Tag: Bride of Christ

Forgiveness and assorted rambles about the Bride of Christ

~ K ~ Leave a comment

I’m struggling with forgiving the church.

You see, I want to forgive the church with all of its foibles and shortcomings but that means if I forgive the church then in the future, I can’t bring up what it’s done wrong in the past. And heaven forbid that I actually put into practice something that God tells me to do.

I’ve always thought of myself as more of a forgiver than a grudge-holder, and I tend to be, but I do have my occasions when I hold grudges as good as someone in the mafia. It took me about 15 years to forgive my classmates for teasing me in grade school (and I’m not that old). I say that I’ve even forgiven my coworkers from three years ago but if I see any of them again, I have no doubt that what they said about me would be the first memories to rush back into my mind.

—

I met with someone in my church on Wednesday morning to discuss a lot of the issues I had about my church. He didn’t fix them but he was kind, listened to me ramble, and offered advice when he could.

The problem with me is that I had an issue with how certain things were handled several years ago, swept my issue under the table (“It doesn’t matter anyway/won’t change things”), and kept moving forward. The problem is, I swept that issue under the table but never used a dustpan to remove it. It just stayed there. And I continued to sweep and sweep, never using a dustpan until this huge pile of dirt began festering and became noticeable enough that I needed to take care of it.

And was everything handled well? Not really. But that’s where forgiveness comes in. I need to recognize that people do the best they can but we all will fall short along the way. I need to wipe the slate of my mind clean and look at others without bias and judgment.

—

I often wonder, however, whether I’ve outgrown my church.

Outgrown really isn’t the correct word. More like grown apart. I suppose this is an issue I would have had to contend with whether or not the pastor left.

I notice things now that I hadn’t noticed before. Perhaps because I am struggling with discontentment, I find things to grumble about. But because I notice them, I want them to be addressed. I also, however, need to recognize that we have installed a new pastor and that things are very well changing behind the scenes and haven’t been conveyed to the congregation yet. I also need patience.

For a period of two-plus years, my church was without a pastor. As the person I met with on Wednesday said, the church went into “survival mode.” Two people (who were not in full-time ministry) were charged with basically keeping this 100+ (and growing) congregation together.

But things fell along the wayside. Or perhaps it was an issue that had always fallen along the wayside.

My church is located in a nice, suburban, middle-class to upper-middle-class area west of Philadelphia. The area is heavily Catholic, surrounded by Catholic churches or Catholic schools. It is a bustling town right along the Schuylkill River. The town is predominantly white, however, there is a prominent pocket of Koreans in one section.

Then there is a strip that runs along the side of town where many of the minorities live. Blacks and Hispanics reside along this street and I’m told that is the seedy part of the town—where the drug dealers and hookers are. But it is also where, I’m sure, some honest hard-working people cannot afford to leave because the main part of town is much too expensive to live in.

My church is reflective of the majority population of the area: white and middle-class to upper-middle-class. Even the minorities in our church (you can count on one hand and the group includes me) are more along the well-to-do side. To paraphrase Tim Keller’s lament in his bestselling book, The Prodigal God, I am in a church of elder brothers that is desperately in need of younger brothers.

Despite my spiritual depression, I have been struck by how much I have learned about Jesus’ personality through all of my readings. I seem to know him better than I did even two or three years ago. I am constantly amazed by the examples in which Jesus spent time with the people we consider the refuse of this world: the lepers, the blind, the lame, the weak, the prostitutes, the women, the tax collectors, the obvious sinners. But Jesus wasn’t discriminating, he also spent time with the Pharisees and the Saduccees—those who wanted to meet with him but in secret. Jesus was willing to meet with anyone anywhere who wanted to meet with him.

If Jesus were around today, I think he’d be hanging around drug dealers and users, alcoholics, womanizers, gays, HIV-positive patients, Las Vegas showgirls, porn stars—part of the people who will readily admit that they don’t have it all together. But Jesus would probably meet with politicians, Hollywood stars, CEOs, white-collar workers, Wall Street businessmen—all the people who pretend like they have it all together but in secret, are really searching for something or someone to give their life real meaning.

Jesus was never an either/or kind of guy. Why must his followers be? Why can’t a church that arguably could be considered wealthy reach out to the people that Jesus would have reached out to? Is the church’s message so comfortable that it alienates the outcasts and welcomes the moralists?

For all of my complaining, I don’t have any solutions. My first step, however, in 2011 will be to read the book When Helping Hurts to discover the appropriate ways to reach out to a poorer, minority-filled community. I can’t imagine that it would be good for either me or that community to barge in and start doling out food without first discovering how to appropriately minister to their needs. The fact that I look more like them could be a help or a hindrance. I don’t know. But perhaps the fact that we share a darker skin color has given me a burden to reach out to them.

People say one person can make a difference. I don’t know. I think I share more of Hillary Clinton’s perspective in that “it takes a village.” I don’t know if I can make a difference in anyone’s life or if I can accomplish anything at all as one person. But I would like to get the ball rolling.

Anne Rice and association with Christianity

~ K ~ 8 Comments

On July 28, famed author Anne Rice posted the following on her Facebook page:

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. [source]

As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen. [source]

After quoting a number of verses from Matthew, I Corinthians, and John, she concludes her rejection of Christianity with this:

My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become. [source]

I’m not a fan of Rice mainly because I’ve never read her books but I’ve followed her developments and statements with minimal interest since she shifted from atheism to Catholicism. Such extreme pendulum swings in faith never fail to intrigue me. With Rice’s most recent statement, I’m forced to evaluate what it is about Christianity that’s so abhorrent that she’s chosen to renounce Christ?

Before her public repudiation, it’s clear that she was struggling with many unfortunate issues Christianity is associated with. A few Facebook posts from last Tuesday:

Gandhi famously said: “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” When does a word (Christian)become unusable? When does it become so burdened with history and horror that it cannot be evoked without destructive controversy? [source]

Since some of you mentioned the Westboro Baptist Church in comments below, I thought I’d publish this recent news story about them. This is chilling. I wish I could say this is inexplicable. But it’s not. That’s the horror. Given the history of Christianity, this is not inexplicable at all. —Link to “How Young Is Too Young to Learn Hate?” an article about Westboro Baptist Church [source]

This shocking link was provided by a poster below. No wonder people despise us, Christians, and think we are an ignorant and violent lot. I don’t blame them. This kind of thing makes me weep. Maybe commitment to Christ means not being a Christian. —Link to “GOP-linked punk rock ministry says executing gays is ‘moral’” an article about an anti-gay Christian nonprofit [source]

These things associated with Christianity in America are unfortunate not to mention the personal travails Ms. Rice has encountered (losing a daughter to leukemia, losing her husband of 41 years, and watching her other son — a gay rights activist — endure hate-filled rants and threats in the name of Christ). I’ve never experienced any of the things she’s experienced but it makes me understand why she would choose to “quit being a Christian… in the name of Christ.”

I’ve read a lot of posts by Christians questioning whether a person can tell Christ that she loves him but doesn’t want to be part of his Bride (that is, the universal body of Christ—commonly known as the Church). The common conclusion is that no, you can’t love Christ and not be part of his Bride.

But let’s look at this example: let’s say my husband had a close friend and this close friend of his saw me spewing bigoted remarks at other people and talking about killing people who I didn’t believe lived up to my husband’s ideal of how people ought to be. I think my husband’s friend would have every right to say, “Man, I like hanging out with you but I can’t be around when your wife is around. She acts so terrible, it reflects badly on who I am.”

Christians think that the Bride is above criticism because Christ instituted the Church. Jesus loves the Church, yes, but he sees our warts and flaws and knows it is comprised of sinners. And because Christians can be so pompous about what the Bible teaches (right or not), we sometimes drive those within our body away.

Do I agree with Rice’s decision? No, I don’t, but I respect it. I’ve read some other people argue that she should have stayed in the Church (in her instance, the Roman Catholic Church) and tried to effect change from within.

Another personal example, if you’ll allow me: After Obama’s historical election to the presidency in 2008, I chose to leave the Democratic Party. I am a staunchly pro-life (that is, anti-abortion, anti-death penalty) citizen and discovered that the Democratic Party’s stance on abortion had become so relaxed (with President Obama having the most relaxed abortion policies I’ve ever heard of) that there was no way staying in the party would allow me to effect change from within. Even though I am mostly a Democrat in other respects, to continue to be a part of an institution that I had such a fundamental disagreement with would have caused me more harm than good.

However, I’m still a Christian because I believe Jesus has called me to be a part of his Church no matter how many gripes I have with my fellow believers. I believe in the cause of Christ more than I believe in his followers. And I believe that Christ’s message of love and repentance is not just for a certain group of sinners but for all people. Jesus came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. He came for those who are sick, not those who are well.

Like I said, I don’t agree with Ms. Rice’s decision but I respect it. They are too many Christians who think that they’re righteous and well just because they claim the name of Christ. Ms. Rice will only return to the Church once she sees more Christians admitting that they’re sickly sinners.