Diverted Posting: Why I Worry For My Believer Friends
I'm very worried about the growing trend of Christians in leadership positions losing their faith. I'm not referring to the Bakkers or the Falwells or the 'big names' of people who have already made their words and lives such an embarrassment that most of us cannot take them seriously. I'm referring to the REAL leaders.
The priests in the trenches, so to speak:
The pastor who has a struggling church with a rising death toll from attrition and deacons who want to keep the congregation segregated.
The director of the mission for the poor and homeless who loses all monetary support from their home church because said church no longer sees any use in "paying for the poor".
The youth leaders dealing with the edgier kids surrounded by sex and drugs.
Maybe even YOU.
In the past ten years I've seen some really fabulous ministries falter and DIE. I've seen youth leaders renounce Christ and advocate their congregations get into kinky sex, polyamory, and even prostitution. I've watched young Christian leadership start out so brightly, and then they end up not only questioning their faith, but turning away from it entirely--and discouraging others from following Christ. One infamous example had the entire leadership turn to paganism and they continued to control their 'Christian' ministry in order to subjugate newer believers who joined. Broken vows, broken marriages, broken lives.
So many bad things are happening to so many people and they lose the Light they once had. Faith is a hard thing to hold onto, by its very nature:
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of Things Not Yet Seen." It's the anticipation of a promise of something you will not KNOW is there until it is. It's pretty much the ultimate Zen koan: To believe without a shred of evidence, because the evidence is the belief.
Sadly, the ones most prone to losing their faith seem to be the most highly-educated of the bunch. My pastor once told me that he did not recommend I go to university to study theology, because, as he put it: "The first thing they do is tear down your faith until you cannot believe anything." The people who are most assurred by their education that they DO Know It All are the most vulnerable to losing all they knew.
Why is that?
I know it's easy to believe in Christ and God when everything's happy-happy joy-joy. There is a "honeymoon" period in a Christian's walk where things ARE easier. Sensing God around you is palpable. Things seem to be in harmony. Prayers are answered and people connect and it's WONDERFUL.
Then come the Desert Years. You are sent out with what you have been given and you must WALK what you believe, sometimes with little or no indication that any of it is real anymore. Evil things happen. People die. Where is your faith now, Christian? Where is the rightness and validity of your God when He seems to sit up there and allows all this crap to happen?
What do you say?
I know that everyone's always gung-ho about quoting the Promises of God, and I won't bore you with quotations. Saved from the Judgement, Blood-Bought and Spirit-Filled; Ask, Seek, Knock--it's all there. You're a Child of God; He is your Father.
What Father leaves His Children out to suffer? Not a good one.
But it's also 'in there' that it's not going to be hunky-dory. Christ says directly He didn't come to bring peace--He's bringing a SWORD. No one wants to study Job--it's a miserable book about a miserable fucker who ends up in a cosmic chessgame of one-upmanship between God and satan. No one wants to think about why Jeremiah is so sad and depressed all the time. No one wants to look at how the Apostles ended up or how everything is about Free Will...and the Consequences of your Choices.
So why is it so hard? I haven't tagged it yet, but I did a rant perhaps a year ago where I was saying I would not recommend Christianity to much of anyone, because it's not like signing up for a beauty pageant. It's not going to be pretty; it's going to be awful and arduous and only a true FOOL does it.
Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?
I know part of the answer: It's in Job, that book no one wants to study. It's not really about "let's torture Job and then tell him he cannot understand God". Which is true, NONE of us are dimensionally-capable of fully understanding a Being so multi-dimensional and so beyond what we are right now in our encased souls. But the answer I know has several parts and is this:
1) Those who have faith are TESTED. REPEATEDLY. Because not only does faith grow and strengthen through testing, but WE ARE ON SHOW FOR OTHERS. It happens TO US because of those who are watching us. Because ultimately, what we preach means nothing. What we say means nothing. It's what we do when we're beset by trouble and hardship on every side that is THE TRUTH OF WHO WE ARE. Somewhere, someone else is drawing strength from how you walk through the firestorm and they'll use your example.
2) My personal 'koan': It is not what I SEE, it is not what I FEEL, it is WHAT I KNOW that is the TRUTH. All else is subjective.
3) The whole deal about FREE WILL is that it is YOUR FREE WILL. You are equally free to reject it. It cannot be entirely YOUR CHOICE if there is no choice, nor can your choice be seen to be one you freely hold to IF you abandon it at the first sign of trouble. The message of Job is NOT that the man suffers, or that God permits satan to test him "short of the point of death", but it's that God has said: "My people CHOOSE Me." Satan says they only 'choose God' so long as they have a good life. God says "Pick one of my servants and see if it's not true." Satan chooses Job. Job endures inexplicable horrors but CONTINUES TO CHOOSE GOD...even without God's encouragement. But God reminds Job he's incapable of understanding "Why?", even if God told him why.
I've said it before and I'll say it again--we were created to be in a personal relationship with God. Loving someone means loving them NO MATTER WHAT.
I watch powerful, anointed leadership falling away because their faith was tested and they can't take it anymore. It scares me to death to see that, both for them personally and for those who follow them. These people are admired and looked up to, and they do so much damage to both themselves and those that watch them by turning away.
There is nothing I can do to stop any of it, and it's not my place to do so. But I watch it happening, over and over, and I'm terrified. I've had horrific, bizarre dreams about what is happening--I know it must happen. I know it will happen again and again (and if you read in the New Testament, you'll see it SAYS this will happen). But to those I know and love and I see you falling...I feel so helpless to help you.
Nechtan
The priests in the trenches, so to speak:
The pastor who has a struggling church with a rising death toll from attrition and deacons who want to keep the congregation segregated.
The director of the mission for the poor and homeless who loses all monetary support from their home church because said church no longer sees any use in "paying for the poor".
The youth leaders dealing with the edgier kids surrounded by sex and drugs.
Maybe even YOU.
In the past ten years I've seen some really fabulous ministries falter and DIE. I've seen youth leaders renounce Christ and advocate their congregations get into kinky sex, polyamory, and even prostitution. I've watched young Christian leadership start out so brightly, and then they end up not only questioning their faith, but turning away from it entirely--and discouraging others from following Christ. One infamous example had the entire leadership turn to paganism and they continued to control their 'Christian' ministry in order to subjugate newer believers who joined. Broken vows, broken marriages, broken lives.
So many bad things are happening to so many people and they lose the Light they once had. Faith is a hard thing to hold onto, by its very nature:
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of Things Not Yet Seen." It's the anticipation of a promise of something you will not KNOW is there until it is. It's pretty much the ultimate Zen koan: To believe without a shred of evidence, because the evidence is the belief.
Sadly, the ones most prone to losing their faith seem to be the most highly-educated of the bunch. My pastor once told me that he did not recommend I go to university to study theology, because, as he put it: "The first thing they do is tear down your faith until you cannot believe anything." The people who are most assurred by their education that they DO Know It All are the most vulnerable to losing all they knew.
Why is that?
I know it's easy to believe in Christ and God when everything's happy-happy joy-joy. There is a "honeymoon" period in a Christian's walk where things ARE easier. Sensing God around you is palpable. Things seem to be in harmony. Prayers are answered and people connect and it's WONDERFUL.
Then come the Desert Years. You are sent out with what you have been given and you must WALK what you believe, sometimes with little or no indication that any of it is real anymore. Evil things happen. People die. Where is your faith now, Christian? Where is the rightness and validity of your God when He seems to sit up there and allows all this crap to happen?
What do you say?
I know that everyone's always gung-ho about quoting the Promises of God, and I won't bore you with quotations. Saved from the Judgement, Blood-Bought and Spirit-Filled; Ask, Seek, Knock--it's all there. You're a Child of God; He is your Father.
What Father leaves His Children out to suffer? Not a good one.
But it's also 'in there' that it's not going to be hunky-dory. Christ says directly He didn't come to bring peace--He's bringing a SWORD. No one wants to study Job--it's a miserable book about a miserable fucker who ends up in a cosmic chessgame of one-upmanship between God and satan. No one wants to think about why Jeremiah is so sad and depressed all the time. No one wants to look at how the Apostles ended up or how everything is about Free Will...and the Consequences of your Choices.
So why is it so hard? I haven't tagged it yet, but I did a rant perhaps a year ago where I was saying I would not recommend Christianity to much of anyone, because it's not like signing up for a beauty pageant. It's not going to be pretty; it's going to be awful and arduous and only a true FOOL does it.
Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?
I know part of the answer: It's in Job, that book no one wants to study. It's not really about "let's torture Job and then tell him he cannot understand God". Which is true, NONE of us are dimensionally-capable of fully understanding a Being so multi-dimensional and so beyond what we are right now in our encased souls. But the answer I know has several parts and is this:
1) Those who have faith are TESTED. REPEATEDLY. Because not only does faith grow and strengthen through testing, but WE ARE ON SHOW FOR OTHERS. It happens TO US because of those who are watching us. Because ultimately, what we preach means nothing. What we say means nothing. It's what we do when we're beset by trouble and hardship on every side that is THE TRUTH OF WHO WE ARE. Somewhere, someone else is drawing strength from how you walk through the firestorm and they'll use your example.
2) My personal 'koan': It is not what I SEE, it is not what I FEEL, it is WHAT I KNOW that is the TRUTH. All else is subjective.
3) The whole deal about FREE WILL is that it is YOUR FREE WILL. You are equally free to reject it. It cannot be entirely YOUR CHOICE if there is no choice, nor can your choice be seen to be one you freely hold to IF you abandon it at the first sign of trouble. The message of Job is NOT that the man suffers, or that God permits satan to test him "short of the point of death", but it's that God has said: "My people CHOOSE Me." Satan says they only 'choose God' so long as they have a good life. God says "Pick one of my servants and see if it's not true." Satan chooses Job. Job endures inexplicable horrors but CONTINUES TO CHOOSE GOD...even without God's encouragement. But God reminds Job he's incapable of understanding "Why?", even if God told him why.
I've said it before and I'll say it again--we were created to be in a personal relationship with God. Loving someone means loving them NO MATTER WHAT.
I watch powerful, anointed leadership falling away because their faith was tested and they can't take it anymore. It scares me to death to see that, both for them personally and for those who follow them. These people are admired and looked up to, and they do so much damage to both themselves and those that watch them by turning away.
There is nothing I can do to stop any of it, and it's not my place to do so. But I watch it happening, over and over, and I'm terrified. I've had horrific, bizarre dreams about what is happening--I know it must happen. I know it will happen again and again (and if you read in the New Testament, you'll see it SAYS this will happen). But to those I know and love and I see you falling...I feel so helpless to help you.
Nechtan