I wrote:

Which part of the dogma do you have a problem with?

An ‘exiled believer’ replied:

Basically anything that hinders the outpouring of Christs love to the world. Most things that churchies do on Sundays, but I have outlined the main things below that tick me off. Most of them are not written down rules as such but they have been in every church (Baptist, Anglican and Pente) that I have been to.

1. Prayer Chains-

I have deeply involved in 3 churches, and every single one the prayer chain is mostly used for passing the latest gossip.

2. Bitching about other churches

The example that I will use is the way protestants bitch about how crap the catholic church is. Let me tell you, the catholic church may have hang ups, but I have received more love from Catholic churches, preists and such than I ever have from a protestant church. The great thing that I would like to point out is that the love that I have received has been unconditional, there has been no strings attached.

3. Leadership more interested in maintaining a status quo than encouraging growth.

In the fear of offending someone, 2 out of three churches have been more interested in keeping bums in seats than growing, so the message gets diluted in order to appeal to everyone. The problem I think is that the more diluted the message is, the less people are appealed. This has a lot in common with the next point

4. Money

I think that this point is the root of a lot of evils in the church. The last church I went to made a point of not pushing the offering plate around. I found this refreshing, but when the leaders decided that they needed a paid pastor (without listeniing to other suggestions), the old pay per service thing started to be pushed. I am not sure where this has gone now, but at that stage the church simply couldn’t afford a paid pastor, so they thought they might start asking for more money.

I have also worked in a church office, where the first thing the pastor would ask for on monday morning was the ledger to see how much he had earned the day before. It seemed that he couldnt give a **** about the congregation, as long as they were paying he didnt really care. Mind you the church had 3 pastors (talk about top heavy). The senior pastor was earning 65k not including fringe benefits, the assoc. pastor was receiving not much less.

Also (at this same church), there was one particularly wealthy family that ‘donated’ a large proportion of the funds on a regular basis. As a major shareholder, this family was basically the real leadership of the church. This family even held the title deed of the property the church was on!

As Merrick and Rosso (from their days of non-corporate JJJ radio) say “You’ve gotta love a religion with its own built in GST!”.

5. Music

Don’t get me wrong, I love the right kind of music, but when you have a particular format every week where you must sing the 3 songs, announce and then 3 more, its just silly. Further, I dont like it when churchies say that particular music is evil, like heavy metal, rap, or secular music in general. That country and western style hillsong is the only music that is endorsed by God. Another thing is the idea of saying that only music that is directly inspired by the scriptures can be a bit silly.

6. Sermons

Why is it that everybody knows that at most you can concentrate for 20 minutes, but protestant sermons tend to go for between 45-80 minutes? If you have kids this is a nightmare, but the thing that I would like to point out is that if you cant say it in bites of 20minutes, its probably not worth saying because no-one will be listening.

I think a long sermon (more than 20 minutes) shows a lack of preparation, and you might be speaking on a topic that you dont really know much about so you are fudging it. I liken this to an essay. If I havent done enough research for an assignment that should be 1500 words, I always blow my word limit.

7.Not questioning the bible

I think you cannot understand what the real message of a passage is (for you) unless you approach it critically. this includes saying to yourself “Is this really inspired by God?, does it match up with what I already know about this subject? If not why not? Is the translation accurate? Is this relevant?”. I believe that alot of what is in the bible is only included as it suits the agenda of the person who said it should be included, and the power holders in the current church.

8. Churchie behaviour

By this I mean that to be accepted on a Sunday you have to behave a certain way. I think anybody who has been to church knows what I mean. I am simply not that person that I am supposed to pretend i am whilst in church. I grew up in a working class household that was quite dysfunctional. I swear in everday speech quite a bit, and I think capitalism is evil. I believe in a democratic socialist society, and I believe in minding your own business (e.g. don’t ask me how I am!). Most people in churches I have been to are middle class business owners or people who have never experienced anything of what it is like to be immersed in the world as you are when you practice as a nurse (my occupation). I have worked in most acute care settings, aged care as well as mental health and drug and alcohol and I can tell you that life is a lot more shitty than these people realise, and somebody that wants to find Christ is not really interested in talking about the weather or how much money they made last week, especially if they are broke!

9. Patriarchy

The devaluing of women in society and church is a premodern idea that started to be phased out in the late 1800s and most churches still wont accept that women are equal to men. This really is offensive to me. In (my last church) they wouldn’t let women preach, and now my wife is off the leadership team there are no women represented on it. The church is now run by a bunch of people who couldn’t organise anything out of a paper bag, and definitely don’t see the value of women (otherwise there would be more woman on the team, right?).

10. If you are not a regular attender, you dont belong.

Need i say more?

Im sure that I could keep on going but I would have to think a bit longer, these are just a few off the top of my head.

I hear it every week. For immature Christians (or anyone for that matter) when something happens which threatens the foundations of their security, they run and hide. Avoidance is easier than getting involved in someone’s messiness…

My response:

I have no comment to make on what’s below except

1. I agree with it all, basically

2. Your problems with the church are associated mainly with the fact that like you and me it’s composed of not-yet-fully-redeemed folks. Non-acceptance of the unredeemedness of others is usually associated with family-of-origin hurts (authority figures being abusive, not living up to our expectations etc.) and these hurts can be healed… It’s amazing how grace and acceptance of fallible others operates out of such healing

3. These factors are less to do with *dogma* (if at all) than human weakness, eh?

4. Your list is so good, I’d like your permission to put it on to our website (without identifying details): a lot of other people will identify with all this…

Thanks for your honesty!

— Shalom! Rowland Croucher