The girls and I were sitting in worship today, enjoying the
message, thus far, and the spirit-filled, sweet moment of praise – “Because of
who you are” – still ringing in our spirits…when my head could not register the
shock that happened next.
We have been attending the same church since we moved here,
primarily for the ordered services, the multi-generational, multi-cultural, and
multi-economic congregation. The church
has separate churches for the babies, children, middle school, high school, and
adult audiences. The pastor calls us “Christ-followers”
and for years kept the message focused on simply loving the Lord.
Then slowly, once President Obama was elected, there seemed
to be more and more partisan messages creeping in, subtle at first, I almost
missed it…until today.
He has been teaching a series on the Beatitudes, a simple
and applicable message of Christ – you know, those words in red in Matthew 5 –
when in the pause of his message today, he put up some PowerPoints about
persecuted Christians around the world.
He talked about the slain ambassador…then dropped the bomb –
figuratively – that Christians were being persecuted here in the United
States. He proceeded to cite so-called “proof”
of this – all from material sourced from a known neo-con, far-right, religious
right organization. He started in about
when we vote for those judges to think about all this, how the “government” is
persecuting us.
I got up, told my girls to gather their things and we walked
out.
Politeness would have kept me in my seat, but in the face of
such a blatantly misleading message, my spirit would not sit still and listen
to this. I walked completely out of the
complex and would have driven away had my husband not been doing his monthly
service in the special needs children’s class.
I texted him and let him know we walked out and were in the van
waiting.
I believe I will never darken the door of that church again –
Grace Church on McKelvey Road in Bridgeton, MO – because they went over the
line with this one. It was far beyond
what he said four years ago when he admonished everyone to vote but reminded
everyone that we are Christ-followers, to be peaceloving, and to respect each
other. Today, that went out the window
with his anecdote that is straight out of the Romney-Ryan, Palin, Limbaugh,
Akin, Murdouck playbook – a playbook that is against civil rights, against
women, against blacks, against the very latinos that this church has a second
service for in Spanish!
My stomach turns, me, the preacher’s daughter, every time
one of these churches or pastors misappropriates the pulpit for their political
agenda. I was so disappointed because
one of the things that made this church grow, why there was everything from a
biker to a same-sex lesbian couple was that his message was one of following in
the path of Christ. Jesus was a liberal;
he fed the hungry and had nothing to do with the moneychangers and Pharisees!
I walked out, took my girls with me, and told them why. This is only the third time in my 48 years of
living that I walked out of a religious service. This was beyond the scope of the peacemaker
message he started out with today.
Christian seniors are not being told they cannot pray over
their food in nursing homes; Christian kids are not being persecuted in the
public schools; Christians are not being killed in America for exercising their
faith – if anything, these so-called Christians, religious right, neo-cons are
trying to make the United States a theocracy, not the democracy it was founded
upon – a nation without a state religion, a nation where everyone is FREE to
exercise their faith and beliefs, a nation where respect for liberty was what
drew so many to these shores. We were
not founded as a Christian nation – there was a reason the founding fathers put
in a separation of church and state – they need to stop spreading that false
doctrine and divisive message. I could
not believe that Pastor Ron would go there today.
Enough is enough! The real believers need to stand up and
walk out, enough of sitting in the pews listening to messages that are anything
but peaceful and completely opposite of Jesus.
I, like my friends of the Christian Left and so many other groups, are
taking back our faith and not accepting these messages.
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