The Broken Coffee Cup – Part 2 – I Did Not Leave My Friends

This series continues to be difficult to write, being “professional” but, at the same time now, conveying emotional and spiritually deep burdens and concerns.  For now, I am trying to reply to or answer – as best as they can be addressed – some of the comments I received from a few close friends who attempted to read at least one the letters I wrote to the church leadership and posted on my website.  The comments included statements that they did not honestly understand what I wrote, or that they did not want to hear any more about the church, or that I only wrote about politics, or that I should take down the letters to the church because the pastor and the elders and other pastors were just men and sinners and that I should just forgive and forget and move on, or that the letters put the church in a bad light in front of the world.

I realize now that there is at least a modicum of truth in all of these statements, but that is because of who I wrote to, what I was writing about, and the passion and concern with which I wrote.  I wrote to the pastors and elders at church, who were to lead and shepherd the people into a devotion to Christ and holy and sanctified living, a very educated group of men who produced, and expected in return, very precise information and structured arguments.  I wrote about what I saw and heard and understood about the developing and promoted political intrusion and eventual political overlay of everything in the church, and their effects upon the people sitting under the teaching of the church.  And I wrote in obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit, expressing what I believed and understood to be true with as much focus, power, and passion as I was capable.

The church’s head pastor, elders, and other pastors, were my audience and I wrote appropriate to their standards and expectations so that a lack of quality of my writing could not be an excuse not to consider what I wrote.  Then if my letters were not read and considered, but just put aside and dismissed, this then was chiefly because the recipient/reader did not want to consider the actual content of what I wrote.

And, now with this post, I understand that I must write with the same quality of writing, but that I am also communicating to now two new different primary audiences – the more personal side, the friends I still have at the church I left, with whom I no longer have any “normal” accesses of communication – and the professional side, those who appreciate how I write and what I write about, whom I believe also appreciate the personal emotional sharing of my life and thoughts and certain issues within it, as we all learn and grow as persons when others honestly share deeply of themselves, of the person they truly are.

When I began writing my letters to the church leadership, I did not immediately involve my friends with my concerns, but over the first few years, as the issues grew more complex and spiritually serious, I asked two close friends at church who still remain at church, and between three and six family members and friends outside of church, to read and review drafts of the letters and provide input and critique.  The major letters usually went through at least two revisions, not for essential content, but for clarity and fact check.  None of my other friends at church were involved in the process, though I may have mentioned that I had written letters to the church leadership to just one other friend at church.  Thus my letters were essentially not known among my friends as they were not the audience of the letters, and also because in my mind, the letters were essentially private correspondence, because subconsciously, I always honestly expected a response. 

Some months after I left the church, I wrote of this heart-view in an email to a friend in Europe, which I then included as an addendum in a lengthy letter I wrote on July 3, 2021, about nine months after I withdrew my membership, to a dear friend who had concerns with me leaving the church.  (Letter on this website titled: My Letter to a Friend on His Concerns that I Now Attend Church On-line, & that I Had Posted My Letters to the Church on My Website.)

Addendum II

When I wrote my letters to the church, I always thought of them within the context of writing to my pastor and the elders within my local church.  I still do, though you have now reminded me that the pastor and church does have a national and obviously international influence, which, yes, I was aware of, as in my letters I did mention the reach/influence he has through the radio and internet reach, but in my mind, I was always thinking and communicating with him as the pastor of my local church.  Maybe that focus, those local church relationships developed over 40 years, is the main reason why I wrote to the church over eight years and took so long to leave, this whole process and the final leaving under the leading of the Holy Spirit.  And, then because there was this personal connection to my pastor and the elders and to the church and the members, my leaving for me was so multi-layered, like a piece tearing away from a multi-colored fabric woven over many, many years, but necessary to be obedient to the Lord.

I also always thought of my letters as conveying concerns of such importance that, yes, there would automatically be a reciprocal concern, because of the spiritual impact the political intrusions were having upon the congregation.  Early on, I grasped at the thought that perhaps the pastors and elders were really not aware of what was going on within the church and would want to know of the effects that all the political pronouncements, preachings, and teachings were having upon the spiritual life of the congregation – those designated by the church leaders as God’s people whom they were to serve and shepherd.  Sadly – and still incomprehensible to me – this thought proved to be utterly naïve and futile on my part, and over the years, I never received a response with any true thought behind it to anything I said or wrote.  Nor also did anyone attempt to enter into dialogue with me by moving through the prideful wall of the silence of the spiritually superior – that soon surrounded and guarded the church’s growing political actions and mindset. 

I first became aware of this wall in September 2012, when I verbally brought to my own pastor an absolutely factually wrong political statement made one Sunday morning by the head pastor from the pulpit having to do with the assault on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya.  My own pastor did not dispute my statement or concern, but just coolly informed me that, “the truly spiritual would just overlook, forget, and disregard these errors and focus on just the greater message”, with an attitude that seemed dismissive of me, as if this was common knowledge at church and something I should have already known.  I was aghast at his answer and very troubled by this first clear glimpse of the ascending political mindset of the church leaders and the corresponding overall growing politically infused church environment and politically tinged gospel, quietly evolving within the church through the increasing political messaging. 

Not long after the above interchange at church, and right before the 2012 presidential election, I wrote a letter to the head pastor expressing my concerns over the political sermons and their effect upon the congregation.  This letter is included on this website in a posting along with a letter written in 2014.  Below is the last paragraph from the letter of 2012.

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.

And below is the introduction to the post to both letters that states the basic reasons why I wrote all my letters and the church’s basic response to them all.

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.

When I withdrew my membership and left the church, I realized that I needed to begin the process of informing my friends that I had left the church – other than my two close church friends who had reviewed my letters and supported and encouraged me during the letter writing years.  I mainly wanted to inform my friends with personal contact – phone call, email, coffee together – which I think I accomplished for most.  And as I have indicated, there was a gamut of responses, but all my other friendships, except for the two who gifted me the coffee cups, either were abruptly ended by the friend or withered away, some due to the fact I was no longer attending the church, and some due to the realities of the pandemic or other circumstances.  Each ended or withered friendship is still a deep sadness within me centered on the continuing plight or effects of the church’s betrayal of Christ upon the life and focus of faith of my friends, which still grieves me when my mind dwells upon them, such as with this writing.

Now becoming aware of and understanding the political intrusion and overlay of the gospel within the church, was perhaps easier for me than for many others, as was probably also my loyalty to my fellow believers, and even my eventual leaving the church after forty years attendance.  For one thing, I always had perspective.  I encountered and came to know the presence of God at a very early age independent of and apart from religion or church.  I also grew up in a Catholic home and attended twelve years of Catholic education for which I have always been thankful.  Additionally, I was never burdened by or had to wrestle undoing any heavy Protestant denominational baggage that some had to deal with.  And, most important, my faith never rested in Grace Church, or the head pastor, and neither did I ever rely on a particular pastor or elder to tell me what to believe or how to think, nor did I revere any specific systematic theology or religious ideology, but my faith always rested just in God, in Christ, and His gospel – and God’s demonstrated love and care for me.

Additionally, in leaving the church, the Lord had already provided a place for me to go.  For starting in 2015, I was also already attending on alternate Sundays the local church pastored by my son-in-law as I wanted to participate in the spiritual life of my grandchildren, and there I found a group of like-minded believers who like me were yearning for and learning in their everyday life to take their faith and the gospel “out onto the streets and into the marketplace”.  And when my son-in-law and my daughter and five grandchildren left for Missouri in 2017, when I visited them, I was introduced to Word of Life Church (WOLC) where they began to attend.  Eventually I realized that I could attend the service at WOLC on-line early Sunday morning because of the time difference, and then still meet my wife at church for the second hour service.  This pattern of Sunday participation in both church services persisted in my life until I withdrew my membership and left Grace Church.

However, in spite of these in a sense “advantages” that the Lord gifted me over the years, the leaving of friends and all the relationships I had built up over forty years at church proved to be internally difficult, but an issue that I honestly had not even considered until I was actually leaving the church.  For through all the years that I wrote, what I understood about my writing was that the Lord was leading me to write of the spiritual betrayals perpetrated within the church with a goal and hope of repentance by the church leaders.  However, for at least the last year of my membership at Grace, I could only attended the second worship service as an act of obedience to the Lord, as I was becoming so disturbed and distraught by the deepening sin at church, that I could almost no longer bear to hear the prayers from the pulpit because everything seemed so hypocritical, and I was relieved when the church initially complied with the government pandemic guidelines and only had services on-line.  It was not until perhaps sometime within the last few months or so of my attendance at Grace Church that I realized the Lord was actually then leading me away from the church.  And the final push away was a statement  made by the head pastor in a video interview with a conservative media commentator, that when he spoke to the president a few months before the election, the pastor told the president, “any real, true believer is going to be on your side in this election” – signifying to me that Grace Church was being led and conformed into a church that in truth I could no longer attend and support because of the betrayal of the faith of the people and the embraced political idolatry honoring and exalting the president.  

In addition, contending for the faith and spiritual good of my friends was always within my letters – this was how I expressed my love and caring for them and this was always the center of my focus upon them for all the years I wrote letters.  Moreover, in writing my letters I never wrote or thought of leaving my friends, because I probably always carried within me the hope of the eventuality of actually the only spiritually logical, right, and godly response to a conviction of the church’s sin of idolatry – a deep and true and lasting facedown in the dirt repentance of the pastor and elders of the church for their own idolatry and for tempting and leading as much as possible the congregation and those within the church’s large media reach into the same political idolatry, diminishing and supplanting within the church a real devotion to Christ and His gospel, and the true path of loving God with our whole heart, soul, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Also, adding to the absence of thought of leaving friends during these eight years was the fact that I never had an example of someone leaving the church, for I do not know any friend, or really anyone, who left the church because of this sinful political process and the ensuing craziness and spiritual confusion.  In addition, I never asked anyone to leave the church.  For it actually wasn’t until I resigned my membership, that I realized that people, friends especially, who were aware of and disturbed by the political idolatry, even if just vaguely, were staying at church because unlike me who already had a place to go, they in their heart felt they had nowhere to go.  I slowly realized that for most who remained, it was the church, and the head pastor, and the preaching, and their friends and their friendships, and the fellowship among church members, that was in fact their life and community, and they could not leave, as they could not imagine their life, their existence, apart from the church.  This made the church’s political idolatry even that more debilitating for the church members, because the political infusion and overlays attacked and subtly moved them away from the very foundation of Christian life and community – a simple and pure devotion to Christ – and all the church aspects that they had been led to believe and trust in were corrupting or withering in front of their eyes.  I understood the potential deep pain and sense of profound loss that comes with the withering of community, for I expressed my experience of this in my letter withdrawing my membership:

So with sadness over the spiritually decimated and betrayed condition of the church, and with reluctance because of the people at church I care about, and yet within the quiet resolve of the Spirit, and in obedience to the Lord, I withdraw my membership of almost forty years from Grace Community Church, the church where I was baptized, married, and raised my children.  I also am finally accepting what I have felt for many years as a loss of community, that I am not truly welcomed at Grace, and that as long as I continue to speak and write as I believe directed by the Spirit and in obedience to the Lord, I have no place at the church, no place at the table, no encouragement or support.

And as for my letters putting the church in a bad light, that was never any idea or actionable intent when I wrote the letters, and in placing them on my website, I was still thinking of my friends and others at the church as then I was trying to bring the corrupt and corrupting political situation and process within the church into the light so that others could understand and spiritually escape the enveloping evil that had descended upon the church.  As I stated in the letter withdrawing my membership:

With great sadness, and at times bewilderment, I have seen Grace Church inexorably and incomprehensibly over the years supplant the primacy of Jesus, our Savior and Lord, and His Kingdom and gospel, with an ever present but growing support and involvement in multiple aspects of the conservative political agenda, and one now fully evolved into a protracted and carefully constructed partnership with the president’s reelection campaign, developed and sustained to coordinate a publically proclaimed support for the president, a godless, cruel, unjust, and unrighteous man, a liar, and a man who with perversity in his heart, only uses the church – Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, His gospel, God’s people – for his own corrupt and deceitful political self-promotion.  With all the multiple actions promoting this man, the church has seemingly put aside the first great commandment of loving God with our whole mind, heart, soul, and strength, replacing a pure love of God with a half-love of something, someone, else.  And, further, the church, through escalating sermons, articles, Q&As, tweets and retweets, broadcasts and interviews, continues to tempt God’s people to do the same.

So, yes, I left the church, but my heart never left my friends and acquaintances at church and thus I still pray fervently for them and still write with them in mind – thus this series.