RYANDAYTHOMPSON

So I recently departed from my church of many years and from the denomination in which I so desperately wanted to remain.  I tried, I really did.  I made an effort.  I worked with the youth, I invited random people to my house for dinner, I talked to the pastor consistently, I even made a vain attempt at using my degree and participating in adult education, but in the end, I just couldn’t deal with some things.  Let me explain a few instances that forced me out of our congregation:

1)  My pastor at one point said, in the course of a sermon, without any hesitation, “I am an American patriot.”  It didn’t even fit the sermon.  There was no reason to do it.  When I eventually asked him about it he defended himself with Romans 13, “Give honor to whom honor is due.”  Romans 13 has nothing to do with being an American patriot.  I do not see why this and other similar things needed to be said from the pulpit, especially since the overall thrust of the teachings of Christ and His apostles was AWAY from nationalistic politics.  Every time he would say something like this, I would object.  And every time I got the same packaged answer, regardless of how many times I explained that Romans 13 has nothing to do with endorsing a nation, a government, a war, or a politician but primarily has to do with submitting to states when they are exercising the sword for justice.  (Whether they ever do this is in question for me, but for now I’ll hold to it.)

2)  There was and is and will remain an American flag in the corner of the sanctuary.  When I inquired as to why we had the symbol of a murderous institution in our building and requested that it be removed, I was told (repeatedly) to “go sit somewhere else where you can’t see it if it bothers you.”  I was once told, “Well that’s just your opinion.”  When I wrote whole articles detailing why this was morally appalling to my conscience, I had Romans 13 quoted at me (sans explanation) and was told that it was just my opinion and I shouldn’t talk about it either on my blogs or in person.

3)  A position paper was issued that sparked our final departure in which we were told, as a congregation, not to say anything negative about the president or anyone ever on Facebook or on blogs or on the internet.  This seemed extraordinarily coincidental with my year of blogging vehemently as a Christarchist.  My brain almost blew up when I read the paper and I left the building fuming.  When I called it out ON FACEBOOK later on (since it had been demonstrated consistently that if I talked about an issue privately, it would be ignored) the pastor stepped in and said that “the wording was wrong,” and that they, “could have said it better,” and that what they really meant was, “not to speak in a spirit of slander.”  I have serious doubts that anything would have been said to reconcile the situation if I had not called it out in public.

4)  As we were departing, I was more or less told by an elder to keep my opinion to myself and to “get a real job.”  (Because, apparently, being a professional photographer isn’t a real job.  I actually sensed this sentiment repeatedly from multiple parties at the church.)  Having been friends with that elder for many years, I know for a fact that he has no intention himself of keeping HIS opinions to himself (he once gave me an audio cassette on the Biblical foundations of the American government) and thinks that his stances are equivalent to truth since he has hinted repeatedly, albeit tongue in cheek on occasion, that his opinions are the ones that “are right.”  This is the same elder that told me when I was 14 that no Roman Catholics, ever, could go to heaven and, thus, shaped me into a distorted exclusivist for many years to come.  I am still an exlclusivist, and don’t see my mind changing anytime soon, but I recognize that, in the words of my very wise friend Michael Spotts, “The church is as wide as the gospel.”  This elder and other people repeatedly used statements like, “man up,” or, “suck it up,” when I voiced criticisms (as if, somehow, straying from the status quo makes me less of a man.)

Overall, the ethos of the church is authoritarian of the worst kind.  Once you get into that church, the “community” is not a kind one at all.  While there were shining examples of kind, gentle, Christ-like individuals who explode everything said above, I never once got the sense that their love was unconditional or that I would have friends on the other side of disagreements.  The general tenor was that, “the elders” more or less controlled everything that went on and people, or at least I, were generally ignored if their complaints or didactic efforts strayed from the status quo.

Jesus does not call us to the status quo.  He does not call us to a life of posh “Capitalist” living.  He does not call us to whore ourselves out in allegiance to a bloodied state.

Jesus calls us to service and communalistic life among the body of Christ.  He calls us to a life of joyful obedience and a life of counter-culture living.  He calls us to a life laid down for others, a life lived in the alleviation of physical, moral, and spiritual poverty.

We do not achieve any of these things by living to the status quo.  We do not achieve any of these things by using coercive government.  We certainly do not achieve these things by endorsing lying, cheating, murderous politicians who gain our consent by appealing to our Christian moral and then directly ignoring us.

These things ultimately do affect the gospel, one way or another, and they are why we had to leave.