Excuse me, but FAITH and CHURCH are not the same thing!

It is obvious some people don’t realize that faith and church are not the same thing.  I say this from the comments I have received.  It might surprise you, but some of the greatest accomplishments in the church have come from people who had the courage to question the church. 

Each of Christ’s apostles did not doubt the church they doubted that Christ would be resurrected. It was incomprehensible to them… even after having witnessed a man walk on water and raise the dead. All of the original apostles had doubts. And, some of you want to stone me because I doubt the actions of some of the hierarchy in the church and yet you are willing to follow men that even had some doubts about Christ.  GET REAL!

Each of them, one by one, sat there witnessing the mighty miracles that came from this Nazarene. They had questions and problems with much of what Christ had taught, but their minds were open not like some of you. 

The problem exists when a person thinks that they are beyond FAITH. That they are too logical for miracles. That their intellect exceeds the need for faith. I have never said any of those things. People who are honest enough to admit their doubts and then face them head on without becoming antagonistic, making hardline rash decisions, or ruling out the need for faith are some of the greatest contributors to this kingdom. 

If you want to follow men blindly that is fine with me - go ahead!  I am not that naive. You may trust the words of men. I trust the Holy Spirit.  I can reason right from wrong by comparing what man says and what scriptures says. I am not going to rely on tradition and rituals to support the words of man when they are contrary to the words of the Bible. 

The church failed me I did not fail the church.

We speak often of the young people straying from God and I do not and never have believed young people are straying from God.  They are straying from organized religion – the church. They are fleeing a religion that has become more about prosperity than love, more about condemning than forgiveness, more about ministers living extravagant lifestyles than helping the poor, more about ministers being the focus of the ministry in order to become celebrities rather than making God the focus of their message.  The young people are not straying they are running to get away from the hypocrisy in the Christian Church which has becoming nothing more than a business to make a few rich beyond their dreams.

Bishop Jake of Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas was not satisfied with the fame and fortune he had accumulated and had to have more.  He is the new “Doctor Phil” on television.  Joyce Meyer’s realizing she is getting older and may want to step aside as the head minister of Joyce Meyer’s Ministries and enjoy all her toys made sure her book royalties no longer go to the ministry, but come directly to her.  Joel Osteen has turned a “self-help” ministry into personal assets worth far more than forty million dollars in a few years.  The Copelands fly around in a twenty million dollar jet while foolish people send them prayer request which the Copeland’s never see or pray over, but make sure the millions sent in with the prayer request are accounted for.   Jesse Duplantis is a onetime used car salesman that should be on a Comedy Hour Show and not in a ministry.  I admit he is entertaining.  Then we have Murdock, Hinn, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Paula White, Ed Young, Jr., Ed Young, Sr.,  John Hagee, Charles Blake, Franklin Graham, Rick Warren and the Catholic Bishops and Cardinals that do not have to make fools of themselves on television to live like royalty.

I think a lot of senior citizens, like me, are also fed up with Christian Organized Religion.  I as a retired priest can no longer force myself to go to Mass.  You see I know too much about the hierarchy of my church.  The cover-up of child abuse in my church was the straw that broke the camel’s back, once it became public the hierarchy continued to deny it and blame the messengers. I reported a case to my bishop over forty years ago and was told as many priest were told, “I will take care of it, but say nothing about this to anyone we have to protect the Church.”  It took a long time for me to realize that God did not need us to cover up a crime in order to protect the Church. In reality in most cases the Bishops and Cardinals were protecting their own secrets.  The laity of the church allowed this to happen and many in the church pews today want to sweep it under the rug.   Those that speak out are said to want to destroy the church.  It never crosses their naïve minds that some of us want to help the church be what God called it to be.    

I am closer to God today than I have ever been in my life – no thanks to the church hierarchy.  I will confess I do not understand why God allows the hierarchy of the church and religious organizations to continue to make a mockery of Him.  I try to rationalize that perhaps the few and seldom truths they spew in pulpits and on television help some.  I believe that one day God will seek revenge as He did with Jimmy Swagger of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

I do not fault the poor naïve people that these religious leaders take advantage of because all people are looking for love. God makes that plain in this verse in Proverbs. What a person desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar (Proverbs 19:22).  True love comes from God.  There is a part of us that can only be satisfied by a relationship with God. The love of a man or woman simply cannot take that spot. Just because our experience with church – organized religion has proved unfulfilling, abandoning God for something physical will only leave us emptier inside.  These charlatans prey on the need people have for unconditional love.  

You, God, are my God,

earnestly I seek you;

I thirst for you,

my whole being longs for you,

in a dry and parched land

where there is no water.

I have seen you in the sanctuary

and beheld your power and your glory.

Because your love is better than life,

my lips will glorify you.

Psalm 63:1-3

Hypocrisy is a real problem in the church today. Hypocrisy exists in church because there is hypocrisy not only in the religious leaders, but also among the laity. That’s a truth that most of us know and some will not admit. Let’s face our own hypocrisy so we can root it out.

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?… You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Luke 6:41,43)

Today, men and women must struggle to find his or her own identity in an oppressive culture of church.  God isn’t the problem. Neither is the kind of church we learn about from the Bible. Loveless religion changes when we live lives that make God attractive, build relationships that feel like family, and do good in our own communities. Now that’s real church.  That is what the younger generation is looking for and not getting in the church today.  Instead of real love they are getting empty words and even I nearing eighty am sick of it.

As long as those running organized religion continue to blame the Internet, liberal thinking, lack of religious upbringing, gays/lesbians, same sex marriage, etc. and continue to blame non-believers, politics, worldly distractions, etc., instead of looking within people young and old will continue to leave the church/organized religion.  The solution is simple stop putting the emphasis on religion and the organizations and start putting it on a personal  relationship with God.

In our current cultural moment, unprecedented millions are sick to death of what religion has become today. There are more people who do not want to be associated with any organized religion in the United States than there are Catholics and nearly as many Protestants.  

I am a Bible believing Christian. I believe in God. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe that the Bible is reliable and is the basis for truth. I believe that God wants to have a relationship with everyone on earth and to see them come to salvation. I have a hard time believing in religion. I am seldom religious any more ... God created us for relationship. He wants to walk with us, talk with us, help us to learn and grow. We are spiritual beings, created to know God. One of the problems I see with the church/organized religion is that it takes its focus off of the relationship and puts it onto the “lifestyle” of Christians.

There is a Christian lifestyle defined by man — common dos and don’ts, ways of talking and behaving, an expected political view — and unfortunately, a common critical eye towards those who believe differently and act differently. I find the biggest fault with Christianity/organized religion is  the focus on sin, both personal sin and the sin of others rather than grace and forgiveness. Jesus Christ did not come and die on the cross to get us to stop sinning. He knew that was impossible. He came to set us free from sin. He came, not to put our focus on sin, but to take our focus off of it ... God wants our focus to be on Him, not on the rules.  I have found through the years the more you try not to sin the more you sin – trust God!

I don’t lay down the law against my best friend. We have a relationship; we love each other, and learn and grow together. Rules don’t make that relationship work, love does. God wants the same thing to be true with the relationship He has with us.

Now after saying what I have I think the church community is important (critical) to a believers life.  It is sad that trying to find a church today that allows you to discuss, agree and disagree with one another, to question freely what you do not understand or believe and not be judged is hard to find.  It is difficult to learn in a vacuum or alone.  To truly learn one must be able to express their ideas freely and be able to share and receive knowledge from one another.  It is far better in my opinion to be spiritual and religious, but finding a place to do that is like I said nearly impossible. I think Jesus called us to transcend petty religion.

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:28-30). 

Jesus backed up this invitation with his life. He overturned Temple tables, healed on the Sabbath (and taught others to do the same), called religious leaders “broods of vipers” and “whitewashed tombs,” cursed fig trees symbolizing fruit-less religionists. This kind of confrontation was not uncommon: So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”  He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ “You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions” (Mark 7:5-9)!

Jesus’ overall appraisal of the religionists of His day is “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.” Jesus seemed to be about creating a new kind of community, one where the values of repressive religion and empire would be absent.  We have forgotten the lessons of Jesus pertaining to His followers and have reverted back to the ways of the Pharisees. (Matthew 20:25-27).  Paul advocated for a Spirit-led rather than rules-led community.

2017 is as good a time as any to bring life back to the church and organized religion and we will not do that with stage shows and entertainment.