Subscribe to Posts
Subscribe to CommentsIndividual Entry: What went wrong?
« Lazy, misc |
Main
| Mortality »
If you read this blog, PLEASE sign in to my guest book on frappr.
No personally identifying information is needed, so this is risk-free. Just provide a name (even a nickname), your zip code, and any statement you want to make ("hi" is sufficient).If you want to know more about me, click here.
January 19, 2009
Faith : What went wrong?
I've made it a point on my blog to minimize quotes from other people; but now and then I read an essay on someone else's blog and it so resonates with me that I just have to pass it on. The recent post "Gratefully Disillusioned" on Free Believers Network (a site for people who have become disillusioned with the institutional church) falls into that category. Quoth:
I have spent countless hours pondering what went wrong with Christianity in our generation. What happened to our religion to make everything so crazy and off track? How could something centered around authentic relationship with God become so dangerous and hurtful to its participants? More than anything, I've asked myself; why wasn't it working for most people?
I've found that the pattern of growth for those who seem to truly know Him has been pretty much the same. The common thread I see over and over is that every person in relationship with Him must go through a shedding period where all that they have been told and all that they have believed is gently taken from them until they are left with nothing but what is. Each person discovers a contentment in knowing they were wrong all along and the stresses of what they had been told all their lives, whether good or bad, trickle away, leaving their spirit relaxed and satisfied.
. . .I've come to the conclusion that somewhere in the last 200 years, we felt that we needed to market our relationship as a religion. At some point in time, someone decided that Christianity needed to be packaged and presented in a way that would appeal to the masses. In other words, we purposefully marketed our faith to unbelievers. I am convinced that this is where the dominoes began to tumble.
. . .
Generations later, people are holding onto the promises the sales agent gave them, in spite of the fact that they've never seen the results manifested in their own life. Others finally leave the "faith," drained and disheartened. They didn't get what they wanted from Christianity so they continue searching for a religion that will give it to them. Then we have the people who would have given their heart to God without any marketing at all. It was already in their heart. They came to Him because they wanted Him and nothing else. They would have come without the fancy marketing and boastful claims.
. . .
These are the people who will eventually become Free Believers.
These are the people who will still stick around once the good and the bad of their religion has been stripped away. They never needed promises of power and prosperity to pique their interest. They didn't go into it looking for an escape from normalcy. It was never about avoiding life's hardships or obtaining magical powers. It was relationship that drew them. It was the Spirit of relationship that they first heard and listened to.
The process of stripping the good and the bad of religion is a long and painful one, but I've found that Free Believers love every minute of it. Their faith doesn't shudder for even a second during the process. When the embellished things of God disappear, they find themselves becoming more pleased and pleasured by what they find behind it than most of their institutional friends would ever have been. In fact, they would willingly give up everything they had ever been promised, if it meant they could be one step closer to the heart of the one they love. This stripping away of religion's boasts and promises is truly what separates the sheep from the goats in our generation. The goats become angry and faithless and the sheep become "Gratefully Disillusioned."
Amen!
Posted by Steven at January 19, 2009 05:00 AM
