Monthly Archives: February 2010

The Battler

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When He battled liberal Churches and Preachers they loved Him.

When He battled Democrats they loved Him.

And then He became too liberal for them.

When He battled Fundamentalism they loved him.

When He battled those who preached cheap grace they loved Him.

And then He became too liberal for them.

When He battled the institutional Church they loved Him.

When He battled the mega-churches and TV preachers they loved Him.

And then He became too liberal for them.

One day He realized that He had spent His life battling.

and to what end?

No one stood by Him.

The great battler stood alone.

Along the way He had changed.

And when He changed they walked away.

He learned a hard lesson.

They never really did love Him.

They loved His smart writing.

They loved His stand for truth.

They loved His personality.

They loved everything about Him except what mattered.

When He needed them the most they were nowhere to be found.

He made them uncomfortable.

He had changed.

He wasn’t what or who He used to be.

What happened to Him , they asked?

Perhaps the real question is, what happened to them?

He  often feels like a one night stand.

Used.

He still fights the battle.

But now the battle is within.

He battles the demons of the past,

He battles the reality of the present.

And He battles fear of tomorrow.

He is forced to forge new relationships.

Why does He  feel the closest to people He has never met?

He used to laugh at the very notion of internet friends…

Yet where would He be without them?

They read what He writes  and offer their opinion.

They agree, They disagree but they let Him be who He is.

They ask no fidelity and require no obedience.

What’s a battling old preacher to do?

The fires still burns.

Passion still stirs in his being.

But the old battles provide no fight.

So He looks for another battle to fight.

Maybe He will fight for those scarred and damaged by the gods.

Maybe He will fight for those who can not, or fearfully will not, fight for themselves.

Maybe He will fight for those whose lives have been ruined by people of the Way.

Maybe He will fight for a better world for his children, for Levi, Victoria, and Karah.

There are still battles to fight.

Choose who and what you will fight for.

And forget those who only loved you for the battles you fought.

I Am Pleading Guilty For The Lord

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Dr.(ten bucks says it ain’t earned or it came from a diploma mill) Jack Patterson runs the Reclamation Ranch Ministries in Empire, Alabama.

According to their website Reclamation Ranch Ministries is:

We are a Christian organization that specializes in a boarding school for girls ages 12-17 and young men and women ages 18-35. Our homes have 24 hour watch care and professional staff that have given their lives to help young people obtain a “second” chance at life. Our young people come from all walks of life, from pastor and missionary families to homes that are broken and filled with drugs and alcohol. No one is exempt from a broken heart and we teach our young people to use their hurts to heal someone else. Our staff give their lives to the young people in our programs to bring honor to the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

What is Dr Jack’s ministry. According to his personal website (no longer active):

Bro. Jack is the Founder of Reclamation Ranch Ministries and is an Evangelist traveling across America to help other churches desiring to working with the troubled youth of America.   We aid in counseling as well as teaching others how to work with people addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling and the lifestyles that come with such addiction.   We know the God of second chances and want to remind others that “whatever their past might have been, their future is spotless” by the Redeeming Blood of Calvary!

It seems Dr. Jack got himself into a good bit of trouble.

In a March 4, 2009 story the Birmingham News reported:

The director of a ministry that established a home for troubled boys in western Blount County has been charged with aggravated child abuse and will be arraigned on March 17.

Pastor Jack Patterson of Empire, the founder-director of Reclamation Ranch Ministries, was indicted in early February and posted $25,000 bond, according to the Blount County circuit clerk’s office.

Patterson has declined to discuss the case. The Reclamation Ranch Web site has a statement that says, “Any of you who know Bro. Jack know that there is no way for him to allow any type of harm against anyone.”

Reclamation Ranch also is trying to raise $40,000 to cover attorney’s fees, according to its Web site. Patterson’s defense attorney is former Blount County Circuit Judge Bob Austin.

Also charged with aggravated child abuse is Michael Parkinson, whose listed address is Byron, N.Y. Parkinson was served with his indictment Feb. 13 and posted a $25,000 cash bond. He also has a March 17 arraignment.

Another person indicted in the case has not yet been served.

The case began in late November, when authorities received a complaint of “severe abuse, beating and torture” from a 17-year-old who was living at Reclamation Ranch’s Lighthouse Academy. The Reclamation Ranch Web site at the time described the academy as “a minimum one-year program that incorporates Bible teaching, character training and respect for family.” The Lighthouse Academy is not currently listed on the site.

Eleven boys younger than 18, as well as some 18-year-olds living at the academy, were subsequently placed by the Department of Human Resources in other residential settings and later returned to their parents, relatives or other adults. Some of the boys came from California, Kentucky and an Amish community in Ohio. (the boys were later returned to the home)

Reclamation Ranch also operates a boarding home for troubled girls and young women in Walker County and a men’s ranch in Empire.

On Monday, March 1st Jack Patterson will be back in court.

According to his website:

I agreed to a very low plea bargain, of “verbal harassement” and a $500 fine.. This is a class “C” misameanor and involves no child endangerment or any nature of child abuse. While we really do not believe we should even agree to this we are more interested in getting on with the work the Lord has called us to do in working with those who are down and out and while there is still time to reach those who need to be reached for the Lord Jesus Christ. We will apprear before Judge Stephen King on March 1, 2010.  Please pray all goes well. (spelling errors are in the original)

I wish I had a dollar for every time I have read one of these types of statements from a Preacher.

Patterson plans to plead out on March 1st. He will plead guilty to verbal harassment and  pay a 500.00 fine. I have no idea  about the merits of the legal case against him.  I do know that time after time, preachers like Patterson seem to skirt criminal prosecution. Rarely do they have to answer for their crimes.

Patterson does not believe he did anything wrong. He agreed to the plea bargain so he could “get on with the work the Lord has called us to do in working with those who are down and out.”

After all they need to be reached “while there is still time.”

Patterson used to work for Lester Roloff. Firedog Lake has a feature article on Patterson. I hope you will take time to read it.

Postscript:

I was right about Patterson’s doctorate.

Firedog Lake states:

Dr. Jack Patterson is not a doctor. He received an honorary title from the Pacific Garden Mission Institute. (All I was able to find is Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago’s South Loop.) Patterson holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Religious Education from Hyles Anderson College – an Evangelical Christian college that spurns regulation or accreditation – in Indiana. Essentially, a degree from Hyles isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

Welcome To The Church Barbeque

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Typical Baptist Church. Go for a blessing and get barbequed.

I was an Independent, Fundamentalist, Sin Hating, Devil Chasing, King James Waving Baptist preacher. I prided myself in HARD preaching, just like the old time Baptist preachers.

If people were happy with my preaching it meant I wasn’t preaching hard enough.

Cecil Hodges, an old preacher from from Georgia said one time:

We hit our people over the head with the sin stick so often that they duck when we begin to preach.

I was one of those kind of preachers.

Preach long. Preach loud.

No subject was spared.

Preaching the whole counsel of God required preaching about EVERY sin, even the unpopular ones. (like chewing gum during church and using the bathroom during church)

One young preacher I heard about was upset about people getting up to use the bathroom during Church. He said:

I don’t want anyone using the bathroom while I am preaching. If you need to use the bathroom, pee in your shoes. You can wring out your socks after the service.

He was fired several weeks later.

In Independent Baptist Churches the pastor is god. He is the law. What he says goes. The Church CAN fire him but it often very hard to do.  After all, in many cases the pastor started the Church. He often has a following no matter what he says or does.

When the pastor stands up and preaches whatever he says he taken to be the gospel. A good Church member hates what the pastor hates and loves what the pastor loves. To go against the pastor usually meant you were looking for another Church to attend.

Two incidents stand out for me that i think would be illustrative of how I preached.

There were two school teachers that attended the Church I pastored. Husband and wife.  Good people. They had joined our Church after the Church they attended had a split. (a very common occurrence in Baptist Churches) I will call them The B’s.

The B’s taught  high school. Mr. B was a girl’s high school basketball coach. Both of them were members of the Teacher’s Union.

One week the Teacher’s Union took a policy position that was contrary to what I thought the Bible taught. I concluded that a Christian who was right with God could NOT be a member of the Teacher’s Union.

Sunday came and I entered the pulpit ready to do battle with the sin of being part of the Teacher’s Union. I preached long and hard.  I exposed the sin of belonging to the Teacher’s Union. I called on all teachers in the Church (all two of them) to leave the Teacher’s Union.

They left all right.

The Church.

Early in my ministry I became convinced that the Masonic Lodge was a Satanic, evil organization. The local Masons had come to me and asked to use our Church bus to attend a Masonic function in a nearby city. I told them absolutely not…and then proceeded to let them know how Satanic the Masonic Lodge was.

On the following Sunday I entered the pulpit ready to do battle with the sin of being a member of the Masonic Lodge. I made it very clear that a person could not be a Christian and a Mason, and as such no one who was a member of the Masonic Lodge could be a member of the Church.

There were several members of the Masonic Lodge visiting our Church.

They got the message.

We never saw them again.

I am sure some of my more liberal Christian readers are saying WOW about now.  :) You should be.

I was taught in Bible College that God often builds a Church by subtraction. Losing people could be a good thing. After all, fellowship is a bunch of fellows in a ship all rowing in the same direction.

When people left it was never my fault.

After all the Bible says:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. 1 John 2:19

I saw leavers as carnal, soft, weak people who had no stomach for real, hard Bible preaching.

I was wrong.

I do not have enough life left to repent of all the foolishness I did in God’s name. I ran off a lot of good people. People who had the misfortune of thinking differently than me.

I was not an oddity within the Baptist Church. In Independent and Southern Baptist Churches I would have been considered typical, especially in the 1970’s and 1980’s. As many of the readers of this blog can testify, preachers like I was are quite common. Legalism and cultic control of people (now called spiritual abuse) is far too common, not just in  Baptist Churches, but in every branch of the Evangelical/Fundamentalist Church.

I should note that I did not remain the preacher described in this post. Over time I came to realize how abusive it was.In the early 1990’s I learned to preach expositionally. Learning to preach expositionally helped to get me away from the type of preaching I started my ministry with.  Towards the end of my ministry I was considered a liberal by many of my Baptist preacher friends.  They thought I had gone soft. (and from their perspective I had)

I was a much better preacher in the end that I was at the start. Too bad the start was instrumental in my loss of God in the end.

A survey of atheists and agnostics will certainly show that a large number of them were raised in legalistic, rigid Christian environments.  Fundamentalism extracts a huge price from everyone it touches.

The Fundy World Tales Part 4

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This entry is part 4 of 17 in the seriesFundy World Tales

The Trinity Baptist Church years. 1970-74

I attended Trinity Baptist Church, Findlay, Ohio at a very crucial and foundational point in my life. It was during my time at Trinity Baptist Church that the core doctrines that would guide for the next 2o plus years were drilled into my head.

I heard preaching three times a week. I went to Sunday School and Youth group meetings.  I attended every Bible Conference, Missions Conference, Youth Rally, and Revival the Church had. I went to summer youth camp. I even skipped school so I could attend the Baptist Bible Fellowship preacher’s meeting that was held at the Church.

From listening to preaching I  began to develop what I believed. Granted, I was never presented with any alternative views. I was only given one viewpoint. As with most Baptist Churches, the preachers confused their viewpoint with God’s. When the preacher  preached you were expected to believe that he spoke for God.  He was God’s man.

What did the preacher’s at Trinity Baptist Church teach me?

They taught me the Bible was the inspired, inerrant Word of God.  The Bible was originally written by holy men as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. They taught me the dictation theory of inspiration. Every word, every jot, every tittle was without error. The history and the science taught in the Bible were true, perfect in every detail. As a result the preachers taught that the universe was created in six 24 hour days and that the universe was 6, 000 years old.

The Bible that they believed was inspired and inerrant was the King James Bible.  They taught me that God had preserved his Word for English speaking people in the King James Bible. Every word, every jot, every tittle of the King James Bible was true.

From the Bible the preachers taught me the basics of the Christian faith. The soteriology taught at Trinity Baptist Church was orthodox and indistinguishable from any other Baptist Church. The essential, cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith were taught and believed.

The preachers also taught me some things that were peculiar to our brand of Christianity.

The Preachers taught me that the Baptist Church was the true Church. The  thinking went something like this: John THE Baptist baptized Jesus, which made Jesus a Baptist. The apostles were all called by Jesus so they were Baptists. The first Christian Churches were started by the apostles so they were Baptist Churches. This belief is commonly called the Landmark Baptist or Baptist Bride teaching. This belief was popularized in a little red booklet titled The Trail of Blood.

The preachers taught me that the Rapture of the Church was imminent. Jesus Christ was coming soon, it could happen today. As was typical of Churches in the 1970’s, the preachers spent a good bit of time preaching on the Rapture, the second coming, the premillennial return of Christ, the great white throne judgment, the BEMA seat judgment, etc.  Eschatological preaching was the fuel that stoked the furnace of evangelism.  Jesus is coming soon. Best be busy winning souls to Jesus.

Up to now the things I was taught by the preachers were innocuous at best. What follows was not so harmless. What follows harmed me greatly, and I deal with the consequences of it to this day.  I have spent hours in counseling trying to  overcome the damage done to me by the teaching I am about to detail.

The preachers taught me  a rules based Christianity. This is commonly called legalism. While the preachers taught salvation by grace, what I understood from their preaching was that to be a real Christian you had to follow the rules. (and virtually all forms of Christianity and religion has some legalistic influences)

The preachers were dispensationalists. They taught we were no longer under the law, we were under grace. Instead of adopting the law of the Bible the preachers made up their own. They would SAY their laws (also called standards) were from the Bible but it seemed every preacher had a different set of rules and laws.

It seemed there was a rule for everything. Dress code. Hair code. Music code. Dating code. Family code.

The preachers taught me to be judgmental, not only of myself, but of others. Everything was judged according to the rules, the standards of the Church.

I wasn’t allowed to go to dances, square dance in gym class, listen to secular music,have long hair, wear worldly clothing, date non-Baptist girls, or sing secular songs in choir. The world was evil, the flesh was evil. Only in the teachings of the Bible, only in Jesus could a person find meaning, purpose, and direction in life.

To this day the legalism I was taught at Trinity Baptist Church courses through my veins.  I hate it yet it still pops up its ugly head from time to time. Hopefully, time will bring healing.

In my next post I intend to write on my time at Midwestern Baptist College. (1976-79)

The Importance Of Being Right

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In the Sunday edition of the Columbus Dispatch there is an article about the demolition of the City Center Mall in downtown Columbus.

In its day the City Center Mall was THE place to shop for upscale anything. Now it is being torn down and turned into a park.

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s I used to go to the City Center Mall  quite often.

Not to shop though.

I was a street preacher. I would take a few men, women and children from our Church and go to the City Center Mall to hand out tracts and preach.

We couldn’t go inside the mall so we would stand in front of the mall and hand out tracts, witness, argue, and preach.

More than a few times the police were summoned in an attempt to get us to leave. They would ask us to leave and when that didn’t work the police would threaten us with arrest. My standard line was “Go ahead. Imagine how that will look on the front page of the paper tomorrow.”

Over my many years of street preaching I was threatened with arrest many times. I stood my ground each and every time. We live in a great country. A country that says I have rights. I have the right to preach on a street corner. Sidewalks are public space and as such citizens are allowed to exercise their first amendment rights on the sidewalk.

Preaching of the street and being threatened with arrest was a great adrenalin rush. The more a police officer threatened me the more I dug in my heels. I was fearless.

I was quite a celebrity in SE Ohio. I was featured in two news articles about my street preaching activities. I preached on the streets of Columbus, Lancaster, Zanesville, Newark, and numerous small towns. I  preached on the streets of New Orleans and Washington DC.

Street preaching brings out all kinds of responses from people. Christian people thought I was a modern day John the Baptist. They invited me to come preach at their Church. (and I did) Christians told me they wished they could have my courage, my boldness.

I was  spit on, cursed, and assaulted. One man tried to kill me by driving his truck over the curb and trying to run me over.

I was friends with well-known street preachers. Don Hardman. Jed Smock.  Jimmy Hood  The Swat Team (Gerald Sutek).

Last night my wife and I spent the night in Auburn, Indiana. We had a wonderful time. On our way back to Ohio we had a discussion about being right, about street preaching, about why I preached like I did, about why I did the things I did in the ministry.

I would like to think I was driven by some higher purpose and calling.

But I wasn’t.

Simply put, I had a need to be right.

I needed for my beliefs and practices to validated.

I needed to know that what I believed was right.

When I preached on the street I thought of myself as a modern day prophet. Jesus and the disciples preached on the street.  I was willing to do what 99% of preachers would NEVER do. They were cowards. They hid behind the “I am not called or led to preach on the street.” line.

I was special. I wasn’t like those golf playing, pussy preachers. I was driven by the belief that Jesus demanded all of my time and effort. Jesus, because of ALL he did for me, deserved all of me.

If that meant sacrificing my wife and family so be it. My wife KNEW what she was getting into when she married me. She knew I was a devoted follower of Jesus. She knew that I put God, Jesus, the Church, the ministry, and most everything else related to the Church before her and the kids. That’s how it was supposed to be. People who had a higher calling had to make sacrifices. My family was that sacrifice. “To whom much his given much is required.”

80 hour work weeks. Never taking a vacation unless it was coupled with preaching somewhere.  Rarely taking time to throw a ball, take a hike, or go out on a date. The Church was my mistress and Jesus was my lover.

I must be honest here…even if I hadn’t been a pastor I might have been just the same way. I have a type A personality and I am a work-a-holic. (and my physical problems partially come from this) To say that I was driven would be an understatement.

While in SE Ohio my life was something like this:

  • Teach Sunday School
  • Preach on Sunday Morning
  • Preach on Sunday Night
  • Preach on Thursday Night
  • Go on visitation on Tuesday Night, and whenever else I needed to
  • Go on bus visitation on Saturday morning
  • Preach on the Street on Tuesday and Thursday and Some Saturdays
  • Preach special meetings at other Churches
  • Work on the building and grounds
  • Counsel people when and where they needed it

In addition to all of this, our Church had a Christian School I was the administrator of the school and I taught in the school. I also taught several Bible Institute type classes for adults.

We got up at 6:00 AM and went to bed at midnight most every day. I worked non-stop. I ate poorly and I know I have six children but I am really trying to figure out when my wife and I ever had time to have sex.  :)

I was THE man. The gold standard for dedicated, work-a-holic, sold out, bought by the blood, how I could I do less, preachers.

But what was my motivation for living this way?

The need to be right.

My life was validation that the Bible was true. After all didn’t Jesus call us to a higher purpose, to leave father, mother, and lands to be his disciple? When I compared my life to most of the Christians and pastors I knew…I was at the top of the scale.

I was right.

I needed to be right.

When people cursed me, spit on me, and tried to kill me to reinforced that I was right. After all, that’s what they did to Jesus and the early Church.

Persecution, perceived or real, is a great tool for measuring rightness. Look at how people reject my message, reject my preaching. This is PROOF I am doing God’s work, God’s way.

I never considered that maybe I was just an arrogant asshole. My view of God and the Bible didn’t allow for such judgments. Besides asshole is a bad word.  :)

God is right, The Bible is right.  I need to be right.

Everything led to that one great conclusion…I was right.

Certainty.

Now I know better.

I wasn’t right at all.

I was arrogant.

I was full of myself.

God wasn’t right. The Bible wasn’t right. And I most certainly was not right.

I have come to see that life is not about being right. It is about living. Living humbly. Living in the moment. Living for love.

That doesn’t mean that the Bruce of old,a type-A work-a-holic, is dead. He still shows up from time to time. My children know this full well. “When does Dad want that done?” Everyone laughs. “Last week.” I am the person everyone wants working FOR them but they can’t stand to work WITH.

I am still a person that is driven by passion and  unfortunately I still often find myself thinking I need to be right. I have to get the last word in. I have to make that blog commenter see it my way.  In many ways I am still preaching on the street corner.

The difference now is that I intellectually know I don’t need to be right. In fact being right is an arrogant fantasy. But old habits die hard. I remain a work in progress.

And I am still right.  :)

I Need To Be Regenerated and Converted

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A frustrated commenter wrote:

Bruce, refusing to post my comment won’t stop me from praying for you.

I didn’t post the following comment:

Bruce said, “Understand this is not a Christian blog.” Well at least I agree with him on one thing. Wes, I’ll join you in prayer for Bruce’s regeneration and conversion. All the blogging in the world is pointless short of that.

The commenter wanted to let me know that my refusal to post his comment wouldn’t stop him from praying for me.  As if I could stop any Christian from praying for me. Just Think if I could….

My defection from the Christian faith has been good for the praying business.

I find comments like this quite amusing.

You see in this commenter’s eyes I never was saved.  I never was a Christian. I never met the real Christ. (or course He has)

So I need to be regenerated and converted.  I will assume the commenter is a Calvinist since they are the only ones who words like regeneration and conversion.  Maybe the commenter wants to discuss if faith precedes regeneration or regeneration precedes faith. Can dead men walk?

It is evident I am not one of the elect. I fell away. I didn’t persevere. (point 5 on the Calvin scale)

You see in the commenter’s world once a person is really, really saved, they are really, really saved.

He can not fathom that people can and do walk away from the Christian faith. Of course his Bible says that is impossible, but impossible or not , I willingly walked away from the faith.  I double-dog dare anyone to show that I was never a Christian. I lived the life. I believed the book. Any suggestion that I was never really a Christian is laughable.

I chose to walk away.

Just like I chose to believe.

It really is that simple.

Don’t Judge BUT You Better Keep All The Rules

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One of the most common lines heard in Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christian Churches is “Don’t Judge.”

After all the Bible says:

Judge not, that ye be not judged. (Matthew 7:1)

Anytime the leadership, pastor, elders, deacons, or Granny Jones is questioned about an issue, teaching, etc….the questioner is told DON’T JUDGE.

Christians are expected to suspend rational judgment and just believe. After all faith is belief when there is no evidence.

In the 1980’s Jack Hyles, at the time pastor of the largest Church in America, was carrying on with his secretary. The evidence of his affair and misconduct was overwhelming.

People were told DON’T JUDGE.  No matter what the evidence said, just believe.  Believe that Jack Hyles was a man of God who could NEVER do such things. Believe that it was all a Satanic plot to destroy him.

Pastors  use the DON’T JUDGE line to hide their misconduct, sometimes getting by with improprieties for years until someone/somewhere is willing to stand up and say I WILL JUDGE.

On one hand it seems strange to hear DON’T judge because Evangelical and Fundamentalist Churches are notorious for judging the world.  It seems that the no judging  only applies to the Church itself. Pastors thunder from pulpit on every real and imagined social ill. Many sermons are 90% judgment, 10% grace.

Yet, these same Churches have  lists of rules that every member is expected to keep. (both written and unwritten) As a Fundamentalist Baptist we drew up lists of rules that Moses could only dream of. Please don’t tell me YOUR Church doesn’t have any rules. You are not being honest. EVERY  Church has some set of rules, written or unwritten, that govern what is acceptable and unacceptable.  No Church, no matter the flavor, is without rules. (they may hide as “Bible truth” but they are rules)

So the NO judging actually becomes a lot of judging. Self-judgment. Judgment of fellow Church members. Are they keeping the rules? Are they really, really, really following Jesus? After look at how they are dressed. Do you know they cuss at their house?  I heard they drink beer.  He looks like a hippie.  They are pro-choice.  They watch R rated movies. They voted for Obama. Did you know they are a Democrat? They didn’t even vote at all. Did you hear what they said about Saint Sarah Palin?  That skirt is pretty short. Did you see that they have a tattoo? They are divorced. She is pregnant and NOT married.  They read Harry Potter. They saw Jesus Christ Superstar.  Do you know they went to a secular college? Do you know they send their kids to the public school?  Do you know they use the NIV?

And on and on it goes…

At this juncture I suspect some of my more smug liberal, emerging Church Christian  readers are smiling and saying “See we are not like that. We don’t make any judgments.” While I question if that is really true (just different rule standard you judge by)  I actually have more respect for the Evangelical/Fundamentalist non-judger/judger. While they deny they should judge they know that life is filled with making judgments. Every day we make judgments.

The liberal wants everyone to love them. The liberal wants to be voted most liked person in the class. The liberal piously say don’t judge and makes few judgments about anything. They fear confrontation so they judge nothing. They cross themselves and say “ I leave the judging to God. “

Have I pissed everyone off? Good. Let it out. Judge me. You can do it.

Stop living in denial.

We all make judgments. We all judge people, places, and things every day. We judge our family, spouse, children, government, neighbor, and the dog next door.

What matter is HOW we judge. What matters is whether we make judgments according to knowledge.

Few people read the verses that follow Matthew 7:1. Let’s look for a moment at verses 2-5:

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

So much for NOT judging.

The Bible ACTUALLY teaches that we SHOULD judge. Gotta love context. There are two things that jump out of these verses.

  • By whatever standard we judge others we will be also be judged
  • We should self-judge ourselves before we take on the task of judging others.

Preacher when you stand up in the  pulpit and preach your famous “holiness” sermon remember you’ll be held to the same standard. You will be judged! (in this life btw)

Before we judge others let’s take a long, hard look at our own life. Let’s clean up our own trailer lot before we clean up someone else’s.  Before we judge anyone let’s make sure we can clearly see the issues before us.

Let’s be honest with each other. We are going to make judgments. We will judge each other. You will make a judgment about this post. If you leave a comment I will make a judgment about your comment. (and my wife may know my judgment when I shout out bullshit)

In fact I welcome your judgments. I write what I believe at any given moment. I am not infallible. I expect challenge.  But I expect to challenge me with reason, facts, etc.

Challenging my posts on the ten Christians in Haiti who took the children with comments that say “Don’t Judge. Only God can Judge” will be summarily dismissed as Bible thumping rhetoric that I don’t believe and neither does the person quoting it. The real problem is that I have a different judgment than theirs and they don’t like opposition or being challenged.

So, please do judge. Use your brain. Make intelligent, reasoned judgments.  The future of human race, of the world, depends on people being able to make rational judgments.

The Fundy World Tales Part 3

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This entry is part 3 of 17 in the seriesFundy World Tales

The Trinity Baptist Church years. 1970-74

The years I attended Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay Ohio were instrumental in defining what I would become as an adult, and later as a Baptist pastor.

After my parents divorced, Bruce Turner, the youth pastor at Trinity became a surrogate parent. I have no doubt that my life would not have turned out as well as it did if it had not been for Bruce Turner. While I am quite certain Bruce is not at all pleased at where I am in my life today, I still owe him a great deal of appreciation for all that he did for me.

As with most Independent Baptist Churches, Trinity had a large, thriving Youth Group.  The Church was large enough that the Junior High and High School students each had their own group.

On Sunday morning Bruce Turner taught the Senior High Sunday School class. Bruce taught typical Independent Baptist stuff…Get saved, and don’t do _____________.

I really don’t remember much about what Bruce taught. I do remember one Sunday where Bruce decided to talk about mini-skirts. For those of us raised in the 60’s and 70’s we’ll remember girls wore two types of dresses…mini-skirts and maxi-dresses. Most of the boys preferred the mini-skirts. :) Bruce Turner told the girls that their “skirts were so short that their cheeks were seeking on the seats.”

That’s about all I remember from Senior High Sunday School class.

After Sunday night service the Senior High students met for youth group.  This was THE place where it all happened. The camaraderie. The hook-ups. The food, fun, and fellowship. We would often go out after youth group and hang out a one of the local fast food restaurants. (there were 2 at the time)

I have nothing but fond memories of youth group. I dated a lot. I broke up a lot. I had a lot of friends. (only one of which I still have today) The youth group was the social hub of my life. Everything revolved around the youth group.

One summer the Church held what they called a Super Summer Bible Rally. An older couple and their sixteen yr old daughter named Charlotte came to the Church to hold the Bible Rally. Each night hundreds of children would pack the auditorium and be taught “the gospel.”

I worked every night of the Bible Rally. I was 16 at the time.

Did I mention the 16 yr old daughter?

Yes…I was smitten by Charlotte. She was my first love. We had a whirlwind 5 day romance and then carried on a long distance romance after that. She lived in Troy, Ohio, which was 90 miles south of Findlay.

We wrote letters and talked on the phone. It was “true love.” (in the summer camp sense)

Later in the year the church Charlotte attended was showing the film “A Thief In The Night.” I talked Bruce Turner into taking the youth group to the Troy Baptist Temple to see the film. Of course what I wanted was to see Charlotte.

After the film was over, we headed back out to the Church bus. It was time for Charlotte and I to say goodbye. Public displays of affection were considered a no-no. Bruce Turner told me “I am going to turn my back for a moment. You say goodbye.” He turned his back, we kissed, and that was the last time we would see each other. A few months later our long distance romance ended when we found real, close to home flesh and blood people to “love.” That’s what made youth group so great…an endless pool of girls. :)

A year or so ago I found a little notepad that Trinity had given out as a gift to everyone during the time I dated Charlotte. On one of the pages my friend Lori Leary had written “Bruce Loves Charlotte.” Wonderful memories.

But, underneath the surface of the happy, go lucky youth group  were kids with a lot of troubles. It was the 1970’s. There was a lot of premarital sex going on. Alcohol and drug use was common. Girls got pregnant. In spite of all the moralistic preaching and rules…kids did what kids have always done. Experiment. Test boundaries. Make bad decisions, sometimes making decisions that scarred them for the rest of their lives.

The Church did little to help those who fell into, or ran into “sin.” Get saved ,get right. That’s how most everything was handled. Kids, with lives spiraling out of control, often spiraled right out of the Church and youth group. They didn’t “fit.”

I fit. I bought  what Trinity was selling. I ate the whole enchilada. I am not a person that does anything half-way. If I am going to embrace a belief system, a way of life, then I am going to go all the way.

I didn’t smoke, drink,cuss, or chew.  I didn’t go to movies. I didn’t wear my hair long. I didn’t listen to rock music. I was a virgin on my wedding day.

I carried my Bible to school every day. I handed out tracts in school.  I wrote English papers about the Baptist Church. I challenged my biology teacher on his teaching us evolution.

I was a good Baptist boy. I ran around with kids in the youth group, and a few kids outside the youth group,  who were not as “good” as me. They drank, smoked, got laid, went to movies,etc. I considered it at test of my “goodness”, of my Christian character, to withstand my friends sinful behaviors.

I saw things that troubled me. I saw a lot of angry, temperamental Church leaders. The very same people who told us to live a certain way were having a hard time doing it themselves. Adultery was a big problem in the Church. Several Church staff members got caught up in adulterous affairs and had to resign from the Church.

One of the things that troubled me the most was a case of child abuse that regularly went on, perpetrated by a leader in the Church.  John (not his real name) was a dear friend. We spent a lot of time together.We hunted and fished. We rode our bikes all over Findlay. We were bosom buddies.

John was not a very good student. John also had a rebellious streak. He smoked. He would do things that infuriated his father.  When John got his grade card he knew he was going to be in trouble. John’s father was a strict disciplinarian and when John got bad grades, and he always did, his father beat him, and beat him, and beat him.  I still remember witnessing one of these beatings.

All of these experiences shaped my view of the world, the Church, and the family. Their influence, both good and bad, run deep in my life.

In upcoming posts I plan to continue to trace back over my years at Trinity Baptist Church and detail the teachings and practices that played such a prominent part in my training as a Christian.

Stay Tuned.