Column for July 12, 2012

Sometimes I wonder why some people stay in their local churches.  Usually, I write more on political and public affairs topics, but this week I am perplexed as to why some people don’t just look around and say, “Why am I still here?”  Over the years, I have had to take decisions about the direction I was going in my own spiritual walk.  Those decisions have taken me away from some congregations and people and towards others.  As you grow in maturity as both a Christian and as an individual, at times you have to decide whether to stay or go.  When I have seen the values being promoted by individual congregations, I have had to decide whether or not the values were solid and palatable.  When they were found to be at odds with my convictions and knowledge, I have had to walk away, and invariably, I do so with a clean conscience.

I am perplexed by some church leadership nowadays.  When I look back over church history and even American history, I read of men of great conviction with a keen sense of righteousness.  I also run across spineless jellyfish.  I have met many of the latter but far fewer of the former.  Though I prefer men who stand erect rather than limp-wristed weaklings, not every minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is going to be a firebrand.  I get that.  I don’t expect every minister to lead people into revival or even political convictions, but I do expect them to point to virtuous living, traditional values, and commonly understood matters of righteousness; in other words, orthodoxy.

I read yet another article the other day about the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America going astray from their roots.  Historically, Presbyterians have counted men like John Knox, Billy Sunday, Mr. Rogers, and numerous US Presidents and Vice-Presidents amongst their ranks.  The Presbyterian Church USA has been theologically liberal for a long time, which has led to church splits over the years and new denominations forming as off-shoots.  Basically, people stood up, separated themselves from bad doctrine, and decided to go with their convictions.

The latest liberal unorthodox position by the PCUSA is that corporal punishment should not be allowed, meaning you should not spank your children as a form of discipline.  Over the years, I have read the materials put out by organizations opposed to spanking.  Some have been secular; a few have been supposedly Christian.  Usually the Christian groups are only one or two people who put together a web site on the internet.  Usually these people claim that they have the most accurate knowledge and everyone else has been wrong about their understanding of Biblical principles for several thousand years.

About a year ago, the Presbyterian Church USA decided to change their constitution to allow openly homosexual people to become ordained ministers, elders, and deacons.  The problem is that this flatly contradicts thousands of years of orthodoxy.  Again, supporters claim that those that cling to the orthodox position are just bigots that don’t understand their allegedly superior knowledge of God and His truth.  The billions of people who came before them and the millions that are their contemporaries must be wrong and they must be correct.  I didn’t write the Bible, I just read it and came to terms with it.

The one correct recent decision that the Presbyterian Church USA took was to keep from redefining marriage as a union between any two people rather than being specifically between one man and one woman.  Then again, just three years ago, they decided to disallow homosexuals to be ordained in their denomination.  That position was reversed within two years.

There are many good, wholesome members of the Presbyterian Church USA that I know and love.  Some are friends, some are family.  For the life of me, I can’t understand their tolerance of decisions such as these.  I realize that this is not going to go over well with them and maybe even other fellow believers.  However, I also believe that it is because so many people became complacent with their convictions that we have the state of affairs that we have in this country, both spiritually and politically.

Forget the particular denomination mentioned.  If your congregation or association plays loose with issues of morality, righteousness, and truth, I implore you to do some soul searching, regardless of the group.  When I see large organizations and/or denominations going apostate and becoming one with the world from whom they were called to be separated, I weep for them.

Column for May 24, 2012

For the past couple of weeks, I have been slammed with work and family. When I have been home and do get to catch some news, it is in small fragments and my television viewing has been rather limited to whatever I can squeeze in between video-on-demand reruns of “Barney” and “Caillou”. Both of those shows are my 33-month-old’s favorites and anyone with fairly young children knows exactly to what I refer. When I do get to watch television shows I like these days, I am holding a baby bottle to my six-week-old’s mouth and hoping that I don’t encounter projective spit up afterwards. Yes, life has been extremely hectic, frustrating, often stretches my patience to the limits, I am grateful for it all.

I guess that this is all part of “cocooning”, as I call it. I ran across this to some extent when we had our last child. The affairs of life and family keep parents of young children busy. I don’t know if I am glad that I had to wait until I was over 40 until my firstborn child came into the world or not. I certainly have a different perspective on life and what is important in my 40’s than I did in my 20’s. In some areas I find myself infinitely more patient but in others still lacking. If there is one thing that I have learned is that having children, especially a toddler that is a Ritalin candidate, is that I am certainly only human.

I shared with the pastor of a Garner church recently only a fraction of what I had on my mind. I was literally in tears at his father’s funeral, not because I knew his dad well, but because he did. I lamented for his loss but also that I could never have a conversation with my own father while growing up and even into my adult life. He suffered a stroke while still younger than I am now, and I was only a toddler. His fine motor skills and some memory were affected, but his speech and temperament suffered most of all. See, my pastor friend is the son of a pastor, and had the good fortune of being able to get counsel from his dad on pastoring and on life in general. If I ever wanted anything in my youth, it was to be able to look to my own dad as a source of wisdom. I would have traded anything to have been able to have had a normal father-son conversation just once in my life.

For years, I vowed never to be like my dad was in how he treated other people. When I find myself getting angry and frustrated, I often reflect on how I was hollered and cussed at incessantly and don’t want to be that way to my boys or bride. With three boys in the house now, like I said, I am reminded that I am only human. I don’t condone child abuse, but I understand it. My dad was physically, emotionally, and spiritually sick. I don’t condone the way he acted, but I understand it.

For years, I have collected books on theology and history, hoping to share them and knowledge with my progeny. I have also intended to sit and read many of the books I have obtained. I used to be a voracious reader but have had little free time in which to enjoy that simple thing in recent years. I consider myself somewhat reasonably autodidactic, but I could always stand to do more. Fortunately, I now have a somewhat decent reference library for when I do need it. Hopefully some of the investment I am trying to make into the next generation will be of some avail.

I was never raised with any real political or religious opinions in the home, but I hope to change the course of instruction on those topics in my own home. See, political and religious views were considered excessively private. The name Jesus Christ was never used in a positive manner in our house, and God had a last name that began with D. Other than that, I was told nothing about politics but was angrily told that all Catholic priests were homosexuals and that all television preachers were just money grubbing scumbags. Now that I have been a born again Christian for over twenty years, I tend to think the latter to be more accurate than the former.

I chuckle at the comment about priests for two reasons. First, I heard just within the past few days that the homosexual brother of the man who told me that passed away at the age of 80. I wish I could have been able to see Uncle Raymond again before he died.

I have known a bunch of Catholic priests over the years, and though I personally have doctrinal issues with Catholicism, I have met some good priests and some bad ones. Though there have been recent scandals in the Catholic Church over the issue of child molestation, it reminds me that they, too, are human. I certainly am not condoning their sin, but I understand dealing with sin in one’s own life. That is the whole reason I still need Jesus. I am, after all, only human.