Further Thoughts
My previous post must have hit home with some of you because I received a few e-mails where you shared with me some of the ways you feel your church and/or your parents failed you while growing up.
It was interesting to observe that although the majority of those of you who wrote me were raised in an A/P home, some of you were raised in other religions. The latter confirmed my suspicion that anyone raised in any religion – not just A/P organizations – could have found something in my last post to relate to. I think this is true because I simply acknowledged the universally-applied truth that all religious organizations are flawed to some degree simply due to the fallibility and imperfection of the human beings involved.
Because of the limited resources and hours in the day, it is impossible to emphasize one important subject without de-emphasizing a different subject – and if that isn’t a law of physics, it oughtta be! For example, A/Ps have been accused of emphasizing their salvational, theological and holiness messages to the detriment of broader topics such as grace, faith, love and works of faith. While such accusations may be well-founded, I think such a strong emphasis on these subjects was initially necessary in order to get the point across. In the early and mid 20th century, these ideas were relatively new to the modern school of thought and thus more likely to be controversial. Most Christians didn’t disagree with the generally accepted ideas concerning grace, faith, love and works of faith; therefore, a higher degree of emphasis on Apostolic salvational, theological and holiness messages was necessary in order to convert the conventional thinking of many Christians of the era.
Iin the late 20th and early 21st century, the Apostolic message has become more and more accepted and less radical (even if some parts of its message, such as the Oneness of the Godhead, never has gained mainstream acceptance). Now that establishing the Apostolic message is of lesser importance than its maintenance, I am seeing a general return to a greater emphasis on the themes of grace and faith and other Christian ideals that Apostolics have been accused of ignoring for so long.
The very first pastor I ever had, the Reverend Murray E. Burr, often stressed the idea of balance, which I believe is an important key in living a successful Christian life and even in the day to day operations of running a church. Obviously, trying to find balance is a daily and on-going struggle. Sometimes churches never find the proper mix, which is why I think a lot of people feel “burned” or failed by their churches because the particular messages they needed to hear was not emphasized by a church interested in focusing on other issues.
It is easy to blame a church’s (or even your parent’s) failings for their negative consequences on your life or walk with God, and I know this because I have often been guilty of pointing the finger of blame myself. Indeed, such blame may even be well-placed and even well-deserved; however, it’s less easy to remember that churches are made up of people just as flawed and sinful as you. So when you place blame, you place it squarely on the person or people who are just as human as you. I think acknowledging this can, in some ways, make us more forgiving and less apt to judge. And I’m writing this mainly as a reminder of that to myself!
Questions, comments, concerns? E-mail me! I reserve the right to quote you unless you ask otherwise.
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