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.

General Ban Ki-moon - United Nation head is a hypocrite.

The United States accepted more than 70,000 refugees in 2014, or roughly 700 for every one accepted by South Korea and Japan combined.

The current Secretary-General of the United Nation is Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, who took office on 1 January 2007. He wants to push Syrian refugees off on other nations when his own nation and Japan will not take them. He should not be telling other nations to take them when his own nation will not. 

At the end of September 2015, the Ministry of Justice in South Korea said there are 848 Syrian asylum seekers in South Korea. Of those that applied for refugee status in South Korea only 0.3% were considered. Keep in mind he is using figures from 1994 - to present. There was not a crisis in Syria during those early years. There TOTAL refugees number is 848 from all countries.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, crucified Hungary for the way it was handling the tens of thousands of immigrants massing on its border, “I was shocked to see how these refugees and migrants were treated by Hungary. It’s not acceptable … since they are the people who are fleeing the violence and persecution, we must ensure our compassionate leadership.” Why is he not shocked that his own country South Korea will not take them in and treat them compassionately? Why isn’t he speaking out against South Korea?

Such hypocrisy, here is a man who likes to think he stands as a moral compass for the world yet he comes from a country that has contributed absolutely nothing in the way of a solution to the human tide generated by the Syria crisis. He wants other countries to shoulder their responsibility, but overlooks the fact that South Korea is doing nothing to help with the problem.  

South Korea does have plenty of company when it comes to talking and not doing. According to Amnesty International, here are a few other countries willing to stand by and do nothing as a human tragedy unfolds: Gulf countries including Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain have offered zero resettlement places to Syrian refugees. Other high income countries including Russia, Japan, Singapore along with South Korea have also offered zero resettlement places.

Why hasn’t our Imperial President Obama brought this to the attention of the American people? Why has he not spoken out publicly about the fact the head of the United Nations cannot even get his own country to take in refugees? 

I do not want any of the Syrian refugees to be allowed in the United States. I do believe we should established a safe zone in their own country for them and I think ALL countries that are members of the United Nation should shoulder that responsibility.  

There is more than one Christian solution to the refugee problem.

The Christian Church in the United States may be about to face the largest divisive issue we have faced in decades. The issue of homosexuality may pale to the Syrian refuge issue.

Christians that want us to welcome the Syrian refugees with open arms will tell us: The story of Exodus is the story of God’s people without a land and without a home. God delivered the Israelites because “He heard their cry. - The story of the Good Samaritan is Jesus’ way of saying, remember that Jews and Samaritans did not get along it is a story of how you have to care for people, even those who you despise. - If we claim to be a Christian, or even claim we are a Christian nation we have to care for those in need regardless of who they are. - “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.” Jesus serves as the final authority of how we are to greet and care for the least of these. - James writes to scattered people, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” - As tens of thousands of refugees flee Syria, they are a people without a land. They are aliens without a home. Syrian refugees are strangers to us who have a culture, language and religion different from us. They are the least of these. They are men, women and children who are in need of a new place to call home. This “Christian nation” is called by scripture to care for Syrian refugees.

A decade ago, maybe even five years ago, I would have agreed whole heartily without hesitation with all those words. I might be up in arms against those that did not want to welcome the Syrian refugees, but times have changed. I hope that I would not have called those that disagreed with me a bigot and hypocrite as many of the Christians supporting bringing the Syrian refugees to the U.S. are doing, including our President.

When it comes to Muslim immigration, we must not be led by our emotions. The spread of political Islam and creeping sharia law is often accomplished by means of immigration. BBC reports that fake passports are already being used to get jihadists into Europe. German customs officers have seized packages containing Syrian passports and police suspect they are being sold illegally to asylum seekers. Honduras stopped six Syrian men with false passports on their way to the United States. A finance ministry official said both genuine and forged passports were in the packets intercepted in the post office. ISIS has threatened to send 500,000 migrants to Europe as part of jihad. Do we close our minds to these facts?

ISIS claims they have fighters that are already in place in Europe and with the reason events in Paris I have no reason to doubt them. Our own Homeland Security and F.B.I. say they are investigating reported terrorist suspects in every State. There can be and most likely will be consequences to badly directed compassion.

We must also ask why most rich Muslim nations are refusing to take in these refugees. Perhaps they know something we don’t. Five of the wealthiest Muslim countries have taken no Syrian refugees, arguing that doing so would open them up to the risk of terrorism. Muslim nations are admitting that Muslim refugees pose a genuine terrorist threat. Yet, Obama, Liberals and a lot of Christians are asking us to throw our doors wide open with no questions asked. Western countries tend to want to be more politically correct than right and God knows they do not want to be accused of Islamophobia.

Please, do not lecture me about vetting and that it would take 18 to 24 months before we saw the first Syrian refugees. We did not do such a good job vetting the terrorist that came on student visas. We did not do such a good job of keeping up with the terrorist that over stayed their tourist visas. We have estimates as high as sixteen million illegal aliens in our country today and no one in our government can tell us where they live.

I had a friend send me two pictures of dead children that washed ashore asking me how I could look at those pictures and question if we should open our doors to Syrian refugees. I admit the pictures broke my heart. The children in my opinion were not dead because advanced countries have immigration laws. The children were dead because criminal traffickers risked the lives of their victims in pursuit of money.

The President of Turkey said that one of those children and his parents had been living in Turkey for three years and were provided shelter. The President of Turkey claims they were safe so I ask were they fleeing from danger, or fleeing towards a higher standard of living. I thought the definition of refugee was one that was fleeing danger. Am I supposed to automatically assume that the President of Turkey is lying?

Michel Houellebecq, has a new book out where he prophesies a Muslim dominated government in France about seven years from now, ushered into power by the French Tory and Labor parties. He says his research reveals they want France to disappear.

How many people today remember the community in Wasco County, Oregon? It was incorporated as a city in the 1980s, and was populated with followers of the spiritual teacher Bhagwat Shree Rajneesh, later known as Osho. They eventually imported 7000 people to this small community. Initially, they had stated that they were planning to create a small agricultural community; their land was zoned for agricultural use. But it soon became apparent that they wanted to establish the kind of infrastructure and services normally associated with a town. The land-use conflict escalated to bitter hostility between the commune and local residents, even leading to murder.

In 1986 the courts ruled that the religious group had the right to incorporate the city and elect their own government officials. The city eventually went bankrupt. Unfortunately most of the local farmers and ranchers had already been forced to move away. This could be an example of a refugee problem in a small established community.

Will there be any type of control where these refugees will settle. What if they eventually take over a small town in the Western United States and force the locals out. You believe that is farfetched, well I believe bringing refugees in without any terrorist being among them is farfetched. I believe bringing Syrian refugees to our country without a plan that covers vetting, housing, medical, education, clothing, food, where they will work and what cities they will live in is not worth the risk.

We cannot rely on emotions and sadly we cannot rely only on scripture to solve this serious problem for us. We had to override scripture when it came to slavery, women’s rights, killing children that talk back, killing adulterous people, etc. The Good Samaritan story just may not be applicable to this situation we are in now.

One Baptist minister from Alabama said, “If we cannot trust the process by which the United States Government vets refugees fleeing violence and persecution, then we cannot trust any form of our border security or immigration or visa processes.” At the moment I don’t trust any form of our border security or immigration or visa processes. If these policies were working then how did the terrorist carry out 9/11 and how did maybe sixteen million illegal aliens get into our country?

The Baptist minister quotes John Sandweg, former acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “The United States employs a robust and layered approach to the screening of refugees. Prior to setting foot on U.S. soil, refugees must first clear a comprehensive background investigation that includes multiple layers of in-person interviews, biographic and biometric background checks, and interviews of third-persons who may have information related to the individual. No refugee may be admitted into the U.S. unless and until this lengthy process is complete and reveals no information that would suggest the person poses a security risk.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied she had a private server and had classified information on it. The head of the I.R.S. Lois Lerner said the I.R.S. was not discriminating against conservatives for tax exemptions, but then she took the fifth. President Obama said there was not one smidgen of corruption in the I.R.S. and we found out differently. Obama said if you like your health care plan you can keep it – did that turn out to be true? Obama said my father left my family when I was 2 years old and we now know he never spent one night with his father. Obama said The Fast and Furious program was a field-initiated program begun under the previous administration we now know for a fact it began in 2009 under his administration. Obama claimed they revealed to the American people exactly what they knew about the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi and that turned out not to be true. Obama said transparency and the rule of law would be the touchstone of his Presidency - what a joke!

Does the Baptist minister expect me to believe John Sandweg? Isn’t this the same John Sandweg that left his position in less than a year? He walked out without providing a clear explanation. Is he not the same John Sandweg that had no experience in Immigration and was opposed by many when he was being vetted? Isn’t this the same John Sandweg that tried to stop a Freedom of Information investigation into spending in the DHS? I am sorry, but I have a hard time taking John Sandweg’s word on anything.

I wish some Christian had facts that were proven to be trustworthy so I could reconcile the conflict I have in my heart with the Syrian Refugee problem, but no one has.

The only viable solution I see at the moment is extending more financial aid to Muslim countries, particularly Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon to take care of the Syrian refugees where they are. These refugees will have a better chance of getting back into their country and possibly gaining control of their country if they are living near where they came from rather than moving them to Europe, Australia and the United States. I do not deny that our country and all Western countries, regardless if they are Christian or not, has an obligation to protect their security and provide adequate living conditions for them. Supporting them there would help stop them from needing to go elsewhere.

Syria in my opinion will remain a serious problem for many years, that's all the more reason for a longer-term humanitarian response, including setting up schools and medical facilities. We would probably get more loyalty from the Syrians and they would be more encouraged to stand up to ISIS by helping them with aid than spending millions on training a few Syrian rebel fighters.

I have read the Syrian refugees do not want to live in camps where all the tents look alike. They want to live in homes. I wish that was possible. I am sure the people in the Philippines that have been without homes for over two years due to typhoons would like to have a home. We cannot always have what we ‘want’ we sometimes have to settle for what we can get at the moment.

I do believe building permanent homes may be more feasible than tents, since this is going to be a long term problem. I guess the Syrian refugees would complain that the home all look alike. The people of the Philippines that have been given government homes that all look alike are thrilled. It makes me question the Syrian refugee’s real motives.

One last point the Syrian refugees I see on television appear to be healthy young men.  If these are real refugees, where are the women? Where are the elderly? Where are the weak and the sick? It appears to me that they have no intention of fighting for their own freedom in Syria. They have made up their minds they want to live in the West.

This is a quote from a group of young men that left the refugee camp in Hungary, “No good here in Hungary. No good. They try and lock us up. But we want Germany, there it is good. We have no worry about nothing there. They give us food and house and job. In Hungary they want to watch us all the time.” They are in the majority amongst the thousands who arrive each day in Hungary on their way north. While they wait they want to charge their iPhones, eat more pizza and board their trains.  Everyone either has an iPhone or knows someone else who does. They use them to talk to family members on the other side of the world or network with each other sharing information. This is what they told an aid worker.

Several of the young men had already spent $5000 on travel when they got to Hungary. Refugees have $5000 plus in cash? One said, “I want new life. I want to go to university. Make money. I want to work in a bank, be a banker. Bring all my family later.” When ask why he did not stay and fight for his homeland he said, “There is nothing worth fighting for.”

There is no future there because Obama took away all their future by allowing the “J.V. Team” as Obama called ISIS to take over their country. Obama says as long as he is President he will befriend the refugees. If he was truly a friend of the refugees he would not have withdrawn the troops against the advice of his military advisors and he would have stood up to the President of Syria when he crossed Obamas red line.

I am not convinced that God expects us to risk allowing terrorist to come into our country as they did in France and kill our citizens. I am convinced God does expect us to help the Syrian refugees. There is more than one way to accomplish that and other ways have far less risk for the citizens of the United States. Help them where they are!

A Jewish man was taking a trip alone and was attacked by robbers. A Samaritan man came by. Even though they both lived in the land of Palestine and shared a similar religion, the Jews and the Samaritans definitely did not think of each other as "neighbors." In fact, they hated each other. They had considered each other enemies for hundreds of years and refused to even talk to each other! This Samaritan man took pity on the injured Jewish man. He bandaged his wounds. He put him on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he could be safe and recover. Jesus was pleased with the Samaritan man in the story even though he did not take the Jewish man back into his home, but took care of him where he was.

God led the Jews into battle and they took the Promise Land from its inhabitants and the Jews settled on it. Why aren’t the Christians and Obama that advocate bringing the refugees to the United States willing to take the land back from ISIS and let the Syrian return to their land? God and the Jews defeated the pagans cannot God and the United States defeat the ISIS pagans? I think we can.

Have we stopped believing that God hears the cries of the Syrians? God said, “Whatever you do for the least you do for me.” James wrote we are to look after the orphans and widows are Christians not capable of doing that there instead of the United States? There is not just one Christian solution to the Syrian refugee problem.