – a person associating with someone being shunned means that the person doing the association will also get shunned too[3]. Sadly, in these days of cancel culture and all the other judgmentalism perpetrated by people in general, and especially Religious people (who really should know better, according to their own rules), this sort of behaviour is rife. In some cases, especially in cults[4], it is even taken as far as the complete exclusion of the people involved from their community[5], which intentionally deeply harms the victims of such practices. It’s no wonder that Jesus didn’t do it then, eh?

I myself have never practiced this particular form of abuse (and abuse it is); it has simply never made any sense to me. I have always been aware that others have opinions which I may not share, and that’s fine[6]. Yes, I regularly rant about the Religious, but that’s because a) Jesus did it, and I am feeling His heart on that, and b) they are the people who push their views on others, so they need pushback. But still, I do not do guilt by association. That’s simply not on. And even when it is explained to them that Jesus did it, the boringly predictable response is always, ‘Ah yes, but Jesus didn’t condone their sin!’.

Well that’s correct in one way, but actually it’s only correct because He never even mentioned their ‘sin’ on those occasions – their ‘sin’ being the perceived reason(s) why the Religious considered them ‘untouchable’. For Jesus, it wasn’t even an issue. No, it was the Religious that brought up the subject, via their judgmentalism.

For the Religious, and even for some of Jesus’s followers, the habit of assigning guilt by association was present, and they read into His association with these people that He approved of their ‘behaviour’, as did St. Paul later in places in his letters. Of course, Jesus was having none of that.

And so I present here, in a refreshingly clear and perceptive article, my online friend, Rhonda, expressing an excellent series of points saying why it should not be ‘common practice’ to do ‘guilt by association’, despite it being ‘in the Bible’. Over to Rhonda:

Jesus never taught guilt by association. In fact, if there was one thing that constantly scandalized the religious elite of his time, it was precisely his refusal to treat “sinners” as untouchables. He dined with them, befriended them, healed them, and even gathered them as his closest followers. Prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers, Samaritans, Roman centurions, and yes—even Pharisees—were all welcomed, loved, and drawn into his circle of grace. Jesus embodied righteousness in association, never in separation. His holiness was not a fragile thing that recoiled from impurity; it was a powerful, compassionate presence that made the unclean whole.

But it’s sobering to notice that this radical example of love and inclusion didn’t always carry over into the writings of some early Christians—even those who genuinely loved Christ. For instance, Paul, in his more combative moments, wrote of certain believers: “I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!” (Galatians 5:12). Not exactly gentle. In 2 Thessalonians 3:14–15, he says: “Take special note of anyone who does not obey our instruction in this letter. DO NOT ASSOCIATE (CAPS mine) with them, in order that they may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard them as an enemy, but warn them as you would a fellow believer.”

John—yes, the beloved disciple—also wrote things that sound surprisingly harsh, if, indeed, it was the Apostle John who wrote them, but deep Bible scholars question their actual authorship. In 2 John 10–11, the writer says: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, DO NOT TAKE THEM INTO YOUR HOUSE OR WELCOME THEM (CAPS mine). Anyone who welcomes them shares in their wicked work.” That’s a far cry from Jesus’ warm table fellowship with everyone from doubters to traitors. And in 3 John, the author condemns a man named Diotrephes for not acknowledging his authority, writing in verse 10 that he “spreads malicious nonsense” and REFUSES TO WELCOME FELLOW BELIEVERS—ironically while hypocritically doing the same in return.

Even 1 John—filled with beautiful words about love—draws absolute lines. “THEY WENT OUT FROM US, BUT THEY WERE NOT REALLY OF US.” (CAPS mine) (1 John 2:19). That verse has been tragically used to justify excluding people who think differently, believe differently, worship differently, or honestly question ideas.

All of this, to me, is one of the clearest evidences that inspiration is not the same as inerrancy. People filled with love for Christ can still let fear, ego, and tribalism slip into their words. They can be profoundly inspired and also profoundly human. They can write deep spiritual truth and still get things wrong. We shouldn’t feel the need to paper over this tension—it’s honest, and even hopeful, because it reminds us that God works through imperfect vessels, like them… and like us.

So when we find inconsistencies between Jesus and those who tried to speak on his behalf, we don’t have to reject their words wholesale—but neither must we sanctify their every phrase. Jesus is the touchstone, the lens, the living Word. When the Bible leads us to him, we treasure it. When it seems to lead us away from his example, we step back and say, “That sounds more like us than like him.”

And that’s okay. It just means we’re still growing.

– Rhonda

I think that’s just brilliant. And it’s also an excellent example of how the Bible should, and should not, be ‘applied’ in our lives today – and in our cultures. Not as a one-size-fits-all set of rules, but as a set of documents that were written by imperfect humans who were growing and changing in their faiths, in a world and in cultures that were very different from ours.

We could do with remembering that.

Grace and Peace

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 …whether it’s because of differing opinions, ‘sin’, crime, being on the LGBTQ+ spectrum, whatever.
⇧2 Also, consider this. In the Second World War, in Occupied France, sometimes, escaping Allied service personnel (usually downed fliers and similar) would be found by local French civilians, say hiding in a barn. Often, those civilians would look after the needs of the stricken young man: feeding him, tending to his wounds and so on – just because a) they were human and b) he was human. But if the occupying German forces found out, those giving the help would be severely punished. Just by associating with the escaping airman, then, those civilians were seen as ‘guilty’ by the Germans. There is absolutely no difference between this behaviour, and the guilt-by-association practised by people in society these days, and especially those with an axe to grind – like the Religious.
⇧3 I’m a loner anyway; shunning has no effect on me! 🤣 But I’m painfully aware that others are deeply affected by it.
⇧4 I include much of Evangelical Christianity in this bracket
⇧5 Which makes me certain that the ‘community’ was not worth being a member of in the first place. Pick yourself up, shake the dust, move on.
⇧6 And if a person with Asperger’s Syndrome (me) can be aware of that, then surely neurotypical people can?? And I apologise for calling you Shirley.

“Ex-Batt Christians” – Reblog

Insights, Ministry, Reblogs

Ten years ago to the day, I published the piece “Ex-Batt Christians”, which was what I still consider to be one of the most important and meaningful essays I have ever written. It still applies today, because a) many Christians (including most Evangelicals) are still trapped inside the cage of religion[1], and b) many people are finding their way out of that cage and are unsure of what to do next, or even if it’s ‘safe’ to be outside the cage. 

This piece was almost a parable, and can still be read as such today. Some of the minor details have changed (for example, we no longer have four chickens; just one now and she, of course, wasn’t one of the four mentioned in the essay[2]) but still the lessons are just as applicable now as they were then.

Here we go, then. Enjoy!

My family has a flock of rescued chickens. At present, there’s four birds in the flock, and most of them are ‘retired’ caged chickens.

Caged chickens are what used to be referred to as ‘battery hens’; hens that right from the day they were hatched have never known freedom. From before the time they begin laying, until they are about a year old, they spend all their time in a cage. Then they are either sent off for slaughter or they are rehomed as ‘ex-battery’ hens, or ‘ex-batt’ for short. Three of our girls are ex-batt hens; the fourth was a stray whom we adopted.

Now, about six weeks ago, our two newest hens arrived. Apart from being all bedraggled and nearly bald (we thought they actually looked ‘oven-ready!’), they simply didn’t know what to do with their new freedom. They spent the first couple of days huddled together in the (open) chicken cage, while the hens we already had were roaming about their large pen, pecking at this and that like chickens do. Then, after a couple of days, they dared to come out of the cage a couple of feet; after that, they came right out but hid in the bushes for most of the day.  All the time, they felt they had to be near the ‘safety’ of their cage, so they could bolt back to their place of security. Only after about four weeks with us did they realise that they had choices, they had freedom, and it was up to them how they spent their day. Stay in the chicken coop? No problem. Sit in the shade? Mmmhmm, and have a dust-bath while you’re there. Want to wander round the chicken pen and explore? Go right ahead, it’s perfectly safe. And occasionally they even get let out of the pen and into the whole garden, on what we call ‘rampage’. And they love the freedom!

I’m sure you can see the analogy. I feel that there are many Christians who are still in the chicken coop. They have been set free from the kingdom of darkness, but they are not enjoying the ‘glorious freedom of the Children of God’ (Romans 8:21)

Much of the time, they find it hard to emerge from the ‘safety’ of the coop. Sure, it’s safe in there, but it’s not freedom. Even once they emerge, they are ready at a moment’s notice to bolt back in there.

Jesus was castigated by the religious authorities of His day, for associating with ‘sinners’. He was admonished most severely for partying and having a great time with His friends. Mark 2:18 – “Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?” These people – even John the Baptist’s disciples, who were effectively part of a ‘new’ movement – felt that religious observance meant being dull, dry, and having a straight face all the time. No fun is allowed, folks, and certainly no laughing!

But Jesus was having none of that. When the Bridegroom (Jesus) is with us, we don’t need to ‘do’ all these religious rules and observances. We just need to live our lives in the glorious freedom of the Children of God. We can live lavishly, we can live in extravagant, outrageous freedom – freedom that will appear to the ‘religious’ (and those who think they know how ‘religious’ people should behave) to be outrageous. “What? These people believe in God and they’re happy??“

Like when I fly, my home base airfield is near a huge reservoir lake with a dam at one end. So, of course, we do low-level ‘Dambuster’ runs over it. A shallow dive, picking up speed, race across the water at high speed only 200 feet up….and then call ‘bombs away’ and a sharp, high-‘g‘ pull-up into the climb away. Tremendous fun, perfectly legal and perfectly safe. But people hear the stories of that sort of thing and they say, ‘You do, like, what??‘ And to be perfectly honest, it takes a good few days for the grin to disappear from my face after a Dambuster run…. but you see the thing is that we enjoy it. Really enjoy it. It’s part of our freedom. ‘Pilots shouldn’t do things like that’ is only said by those who have not experienced the freedom of flight – and who have not spent all those years of hard training; British pilot training is the most thorough in the world of civilian aviation and we produce the safest private pilots in the world. And yet still we do Dambuster runs, because it’s perfectly safe – because we have trained for it. It’s what we are equipped and free to do.

And so it is with the things of faith, the things of God. Those who live in freedom appear to those on the outside to be completely irreligious. They laugh and joke. They appear to be filled with an inexpressible joy. They party (in whatever way suits them), they dance, they’re free. They associate with all different types of people, including those who society sees as outcasts. They do kind things. They do daft things. And those outside – both believer and non-believer alike – look in and say, ‘No way they’re Christians. They aren’t behaving at all like a Christian should behave’. ‘How can you call yourself a Christian and still do that?’ Y’see, they just don’t ‘get’ it. The thing is that most of these unwritten expectations of behaviour are completely founded in others’ opinions and not in Scripture. Even if they were founded in Scripture, it’s not there to restrict us; rather to set us free.

People of faith who discover this new-found freedom also sometimes feel insecure in that freedom. They are emerging from the chrysalis of rules and regulations, of unwritten behavioural ‘standards’, and are exploring the pen near the cage. They’ re ready to scuttle back into the cage if they feel too unsafe. But you know, God made us for freedom, and ‘it is for freedom that Christ has set us free’ (Gal 5:1). It’s what we were made for! But don’t worry if at first you feel insecure. You no longer have the ‘rules’ as a backstop. But you don’t need rules anymore. Heb 10:16 – “I will write My laws upon their hearts”. Holy Spirit is your backstop and He will not let you fall. In any event, your salvation is secure even if/when you do make mistakes. This is the freedom we possess! Once saved, always saved. Click here for my blog posting on that truth.

So, can you see then that these ‘ex-batt Christians’ really need to come out of their cage and enjoy the freedom of the pen. That’s what they were rescued for! That’s what they were adopted for!

Life in all its fulness! Come on out of the cage and into the pen – or better yet, out into the garden. The freedom out here is wonderful!

chickens
Our chickens on ‘rampage’, having fun 😉

Hope that helps, with anything that’s on your mind or your spirit 🙂

Grace and peace to you.

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Religion, in the sense of trying to ‘do’ things in order to please God, in order to appease any ‘wrath’ He may happen to be feeling towards them. Essentially, it’s legalism cloaked under a thin veneer of a completely misunderstood and misrepresented ‘grace’. Wanting to please God because you love Him is one thing; trying to please Him in order to appease Him, and thereby avert anything nasty that you fear He might do to you, is another thing entirely.
⇧2 Chickens generally live for about five years; the oldest one we had, Florence, was eight when she died and she was one of the four mentioned in the essay.

The Wisdom of Age

Others' stuff, Wisdom

I have found that my attitudes to many things have changed over the years. This is perfectly normal and is indeed what one would expect, given that experience is, in and of itself, a learning process. You experience something, and your skills, attitudes and thinking change because of that experience – notwithstanding the header image![1] 😀

I saw an interesting article on the Internet the other day, which encapsulates this idea very well, and shares some of these attitudes. I thought that my readers may well be blessed by reading them, so I share them here for your edification.[2]

“I asked a friend who has crossed 70 & is heading towards 80 what sort of changes he is feeling in himself? He sent me the following:

  1. After loving my parents, my siblings, my spouse, my children and my friends, I have now started loving myself.
  2. I have realized that I am not “Atlas”. The world does not rest on my shoulders.
  3. I have stopped bargaining with vegetable & fruit vendors. A few pennies more is not going to break me, but it might help the poor fellow save for his daughter’s school fees.
  4. I leave my waitress a big tip. The extra money might bring a smile to her face. She is toiling much harder for a living than I am.
  5. I stopped telling the elderly that they’ve already narrated that story many times. The story makes them walk down memory lane & relive their past.
  6. I have learned not to correct people even when I know they are wrong. The onus of making everyone perfect is not on me. Peace is more precious than perfection.
  7. I give compliments freely & generously. Compliments are a mood enhancer not only for the recipient, but also for me. And a small tip for the recipient of a compliment, never, NEVER turn it down, just say “Thank You.”
  8. I have learned not to bother about a crease or a spot on my shirt. Personality speaks louder than appearances.
  9. I walk away from people who don’t value me. They might not know my worth, but I do.
  10. I remain cool when someone plays dirty to outrun me in the rat race. I am not a rat[3] & neither am I in any race.
  11. I am learning not to be embarrassed by my emotions. It’s my emotions that make me human.
  12. I have learned that it’s better to drop the ego than to break a relationship. My ego will keep me aloof, whereas with relationships, I will never be alone.
  13. I have learned to live each day as if it’s the last. After all, it might be the last.
  14. I am doing what makes me happy. I am responsible for my happiness, and I owe it to myself. Happiness is a choice. You can be happy at any time, just choose to be!


I decided to share this for all my friends. Why do we have to wait to be 60 or 70 or 80, why can’t we practice this at any stage and age?”

I think that’s pretty good 😀

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Which, if you think about it, does not preclude my opening argument!
⇧2 Unfortunately, the original author was not credited in the piece I read.
⇧3 Actually, I do consider myself to be an honorary rat. My daughter keeps pet rats, and they have accepted me as being part of their ‘mischief’ (the collective name for a group of rats). Well, if it’s good enough for them, then it’s good enough for me, and so I am a rat, in their thinking at least. I consider this a great honour 😀