Taking Responsibility: Overcoming Spiritual Abuse

By David Ryser

We live in a world that awards love and respect on the basis of possessions, accomplishments, and reputation.  (Fil Anderson)

The events…or more accurately the non-events…of the last several years of my life are driving some of my Christian friends crazy.  They occasionally ask me what I’m doing for God.  What am I doing with my life and the gifts that God has given me?  They have even suggested that I am failing God and wasting my gifting and anointing by not actively pursuing a ministry of some kind.

Maybe I’m reading the wrong version of the Bible.  In my Bible, I’m not commanded to pursue ministry.  I’m commanded to pursue God.

Anyhow, this season of my life has been a time characterized by dying to self, falling more in love with Jesus, and allowing the Father to form Christ in me so that His life will flow out of me and touch people.  Not real sexy stuff, spiritually speaking.  Most Christians don’t seem too impressed by it.

Maybe if I referred to it as an extreme spiritual makeover….

Recently I’ve experienced a breakthrough emotional healing.  Prior to this, I had been tormented by painful memories of my past failings.  My shame over these events caused me to hide myself and live behind a mask.  This kind of living is hard on relationships…even my relationship with God…because it’s hard to have an honest relationship with me when you can’t even see the real me.

And honesty and transparency are necessary ingredients for intimacy.

Now the shame is gone.  So my conversations with God are more honest.  Actually they might be better described as less diplomatic.  It’s difficult to communicate hard truths to someone when you have to walk on eggshells around them.  Once God took away my shame, He could now speak plainly to me about my shortcomings without being a diplomat about it.

And this in itself has led to other breakthroughs.

For example, I have for the past several years been working to resolve some lingering resentments stemming from having been a member of a spiritually abusive church.  Whenever I’ve tried to talk to God about how I’d been wronged and what rotten rascals those church leaders were, He has steadfastly refused to listen to me.  Once He shut me up by saying about these leaders, “You wouldn’t have done half as well with half as much.”

Needless to say, I wasn’t too pleased with this answer.

As it turns out, God always wanted very much to help me resolve the hurt, anger, and bitterness I was experiencing.  But I couldn’t handle what He needed to say to me yet.  So He continued to work on me until I came to the place where we could talk about this.  When the shame was gone, God could speak into this place in my life.  And I would listen to Him.

What did He say?

Well, He lovingly pointed out that the one big reason I was in a position to be abused in that church was because of flaws in my own character.  Specifically, He said, “You were abused because you were for sale.”

And He was right.

I sold myself.  I sold myself for title, position, recognition, and admiration.  I welcomed the flattery…thrived on it…and believed I was loved and valued.  The leaders of the church did not make me like this.  I was like this when I got there.  They simply took advantage of it.

I was a spiritual prostitute.  And they bought me.  And I got screwed.  Prostitutes get screwed.  It’s an occupational hazard.

And I didn’t even get to keep the stuff I sold myself for!

I have no one to blame but myself…and that’s good news.  It’s good news because the whole point of God bringing this to my attention was to give me insight into the cause of my hurt and to transform my character in this area.  In the process, I have become aware of this potential hazard in my life and the means to overcome it.  This provides me with some immunity to spiritual abuse because I now receive my sense of being loved and valued through my relationship with my heavenly Father.  When I’m walking with God…experiencing His love and approval…man’s flattery and manipulation no longer have a place to hook onto me.

And this transformation of character that protects me from spiritual abuse also makes it possible for me to overcome the temptation to manipulate and abuse others. It’s a win-win deal.

Yea, God!

Recently I received an e-mail from a friend who was particularly in touch with God’s love for her.  She described not only feeling loved, but the things God had done during the course of the day that made her feel valued, special, and loved.  She summed up her experience with God that day by saying, “I not only love that God loves me, I love the way He loves me.”

I know the feeling.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

"Are We There Yet?": Life in the Religious Ark

By David Ryser & Martha Paterik

If we’re called to walk on the water, then why do we need an ark?  (Mark Squires)

These things always seem to begin innocently enough…just before they spin hopelessly out of control.  My friend Martha had run across the term “sacred desk” referring to the pulpit.  She’d never heard this term before and was somewhat bewildered that anyone would call a piece of furniture sacred.

And I was reminded of my grandfather.

My grandfather was a dairy farmer.  At the time of the evening milking, the cows would be herded into the barn and locked into stalls to be milked.  Behind the cows, a trough was cut into the floor.  The trough was needed because the cows were not barn-broken.  As the evening wore on, the trough filled with cow waste.

As useful as this trough was, I never heard my grandfather refer to it as the “sacred trough.”

Referring to the pulpit as the “sacred desk” makes about as much sense as calling my grandfather’s muck-trough the “sacred trough.”  After all, both are pretty much full of the same thing.

I explained to Martha that the pulpit is the Protestant version of the Catholic altar.  It can…and has…become just another fixture of religious idolatry.  Pick your poison.  Martha noted that religious people have done much the same thing even with biblical objects.

She mentioned the term “ark.”  And I experienced a religious flashback.

Years ago, I was sitting in the Sunday service at a church whose pastor strongly preached commitment to the Kingdom of God.  By “Kingdom of God” he meant his church, which was growing increasingly unhealthy.  On this particular morning, the speaker was proclaiming that this local church was the modern day version of Noah’s ark.  This “ark” was the only place of safety in a world that was becoming increasingly unsafe.  We needed to get into the ark.

And stay in.

I can’t decide if this preacher’s declaration is more arrogant or stupid.  It’s a big dose of both.  For one thing, it is absurd to assert that any local church is the only place…or even the best place…where a person can be safe in Christ.  What about the almost 8 billion people on the planet who don’t even know this particular church exists?  And are there no other Christian fellowships where Jesus is Lord?

For another thing, is any ark intended to be a permanent dwelling place?  What if Noah…and the people and animals with him…had stayed in the ark and never left it?  Would they have been safe, secure, and blessed?  Or would they have died of hunger, buried in their own waste?  And what about the world they were supposed to populate and subdue?

The ark-church is no different.  If we are ever going to make a difference in the world…advance God’s kingdom in the earth…we must leave the ark.  This is something that should be encouraged by church leaders…not discouraged.  

So what about the people who leave the ark-church?

I eventually left it.  So did Martha.  So did several other people over the years.  Some before us.  Any exodus from that local church was treated as a departure from the Christian faith.  They had “left the ark” and were at risk.  We were sternly charged not to follow their example.

So just when did the word ark come to be a synonym for the word prison anyhow?

Others have continued to jump ship, so to speak.  Those of us who left before them have made the effort to get in contact with some of these people and encourage them that there is life outside the ark.  I’ve remarked that the question is not so much whether there is life outside of this ark-church as whether there is life inside of it.

Martha’s response is instructive.

“I guess the real question is which ark?  The ark of Noah’s day carried all that represented life in it.  They were fed and kept safe until it was time to be sent out into the world and carry that life to it.  No one [ever] mentions a regular trek back to the boat.  It had served its purpose, now it was time to go out.”

Wow.

And then she went on to reference another ark…the Ark of the Covenant. Unlike the pulpit, if any piece of furniture could be called “sacred” it would be the Ark of the Covenant.  She noted:  “It had a thing that represented life (manna), the miracle staff of Aaron, and the stone tablets.  The glory of God even rested on or above this ark.  But He doesn’t anymore.  God has left the box, so to speak.  He wants us to take His Glory into the world, to be His Glory.”

You see, both of these arks had been constructed at God’s direction.  And both of them had a purpose…for a season.  When their purpose was fulfilled, both were emptied.  And the world was benefited because what had once been in the arks was now released into the world, engaged with it, and bringing life to it.

And in the end, Martha accurately sums up the fate of both of these biblical arks:  “[B]oth arks were mighty tools of God in the time they were needed; but at the risk of killing sacred cows, neither would be too effective today.”

I don’t know about you, but I think sacred cows make great steaks.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

Thanks for the Memories: Gratitude for God's Least Appreciated Gift

By David Ryser

Forgiveness based on forgetfulness is a Christian version of a frontal lobotomy.  (Don Allender)

For the longest time, I have been taught that forgiveness is synonymous with forgetfulness.  This teaching has caused me more harm than I could ever imagine.  And my ultimate rejection of it has brought me healing beyond my wildest imagination.

I have been reading Fil Anderson’s wonderful book, Breaking the Rules.  One of the main themes of the book is the subject of memory.  Specifically, the Bible has a lot to say about remembering (and remembrance, and other related words) in regard to both God and man.

Sometimes the things remembered are good and pleasant.  At other times, the memories are bad and painful.

Both are a gift from God.  Memory itself is a gift from God.

Without memory, we could not learn and develop.  We could not build on our successes and learn from our mistakes.

We embrace good memories and savor them.  Memories of a beautiful sunset or a majestic vista.  Recalling the loving words or the touch of a loved one.  The laughter of our children and grandchildren.  Memories of people we’ve loved who have passed away.  The companionship of good friends.  My favorite sports teams winning the championship.

I just love a good memory.  Don’t you?

But not all memories are good.  Some are bad.  Some are painful.  Memories of abuse or abandonment.  Memories of when we were treated unfairly or were misunderstood.  Times when we were betrayed or disappointed by others.

And what about the regrets and remorse for the things we have done?

Memories of embarrassing myself by my behavior or by the way I have treated other people.  People I have let down or hurt.  People I have betrayed or manipulated for my own gain.  My shortcomings as a friend, a parent, or a spouse.

Even these memories are a gift from God.

We need to understand this if we are going to get the benefit from bad memories.  I tend to shy away from bad memories because they’re painful.  And I’m not a big fan of pain.  Neither is American Christianity, whose religious snake-oil salesmen peddle a religion that tells me these bad memories are an attack of the devil (or some such nonsense) and recommends rebuking or fighting them in some other way.

Usually this involves using the name of Jesus as some kind of magic word.  I’ve discovered that rebuking a work of God in my life…even when I use Jesus’ name…is a colossal waste of time.

Because it was God who was bringing the painful memories back to me.  And I needed to embrace them so I could learn the lessons from them that I needed to learn.  Memories of things done to me typically manifested the pain associated with them as anger, hatred or bitterness…or all three.  Dealing with memories of things said or done to me were relatively easy to deal with, especially since I’d never suffered the kind of abuse some have experienced in life.  For me, dealing with these memories simply required forgiveness.

Forgiveness, not forgetfulness.  I still remember, but without pain.

The memories that continued to cause me pain…pain so strong that I fled from them…involved my treatment of others.  God kept bringing them up, and I kept running from them (usually by refusing to think about them and cramming them back into the box I kept them in…out of sight, out of mind).

But God wouldn’t let up.  He was trying to give me a gift.

Because if I didn’t face these memories…and resolve them…I would fail to learn the lessons from them.  I would be doomed to repeat behaviors that had caused hurt and harm to others.  And if there was anything I wanted more than to avoid pain, it was that I wanted to stop causing it.  Because I kept hurting people.  I didn’t mean to.  I didn’t want to.  But the carnage of hurt people and destroyed relationships continued to pile up behind me as I walked through life.

I wanted it to stop.  I wanted desperately to break this pattern.  But I didn’t know how.  I sought God about it.  As I read Fil’s awesome book, the answer finally came to me.

Remember.

So I decided to embrace the bad memories.  Embrace the pain.  And the feelings of shame.  Accept bad memories as a gift from God…because they are.

And then God and I took a stroll down Memory Lane.  The memories came flooding back.  I experienced them and saw the lessons I should have learned from them.

And the pain and shame were gone.

The pain and shame are still gone.  Do I have remorse or regrets?  Yes, plenty of both.  Do I experience sadness when I remember some of these things?  Yes.  But there is no pain or shame.  I am free to explore these memories and receive the transforming power of God that will result in changed behavior and no more harm done to others.

Will I be perfect at this?  Probably not.  I’ll likely do or say something stupid…hurt someone…and need to ask forgiveness.  But I believe my life will be more about healing others than about harming them from now on.

And I’m so grateful….

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

Sacred Similes: Religion is Like....

By David Ryser

I sincerely believe that institutional, religious Christianity has probably done more to hinder the ideals of Jesus than any other agency in the world.  (Fil Anderson)

I love similes.  There’s just something about them that fires my imagination.  And a simile can be a great teaching tool.  The teacher can explain a new concept by likening it to something that is familiar to the student.  Then the teacher makes the connection between the old and the new, and the student more fully understands the new.

As a master teacher, Jesus used similes to explain the Kingdom of God.  He would begin His lesson by saying, “The Kingdom of God/Heaven is like….”  And then He would talk about sheep, birds, flowers, vineyards, wedding feasts, etc.

When teaching about the Kingdom of God, Jesus used more similes than scriptures.  Perhaps we should, also.  If we would follow Jesus’ methodology, I suspect we would be more effective in our preaching and teaching.

So in the spirit of following Jesus’ example, I would like to describe the religious system…and our interaction with it…using similes.

Religion is like a cowboy who goes into town and enters a saloon.  He proceeds to consume a large number of alcoholic beverages.  As the hours go by, he becomes increasingly intoxicated.  His friends decide to play a prank on him.  So they go outside the saloon, untie the cowboy’s horse, retie the horse facing the opposite direction, remove the saddle, and then reattach the saddle backwards onto the horse.

The next day, the cowboy is awakened by the ranch foreman who is kicking his bed and shouting, “Get up, cowboy!  Are you planning to sleep all day?  Get to work!”  The cowboy is jolted awake, and says, “Hey, boss, I’m sorry.  I got in late from town last night, and I was exhausted.”  The foreman asks, “What happened?”  To which the cowboy replies, “Oh, some jerk cut my horse’s head off, and I had to lead him home all the way from town by putting my fingers down his windpipe.”

When we go into the religious saloon (church building) every Sunday and get drunk on religion (the traditional church service), is it any wonder that we wake up a day late, a dollar short, and reeking of  horse manure?

And do we learn from this experience?  Of course not.  When next Sunday rolls around, we do it all over again.

We’re like the two college students who went to the Gulf Coast for spring break.  As they were walking along near the seashore, looking at the shops, they saw a sign that read:  Caribbean Cruise!  Only $50!   So they entered the shop.  The first student paid his money and was directed to go through a door behind the counter.  As he went through the door, he was knocked on the head.  Then he was tied…unconscious…to a log and floated off into the Gulf.

The same scene was repeated for the second student.

Hours later, the students began to regain consciousness.  Their logs had floated so that they were next to one another.  The first student looked over at the second student and asked, “Do they serve meals on this cruise?  I’m starving!”  To which the second student replied. “I don’t think so.   They didn’t last year.”

Are we stuck on stupid?  When will we learn that the solution to ineffective religion is not more ineffective religion?

We go to a traditional church service week after week…expecting to get something out of it…and then sit passively in rows watching a religious production (one that is more or less entertaining).  We may get to sing a bit.  And for sure we are going to dig into our wallets, fairly early in the service (Before the preaching.  This is not an accident.), to pay for the privilege of attending the service again next week.  Then we endure a mind-numbing motivational speech that usually equates to:  “God’s good.  You’re not.  Try harder.”

Just thinking about it gives me the chills.

And so it goes.  Week after week.  We go to “the house of God” expecting to meet with Him.  But He never seems to be there.  If the church building is the house of God (and it isn’t, by the way), then why is He never home?

How rude!  We’re told that we are invited guests to God’s house every week.  And He doesn’t even have the common decency to show up and receive His guests!

So why have I been attending church services lately?  Given my attitude about them, I find it somewhat ironic that for the last two months…at the direction of God…I have found myself sitting in a traditional (and really pathetic) church service every Sunday.  Lest I seem a bit of a hypocrite, I would like to pose the following question:  “If you wanted to break someone out of a prison, where would you go?”

To the prison, of course!

I’m just going to where the prisoners are.  Prisoners of religion.  They’re nice people.  There’s nothing wrong with them that a good jailbreak wouldn’t cure.

And when I go to a traditional church service, I am not going there expecting to get anything.  I’m going there to bring something.  More accurately, I’m going there to bring Someone.  It has been great fun to watch the looks on people’s faces when they feel the Spirit of God in the church service like they haven’t felt Him in years.

Because God and I made a deal.  If I have to go to church, so does He.

And, sooner or later, the people in this church will have to decide whether they want Him to stay.  They will need to make the required changes to accommodate Him.  And if they don’t, He will leave.

And so will I.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

What's in Your Wallet?: Is it the Get-Out-of-Hell-Free Card?

By David Ryser

I wouldn’t have been a Christian without hell.  I guess it’s kind of like sex--it sells.  (Matthew Paul Turner)

In his wonderful book, Churched, Matthew Paul Turner relates how, as a child, he “got saved” every time the pastor preached about hell or the end times.  Terror of hell or the Tribulation drove this tenderhearted boy to the altar time and again to insure that his Get-Out-of-Hell-Free Card (which also conveniently doubles as a Get-Out-of-the-Tribulation Card) was still good.

I didn’t realize this card came with an expiration date.

I had occasion to think about this recently.  And I have no one to blame but myself.  I was sitting in a traditional church service…even though I know better.  The speaker was lamenting that no one preaches about hell anymore.  I’ll admit to being a bit bewildered by this statement because I wasn’t aware that we Christians have been commissioned to preach hell.  I thought we were supposed to proclaim Jesus.

Silly me.

I’ve heard many times over the years that Jesus spoke more about hell than about heaven.  I don’t know if He did or didn’t.  I never looked it up to see if this statement is true.  It may be.  It may not be.  I don’t really care.  And I’m not easily motivated to look something up…or to do anything else…when I don’t care.

And I don’t care about whether Jesus spoke more about hell than He did about heaven.  Because Jesus did not come to earth primarily to speak about either hell or heaven.

Jesus came, in great part, to proclaim the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven--take your pick, they’re the same thing).  And I would be willing to bet that Jesus spoke more about the Kingdom of God than He did about hell and heaven combined.

So why doesn’t anyone preach about the Kingdom of God?

Because hell sells.  Hell is good for business.  We need hell to make religion work.  We need hell to keep people in church.  Wayne Jacobsen once mused that the reason we preach on how terrible hell is (and it is a bad place, make no mistake), is because we need something worse than the church service to threaten people with so they will come to church and sit through it.

Hell is so good for the religion business that if it didn’t exist, we would invent it.

So what has all of this preaching on hell gotten us?  Well, for one thing, I’ve discovered that how a person comes to God has a great influence on how a person relates to God.  How you are born in great part determines how you will develop.  If you scare people into church, you have to keep scaring them to keep them in church.

This calls for a lot of preaching on hell and the Tribulation.  And when did Christianity become about hell and the Tribulation?  Isn’t it supposed to be about Jesus?

It’s all so confusing….

And then we compound the problem by presenting the gospel as a business proposition.  If we will accept Jesus as Lord (as if our decision makes Him anything) and say the magic prayer…a prayer that didn’t even exist 200 years ago…we will trade our old sinful lives, consisting of failure and filth, for Jesus’ righteousness and eternal bliss.

So who wouldn’t make that deal?  And what does Jesus get out of it?

Thus we enter into what is supposed to be an intimate relationship by way of a business arrangement.  I, for one, do not call business-arrangement intimacy a relationship.  I call it prostitution.

And it gets worse.

Because we married God for His money/stuff, we don’t really care whether He lives or dies.  In fact, He can be a bit of a nuisance.  So we learn…compliments of “teachers” (who don’t know Him any better than we do) to whom we pay big money to deceive us…that faith is the Bible way of getting God’s stuff without having to mess with Him.

Does this sound just a bit sordid to you?  (If not, then try this on your spouse and get back to me on how it works for you.)

And who got the brilliant idea in the first place that preaching the threat of hellfire is the best way to bring people to Jesus?  My Bible says it is the goodness of God that leads people to repentance (Romans 2:4).

You see, for the longest time I found God easy to resist.  I could resist the fire-breathing tyrant of religion.  I could resist the stern judge.  I could resist the abusive father.  I could resist the celestial scorekeeper.  I could resist a God who would just as soon throw me into hell as look at me.

But I could not resist a God who loved me so much that He would die just to hang out with me.  I could not resist a God who loved me passionately.  I could not resist a God who pursued me relentlessly.  I could not resist a God who refused to change His mind about loving me, no matter what I did.

I have no defense against this kind of love.  Do you?

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

Instructions for Televangelists: Open Mouth, then Insert Foot

Instructions for Televangelists

Open Mouth, then Insert Foot

By David Ryser

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.  (Seen on a church sign)

I appreciate televangelists.  Really.  I do.  In the circus called the Church, televangelists are the clowns.  And I like clowns.  I find them amusing.  The antics of clowns are entertaining and great fun.

But we must never take clowns seriously.

Likewise, I find the buffoonery of televangelists to be wildly entertaining.  I am constantly amazed by the silliness that pours out of their mouths.  They are the comic relief of North American Christianity.  And I greatly enjoy their antics…as long as I remind myself that they are clowns.

But when I take them seriously, I become alarmed.

For example, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief a few years ago over comments made by a televangelist who is noted for shooting off his mouth and blowing off his spiritual foot in the process.  He was commenting on the devastation in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina.  He stated that this natural disaster was the result of that city’s wickedness, citing the examples of Sodom and Gomorrah…and their destruction by God.

As I said, these clowns can be wildly entertaining.

Because I read.  I read news stories.  And I read the Bible.  And both help me put the ravings of these spiritual buffoons into perspective.  And that’s an important part of enabling me to enjoy the religious circus.

Shortly after the hurricane-induced tragedy in New Orleans, I ran across a news story that quoted comments made by a Muslim imam.  This imam stated that God had punished New Orleans with the hurricane because of its wickedness.

Does this sound familiar?

This imam’s words were virtually identical to those spoken by the televangelist.  Although these two religious spokesmen worship a different God (I hope), they had come to the same conclusion.

I especially enjoy the part of the clown act where the clowns whack each other with plastic mallets.  Don’t you?

And while the Bible does speak of God’s judgment upon people, cities, and nations; it also has a lot to say about what our attitude as God’s people should be in these matters.  In Luke 9:54, James and John ask Jesus if He wants them to call fire down from heaven upon some Samaritans who rejected His ministry.  We think of John as the apostle of love, but we forget that Jesus had named him and his brother the “Sons of Thunder.”

Somehow, I am disinclined to think this moniker was the result of their quiet and gentle demeanor.

Their offer to turn the enemies of Jesus into crispy critters earned the Thunder-stick Twins a sharp rebuke from Jesus.  Among other things, He stated that they did not know what kind of spirit was motivating their request (Luke 9:55, 56).

I suspect it was not the Spirit of Jesus.  And I also suspect that it is not the Spirit of God motivating us when we gleefully announce (or pronounce) God’s judgment on “those wicked people.”

Were the people of New Orleans more wicked than other people and thus more deserving of God’s judgment?  I doubt it.  Jesus’ comments on the news stories of His day seem to indicate He doubted it also.  Referring to a mass execution (Luke 13:2) and a tower collapse (Luke 13:4), Jesus clearly states these tragedies did not occur because those suffering them were worse sinners than anyone else (Luke 13:3, 5).

When asked whether a man who had been born blind was being punished because of his sin or the sin of his parents (a hot theological topic of that day), Jesus responded that his malady was caused by neither…and then healed him (John 9:1-7).

And let us not forget that one reason Israel rejected the warning of the prophets concerning the coming judgment of God upon their nation was because the prophets predicted God would judge Israel by a nation that was even more wicked than they were.

Unthinkable!

So did hurricane Katrina devastate New Orleans because the people there were more wicked than those in, say, Las Vegas?  Or San Francisco?  Or your favorite bastion of ungodliness?

Maybe….

Or it could be that people decided to build a city below sea level.  In hurricane territory.  And then they opted to neglect their levees and allow them to deteriorate.  And then the state and local authorities responded to the disaster with incompetence and ineptitude on a truly staggering scale.

Why do religious people insist upon interpreting the stupidity of man as the judgment of God?

And why do Christians take as gospel the comments of a televangelist that are identical to those made by a Muslim imam?  It truly boggles the mind.

But that’s the circus, after all.  It is larger-than-life entertainment that captures our attention on a grand scale.  Including the clowns.  Their antics are an over-the-top caricature of life that tickles our funny bone with their pure outrageousness.

I don’t know about you; but when the clown gets his pants set on fire and attempts to put it out by rubbing his butt on the ground, I find that absolutely hysterical.

It’s sort of like watching Christian television.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com

A Tale of Two Churches: Living Life in the Temple of Mithras

By David Ryser

Religion is the shell that is left after the real thing has disappeared.  (Doug Bannister)

If I were to write a novel about my recent church experiences, it might begin with the words:  “It was the best of churches.  And it was the worst of churches.”  I’ve been in both kinds of traditional church services over the past few weeks.  And I’m struck more by their similarities than by their differences.

I should probably begin by explaining what I mean when I use the term “traditional church service.”

I define a traditional church service as any church meeting where the congregants sit in rows staring at the back of the head of the person in front of them.  They focus their attention on a raised platform/stage where the main event takes place, officiated by professional clergy.  Typically this consists of a ritualized program or a Christian concert/sing-along followed by a Christian motivational speech.

And when I use the term “traditional” to describe a modern church service, I am not referring to the biblical tradition.

Because the traditional church service bears no resemblance whatsoever to the meetings of the early Christian church.  It does not originate in the teachings of the Bible, the teachings of the apostles, or the practice of the earliest believers.

As best as I can tell, our church service in the modern traditional North American church--including how we lay out our buildings and arrange the so-called “sanctuary”--has its origins in the Cult of Mithras and the Roman Imperial Court.

I cannot help but conclude that our traditional church service is non-biblical, unbiblical, and…worse…anti-biblical.

And we need to ask ourselves just how it is that we expect to have a biblical experience with God in a corporate setting when our methodology for doing church meetings is (at best) secular and (at worst) pagan.

So for some time I have avoided traditional church meetings in favor of smaller gatherings in more intimate settings where each believer is encouraged to participate actively in the corporate worship experience.  Until now.

The last few weeks I have felt led by God to attend traditional church services.  The two churches I have visited appear to be polar opposites.  At first glance, they appear to have nothing in common.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered they are twins.

The first church is a small old-fashioned classical revivalist church located in a rural community.  Walking into this service is like being caught up in a time-warp.  The song service consists of singing the old revival songs written in the 1930’s (the newer songs, at least) from a hymn book.  The singing is lackluster and passionless.  No doubt God breathed on these songs once…but it was a very long time ago.  The preaching is shallow and contains the standard revivalist platitudes and allusions to the usual scriptures typical of the movement.  Both the preacher and the congregants want very much to be stirred by the whole thing, but their hearts just aren’t in it.

In defense of this church, the majority of the members are in their 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s.  Their church is dead.  Within a few years, the people will be dead, too.  They are in trouble as a church, and they know it.

But they don’t know what to do about it.

The second church is a high-powered non-denominational church located in the city.  The congregation numbers in the hundreds.  The median age of the members is probably in the early-to-mid 30’s.  The worship service is upbeat, loud, and animated.  The platform/stage is a professional set made for television.  The lighting and acoustics are of the highest quality.  They may even have a smoke-generating machine.

How cool!

Who needs the Shekinah glory of God when you have a smoke machine?

And herein lays the irony.  This church, like the first, was rebirthed/renewed by a genuine and powerful move of God.  Similarly, both became caught up in what God was doing to the point that they continued to do what they had done while God was present long after He had moved on to something else.

Aren’t you grateful we have religion to pick up when God leaves?

And yet, God is touching people’s lives in both churches.  Especially in the city church, those who have experienced God’s touch give glowing testimonies of what God has done in their lives.  I have noticed, however, that their testimonies are about what God has done rather than about who He is.  And I also noticed that those testifying tend to measure God’s blessing in dollars and cents.

I’m always a bit saddened when people settle for just the touch of God’s hands when they could also behold His face.

And suddenly I realized that these churches are the same church, but at different points in their lifespan.  Both were powerfully touched by God.  Both were passionate for God.  Both have experienced His life-changing miraculous power.  And both have people who want very much to connect with God in a more personal and intimate way.  But they don’t know how.

And if, at the end of it all, both churches end up in the same place…does it really matter how they got there?

Both have put God’s new wine/move into an old religious wineskin/system.  They thought God’s blessing was the same as His approval.  They forgot that God blessed the Israelite monarchy when it was ruled by righteous kings, but He never approved of it.  The monarchial system eventually destroyed the nation (just as God had predicted).

And the traditional religious system will always eventually kill a move of God.

So I’m looking at two churches whose congregants and leadership are good people caught up in a bad system.  They very much want to experience God, serve God, and advance His kingdom.  Instead, they end up serving a religious system that ultimately…and always…chokes out the spiritual life of a church.

Ironically, there’s more hope for the little church than for the big one.  This small congregation knows something must change or they will close the church soon.  The big “successful” church doesn’t see what’s coming.

Can anyone say Laodicea?

I don’t know why God wants me to watch this drama unfold.  But I will.  Because I’ve learned He always has a purpose behind what He asks of me.  So I’ll watch.

Even though I would really rather not.

Responses to this article are welcomed.  You may contact the author at drdave1545@yahoo.com