Monthly Archives: July 2025

What To Do If You’re Losing Your Faith

Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 7 of 18 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

I am sensitive to the possibility that some of the dark things I have been sharing recently may have introduced, or reinforced, some unease in my readers.

Either the things shared themselves, or the reactions they have engendered in my readers. Or even just the reminders of things that maybe we had buried as too painful to confront.

Either way, doubts may have arisen (or pre-existed) about their faith, doubts about their church, doubts about their leaders, their denomination, their beliefs. While I fully acknowledge that God uses all these factors in order to move His children on in their spiritual walk, sometimes we need a bit of help along the way. There’s nothing wrong with doubts, but they can be uncomfortable, and that’s what I want to address today.

In our processes of rebuilding our faith structure, therefore, and re-realising what we actually believe, it is good to get some encouragement from ‘outside’; in this instance, from a good ‘third party’, the brilliant John Pavlowitz. This essay reminds us of just how good God is, which is always a good thing 🙂

Here, then, is his encouraging piece. I hope it blesses you as much as it has blessed me!

I just don’t know if I believe anymore—and I don’t know what to do about it.

I hear words like these every single day from people from every corner of the planet, from every strand of the Christian tradition, and every segment of society. They are once-religious people who, for any number of reasons, are now finding the very ground of faith eroding beneath their feet, and they are panicking.

And this fear is understandable. After all, a faith shift is terrifying stuff to endure. It’s one thing to question the institutional Church or to poke holes in the religious systems we’ve put in place, or even to critique the Bible and how we interpret it. Those are all manageable crises.

We can endure such things and still hold a steady confidence in the belief that God is and that God is good. Even if on some days, that is all that remains of our fragile faith narrative, it can be enough.

But what do you do when with all the sleepless wrestling and the furrowed-browed prayers and the ceaseless questions and the best-intended efforts, even that seems out of reach? What happens when the very reality of God (or of a God who is good) seems too much for you to claim ownership of? How do you keep going while in the middle of a full-blown spiritual collapse?

It often isn’t a matter of just being more determined or more “religious”. Most of the time, people have reached these desperate moments despite continually reading the Bible and praying and volunteering and attending church services, and trying to believe. They haven’t refrained from those disciplines. They often are as devout and engaged as ever, only these pursuits no longer yield the clarity and confidence and comfort they once did.

Many people come to me in that barren spiritual dryness, and they almost always carry the crushing guilt of failure. They are grieving deeply, feeling helpless to get back what they’ve lost, and angry at themselves for not being faithful enough to conjure up a belief that used to come as a simple given. (And often they’re pretty ticked off at God, too.)

If you’re in that place right now, I won’t pretend there’s any easy way out or a simple path back to faith. I can’t even promise that you’ll ever find your way back, at least not to what you used to call belief. It may be a very different experience in the future.

So what can you do right now?

It might be to pray or read the Bible or find a new church, but likely it’s something else entirely.

Maybe it’s about asking yourself what you still know to be true; about the goodness of people, about the things that matter to you, about the gifts you’ve been given, about the kind of person you want to be in the world.

It could be that today it’s just about what’s right in front of you: about what you can see and hear and touch and smell and taste. Maybe the best thing you can do right now is to experience all of the things that you can know, and simply receive them with gratitude: a delicious meal, the evening breeze, some music that moves you, the laughter of your best friend, the intimacy of a relationship, the smell of your child’s head as you hug them. Those measurable and tangible things can form a working theology of beauty, awe, and gratitude that don’t need to be called anything else.

Perhaps just accepting these pure and measurable gifts of being alive and presently cherishing them is all the faith you are able to have right now, and that’s OK. Maybe that’s as close to proof of the Divine as you can consent to in these moments.

To simply live and to find appreciation in the living is itself a spiritual pursuit; it is a holy thing. And as you do this, you may find that this contentment is the straighter pathway back to what you’ve lost. It may clear the road to God that has been cluttered by sadness, anger, doubt, and yes, even religion.

But don’t lay that expectation on yourself right now, because that would only turn this all into a means to an end, a result to achieve, another religious exercise to evaluate. For now, just receive the goodness and pleasures of this day and allow them to speak to and surprise you. You may find there the beginning of a new season of faith.

Don’t worry about what anyone else says. You’re the one walking this road, and you understand it in ways they never will.

And above all, don’t worry about God. If God is indeed God, then God is big enough to handle your doubts and uncertainty and knows exactly what you’re going through and why belief is such a struggle right now.

You may have indeed lost your faith, or you may have just lost your way a bit. Either way, this might be a good time to breathe, look around, and find joy in what is beside and around you as you travel.

If that is all the faith you can muster right now, let it be so.

Be encouraged.

The original post can be found here

Top Tip: Read the Signs! – Reblog

Insights, Reblogs
This entry is part 6 of 18 in the series The Problems of Evangelicalism

Thinking of my series on the problems of Evangelicalism, I have decided that two ‘precursor’ essays, which I published before the series, and which are referenced at the end of my opening piece on the series, are so totally relevant that I need to incorporate them into the series itself. So, here’s the first, originally published on 1st May, 2025.

To members of religious organisations who decide to ignore my ‘No Cold Callers’ signs: Try thinking ouside your box for once.

You ‘think’ that the signs are there to protect *me*, and therefore you ignored them today.

But they’re not; they’re there to protect *you*. Ignore them at your peril, and you will get the full 16-inch broadside again, like you got today.

You really have no idea what you’re messing with!

That was a post I put on Facebook, the day after a couple of ‘evangelists’ from my local Evangelical Church came around to my house uninvited and proceeded to knock on my door, despite there being clear signage asking people not to do so.

I’m going to talk today about why this action of theirs was not only wrong, but also that there are a number of learning points that those two men could maybe consider thinking about.

After our conversation, I gave them the business card for my blog, so who knows; maybe they’re reading this right now. Hello again, gentlemen!

Well then, in Matthew 16:3, Jesus suggests to the Pharisees that maybe they should try reading the signs of the times. And that’s fair enough.

These days, however, it seems that some Christians can’t even read signs that are written down, and displayed clearly and prominently.

Allow me to explain. There are disabled people living in my house. I have people that can’t answer the door due to mobility issues, and people that can’t help but take their time getting to the door because of age-related mobility issues (it takes them longer to get down the stairs, for example) and also people who have neurodivergent issues which means that it is stressful for them to answer the door to complete strangers who will of course be pushing an agenda.

And so we have a couple of defences. We have a Ring doorbell, which enables occupants in the house to screen callers, and to talk to them remotely. I’ve even done it from the local library once, ‘Sorry, I’m not in, please can you leave the package behind the wheelie bin?’ and so on.

But we also have signs on the door telling people that cold callers should not knock/ring. These signs are legally binding, because they state clearly that unsolicited callers are not welcome and that to ring/knock constitutes an offence under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations, 2008. And to be fair, sometimes it works. We hear the proximity alert (someone is approaching your door) but they don’t ring the bell, and instead walk away. So far, so good. And we always report the unrepentant to the police; those callers who ignore the signs when they are tradespeople or sales people and then claim that they always ignore such signs. Their punishment is deserved.

However, it has been my experience that the worst offenders for ringing the doorbell when they shouldn’t are people from religious groups. While I have actually seen Jehovah’s Witnesses see the signs, turn around, and walk back up my driveway, to their credit, unfortunately the last time some of them came, they actually rang the bell! And I gave them a theological run for their money and they left wishing they’d never called – not that I was nasty to them, of course, but I told them lots of things they didn’t like me saying. And to be even more fair, religious groups are actually exempt from the door knocking regulations – although I always tell them that ignoring the sign is not a ‘good witness’ for their religion. What does it say about the kind of people they have in their group when they ignore a perfectly reasonable request to not knock? There’s simply no excuse.

So anyway, these two guys turned up a couple of days ago, and I knew they were from my local Evangelical church because they tried to present me with a leaflet and I turned it down, but not before I’d seen the pictures on the leaflet, so I knew their colours.

The following Facebook post sums up the interaction succinctly:

Lol I just had two blokes on my doorstep from our local Evangelical church. They wanted to give me a sermon, but boy did they get one. đŸ€Ł

The nature of Grace, and how it abounds even more than the biggest ‘sin’. Their ‘sin fixation’ was highly evident, to be honest. One of them even asked me if I would look at a blonde in a miniskirt going down the street, thus revealing his own heart on such things…

When you preach freedom and Grace, and all they can say is ‘but….’ then you know you’re up against hardened hearts. Still, one of them was listening…but I’m sad to say the other one had a religious spirit. You could just see it, especially the barely concealed anger in him when I declared my support for LGBTQ+ relationships. Like it’s his job to police the opinions of a complete stranger.

Nevertheless, I gave them cards for my blog, with the suggestion to eat the meat and spit out the bones, and be blessed by it. Who knows; maybe the uplifting effect of the true Gospel may have found a mark…

They had opened with a response to my immediate query about how their church copes with LGBTQ people – my Litmus Test. Of course, although they immediately responded by talking about the love of Jesus, they very quickly went into the bait-and-switch of quoting the Bible. Standard operating procedure for evangelists; they hold up the bait of the idea of the loving Jesus, which is a really attractive concept, and then they switch to the Bible and its rules – in this case, they were of course quoting some of the ‘clobber passages'[1]. So Jesus is ok as long as the Bible can be brought in somewhere. It is my new hypothesis that the Bible leads people to Jesus (John 5:39-40), but then the purpose of Christian evangelists is to lead people back to the Bible. I mean, you can’t have Jesus talking to people unsupervised, now can you? Remember, everything Jesus says to a believer has to be held up against the Bible, by other believers, to see if it is valid. This is because the Bible is the third person of the Trinity, of course[2]. </sarcasm off>  😉

The other bait-and-switch, of course, is the Grace-to-legalism switch. I could go on about this, but the idea is basically ‘Come as you are, God will love you anyway’ and then switch to ‘Ok, now we’ve got you, here are the list of rules you have to obey in order to ‘stay saved’. They lay over the top of the pure Jesus experience layers and layers of requirements until the new believer is buried in the mire of religion, and the poor neophyte loses that initial joy because of it. This is what churches do; it’s very, very rare to find a church where the individual’s relationship with Jesus is held as the primary source of their faith; no, it has to be the Bible. Again. Because, again, they don’t trust God to be capable of speaking to a believer Himself[3].

Anyway, here is a list of, shall we say, ‘suggestions’ that I have come up with for people doing door-to-door visitation. Not that I would encourage such presumption in others’ behaviour, of course (I would not encourage door-to-door ministry for many reasons), but since I am Autistic (something else they never knew about; just treat everyone the same, why don’t you, guys) I have of course obsessively analysed the interaction in depth and found many of the flaws in their method. And for those who may unwittingly fall victim to these intruders on your property, I hope that my actually writing out these ‘Top Tips’ will give you things to look out for, and that you can pull them up for. Don’t get me wrong, I know they’re doing it from a sincere heart and with a genuine desire to ‘save’ people, and their courage in doing so is admirable. But as usual their cloistered, out of touch situation of being in a tight church community blinds them to how their ‘ministry’ looks from the outside. Which is not a good thing.

And at the risk of confusing Christians (it has been my constant experience that most Christians can only cope with one talking point at a time), I will list the points below.

Ok, here we go:

  • Don’t be pre-judgmental and assume that everyone you meet will be someone who knows nothing about God and His ways. You don’t know who you might be talking to. In my case, you were talking to an acknowledged genius with an acutely sharp mind, and with in-depth Bible college qualifications, and who has been walking with Jesus for the best part of 45 years.  Hardly someone who is unfamiliar at least with Jesus, and even the Bible too.
  • Related to the above, don’t presume that others are ignorant about the things of God. Even if they’re not someone like me, they too will likely have some sort of spiritual walk, even if it is ‘merely’ being good to other people.
  • Very importantly, don’t ignore signs like mine on the door. It displays your unconcern for others’ feelings and needs if you do ignore the signs, and, furthermore, you may be surprised to learn that others will likely not consider your message as important as you think it is – and certainly not after you have ignored their notices. No, just don’t do it. Period[4].
  • If you have a religious spirit, you’d best stay at home, mate. Such a spirit is more obvious to your audience than you realise; in fact you probably don’t even realise it yourself since your slide into that spirit was so gradual. And it is by far the most off-putting thing in all of Christianity for people to experience someone with a religious spirit. How can you tell if that’s you? To be honest you yourself likely can’t, but a big clue is found in the fact that you are doing this activity in the first place. At the end of the day, you are going out to tell others how wrong they are, and how you have the answers. Don’t try to pretend otherwise, or to try to mask it by feigning concern about your neighbours’ welfare, like it says on your church website. That behaviour is presumptuous, arrogant and artificial, and this too will be detected by your victims. Certainly, talking a lot about ‘sin’ is a dead giveaway for the religious spirit, especially when you start to list your pet peeve ‘sins’. And see below, too, about how this reveals your heart. Also, being prepared to adopt underhand tactics such as those discussed below, are a sign of the religious spirit. You may also find that you have lost your joy somewhere along the line, and your faith now consists of a grey, lifeless adherence to what you see as God’s Law. This is why Paul says that “the written Law brings death” (2Cor 3:6) – but be encouraged! because he immediately follows that assertion in typical Hebrew fashion by saying “but the Spirit gives life”. Linked with that loss of joy, you will likely also have lost your sense of humour, partially because you have to be selective about what you allow yourself to find as funny, and also because laughter needs some sort of joy to fuel it – and your joy tanks are dry. Finally, the religious spirit always has to have the last word. He glories in (what he thinks is) a magnificent parting shot, whereas in actuality it is a damp squib in the face of vastly superior firepower. If what he had to say was that good, he’d have used it during the general discussion, rather than as a shot at someone’s back when there is little chance of a rejoinder. This is the religious spirit; that’s what it looks like.
  • Listen more than you talk. Your audience needs to feel valued and listened to, and you need to tailor your replies to their words. This is what’s called ‘basic conversational skills’ and, having been walled up in a closed community of like-minded people, you’ve probably never had the chance to learn it properly.
  • Remember: you started it[5]. You turned up at their house unannounced, uninvited and unexpected. If people say things you don’t like, remember you put yourself in the situation voluntarily and in fact you didn’t ask the householder if it was voluntary on their part. None of this ‘is this a convenient time?’ or anything, because you assume again that what you have to say is so much more important than anything they would possibly rather be doing in their own house. Remember you weren’t asked to come and visit and you’re there on the homeowner’s sufferance. Respect that and don’t assume any sort of entitlement.
  • In my case, you failed to recognise my Autism. Granted, I mask it very well. But the take-home message here is that you should always be aware that everyone is different and, therefore, their responses will stem from vastly different thought processes, backgrounds and motivations, none of which you can assume you are right about. Something they never teach at churches is that one size definitely does not fit all. But of course you will not believe that, since as far as you people believe, there is only one way to ‘get saved’, and that’s by your way. You assume that when Jesus spoke of a ‘narrow way’, a) you understand what He meant, and b) you have found that ‘narrow way’. Of course you have; how lucky that was for you.[6]
  • Please stop doing the old ‘Bait and switch’ – switching Grace for Law and Jesus for Bible. You bait with Jesus, and you end up giving them the Bible. You claim to preach Grace, but as with most churches that claim they are ‘into’ Grace, in reality it’s nothing of the sort. You just impose a set of rules for people to follow (Matthew 23:4), and that’s called ‘Law’ in anyone’s book. What you are doing by using this method is no different from the tricks used by pushy and disreputable salespeople. You claim to be ‘in the world, but not of it’. Why not prove it. then, by not adopting ‘worldly’ tricks like this one.
  • Related to the point above, even though you begin by saying you preach Jesus, in actual fact you really preach the Bible. Your rulebook says in John 5:39-40 that the Bible leads people to Jesus. And yet it seems to the victim that your task is actually to lead them all the way back to the Bible again. You’re not on your own, of course; most Evangelical churches do this exact same thing; this is to me a sure sign of the, yes, apostasy in today’s Evangelical church. Stick to Jesus. Relate your testimony of all the good He’s done in your life. Describe how your relationship with Him works, and how much it blesses you. If you can’t do that, then I would suggest that you don’t really have a relationship with Jesus Himself, but instead you have one with the Bible. If that’s the case, then you should not be going out lying to people by claiming that you do indeed have that Relationship with Jesus Himself. As Don Francisco once said, “If all you know of God is from books, you are walking in deep darkness”.
  • Remember that you will meet all kinds of people, including fellow Christians who are further on in the faith than you are. Accept that, and be prepared to listen and learn. If you remain teachable, then you will find that you will learn something from most if not all of your conversations, even with ‘unbelievers’. Do not disregard the wisdom of the world; it too can come out with some real gems, as you’d see if you looked at some of the posts in my ‘quotations’ series[7]. And you likely have forgotten this Scripture, but again your own Rulebook says in 1 Corinthians 2:15 that ‘The spiritual man judges all things [note, not people – Ed] but he himself is not subject to human judgment. And therefore you shall not judge any fellow believer that you meet on the doorsteps. If you do this, then that believer may well give you nuggets from God that you were not expecting, you will not want to hear, and which may well change your life for the better. Of course, your hardened heart will protect you from this to some extent, but, well, you have been warned! For one of the visitors the other day (and yes, it was the guy with the religious spirit!), his parting shot was “You need to spend more time in the Word!” Spend more time in the word, you say! How on earth do you think that I managed to quote all that Scripture, from memory complete with chapter and verse, to you if I wasn’t completely steeped in the Scriptures? Look, your own Rulebook says in Colossians 3:16, ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly…’ and, for the last nearly 45 years, that is exactly what I have done. The fruit of that is shown by my extensive knowledge of the Scriptures and by my extensive scholarship in the Bible and its concepts[8]. You were simply closed to what the Spirit was saying to you, as well as being so focused on your own thoughts that you were unable even to discern what was going on around you. I was fully conscious of the huge anointing on me as I spoke to you, and you were seemingly impervious to it. I am sad to say that it seems you have a long way to go before you get a hold of the freedom that Jesus actually offers you – but who knows? He may just reveal it all to you in a flash, just like He did for me all those years ago. He may well surprise you, and I sincerely hope He does. Your life will never be the same again.
  • Looking at the above bullet point from a slightly different angle, remember that when Christians meet, they are supposed to bless each other. And that was what I tried to do, by explaining the wonder of Grace to you.
    But all you did was to try to argue your way out of God’s Grace, to almost try to explain why it didn’t apply to you, and also try to drag me down with you.
    Why would you want to do that; to deny yourselves such blessing, and also try to destroy mine as well? I mean, why? Now, I fully understand that you will meet with hostility on your ‘rounds’. But you don’t need to assume that fellow Christians will be equally hostile. Even once I had declared myself as a Christian, you remained hostile; in fact you actually got worse. As if you were annoyed that someone calling himself a Christian could possibly believe something different from you. So rather than share blessings, you simply turned nasty. All you’re doing with this attitude is to miss out on so much more blessing, and on learning more about Jesus from someone who has a different point of view, but which nonetheless will likely complement yours nicely. And so, you didn’t share blessing; you shared disquiet and discord. When you go out, it’s supposed to be ‘peace on this house’. But you didn’t share any peace at all.
  • Related to the above, I noticed that once I ‘came out’ as a Christian, you immediately switched attitude. In short, you assumed that because I am a fellow believer, you were suddenly entitled to make unwanted input into my life. What gives you the right or permission to do that? Do you think that because we have the same Father, you can suddenly tell me what to do or think, or judge my attitudes more harshly than just the general ‘oh he’s an unbeliever’ judgments you would reserve for those who do not profess belief? Why should I suddenly be subjected to a new set of standards, coupled with your belief that I should abide by them? I saw your anger when I declared my support for same-sex relationships, after you knew that I am a Christian. I mean what?? And then your parting shot of saying ‘You should get into the Word more’. How dare you! Would you have used that on a non-believer? No, because you wanted to present a ‘nice’ front to people who might want to make the mistake of coming to your church[9]. But of course once you know I’m a believer, that all changes; you know that I know what churches are like, so there’s no need to pretend any more. If I’d never owned up, you’d have kept your ‘speaking to an unbeliever attitude’! Honestly, you guys make me sick. God knew all along about my attitudes, but He didn’t see fit to inform you of them, and therefore they’re not all that important to Him in the context. Why should anything be any different because all of a sudden you know things that God has known all along? It’s because you have an exaggerated sense of self-importance; you think that God can’t manage dealing with His children in His own way; you have to do it on his behalf. And that’s a pathetic attitude.
  • Don’t use proof-texting. It is disrespectful both to your victim and to the Bible itself, for so many reasons. Check out my blog post here, including the comments section where I give bonus content, for more details on this.
  • I presume that your church is one of those who believe that the Bible is not only inspired, but also infallible and inerrant, as partially evidenced by the line on your website that declares that declining belief in the Bible is largely due to the teaching of evolution in schools and other establishments. Well, in regards to inerrancy, and also related to the bullet point above, a point which is which is universally missed by Biblical inerrantists is this. If you insist on providing ‘proof texts’ which contradict any text quoted by your victim, this is actually declaring that you do not believe in inerrancy. Inerrancy means that the Bible is never wrong. Inerrancy also infers (and this is backed up by inerrantists who claim, when challenged) that the Bible does not contradict itself, despite you using those verses to do so. Well, any honest reading will immediately show this assertion to be incorrect (in Proverbs 26:4-5 for just one example of many). But my point is this: simply by quoting a Scripture verse that contradicts another Scripture verse just given by your victim, you are showing that the Bible does indeed contradict itself. And, while you may be blind to this, your victims will not be, especially those who are well-versed in the Scriptures. The problem is actually not so much with the Bible, but more with what you are expecting it to do. If you expect it to give you unified cast-iron rules, methods, opinions and doctrines, then you will be sorely disappointed. This is because, while the Bible is undoubtedly inspired, it was still written by many people in different cultures and time periods, and who had each had their own encounter with God in their own, unique way. While their lessons and experiences are priceless even to us today, you should not expect the Bible to present a unified front, at least not on the surface level of the words written. It was never intended for that, and if you simply throw out the concept of inerrancy, then that will solve the problem. It is simply not the case that the Bible loses its authority just because it is seen for what it is, and what it is not. Yes, there are contradictions, but these can still be used to edify and build up those who read them. To come back to the Proverbs 26:4,5 example above, if it is read as Hebrew parallelism rather than just as a plain pair of inerrant but yet still contradictory statements, then it is far more useful. Applying a similar idea to the rest of the Bible, inerrancy becomes redundant and the Bible is far more understandable because of it – even to the layman.
  • Stop focusing on ‘sin’. Your Rulebook says in Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers and sisters, 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”. That’s good advice, and will take your eyes off ‘sin’, at least until you realise how much you miss thinking about ‘sin’, that is. And then, sadly and in all likelihood, you’ll likely return to it like a dog to its vomit (Prov 26:11) 😉
  • Finally, be aware that if you start suggesting things as examples of things that you consider ‘sinful’, you will likely inadvertently be exposing your own heart, its predilections and its hidden ‘sin wishes’. People are more perceptive about dead giveaways like this than you give them credit for. So if your idea of a ‘temptation’ is, as one of you suggested yesterday, ‘a blonde in a miniskirt wearing a low-cut top'[10], then you need to know that you are betraying your fantasy to the world at large. I wonder if your wife knows about this particular leaning….[11]

So, there we go. If you’re going to come around and visit me again, you’ll need more than just your Bibles, boys. Unless you want to hear about Grace, in which case I’m all yours. 😀

Grace and Peace to all my readers.

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Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 The Clobber Passages are the six main Scriptural passages that Fundies quote when trying to prove that homosexuality is somehow wrong
⇧2 The Holy Trinity, for those dependent on Biblical inerrancy, is of course Father, Son and Holy Bible
⇧3 Of course, they would couch this in terms of ‘the human heart is deceitful above all things’ (Jer 17:9), and therefore it’s the believer that they don’t trust to hear God correctly – notwithstanding that they conveniently forget that someone in Christ is a new creation (2Cor5:17) where that deceitful heart has been swapped out for a ‘new’ heart (Eze 36:26). In which case God might as well not bother, so it amounts to the same thing
⇧4 A few days after this incident, I actually wrote to the church to complain about the evangelists having ignored my signs. Of course, there was no reply. So I wrote again. Like I’m just going to forget? And I did then get a reply, which, to be completely fair to them, did include an apology and a note that they had mentioned to their boys that they shouldn’t knock on doors where it says not to. So I have to give them credit for that!
⇧5 ‘We did not start it!’ ‘Yes you did, you invaded Poland!’ – Fawlty Towers, Series 1, Episode 6, ‘The Germans‘
⇧6 Another thing with that ‘narrow way’ business (Mt 7:14) is that you presume that this Scripture means that most people will be lost – they will go to Hell – and few will be saved. Other considerations from this repugnant idea aside, there’s this: If you consider that those words are true, and that they mean what you believe they mean, then why on Earth would you ever, ever consider having children? Because, if this stuff is true, then there is a far greater chance of them ending up in Hell than of them going to Heaven. And don’t imagine for one second that their simply being your kids will protect them, because, as you so gleefully and openly proclaim, ‘God has no grandchildren’. Each person, according to you, must make their own decision and then live by your rules (oh, sorry, I forgot, they’re God’s rules, aren’t they, because you say so) for the rest of their lives, on pain of Hell if they dare to be guilty of ‘falling away’. You will of course ignore this, but that’s the state of it if what you believe is actually correct.
⇧7 The reason why controlling religious leadership tells people not to consider ‘worldly wisdom’ is because they don’t want you to obtain knowledge outside of their carefully curated list of ‘approved sources’. This is about as culty as it gets. I would even go so far as to say that if a leader tells you not to read a certain book (some years ago, and maybe even today, that would have been ‘The Shack‘ by Wm. Paul Young), then you should immediately pause that conversation and go and order the disapproved-of book straight away. Truth comes in many forms, and not all of them – in fact very few of them – come from Religion’s approved sources
⇧8 And that without it being the third person of my Trinity!
⇧9 Rest assured, I personally shall never do that!
⇧10 ‘A blonde in a miniskirt’ has since become a meme in my family; a meme for people obsessed with ‘sin’, especially the sexual-type ‘sin’ so beloved of Evangelicals. Thank you for the laugh and for the meme; we will treasure it always!
⇧11 In fact, I would even suggest, in all seriousness, that you should notify your Church’s safeguarding team about your lust problem. Let’s be honest: that’s really what you were talking about here, isn’t it?

Twenty-three Minutes in Hell?

Insights, Others' stuff

Here is a great piece by the brilliant Richard Murray, whose work I have shared on here several times before.

“23 Minutes in Hell” or “23 Minutes in Fear?”

Regarding those who claim to have had mystical and near death experiences regarding visitations to hell, I have no doubt many of them had heartfelt experiences.

But, I also believe that what we have erroneously been taught to fear about hell can also allow for distorted, strange, and angst-ridden visions to result. And as to what testimony we should receive as personally authoritative, we each have to follow our spirit-quickened consciences of course.

But, I don’t take the bulk of these people’s testimonies who have returned from Hell to have the strength of eternity. I have read several of their testimonies, including the “23 Minutes in Hell” book. The ones I have read all say that the number one quality of Hell is that nobody can EVER escape its torturous environment once they enter it.

Well, my counter observation is merely this– they themselves were able to escape it, and the one fellow after only 23 minutes. These people don’t just claim they saw Hell through an external window, but that they actually entered and experienced it, so their own quick escape seems to contradict their claim, at least to the inescapable aspect of it.

And even if they did get a brief vision of it on some human level, how can they then claim to have witnessed an “eternal” aspect of it from only a brief time there? I can certainly see how our fractured and deceived inner states of being – shame, guilt, bitterness, fear, and pride – could all create hysterical delusions of toxic terror and hopeless agony.

Jonah, when he was in the belly of the fish, thought he had been there for what called an “eternity,” but in truth it was only three days. And he was a changed man when he came out of the fish’s belly. Jesus confirmed that Jonah’s experience in the fish was a prophetic allegory of His own descent into hell. What seems one way to humans seems quite another way to God.

I agree with F.F. Bruce that “eternal conscious torment” is inconsistent with the revealed nature of God in Jesus. This is why Jesus boldly declared in Acts 2 that the heavenly Father would NEVER abandon His son’s soul in hell.

And, regarding the people who claim hell is eternally inescapable because they have literally been there and back, let’s not forget this champion truth. Jesus, according to Ephesians 4, kicked the gates of hell off their hinges as He “led captivity captive” and “ascended” into heaven so that He could “fill all things”— on, beneath and above the earth.

In others words, Jesus, though He was weighed down with every sin of every human who ever lived had ever committed, proved that hell was NOT inescapable. Jesus not only escaped it, but He also “gutted” it of its misperceived power over humanity’s postmortem destiny.

So perhaps these visions of Hell are simply our worst nightmares and fears amplified by suggestion, condemnation, and accusation which we feverishly project onto our postmortem expectations. But, as the Beloved John says, God continually shows Himself “greater than our heart” by showing us that no matter the garish nightmare state we may fearfully concoct, He WILL deliver us from it.

I propose that God sees this whole dynamic far differently than do we.

What if Hell (aka God’s judgement fire of 1 Corinthians 3), from Gods viewpoint, was in truth a medical facility for the woefully wounded, the carnally crushed, the incessantly insecure, the insidiously indifferent, the feverishly fearful, and the murderously mad?

What if Hell, from God’s view, was a place of intimate healing where He rehabilitates humanity from all their self-obsessing, self-sabotaging, and self-cutting ways which result in them creating fanatical fig leaves of delusions behind which the fearful and unbelieving hide from God?

What if God patiently endures and ministers to these sick people in, through, and around their delusions? What if God applies the intense “therapeutic treatment” needed to awaken these poor souls to the truth – – an ultimately irresistible truth which will set all men free – – God loves them and gave His life to cure them from their sicknesses?

Like a form of cosmic chemotherapy, all the sin-masks and sin-identities which have cancerously grafted themselves onto our being will be irradiated and destroyed with the wise and curative fire of God.

The human under judgment may suffer a searing “identity crisis” which, though in the long term will bring great positive transformation, may, in the short term, produce cathartic anguish and weeping.

On thing is for sure. God’s parental punishments are illuminative, curative, restorative, and rehabilitative. He is the Great Fatherly Physician who rescues and restores us from the gutter most to the uttermost. And His quality work takes a lot longer then a mere 23 minutes to rightly perceive and understand.

– Richard Murray

Used here with his kind permission

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 18 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.

So, 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. In later days, our reluctance to leave would also be 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'[9] 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 position 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 – or so I thought!.

Except that the beady-eyed preacher[10] 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,[11] 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, dismayed groan went up from the congregation at that point. And he actually didn’t notice! For crying out loud…. đŸ€Ł

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 so I could watch what was going on. Trouble was, I was so poor at that time[12] 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 đŸ€ŁđŸ˜‚ 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[13].

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 đŸ€ŁđŸ€ŁđŸ˜œ[14]

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[15] – 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[16]. 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.

[Edit II: 21st November 2025] Funny but I have just remembered another episode where they used poor Johannes to damage us – and this time it was a bit of a bad ‘un; we nearly left the church over this one. As background, I’ll explain that, as lead musicians, Fiona and I always used to get to the church building about an hour before the service was due to start. For things like set-up, communication with other participants, instrument tuning, pre-service prayer session, that sort of thing. On this particular Sunday, we turned up at our usual time ready to set up and minister, and, dragging all our kit with us – keyboard and stand, foldback amplifier[17], cables bag, kids and kids’ clobber – you get the picture! – we opened the inner door and were totally surprised to see that Johannes and his band had already set up and were doing their tuning and things. We weren’t expecting Johannes and his band to be on at all. So there we were; having prepared for the morning, and with no warning whatsoever, we’d been bumped off the playlist and, well, I don’t know what they expected… whether we were supposed to sit and join in, whether we were to join their band as a sort of team effort, whether to go home, whatever. We were just completely surprised and indeed shocked by it and were really shaken and at a loss. So in the end we turned around – literally, turned around – and went back to load all our gear back into the car again to go home. Our two lovely, gentle guitarists, who loved us really deeply, had spotted us and they hastened out to try to help us, but we were too hurt to want to go back in. Later, those two told me that they had gone and told the leaders what they thought of their nasty surprise for us that morning, and asking like what the hell they thought they were playing at. As far as I remember, their response was something to the effect of ‘Oh, it’s Anthony and Fiona. They’ll get over it’ – meaning that they felt they could do whatever they wanted and we’d just have to suck it up. My guitarists nearly left over that attitude. I really don’t know why we, or the guitarists, stayed in the church after that. They had to do apologies and all sorts to get us to go back; we also took some time off and received a lot of healing when our dear band members took us up to Hollybush Farm Christian Fellowship for one of their evening meetings, so we could just worship and receive. Just what we needed; they even did some Don Francisco songs that really ministered to our hearts on a deep level. But, again – as with the first Johannes story – I still don’t know why they did it. It wasn’t as if they’d forgotten to mention to us that our services wouldn’t be required that morning and to take the morning off. I really don’t know. Maybe they thought we were getting burned-out (which does happen when intensive ministry goes on week after week), but if that was the case then they should have just asked us/told us that that was what they thought and put it that way. But instead, if it was a burnout issue, then this just made it worse as it made us feel even more like just jacking in the whole thing. Great leadership! </sarcasm off> Lol.

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! đŸ€ŁđŸ€Ł
⇧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 Being ‘overcome by the Spirit’ is when the power of the Holy Spirit is so strong on a person that there are physical ‘manifestations’; sometimes the person will shake/tremble, sometimes they will just be almost unconscious of what is going on around them, so overcome are they with the power and presence of God, and sometimes – most people will have seen videos of this sort of thing – they just fall over as if poleaxed. Hopefully someone will catch them on their way to the floor. I was once ‘ministering’ to a young man on the floor who suddenly opened his eyes and rolled away, because he had become aware that his mother – who was ‘quite a big lady’ was also about to fall over and land on him 😂 Someone would have caught her, all right, but that someone would have been her son. Sort of. đŸ€Ł
⇧10 And yes, he did have a really beady, disapproving stare!! I suppose the correct term for it is ‘baleful’ 😉
⇧11 Only memorable because of what happened!
⇧12 Partly because of having to tithe to the hilt!
⇧13 That means it went well đŸ€Ł
⇧14 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.
⇧15 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?? 😉
⇧16 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 still 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…
⇧17 Foldback is where you have a separate amplifier or loudspeaker that plays your instrument’s or microphone’s output back at you, so that you can hear what you’re playing or singing. This is important when the overall sound is controlled by the boys on the sound desk, as, depending on their mix of inputs/outputs, you may not be able to otherwise hear your playing/singing – which you really need to be able to do.

A Dark Testimony III – Nathan

Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 4 of 18 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 18 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[4].

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[5], 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 in the Spirit. It’s not about Law.[6]. By that point in his letter to the Romans, 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? đŸ€Ł

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

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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…. đŸ€Ł 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 Possibly because they themselves did not understand – being legalistically-minded – that the heart of the Grace message is right there.
⇧5 In most Christians’ minds, the unspoken assumption is always that it’s something sexual!
⇧6 And it’s righteousness, peace and joy in the Spirit; the walking in the Spirit that Paul says (in Gal 5:16) means that you will not ‘gratify the desires of the flesh’. By walking in the Spirit, this means that you are automatically – by definition – not walking in the flesh. It does not mean that you ‘prove’ that you are walking in the Spirit because you don’t ‘sin’, as legalists and ‘fruit inspectors’ so love to claim that it does, and as usual have it back-to-front.

A Dark Testimony I – Sonny Ray

Insights, Others' stuff
This entry is part 2 of 18 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 10:13; 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 of Evangelicalism

Insights, Star Wars
This entry is part 1 of 18 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 of 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.