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.
Introduction to Letter
The letter of this post is lengthy and sad, but also impassioned, as I write cataloging the dangers the pastor’s and church’s political pronouncements, preaching, and actions during the just past 2016 election created within Grace, and the pervasive debilitating effects they were continuing to cause to the spiritual life, fellowship, and gospel strength of the church. And…is it finally?…within this letter, I now speak of the effects upon me personally that all this political involvement and corruption of the gospel message has wrought within my life:
“…I also began to suffer a great sense of loss – loss for the comfort and confidence I had known and felt within the teaching at Grace, and loss because of the growing separation I experienced from the community at Grace, from the family of believers of which I was once joyously part.”
“I also now have a difficult time attending the services at Grace. For now within the church, there is for me, a persistent memory and odor, almost a stench, of a diminished gospel and a dishonored Christ which infests even the words of the preaching, a lingering malodorous air which very few others seem to smell, notice, speak of, or even care about. It is also difficult for me to hear prayers offered from the pulpit. I continually wrestle before the Lord with these issues every time I am at Grace.”
My writing is very strong in this letter, basically now setting the tone and passion for all subsequent letters and communications. I sent this letter to my pastor and I believe also to the pastor of my fellowship group.
The Letter of this Post
September 5, 2017
Dear Pastor MacArthur,
I am writing this letter out of loyalty to you and to my brethren at Grace, to express my deep concerns over your political pronouncements and messages during the 2016 election and the growing need now, I believe, for a humble, careful, and prayerful look at these actions and their immediate and continuing effects within the church and nation.
Now, I had previously written to you in March 2015, urging you to put the preaching of the gospel above your growing involvement in political messages. However, as the last presidential campaign unfolded, especially near its end, you used your pulpit at Grace, the seminary’s website, the facilities and umbrella of the Master’s University, and the audience reach of Grace to You (GTY), to in effect promote the Republican party and the Republican candidate for president. You explained your actions as stemming from your duty as a pastor to warn and direct, with the emphasis and passion of the message based on your personal political ideology and worldview.
You also stated that a Christian could not choose not to vote, and that everything of the Democratic Party was evil. You appeared to time your final efforts during the campaign, such as the symposium at Master’s University the week before the election, to reach an audience way beyond those under your pastoral care at Grace, in an attempt to influence especially the evangelical vote in key states as much as possible. After the election, in church, you appeared with satisfaction to attribute the election of the Republican candidate at least partially to your efforts.
Through all of this, I was deeply grieved and stunned, because to me, your words, thinking, and actions did not appear Spirit-led. After sitting under your teaching at Grace for over forty years, I just could not understand nor reconcile how your proclamations, responses, and use of all the considerable media resources available to you, aligned with taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, doing every word or deed in the name of the Lord Jesus, and not being taken captive by philosophies, empty deceptions, and the elementary principles of the world. To me, these actions did not further Christ or the gospel nor were they in my mind in accordance with scripture – the scriptures you have so diligently and clearly exposited over all these years.
In your political pronouncements, I did not hear God’s word preached, nor did the light of the gospel of salvation shine forth, and Christ was not lifted up or honored, but rather your words lifted up and installed upon your pulpit an ideology and a political party rather than the gospel and Christ as the focal centerpiece. This created a huge stumbling block for me in continuing to sit with peace of heart and soul under the teaching ministry at Grace.
However, as an immediate yet mixed blessing to me and perhaps some others, your actions definitely, clearly – and finally – removed the mask covering the “political gospel” which has existed and thrived for years at Grace – honestly, at times just barely under wraps. This blessing was mixed because it did not furnish joy, but rather grief, as, when you publically delineated and openly promoted your personal political thinking and worldview for all to see, especially during the final days of this last campaign, the church, the gospel, and even Christ, seemed to be used as mere veneers in service to your own political ideology and whomever and whatever your words and actions were fashioned to promote.
Now, of course, I rejoice in a sovereign God and I know that it was really the Lord who was exposing and bringing to light all of this for His good purposes, yes, but through your political words and actions, my trust, confidence and joy in the preaching of the word at Grace greatly diminished. Over the years, as the political involvement at Grace deepened and increased, I also grieved and wrestled before the Lord with emotions of betrayal and disappointment, and confusions and questions concerning the gospel and scriptural integrity of these words and actions. With this last election, because of everything that went on politically from the pulpit, I also began to suffer a great sense of loss – loss for the comfort and confidence I had known and felt within the teaching at Grace, and loss because of the growing separation I experienced from the community at Grace, from the family of believers of which I was once joyously part. However, I now also offer great praise to the Lord because of His goodness and faithfulness to me in carrying me through these difficult and painful times and events and in strengthening my faith and trust and dependence upon Him. However, almost attendant to my praise for the Lord’s preserving grace in my life, I also now have a difficult time attending the services at Grace. For now within the church, there is for me, a persistent memory and odor, almost a stench, of a diminished gospel and a dishonored Christ which infests even the words of the preaching, a lingering malodorous air which very few others seem to smell, notice, speak of, or even care about. It is also difficult for me to hear prayers offered from the pulpit. I continually wrestle before the Lord with these issues every time I am at Grace.
Now beyond, way beyond, my own personal stumbling, I believe there are additionally even greater and more pervasive stumblings your words and actions have set in motion. One stumbling is that a number of persons at Grace, it seems, because of the esteem they rightly have for you and your teaching, have also just accepted without thinking your political ideology and worldview and your use of the church, seminary, university and GTY as proper and right before the Lord. It seems many complied with your thinking and instructions – as you obviously intended and hoped – and, to me, much worse, some it seems have also internalized your words as perhaps an extrapolation of the “gospel” without any personal in-depth thinking or wrestling with these issues before the Lord.
Your words – the political pronouncements, urgings, and endorsements – by the strength of your teaching ministry – thus offered and provided just another bypass of critical thinking – scriptural, political, culturally, social – to those sitting under your teaching ministry, whether at Grace or in your larger media reach. And it truly is “just another” bypass, as inducements to bypass critical thinking – actually mostly to bypass any and all thinking – are so pervasive and reflective – almost a hallmark – of the evil and enslaving non-thinking spirit of our times. By your words – whether just a repeat of what others outside the church or in the conservative media have politically stated or written, or coming from a more home-grown Grace and Master’s University source – you have factually helped move at least some, perhaps many, evangelicals further into embracing basically a non-thinking political/social approach to significant national issues. Additionally, this approach thus just adds further to a subtly infused yet numbing political acquiescence and a further repeating of just what you have said – from whatever source your words, ideologies, and pronouncements were originally inspired – by those who have come to trust in you for truth and direction. Your urgent and urging words worked also to seem to practically imply that the political realm for the believer was an exception to taking everything to the Lord in prayer and seeking direction through a close walk with the Holy Spirit. Individual prayer and thought and a dependence upon the Spirit was not a part, either central or peripheral, to these political pronouncements. At least, I never heard it.
Truth is the hallmark of the true Christian gospel – in John 14:6, Christ Himself says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” – but I sense and I fear that your political actions, pronouncements, and sermons have muddied and confused the understanding of truth – both within the listening church and the hearing world – a confused and muddied approach to truth again so much in conformity with the spirit of the age. And, John, during all your political pronouncements over the years, I was not passive, but out of loyalty and concern for you, more than once I brought to the attention of staff at Grace statements that you had made that were just factually wrong. I did this because I believed incorrect, misleading, and overtly biased political content would undermine the credibility of your overall ministry. I truly believed the staff I spoke to here, out of loyalty to you, would want to convey this information to you. I thought you would want to know. I stopped doing this when I was informed that the truly spiritual would just overlook, forget, and disregard these errors and focus on just the “greater” message. I realized then, and I openly confess now, that I am just not that “spiritual” – never was and never can be before the Lord.
Additionally, by publically preaching and espousing the particulars of your political ideology and worldview from the various pulpits you control, I believe, you have opened the brethren – your brethren, God’s people – to the further possibility and danger of also being open and vulnerable to being used and manipulated for corrupt and ungodly purposes by worldly political misleading wolves – wolves clothed in the now intrinsically hypocritical robe of preserving and maintaining “Christian” values – values largely now generated and defined not by the compassion, lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness of God and the gospel, but by conservative political expediencies and agendas.
And further, since it was your intention to reach as many evangelical Christians as possible through GTY and the symposium at the Master’s University, many nation-wide also heard your pronouncements and, in your own publically stated estimation and claim after the election, a certain unknown percentage complied and voted as you directed, perhaps some truly swayed by your words, others perhaps just feeling more justified in what they really wanted to believe and do in the first place. For whatever reason, thus, these evangelical voters not only voted for, but also supported and put their trust and faith in a person continually spouting, “Believe me”, along with the many other divisive, corrupt, and dishonest words and ideas, and threats of oppression, spewing forth during his campaign – a campaign truly ungodly both in its roots and ensuing fruit. John, you heard the same things the nation as a whole heard – shameful and ugly innuendos, threats of oppression – and, yet in the last months of the campaign, you seemed to plan and work without wavering to promote the Republican Party, platform, policies, and positions – all finally centering in this man. By using all the considerable media means at your disposal, your words and actions in effect worked to help deliver God’s people, and others identifying themselves as Christians or evangelicals based merely on conservative political views, and their vote and their minds over to this man and his empty, godless, and ego-driven agenda. I do not believe Christ was served in this nor the gospel promoted – the same gospel that you have otherwise fully devoted your entire life to proclaim. Additionally, your words and example did not help equip God’s people for a true and pure devotion to Christ and the gospel. They were not wholesome to the body of believers and they did not promote a practical compassion for all categories of the lost. Moreover, just like the faith once delivered to the saints, and once truly saved always saved, I fear, except for the mighty grace of our God, once betrayed and delivered over to a political mindset and process, always delivered and enslaved.
In one of the Q&A’s at church, you publicly stated the necessity of many pastors to repent for not preaching God’s word accurately and/or not condemning sin as sin. And yet now, I believe there is this huge stumbling through the diminishment of Christ and the gospel during this last campaign from the pulpit at Grace church – and one effectively communicated through all the media means available to you. Even now, I further believe any continued silence and ignoring of these past public words and actions are and will work to entrench further God’s people at Grace and beyond into having to accept and believe that these words, thoughts, and actions were right, good and Spirit-led in content, method of delivery, and intent. The campaign time and these words have passed, but the damage and numbness of mind and heart remain.
In addition to your words and actions potentially leading God’s people away from Christ and the gospel, they were also a terrible disservice to the nation as a whole for two reasons. First, because you and other evangelical leaders took it upon yourselves to tie-in the entire evangelical church in the popular mind to conservative political ideologies, this thus lessened the ability of some believers, I at least for one, in reaching out to the culturally marginalized during this campaign, and I believe hindered and dissuaded the oppressed, threatened, and suffering people from even thinking of the evangelical church as a place of refuge, comfort, and help. Secondly, your statements, I believe, helped entrench further the non-thinking, simplistic, and divisive approach to difficult national and personal issues that so deeply plague our nation. Many of your statements did not stimulate nor invite critical thinking and did nothing to temper the inflaming mindlessness and evil rhetoric burning throughout this past campaign – a campaign best described as endless, polluting, dark and mindless mouthings – all making even darker and more poisonous our essentially mindless and ever-darkening time. However, sadly, in truth, this darkness is exactly what many within and outside the church wanted and hoped for and, honestly, many loved it. The church should never have been made part of this evil deliberately gathered darkness; God’s people should never have been brought near and made to cavort with this spirit of deception and enveloping lies.
Moreover, this is a worldly darkness that is deliberately and actively being worked and plowed by evil men without Christ to deepen its roots and grow and spread and because of the church’s involvement and endorsement, this darkness will flower into fruit strange to the saving gospel of Christ. Any public silence or lack of honest acknowledgement of the immediate or continuing effects of past words and actions do not abrogate the responsibility or ownership of their ensuing consequences or any true attendant guilt before the Lord. Our conscience should at least urge us to ask of the Lord for His examination of our hearts and minds to reveal to us those actions and words that may be aiding the ever deepening rooting and spread of darkness. In addition, silence does not erase the shared ownership of the words and actions of any supported individual and the working out of all ideologies, thoughts and policies that person espouses.
In addition, this past election offered such a great opportunity to sidestep the poisonous divisive rhetoric of the campaign and address at least some of the many difficult issues and concerns facing our nation through the intelligent and abundant compassion of the gospel. Sadly, these opportunities were largely ignored or missed. For example, from the pulpit, there were and are, quick responses to anything concerning transgender or gay marriage issues. However, there was not a peep from the pulpit when forty-nine gay men and women – people, persons created in the image and likeness of God – were murdered in Florida. Not a peep. And this factual public lack of expressed empathy and compassion for the humanity and lostness of these murdered, created conflicts for some believers in their efforts to reach out to LGBTQ family and friends, because the silence about those slaughtered, shouted volumes about the seeming lack of any true valuing of them as persons, or even any grief for the assumed lack of salvation for those the evangelical church and attendant organizations as a whole, have publically most only spoken politically against. A lack of demonstrated – spoken and broadcasted – true Christian love or even concern for just the humanness of the slain makes harder a speaking and a hearing of theological truths concerning the issue of salvation in the lives of LGBTQ individuals. Paul said that without love he was just a noisy gong, and I fear that without a demonstrated, practical love towards others – any and all others – in the opportunities and situations the Lord gives us, any further preaching, regardless of how biblically or theologically precise, will just be heard as another noisy gong – a loveless, noisy gong. It is unexamined and uncompassionate blind spots such as these within the political gospel I perceive as held to at Grace that go way beyond just the elections – blind spots that I feel also diminish Christ and the power and beauty of His gospel.
The 500th anniversary of the Reformation is approaching. There is a certain amount of hype in the air at Grace concerning this anniversary, and from the pulpit at Grace I have heard it implied that your past teaching and devotion to the veracity of God’s word has made you, and by extension Grace church and the seminary, one of just a few true heirs and defenders of the Reformation. However, deep within my heart, I honestly believe, that instead of a Grace-centered celebration potentially perceived as self-congratulatory, this anniversary calls forth more for a new Reformation within the evangelical church characterized by a deep and genuine mourning over the church’s years of willing yet enslaving involvement in politics to the detriment of the gospel. This mourning also needs to be coupled with a turning away from this involvement and a renewed and Spirit-led proclamation of Christ and the gospel shorn of any political content or intent. For without a penetrating, humble and genuine repentance for putting aside Christ for political ideological proclamations and promotions, I believe the church is tempting the Lord with any grand commemoration of the Reformation or attempt to shine forth as its true heir.
I believe there is a need and a call for this mourning within the evangelical church at large, and a repentance and turn around within those evangelical churches so willingly embracing and essentially wedded to promoting the American political gospel, or even just caught-up and breathing in this poisonous political miasma, both so diminishing of Christ and obscuring and dimming the light and glory of the true gospel of salvation by faith, and hindering its hearing. You, John, could help lead this call through a proclamation of mourning and repentance publicly disseminated with all the passion and energy and by all the media means used to proclaim your personal political ideology and worldview in the first place. This could be the proclamation you nail to the doors of the evangelical church to commemorate the Reformation.
The Reformation reclaimed the true message of salvation by faith; repentance would reclaim the right to proclaim that gospel from a heart humble and right before the Lord, and right before the brethren and our nation as a whole. God’s people, the church, our society and culture and nation, have not in the past, do not now, and will not in the future, be blessed or benefitted from the evangelical church’s continued pursuit of – whoring after – the idol of corporate or personal political power and influence. Additionally, the evangelical church’s deep public repentance before the Lord over its effectual abandonment of the power of the gospel and its pursuit of political partnering, media persuasion, and even governmental dominance to effect change, can at least begin the process of recovering and rebuilding critical gospel and kingdom thinking for true believers led into and/or caught up in these political ideologies and deceptions. Then hopefully, by extension, the preserving salt of critical thinking will also be encouraged for the nation as a whole.
The power of Christ’s church does not reside in corporate political movements, but only in the power and working of the Holy Spirit in the individual heart disciplined and bent towards pursing Christ from a pure heart, humbly acknowledging and repenting of sin, and reaching out to the lost with the truth of the gospel message. Our witness of Christ and the gospel shine forth best with humility and repentance; it is darkly clouded and greatly diminished mixed with corrupt and arrogant worldly ideologies.
I am still continually thankful for the years I have sat under the teaching at Grace – primarily your teaching – and this letter expresses that thankfulness, as I believe I write this in obedience to the Lord, an obedience I have learned here to love and honor for the joy obedience produces. I have continued to pray for you and the other pastors and staff here at Grace, and also that the Lord will aggressively continue to sanctify and cleanse His church.
I also believe the Lord has tremendously strengthened my faith and trust in Him through all the turmoil within the church and nation and the turmoil this has produced within me. I will no longer describe myself as an “evangelical” Christian, but I have decided that “new evangelical” better describes me. I now self-define myself as one saved by grace through faith in Christ alone, who trusts solely in Him for grace and life, who seeks to understand, know and love God through scripture and a close humble walk with the Spirit, and who desires to live out my faith and proclaim Christ and the gospel on the street level, but all this without all the political noise and entangling baggage and ungodly nonsense so now embedded within the American evangelical church. This is a new beginning – for me a new “reformation” so to speak – which is freeing and closer to the true work and joy of the gospel. I also thank the Lord for carrying me through these years of trial and confusion to a place where now my faith is not burdened, marked by, or – praise God – conceived of by others as essentially wedded to an American politically conservative gospel – or to any political message for that matter. I am more free to reach out to all family members and any and all those the Lord brings across my path or into my life, including the marginalized, ignored, socially invisible or outcast, those considered unworthy by our culture, or negatively singled-out and even oppressed and persecuted, it seems, at times by the politically conservative religious right. I can now extend the hope of the gospel to all without having to overly-consider unexamined assumptions or implied or openly church taught political or cultural norms and nuances. I do not have to be like or conform my thinking to anything or anyone other than to scripture and to Christ in whose image the Holy Spirit is continuing to conform me. Praise. All these things are blessings and marvelous in my sight. Amen.
Sincerely, Chris Orozco
PS. I request and would greatly appreciate, receiving an acknowledgment from your staff that this letter has been received. Thank you.
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Some of the Letters Written to My Church Subsequent to This Letter
Edit Post “Letters Written to My Church – 2018” ‹ Writing In The Shade Of Trees — WordPress
Edit Post “Letters Written to My Church – 2019” ‹ Writing In The Shade Of Trees — WordPress
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