Prologue Common to the Five Posts of Letters Written to My Church 2012-2019:

          I trust and hope that these five postings of the letters I have written to my church answer to a sufficient degree the concerns and view that my letter of September 2020, withdrawing my membership from the Evangelical church I attended for more than forty years, was a response on my part without understanding or thought based on scripture, without prayer, and without the leading of the Holy Spirit.  However, I think, all these letters as a whole, from 2012-2019, demonstrate a consistent loyalty to my church and pastor amid my growing concern for the spiritual misdirection and confusion, and the diminished focus upon Christ, His gospel, and prayer, that the multiple and cascading political pronouncements and preaching were engendering within the congregation and the church organization as a whole.  I further hope that apparent within the letters on my part, is also a consistent witness of Christ and of the centrality of His gospel and Kingdom, a display of the leading of the Holy Spirit, and a deepening commitment to the two great commandments of love of God and of neighbor, so essential and central to our Christian faith.

The Two Letters of this Post

I wrote the two letters of this post to the pastor of my church out of concern for the growing political infiltration in the planning and content of the sermons preached from the pulpit, and the deepening influence and effects these messages were having upon the hearts and minds of the congregation.  These messages, in my opinion, obscured and diminished the primacy of Christ and the centrality of the gospel.  I did not receive verbal or written replies to these letters.

First Letter of this Post

November 5, 2012

Dear John,

            I have been attending Grace Community Church since 1974.  I was baptized and married here in 1978, I’ve been a member since about 1982, and we raised our three daughters here in this church.  I have been feed and I have grown tremendously as a believer due to the ministry here at Grace, but even more specifically, I have grown due to your clear preaching and explanation of scripture.  From my beginning at Grace, I have been filled, satisfied, and thrilled with God’s word as taught from the pulpit here.  I am a deacon and I minister in a fellowship group.  And since I have been here so long, I have also experienced many of the church’s highs and lows and I have written to you twice before.  And now I write because of my concerns over your recent sermons and their planned political use, the funding for this political project, and the affect of all this upon the congregation at Grace.  And the foundation of these concerns is my overall concern for our church’s focus on and devotion to Christ and the gospel.  And I wanted to write now before the actual election tomorrow because my main concern is not who or which party wins the election, but rather the affect of this entire political process upon the church.

            First of all, John, I just have to honestly say that it is disingenuous to characterize the sermons on abortion and homosexuality as not political.  The advance planning and coordinated input put into this project, the sermons timing, structure, content and their intended eventual uses, and the funding provided for the Grace to You mail-out are all political.  Even before the two sermons were preached, it was already circulating on campus that the ultimate goal was to ensure that one party (interpret Republican) controlled the White House and both houses of Congress.  From the beginning, through the core messages, it was apparent that the sermons were designed to influence the national audience.  The core message of the first sermon was that it was ok for a believer to vote for a Mormon (which I never had an issue with) packaged within a message on abortion.  The core message of the second sermon was that the Democratic Party’s platform was evil and to vote for any Democrat was to support evil and this message was packaged within a sermon of homosexuality.  Also the fact that you were not able to do a second message on abortion as you originally planned/stated but had to move on to the second message appeared also to aid the political goal of getting the messages prepared in time for use by GTY.  The way in which the messages were framed also did not appear directed towards Grace Church, but rather appeared primarily aimed at the national audience reached by GTY. And then the funded GTY mail-out was specifically designed to help reach and capture the early voting block, especially in the swing states, and GTY is now broadcasting and re-broadcasting the two messages with, of course, an eye to helping ensure an influence over the election tomorrow.  The decision to use the sermons as described above is a de facto political decision and use.  This plan was/is the same plan utilized by other religious/non-profit organizations and we received a similar packet of information also within the same time frame of the GTY mail-out from another organization.  That one was even more blatant or effective, depending on one’s point of view, as it also contained political canvassing material.

            And these actions, of course, have had an affect upon the church here and also I assume nationally.  But these affects are not all good.

1. Some people, including my wife, because of the statement that these are not political messages, are struggling hard to believe that none of these actions have a political nature or are politically motivated.  Some have exerted significant mental energy to interpret “Part 1” not to mean that there was a planned Part 2 for the abortion issue, but rather to mean that the abortion sermon was Part 1 of the series on the current issue messages. They are struggling on this fairly simple grammatical issue because for them to think that any part of this process was political means that somewhere along the way there was/is a lack of transparency or integrity.  For me – and I’m not sure if this is cynical or not, but I do believe it is a fairly accurate analysis of the facts – it seems this change of sermons was a case of all actions and the timeline and everything else for this project not being thought out completely and precisely before rolling it out here at church and with GTY.  The sermon process and the PR aspect of this project seem to have initially encountered production problems due to incomplete planning.  I am gentle with my wife and I do not instruct her on what to believe, but she and others will continue to struggle with this as a spiritual issue for some time.  Again, from my viewpoint, it is a wrong against my wife and others to cause them to struggle with this just because the genesis, planning partners, funding sources, and ultimate uses and national goals of these sermons were not disclosed from the beginning.  The thing I struggle with is if the congregation can not be fully and honestly informed of something, then is all of it really of the Lord? 
2. John, I’m sure you are aware of the political agitation and induced political and social anxieties and fears that have for the last four years rolled over the entire American landscape including Grace church.  This agitation and disquiet at church, which is not of scripture or of the Spirit, has now in the minds of many been sanctioned and encouraged within the church by your sermons and their uses.  And over the years, at the core of this worldly political ideology and its planned and fomented political agitations and fears, has always been the intention – like a spring-loaded baited hook – to use any and every resource and venue and voice possible, including the church and its various “pulpits” especially the electronic, to further the designed and stated political goals.  John, you know history.  When the church mixes in or is mixed into the political process – either by actually wedding itself to the process or by being enticed into agreeing to be used, or by any endless combinations and permutations thereof – the only winner is the world and the only loser is Christ and the gospel.  If money – in whatever manner- is exchanging hands, then winning is even further enhanced by the knowledge that money can truly buy anything. And the losing, well, that is even further worsened because the involvement must be kept secret or at least “acceptably” nuanced, and the ability of the heart and the mouth to honestly communicate the gospel is factually compromised.  It is hard to proclaim complete salvation in Christ when anxiously and aggressively waiting in the wings is the political gospel with its enhanced features of national salvation through a “corrected” political process and one, not only endorsed, but also blessed by the church. And also, once the true gospel and the political gospel are preached from the same pulpit, where and when does this process stop?  To the listening open ear, where does one gospel begin and end and where does the other start and finish or are they now to be perceived as just blended in?  How does one dismiss from the pulpit and put aside ideologies and processes once publicly endorsed and followed?  And at what point is the world satisfied with the extent of the church’s support for its enterprises?  When should the world expect the church’s services to cease?  What then is business as usual? 
3. Political agendas and ideologies can be effectively promoted by the church’s involvement in the political process, but in my mind, and in my heart, obedience and devotion to scripture suffers considerable collateral damage in the process.  I have respected and I cherish the teaching from the pulpit at Grace.  And because of what you have preached and what I have heard over my years at Grace, then what is also really being preached about this political project and its processes, is that all these thoughts, motives, sermons, and actions conform to scripture and are performed in obedience to Christ. And I, of course, do not have as profound an understanding of scripture as you do, John, but just a quick glance over the scripture I do know brought these verses to mind.

Colossians 3:17  Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

Colossians 2:8-10 v.8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. v.9 For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, v. 10 and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 v.3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, v.4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses v.5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,

John, whichever way I look at it, I just can not believe that all the planning, funding, all the content of the messages, the GTY packaging and timing of the mail-out, the continual broadcasting, special seminars, and pulpit side-messages, all conform to the scriptures above.  Am I to believe that all these actions have been done in the name of the Lord?  Am I to believe that there is such a thing as being able to do the world’s work in the church in the Lord’s way?  If this is so, then I truly have not known and do not know the Lord and all my worship, prayers, and service to Him, have only been illusionary and false.

4. And the final issue, and in my mind the most important based upon my understanding of the scripture that I know, is that the Lord is much more concerned with the purity of the church and the purity  of its devotion to Himself and to scripture, than to the outcome of mere American political processes.  It is also my understanding that this side of the Rapture, judgment always begins with the church.  I have not been able to pray concerning this election as the church has suggested, but rather my prayer has been:
   1. For the purity of the church and that the Lord would use this election to finally woo and wean His people away from all the ideologies and political processes and media manipulative overfeed that has diluted the church’s focus on and love for Christ
   2. That the Lord would remove all that entices away from scriptural commands in how the believers speak and what they repeat and what they do in the political, social, and all other realms in their lives.
   3.  That the Lord would remove and convict of any and all poisoned thoughts within the heart and convict of and end all and any poisoning words pouring from the mouth and all this based on a renewed love for Christ and His word.
   4. That, regardless of the outcome of the election, the Lord would again bring the church’s focus back to Himself and to the furtherance of the gospel and restore the integrity of the unadorned and uncluttered gospel devoid of any political contamination to our hearts and the voice of the church.  In short, that He would remove the “political gospel” and restore the true gospel to our hearts and lips.

And in ending, for my own part, I am not sure how the Lord will lead me beyond this letter other than being in fervent prayer for my brethren and the church and you.  I view this letter as an act of obedience to the Lord, as an expression of love to my brethren, who are also in danger of being further conformed to a political image rather than to Christ, and further removed, I fear, from a focus upon the Lord.  And this letter is an act of great personal love towards you, John, who, in any way one could measure it, has impacted my heart and life for Christ more than any other person.  I know that I write directly and with passion at times; please see through me and my words to whatever the Lord would do in your heart through this letter.  Also, please forgive me for any inaccuracies of fact.  Also thank you for taking the time to read this letter.

                                                                                    Sincerely, Chris Orozco

Second Letter of this Post

August 18, 2014                                

Dear Pastor John,

            I am writing to you to urge you not to use scripture or the gospel to preach politically motivated messages.  I wrote to you just before the last national elections urging you to also refrain from using scripture and your pulpit for political purposes as I feared and then saw a diminution of your ministry and the spread of the unadulterated gospel of salvation in Christ alone through the ministry of Grace Church.  The sermons and radio messages stemming from them were designed only to further the political gains of the Republican Party and this was unworthy of your ministry and the ministry of Grace Church.  And though the Lord brought these messages to futility politically, the preaching of these sermons and their media promotion damaged what I believe was the essential integrity of the preaching and ministry at Grace by subordinating, and thus misusing, scripture and your preaching to promote purely worldly political ideologies.  I now urge you to never again follow or allow yourself to be lead down that path again.  I urge this out of concern for your preaching and the true legacy of your ministry, and out of concern for my many brethren at Grace who are still without joy by being primarily politically captivated in their thinking and worldview, and, stemming from these, I am deeply concerned for the integrity and honesty and primacy of the clear message of salvation going out from the church.

            Since I last wrote almost two years ago, I have continued to pray for your ministry and that of Grace Church.  But now, again, I have been led to write to you with these concerns and to contend for the faith and the gospel as I see right, which is what you have taught me to do, for which I am very thankful.

Sincerely, Chris Orozco

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Some of the Letters Written to My Church Subsequent to This Letter

Edit Post “Letters Written to My Church – 2015” ‹ Writing In The Shade Of Trees — WordPress

Edit Post “Letters Written to My Church – 2017” ‹ Writing In The Shade Of Trees — WordPress

Edit Post “Letters Written to My Church – 2018” ‹ Writing In The Shade Of Trees — WordPress

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