When Religion Hurts

 And I hear another voice out of heaven, saying, "Come out of her, My people, lest you should be joint participants in her sins, and lest you should be getting of her calamities, for her sins were piled up to heaven, and God remembers her injuries. 

The unveiling of Jesus Christ 18: 4-5, Concordant New Testament 

Have you ever tried to talk about Jesus with someone who has been deeply hurt by the mainstream church?  This was my situation this week as I shared a few conversations with a man who I see a lot at the gym I frequent.  Recently divorced, he shared with me the trials which he had gone through in his experience.  I was all too ready to accept a good portion of his bitterness as that of the normal pain of separation, but I was wrong.  When our conversation turned to if he believed in Jesus, his bitterness soon turned to resentment.  It seems that throughout his separation that the church he and his wife had attended for so many years had become a haven for her and her children and had, for the most part, shut him out of participation in the church.  His anger at the mainstream church and those who preached a loving Jesus was all too obvious.  Unfortunately, stories like this are more and more common in Christianity.  For many, the church has become a place of anger and not love.  How does one see Christ Jesus through an experience like this?  Isn't Jesus the church?  Isn't the brick and mortar church His house?  No!  Instead, Jesus has all too often become guilty by association from the actions of those within the modern church system.  Think about it, in many churches there are those who act according to, as they claim, the will of God.  Whenever it is that we are seeking to hear from God, we often begin that journey in the church.  I get it.  I was there once myself.  Growing up, the church was my gateway to God and Jesus.  Whenever it was that those in the church hurt me, which happened every now and then, I felt as if there was something wrong with me that was causing it.  Cristians, I told myself, would not treat others in that way.  Of course, I was mistaken on that point.  In more recent years, I have come to see the mainstream church for what it is, a man created system with all of the hierarchies one might expect from a similar institution.  The author J Preston Eby takes this one step further when he describes the Lords warning to the disciple John in Revelation.  It is here that we're told to "Come out of her, My people" {The Revelation of Jesus Christ 18:4}.  God is telling His children to remove themselves from the traditional institutional church.  

"So no, I'm not too big on religion...and not very fond of politics or economics either...And why should I be?  They are the man - created trinity of terrors that ravages the earth and deceives those I care about.  What mental turmoil and anxiety does any human face that is not related to one of those three?" 

Willam P. Young ~ The Shack 

It has taken me more than a few conversations with my gym friend, but I believe that I have finally been able to break through the anger which he has held for the church for some time.  What I have told him is that the church, that brick and mortar church which we are all so familiar with, is NOT Jesus.  The Lords brother, James , proclaims that "The anger of man is not working the righteousness of God" {James to the Twelve Tribes 1:20}.  Now, I am in no way saying that Jesus is never nor has never been present in the church.  For being all in all, the Lord is indeed present anywhere we go.  Still, all too often Jesus suffers from the actions of those in the man - created church system.  People can and have mistaken Jesus for what they have experienced in the church.  I recognized this in my friend when he told me that he could not follow a God who would keep him from seeing his children he loved.  I reminded him that despite the actions of a few in the church, that the love which Jesus had for him had never wavered.  Jesus does not punish us by excluding us from his presence.  What He does do is love us enough to have given Himself for us on the cross {Paul to the Corinthians (2) 5:21}.  When we began to see Jesus through the lens of our own heart and not of that of the institutional church system we began to see Him as He truly is and, ultimately, seeing ourselves as we truly are in Him {Johns Account 14:20}.  

~Scott~