The last two reasons John Pavlovitz offers to account for why people are leaving churches are painful. But they ring sadly true.
4. You choose lousy battles.
This hurts. Pavlovitz writes:
We know you like to fight, Church. That’s obvious.
When you want to, you can go to war with the best of them. The problem is, your battles are too darn small. …Every day we see a world suffocated by poverty, and racism, and violence, and bigotry, and hunger; and in the face of that stuff, you get awfully, frighteningly quiet. We wish you were as courageous in those fights, because then we’d feel like coming alongside you; then we’d feel like going to war with you.
Church, we need you to stop being warmongers with the trivial and pacifists in the face of the terrible.
Too often people find more wisdom, compassion, kindness, gentleness, and understanding outside the community of church than they experience in our midst as we continue to wage old battles that have long been resolved for most people. The hypocrisy of our claim to be an open inclusive community is not lost on people who see that we are unable to agree on extending a full open welcome equally to all people.
Children are dying of malnutrition. The earth is dying of environmental degradation. Countries are imploding in vicious civil war. All the while, the church is squabbling over who we will or will not include on the basis of who they feel called to love. This is shameful; it makes Pavlovitz point #5 extremely timely.
- Your love doesn’t look like love.
…more and more, your brand of love seems incredibly selective and decidedly narrow; filtering out all the spiritual riff-raff, which sadly includes far too many of us.
It feels like a big bait-and-switch sucker-deal; advertising a “Come as You Are” party, but letting us know once we’re in the door that we can’t really come as we are. … Church, can you love us if we don’t check all the doctrinal boxes and don’t have our theology all figured out? ….Can you love us if we’re not sure how we define love, and marriage, and Heaven, and Hell? It sure doesn’t feel that way.
Conditional love is not love. It is a bargain. God does not bargain. Grace is a gift freely given, without strings attached. The Gospel does not demand we be good enough first. God invites broken flawed human beings into loving relationship. God does not wait until we are “moral” enough, smart enough, or well-disciplined enough. God does not hold back until we get all the answers right.
We are welcome just as we are.
A community that does not have room for broken flawed people like me, will never be able to offer the expansive invitation Jesus extended to all people. When our hearts respond to the invitation of grace, we will be changed. But change is not a condition before the invitation is offered.True change only comes after the invitation of grace is received and embraced.
This is the welcome Pavlovitz has been looking for from the church:
It’s here, in my flawed, screwed-up, wounded, shell-shocked, doubting, disillusioned me-ness that I’ve been waiting for you to step in with this whole supposedly relentless, audacious “love of Jesus” thing I hear so much about, and make it real.
Church, I know how much you despise the word Tolerance, but right now, I really need you to tolerate me; to tolerate those of us, who for all sorts of reasons you may feel aren’t justified, are struggling to stay.
I wonder what it may take to get us to the point where we are able to offer John Pavlovitz such an open, genuine, authentic welcome.
*************************
More from John Pavlovitz or visit John at http://johnpavlovitz.com
In A Spacious Place 
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April 5, 2016 at 9:22 am
Chris
Here is how Richard Rohr describes it in The Naked Now:
“Jesus’ direct and clear teachings on issues such as nonviolence, a simple lifestyle, love of the poor, forgiveness, love of enemies, inclusivity, mercy, and not seeking status, power, perks, and possessions: throughout history, all have been overwhelmingly ignored by mainline Christian churches, even those who call themselves orthodox or biblical.
This avoidance defies explanation until we understand how dualistic thinking protects and pads the ego and its fear of change. Notice that the things we ignored above require actual change of our lifestyle, our security systems, or our dualistic thought patterns. The things we emphasized instead were usually intellectual beliefs or moral superiority stances that asked little of us: the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, the atonement theory, and beliefs about reproduction and sex. After awhile, you start recognizing the underlying bias. The ego diverts your attention from anything that would ask you to change, to righteous causes that invariably ask others to change.”
April 5, 2016 at 6:34 pm
Neil Girrard
Your post is again built on flawed foundations that are part of the “church” paradigm to which you subscribe.
Is everyone welcome? Welcome to what? To God? Of course, all are welcome to come and partake of His life. “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned…” (Jn. 3:18) But that verse doesn’t end there and goes on to say, “…but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
Now, because your idea of “church” involves bringing people into your building to participate in your traditions, you have to make everyone welcome into THAT. Thus your inadequate context in which to place this statement becomes apparent when you say:
> The hypocrisy of our claim to be an open inclusive community is not lost on people who see that we are unable to agree on extending a full open welcome equally to all people.
Completely absent from your equation is the idea that those who believe stand in a different category from those who do not believe – and this is according to God’s standards and no man’s! The real ekklesia of Christ does not claim to be “an open inclusive community…welcome equally to all people.” The real ekklesia is called upon to discern (by a gift of the Holy Spirit of God who surely knows who have real faith!) those who have faith and we are to welcome those people whom GOD has received as brothers and sisters in Christ. Those people in the world who have no faith in Christ, we are to love with the love of God for all people as exemplified in the crucifixion and sacrifice of Christ – but we do not welcome the world in as if they were our brothers and sisters in Christ. God is not confused (like so many humans seem to be) and He does not receive the demonic or the flesh (carnality, which is enmity against God – Rom. 8:7) as if it were His own family. Certainly, everyone is welcome to come and partake of the goodness of God and become a member of His family – but to believe that everyone who walks on the planet this instant is already in God’s family of whom Christ is the firstborn is most short-sighted.
You wrote:
>We are welcome just as we are.
This is true as far as it goes. We are welcome, invited, encouraged and even commanded to come as we are. We simply CANNOT come any other way! Nor does God expect us to come in any other way. But we are to come to GOD – not to the ekklesia or to the “church.” What you have said has been humorously but correctly restated, “God loves us just the way we are – but He loves us too much to leave us that way.” If the real life in Christ left us in our flesh, sin and corruption, then it would be as horrible – and senseless! – as having eternal life in our decaying, aging bodies! It would be as much an abominable torment to live forever in a body that is breaking down as it would be to think we could participate in the holy things of God while still wearing the fleshly things that Jesus died on His cross to take from us!
But because you want to incorporate unrepentant sinners into your notions of “church,” you are forced to sidestep all the work that Christ has done on the cross and you make another way by which people can call themselves “Christians.” Those who do not come in through the only door – Christ – and that by way of repentance and new spiritual rebirth, are simply outside the kingdom of God. No amount of “church” attendance or non-attendance makes us accepted by God. Having been translated into new creations of light is what matters and it is something that only God can do.
Our task, when done rightly, is to receive all those whom God has so received and translated (a reality demonstrated by the observable presence of “the fruit of the Spirit” – Gal. 5:22-23) as our dear brothers and sisters in Christ while we continue to love everyone around us with the love Christ has incorporated into our hearts and spirits. This is something the “church” cannot do because it has placed something in between itself and God, usually a man or a doctrine or simple selfishness or lawlessness (what is right in one’s own eyes). When we are the ekklesia, we don’t have to accept, receive or welcome anyone’s flesh or sin or demonic issues because God is not accepting THAT – He accepts, receives and welcomes the repentant, believing individual and then moves to enable them to overcome and divorce themselves from their flesh, sin and demonic bondages. Any other process is just deception.
The kingdom of God is near at hand. The call to repent, to come out of the “Christian” idols and idolatry and truly be God’s children is sounding louder than ever before. But YOU must have ears to hear.
Neil Girrard
paidionbooks.org
April 8, 2016 at 10:10 am
John
Hi Christopher: Your last two posts have been quite stimulating, as have the lengthy responses to them. I would love to comment … hopefully I will be able to find the time to do so.
April 8, 2016 at 5:19 pm
John
Well, I don’t have time, unfortunately, to read through and comment on the bizarre screeds published here by Neil Girrard et al. – though I’m not convinced their comments warrant reasoned response, given that they actually misread/misunderstand your posts and that they boil down to extreme American variations on biblical fundamentalism. But I can say, Christopher, that your “Reasons People Leave Church” #1 and #2 highlights what probably are four of the most important problems in church and Christianity today.
April 10, 2016 at 2:08 pm
Neil Girrard
John wrote:
>Christopher, your “Reasons People Leave Church” #1 and #2 highlights what probably are four of the most important problems in church and Christianity today.
Does GOD agree with this assessment? God said through the prophet Amos, “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies… Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:21,23-24) Is He not saying the same thing to today’s “pastor” despots who must maintain their positions at the expense of the sheep? Where is justice and true righteousness in the “church” system of today? Make no mistake, God will have justice and one day righteousness will rule and reign. Not a single one of the victims of the “church” has been forgotten by God and one day judgment will come from HIS hand upon all those who used HIS name to neglect, oppress or abuse others.
A sister who recently left the “church” who is following this blog wrote to me:
>Anybody that has eyes to see and ears to hear and a little common sense knows that the majority of churches today have become nothing more than social clubs that the higher ups profit from.
Stephen Crosby wrote:
>Anyone significantly active in Western expressions of Christianity in the present day will, in some degree, likely have been exposed to the fact that many people are leaving organized expressions of Christian religion. George Barna has documented that as many as a million a year in the United States are leaving. I have read other sources that indicate it is as much as 10-15 million a year on a worldwide level. The failure to reach our own children and their departure from organized Christian religion is also well documented. Depending on the source, I have seen numbers that range from 70-90% of children raised in evangelical homes will “leave the faith” by the age of 21, never to return. Something is changing. Something is in need of changing. (from the Foreword to “Rethinking the Unthinkable in the Light of Love,” Chad and Ondrea Kidd, http://roadofkingdom.blogspot.com/p/rethinking-book.html – an awesome book that everyone grappling with these issues should read!)
There are even “pastors” and “teachers” who will admit that they need to listen to people outside of the “church” to enable it to reform to a more healthy condition. But my input doesn’t even “warrant reasoned response.” That’s how the Pharisees reacted to Christ’s words because they did not have spiritual ears to hear the truth – they were not His sheep. His sheep still hear His voice. Do you hear His voice, John? Do you Christopher? Why are you even trotting this topic out on your blogsite if you will not openly discuss ALL the issues the question raises?
Christopher wrote:
>Church is a body of broken people. We are those who know we fail to measure up to the beauty and light for which we were created. We are a messy community of untidy people united in our awareness of our need for grace and mercy. We gather because we acknowledge our need to surrender our lives to a power greater than ourselves.
Paul wrote that we could “…ALL come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ.” (Eph. 4:13-15)
This attitude of “brokenness” has an appearance of humility but it is in reality a deception. In reality, this is just Christopher’s admission that the “church” has no power to actually change lives and that all the “church” can produce is a “form of godliness” that is devoid of God’s power – and it is such as these that we are commanded to turn away from! (2 Tim. 3:5)
Christopher wrote:
>Our unwillingness to take seriously the gap between our cherished little religious world and the great big world outside church.
This gap exists primarily because of the vast chasm of difference between the Scriptures and that institution and counterfeit of the body of Christ that men most commonly call “church.” John, you accuse me of “extreme American variations on biblical fundamentalism.” Except maybe for the American part (which I can’t change my lineage or heritage and there are American things to be both proud of and sorrowful for), I would consider this assessment as a complete compliment. Thank you! The “church” has become so intolerably anti-Scriptural that I am happy to be seen as being at variance with it. I have indeed returned to the Bible and to God to find the answers I need for life and Godliness – to what book or source do you turn? To be fundamental is to seek out the root or deepest underlying problem or issue – would you really prefer to continue advocating for putting mere (and more!) band-aids on the “church’s” cancer, to continue to be sidetracked and derailed by peripheral and non-essential questions and remedies, as routinely real people are spiritually harmed and even killed by this thing you try to lure people back into? As was once wisely said, “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” It is indeed one thing to “misread/misunderstand” some man’s posts (please enlighten me where you think I have done so!) – but it is an entirely different thing to “misread/misunderstand” God’s Scriptures simply because it is more important to you to please man or self than it is for you to please God.
The call of God today is to “Come out of the ‘Christian’ idolatry and deception and truly be His children. Repent and bear fruits worthy of repentance. Be the body of Christ for a change and stop being some man’s ‘church.’”
These are the issues GOD considers the most important problems in churchianity today. He wants justice and righteousness – not religious snobbery or fleshly tolerance of sin done in His name.
In His love,
Neil Girrard
paidionbooks.org
April 9, 2016 at 10:45 am
Neil Girrard
Hello John. I was going to simply ignore your post but then I wondered if you’re the same John I invited here. Since the name “John” with no last name is virtually synonymous with “anonymous,: how would I know who you are?
If you are that John, then of course you have nothing invested in finding what I say to be bizarre, do you? The Pharisees said basically the same of Jesus, of whom it must be said He was the ultimate extremist and radical of all time. Today those who claim the most to be His followers bear the least resemblance to Him – and this has been true since before the time of Ghandi! But it remains true that EVERYONE who is of the truth hears Jesus’ voice. Are you on the side of truth? Or are you protecting your own piece of the “church” empire?
If you’re not the John I invited here, then I’d like to hear something more about you so that I might evaluate the weight of your statements. I’ve put myself out here on this blog and on my website. It’s easy to make a quick dismissal when you don’t have to have any basis for making such bald statements and when you can hide behind anonymity.
I am not here to win any arguments. only to rescue brothers from the system that chews them up and spits them out and leaves them to die alone. Why are you here?
Neil Girrard
paidionbooks.org
April 9, 2016 at 6:42 pm
John
Neil: You write:
“If you’re not the John I invited here, then I’d like to hear something more about you so that I might evaluate the weight of your statements. I’ve put myself out here on this blog and on my website. It’s easy to make a quick dismissal when you don’t have to have any basis for making such bald statements and when you can hide behind anonymity.
“I am not here to win any arguments. only to rescue brothers from the system that chews them up and spits them out and leaves them to die alone. Why are you here?”
If you listen carefully to your own voice here you’ll perhaps recognize that your language and attitude strongly suggest you feel you have the right/authority to appropriate or temporarily occupy Christopher’s blog.
But you do not possess either right.
You do not invite people to Christopher’s website; Christopher invites people to his website. You are a guest, not the host.
It is Christopher who puts himself “out here” on In A Spacious Place; not you. This space would not exist without his more or less daily efforts.
It is not your place to know my identity if I choose not to reveal it; it is Christopher’s blog, after all, not yours. Besides, all you really need is my words. Look them up. What is a ‘screed’? What is ‘biblical fundamentalism’? What is the four-fold basis of Anglicanism? (1) Tradition; (2) Scripture; (3) Reason; (4) Experience. Note that The Bible is only one of these four.
Lastly, it is not your job to “rescue” Christopher’s blog followers (your reference to ‘brothers’ here reveals a strong gender bias, by the way).
As to why I am here? Well, I have “been here” from the beginning – almost eight years – and though I have left the church at this juncture in my life and have decided that reason is of greater value to human beings than faith at this moment in history, I continue visiting Christopher’s blog several times a week because it is indeed ‘a spacious place’ – something more or less non-existent in the realm of church and Christianity. Christopher’s blog is stimulating more often than any other religious blog I can think of and that’s no small accomplishment. The fact that Christopher still engages me in the space I am in – which is distant and detached – shows, I think, just how spacious this space actually is. You would do well to respect this fact. This blog, I can assure you, emerged out of a great need and it continues, in my opinion, to serve its purpose.
I will leave it at that. And these will be my last words on this matter.
April 10, 2016 at 12:33 am
Megan
John, I’m pretty sure Neil has the right to invite someone to check out this blog and he also has the right to post comments. He’s not saying he’s the host. I am sure he appreciates that this is Christopher’s blog. And I don’t really think he needs your words or your insults.
April 10, 2016 at 2:35 pm
Neil Girrard
Hi John,
First, your rules about who’s allowed to ask someone to participate in a discussion are just that – your rules. I had my reasons for asking someone named John to participate because this discussion is right up his alley, in more ways than one – if you are not that particular John, then I apologize for the confusion that resulted from your anonymity or perhaps just your bad timing. As for your words and denominational creed, that is and always will be of secondary importance to what the NT clearly says. As for my supposed gender bias, no, it’s just a linguistic handicap I’ve acquired over the years called the English language! ;o)
You wrote:
>As to why I am here? Well, I have “been here” from the beginning – almost eight years – and though I have left the church at this juncture in my life and have decided that reason is of greater value to human beings than faith at this moment in history,
That’s one heck of a decision to make. I understand it, to a point, but it is misguided. Reason apart from God will always and only bring on more death and destruction. God calls on us to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. I encourage you also to seek the God who did not invent the “church” and who is much larger than anything you can imagine.
You wrote:
>I continue visiting Christopher’s blog several times a week because it is indeed ‘a spacious place’ – something more or less non-existent in the realm of church and Christianity. Christopher’s blog is stimulating more often than any other religious blog I can think of and that’s no small accomplishment. The fact that Christopher still engages me in the space I am in – which is distant and detached – shows, I think, just how spacious this space actually is. You would do well to respect this fact. This blog, I can assure you, emerged out of a great need and it continues, in my opinion, to serve its purpose.
You fail to understand that I actually do have some respect for Christopher and his blog site otherwise I would not have even bothered to attempt to engage him in dialogue. His questions on this blog are indeed very pertinent to the very future of Christianity as a whole. And his questions at first seemed to be sincere and truly searching for truth. But it would seem they are really more aimed at luring unsuspecting souls back into “church” than they are at bringing lost souls to a loving Savior who can rescue them from their current issues and quandaries, including the exacerbation called “church.” That is most unfortunate and so beneath the image of himself that he projects here.
This is a spacious place and I have appreciated the liberty to speak freely – a liberty I extend to everyone who contacts me at my website. And I also assure you (and Christopher) that, if I had known for certain that you were not the John I asked to chime in, I wouldn’t even have answered your first post because your hostility was most apparent.
As for my authority to speak what God has taught me, I pray that I will never bow to any human being and ask for their permission to speak His truth.
Be blessed in your search for life and truth!
In His love,
Neil Girrard
paidionbooks.org