Church
Thieves, adulterers, child molesters, back-stabbers.
And that's just the clergy.
I get many emails, talk to many people, hear and read many things...and one of the most common themes I hear is how much people HATE CHURCH, and HATE THE PEOPLE WHO GO THERE, and the HORRIBLE ABUSE THEY HAVE SUFFERED IN "God's" House.
I agree with you. I have seen things that physically nauseate me.
Just a tiny list of what I have personally witnessed (and yes, I CAN provide names, dates, times & places; I simply choose not to):
 | The 60 year old pastor who had a 15 year old girl in his office seeking help for her drug addiction. He stuck his hands under her shirt in order to "help increase her self esteem." |
| The pastor who played video war games 4 to 6 hours a day, eventually admitting that he we stealing the church's money. |
| The "maroon vs. blue" church carpet wars...Some, voting for the wrong color (maroon apparently being God's Divinely appointed color) were told they were no longer welcome at fellowship. |
| A man standing at a voters meeting and pronouncing that God Himself lives in the wood box we call an altar. No one, Pastor included, even bothered to speak up against this stupidity. |
| Oh, and did I mention the pastor who left his wife and 3 kids to have an all-positions-all-the-time sexcapade with one of the members of his church, who also walked away from her 3 children like they never existed? |
| Oh, and the lovely choir director who had been baptized in a church, raised 2 kids there, married them there, and had a 50 years ministry(!) in this one church...until the new pastor came in and decided this choir director was a threat to her power base, and made it top priorities #1, 2 & 3 to get rid of this lady and her 50 year ministry. |
| Not to mention the so-called teachers too stupid to answer honest questions, and too prideful to admit they simply don't know. |
| And did I mention pledge slips, what one plans to donate during the year, and the BILL that is sent out at the end of the year when contributions fall short? (That little number, by the way, was why my family never went to church while I was growing up.) |
Well, I could of course go on & on, but it tires me.
I know what the problem is. Yes, and I can and will explain 100% of the entire problem to you: We have taken the following Bible verse and scratched it out, cut it out with scissors, any means possible to get it the hell away from us....but it is STILL the Word of GOD, and YOU need to absorb it into your soul, and make it the guidepost of your life:
1 Cor 11:1 Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ.
Can you actually tell people that they should IMITATE YOU?!?!?!?
Really?
The Bible, the book we want to bind in leather and cross-reference every word so we CAN IGNORE IT(!), says that YOUR LIFE MUST BE SO PERFECT THAT YOU CAN, WITH HONOR AND INTEGRITY, TELL PEOPLE THAT THEY WOULD BE MUCH BETTER OFF IMITATING YOU, just as YOU imitate CHRIST!!!!!!!!!!!!
Regularly you will hear a preacher say something to the effect, "Don't look at me...I will always let you down...only look to Jesus."
People, whenever you hear any man or woman say that, they are actually being USED BY THE DEVIL, SATAN HIMSELF. That's right. You are hearing the Devil Talking.
You see, all of the pollutions that have crept into the Church, EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, come from ignoring First Corinthians 11:1. Priests wear robes, to show it is not them who's talking, but God...From the prayers to the liturgy to the voters meetings to the sermons to the raped 15 year old girls IT IS ALL THE SAME....Now LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY:
To most people, The Righteousness of Christ is something worn occasionally on the outside, NOT something that grows from the inside.
That righteousness is seen as an external, foreign agent, instead of your true and genuine birthright.
I could write a lot more, but if you don't get it now you probably won't.
Besides...I have to go...my next appointment is here...we've been working on her self respect.
