Perhaps my readers will tolerate just one more rant for the day. I promise, this one will be short.
Nobody should have to put up with me who doesn’t want to. Really. While I still have this burning sense of purpose, by no means would I impose on anyone while pursuing it. Over the 55 years I’ve been alive, I’ve been member of quite a few religious organizations. Precious few were the times I felt at home, felt I could be myself and not have to suffer the insufferable. I don’t mind absorbing the consequences for ignorance and generally blundering around; I rather hope everyone will be direct with me when I do stuff which doesn’t fit.
I’ve left most of those organizations after realizing there was considerable dishonesty behind the scenes. If nothing else, folks were simply not being direct with me. They would privately judge me stupid and useless, but were unwilling to tell me for any number of bogus reasons. Things like that will eventually slip out, and when they do, it’s a lot more painful than just telling me to get lost. I still have the highest respect for those who were honest enough to tell me I was no longer welcome, and why. There aren’t many of those in my memory, because most of the time I found out later.
In a different category are the places I left because it was all too obvious I didn’t belong and it had nothing to do with them being sneaky. I could see they wanted something I couldn’t give them, and staying would be misleading them.
For the same reason I hold in contempt men who subtext, I despise Christian leaders who feel they have to cloak their digs in subtle language. That’s not simple disrespect; it’s a form of hatred. I’ve lost count of how often I’ve run into that. It’s one thing when someone simply has trouble communicating. The world is full of people misreading each other for all kinds of innocent reasons. Most people are humble enough to accept the blame for a failure to communicate, even when they aren’t sure what they did wrong. They care, and that makes them superior humans. But those who refuse to apologize for anything at all, or are insincere about it, deserve full contempt.
I really do have a mission to communicate certain thoughts, and I’ve been willing to grovel as a novice in many organizations as a fair price for being heard eventually. Sometimes it was a bit much, but I don’t take myself that seriously. Please feel free to insult me personally here; I don’t delete those things, as you can tell from the comments in previous threads. Most of it I find funny. Loud, brash and playfully abusive is just fine. But I will get tired if you seem to pay no attention at all to my response and keep harping on the same things. This is my blog, my bully pulpit. Get your own and offer a link if it’s on topic. What I take seriously is my message.
A part of me understands, but I’m not sure I can explain why it is I am so unwelcome in so many Christian settings. Meanwhile, I have a warm virtual friendship with folks who have a different belief, a different religion, or none at all. The Bible says Jesus had no trouble making friends with social outcasts, and I’d like to think I partake of some of that. I’m just a little sad because the folks who are supposed to be on the same side keep shooting at me as an enemy.
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ehurst@radixfidem.blog
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My experiences with mainline churches and evangelicals is that they run milk churches or put another way, birthing stalls. Its their mission. They think its inside the church where new Chriistians are born. Not that this is wrong or a big problem for the “church”. But, a serving of meat is most often too much for them to digest. This is exactly what I think the dries have in common with milk churches. We raise our children under a pretty close supervisory environment because the world is a dangerous place until one learns to navigate its challenges and temptations. The “do nots” rule. A meat loving Christian brings two things, no, three into a milk church that are premature for babes; liberty, joy, grace. The threats from these are license; to drink, to skip chirch, to not tithe but give joyously, to dance, to be active in the world without being corrupted by it. See the connection to the dries?
I happen to think church is more a place for armourers to do their work preparing God’s army. That’s a stark difference from a milk church. A lot of members are lost at that phase: parable of the sowing of seeds. Modern American churches are a numbers game which loosley translates into money.
I suppose I could go with that on one level, but I tend to think it’s more a case of my radical calling, and they have their own problems to worry about. Sure, if someone asked me, I’d make lots of suggestions. Have done, actually. But I gave up thinking long ago it’s my mission to diagnose what’s wrong with mainstream churches. I’m not going to confront them any more and they aren’t going to crucify me. I’m too busy looking for altogether different kinds of activity.
To be honest, I wrote this after having been fed up with piddly discussions on a Christian forum and having yet one more young fellow, just like I was a few decades ago, try to “school” me in something I have already left behind. I can listen when someone says something new, but I can’t go back there again where he is. It wasn’t the insult, it was his insularity, not listening to a word I said.