Here is an essay from some years ago, where I presented a small glimpse into the good and the bad in Evangelical Christianity.

I feel it’s important to re-blog this one at the moment,

because this present series on ‘The Problems of Evangelicalism’ can be read as being pretty negative with regards to the actual people within Evangelicalism. However, right from the start, I have said in many of the essays in this series that this is not my intention; I do not think of the people as being in any way ‘bad’; these are all my brothers and sisters in Christ and He loves them, He died for them, and He too still attends their meetings 😀

In this essay, then, you will read some of the warm affection I have for my former congregation in Leeds. And, on the other hand, there is also some really good stuff from the legendary Don Francisco, where he explains why people would still go to churches where they are abused – something which always puzzled me.

And something which still puzzles me is how Christians of any kind can think of themselves as ‘keeping the Sabbath holy’ while at the same time working like beavers for the entire day on a Sunday. At least, those involved in Sunday ministry of any kind obviously can’t help but for this to be the case. Clearly, this is a case where there needs to be flexibility in the attitudes of Christians, and some leeway given – especially when considering that Jesus Himself said that the Sabbath was made for man, and not the other way round (Mk 2:27). That said, this leeway also opens up gentle Christians to abuse by pushy leadership, as I also explain in this essay with regard to my own personal Sabbath, which at the time had to be a Saturday. I do think that, in the end, decisions like honouring the Sabbath need to be a personal matter for each individual, and no-one else has any place in judging someone else for their adherence to someone else’s ruleset. This is what freedom in Christ actually looks like^[1]. One other thing: it’s especially despicable when pushy leadership tell you that doing work on a Sunday should be a joy because you are serving the Lord, and therefore it doesn’t count as work. That’s manipulation of the most disgusting order, and yes I am sorry to say that there are manipulative people like that in the church, in all denominations! I suppose it takes all sorts….

Anyway, enough of my blather 🤣 Here instead is some other blather from several years ago!:

It’s funny, but as an Evangelical, Charismatic, Fundamentalist Christian, I believed that the Sabbath (in my ‘denomination’, that was a Sunday) was supposed to be ‘kept holy’  – whatever that’s supposed to mean (nobody ever really explored the concept, after all!) – but at the very least it should be a day of rest, because that’s what God did on the Sabbath day. Whether it was a Friday, Saturday or Sunday didn’t matter, as long as we had one day a week where we rested.

For me, my Sabbath had to be Saturday, because in addition to working a full-time job during the week, I was working at Church things virtually all day Sunday, what with being a Church musician, worship leader and all. And my leadership didn’t like me having that Saturday day of rest; I kept my Saturdays clear rigorously, and of course if that clashed with their timetable (if they  wanted something done on a Saturday) they weren’t keen. But I held fast to my principle; after all, as a lead musician, and bloody good at what I did at the keyboard, there was no way they were going to ‘fire’ me (unless I dropped some doctrinal clanger, of course, which I never did).

But I have to be fair to them. My Church’s meetings were usually filled with the Presence of God, and I have seen people break down in tears just by the sheer sense of that Presence. The people were friendly and helpful, and genuinely cared and ministered to each other and to those outside the Church too. Underneath that surface, yes, there were all the harsh doctrines like hell and judgement, and most of the people there felt entitled to challenge complete strangers if they said something out of line^[2]. And remember that just because God graces a church with His Presence, does not mean that He is affirming all their beliefs. Far from it; usually, He actually turns up despite our beliefs. But for the most part (and probably because I kept to all the doctrinal tenets), the church was a pretty safe place for me and my family.

This isn’t always the case, sadly. Some churches can be traumatic places to be, and to be honest I never understood why people carried on going to them^[3]. Until I read this piece by legendary Christian musician Don Francisco, in which he describes very clearly why he felt he had to be there every week, and to keep going back to the trauma factory. Over to Don:

“Monday… church recovery day. That’s how it used to be for me, except sometimes it was worse: It could take most of the week for me to heal after hearing what was taught in song and sermon on Sunday.

“Why would I keep going back? Because I’d been taught that going to church was necessary to please God; I’d attended since I was born. The Bible commanded it: “Do not forsake the assembling of yourselves together…”

“So, what exactly did I need to heal from? Fear, guilt, and self-hate… just to name the Big Three. Fear of a god who punished in ways that would appall a sociopath; guilt from every real and imagined sin in recent memory; and knowing that my heart was untrustworthy and “desperately wicked”…