Q: "But can't we just ignore the bad parts of the Bible?"

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3 Do's & Don'ts for healing from painful Christianity

There are a lot of people -- and a lot of different kinds of people -- who've been hurt by "the Church" and people in "the Church". 

Many are Gay, but some are straight (divorced, had an abortion, non-comforming somehow, or just in some way "not acceptable" to "the Church"). Race doesn't matter. Socioeconomic status doesn't matter. Where you grew up doesn't matter. Nothing matters.

If the devil decided to stab you in the rump of your religion, that's a wound that can fester your whole life, if you don't heal it. 

And I mean really heal it -- not just "cover-it-up-I'm-fine" heal it.

Getting that real healing is a real journey. And there are many detours and false trails that can make us think we're getting there or even already done -- when, in fact, we're not. I certainly made my own zig-zag journey toward healing, and I've watched and helped a large number of others make theirs over the last many years..

Based on our combined experience, I offer you three Do's and Don'ts, to hopefully make your healing journey that much faster, that much easier, that much healthier:

1) Don't count on those in "the Church" to heal the hurt they are responsible for causing. Do look for those who have healed beyond "the Church" to give you guidance and support along the way.

This is a biggie, because it's a sure thing that the reason a big splat of false Christianity hit your life was because someone else was being a Church-Christian, and not a Jesus-Christian. Church-Christians can be among the nice people of the world, and some are very caring and want to help. But going to them is like asking people in a bar for help paying your hospital bills after you've been hit by a drunk driver. Church-Christians will usually admit that things are far from perfect in their church (or in Christianity in general) -- but they say and mean it as an excuse, not as an intro to getting any problem in it fixed. You'll know that's true when they say you're important, and yes your wounds shouldn't have happened -- but they won't actually take a real stand to protect you or fix the evil that caused hurt in the church.

See, the Bible never says, "Just go along to get along", or "Don't make a (real) fuss when people in the church are acting like asses or making people think 'poo' on God" (in fact, it says the opposite). But that falseness is what Church-Christians are all about. They may feel bad for you, but they will continue to side with, participate in, and go along with their "church" over you and your pain every time -- because to do something Jesus-like, like fixing or no longer participating in the problem, would actually cost them something, like their unrepentent church family (and they also don't like that part where Jesus says you have to give up even your family, if that's what's required to do as He says -- you know, like for "the least of these").

It's even worse trying to get real healing help from a pastor, priest, pope (or prophet, or church teacher, or elder, and so on). Think regular 'ole Church-Christians are hooked into their "church"? Well, those who make their living being Special Representatives doing human-inspired religious tasks God's work for their "church"/denomination, who enjoy respect and honors Jesus always rejected (and said we all were to, too), who have retirement plans and mortgages and career ladders to climb? You really think they're going to do something to risk all that? Hardly (but they'll love you while they tell you there's no need to risk it). 

What they do have to offer you, though, is a course in how to get sucked back in to "the Church". They can't offer you plain 'ole Jesus (because they gave Him up as "too primitive", "too hard", or "too supernatural" years ago). But they can offer you what they have: a path to mashing their decision about who Jesus should have been with their "church" needs ("Here's where you put your contribution to my 401k tithe, each week..") They can even make you feel all warm and fuzzy, all "belongy" and everything. And that can feel great! But it's still short the rest of Jesus that doesn't fit in their church-box. It won't get you really healed (and it will instead make it just likely you'll become a Church-Christian causing or ignoring other people hurt, yourself).

So, who can help you get truly healed? Those who've been hurt themselves, and who've managed through the grace of God to get (as you can) healed so deep into Jesus' arms that they have no room in their hearts for silly things like playing "church" (even if they are the 1 in a million still occasionally hanging out in church), any longer.

• These are the people who aren't going to stand above you, pretending to be better or more "spiritual" than you because they took college courses and were pronounced "Won't make serious waves in the organizational pool" by their denomination.
• These are the people who've been wounded themselves, and some of them have even sucked mud in the gutter before they managed to get back on their spiritual feet again. 
• These are the people who can sit down with you in the real world, and hear and understand your real pain, and even tell you more about the real Jesus -- the Jesus who stays with you and on your side long after the pastor/priest/pope, missionaries, and church workers have all gone home.

These are the people who can describe at least part of the way home to Jesus to you, because they've walked it themselves -- dodging Church-Christians and other manifestations of false Christianity the whole way. These are the people to seek out, examine, and learn from. Will they have all the answers? Of course not -- but you know better by now than to believe anyone/thing but Jesus has all the answers, right?

2) Don't let mistranslations and reinterpretations of the Bible tell you what God thinks. Do read and study to learn what God really put there for you to know and live by. 

There are a lot of different translations of the Bible out now (NIV, Message, NASB, and so on). Every single one of them contains errors -- and even outright lies and remakes of what's really there. It's only been in the last several decades that the truth has come out about God's Bible not-not-not saying He condemns Gay people. But there are also mistranslations and misinterpretations about what God wants Christians to know and live regarding violence, hierarchy, women, the poor, how "church" is to be run, the real qualifications for "church leaders", and so on. There are even rewrites about the nature of God Himself! 

Not even "experts" can be counted on to give us the real truth and nothing but the truth -- because they have their own biases and issues they want to cover up or emphasize in ways God never intended. In fact, "experts" are the ones who've mistranslated and misinterpreted the Bible for us in the first place!

What's to be done, then, if we can't just blindly accept the words some other sinful human being put on a piece of paper and stuck in a book, promising us that it matches exactly what God intended for us to know? Do we have to be geniuses or Bible scholars ourselves? No. But we do have to know the basics, and we have to do our homework.

Just like the first disciples (most of whom couldn't even read and write), we have to learn the basics of Jesus and His teachings, and work our way out from there, listening to and reading what others have to say about various scriptures -- but then, when we have a question or something seems to not "fit" somehow, we need to pray and study along with the Holy Spirit. God understands sincere ignorance -- but He has no tolerance for lazy follow-alongs who just do the minimum and follow leadership or sit in church without question as if that will get them to heaven (remember? that's exactly what the people who ignored Jesus or helped torture and kill Him did).

3) Don't let anyone get (or stay) between you and Jesus

There are two things Jesus says people need to do in this world:

1. Do what He says to do, and
2. Hang on to Him (or come back to hanging on to Him!), no matter what happens. 

Jesus fully understands that those who falsely claim to be God's people are a powerful majority -- for now. He truly "gets" that false Christians are wreaking havoc in people's lives, causing all sorts of pain, and doing it all in God's Name. Think He doesn't? Well, check this out, and hear it like the Gay, poor, female, or other despised-minority child of God Jesus said it to:

[Jesus said:] "I see what you've done. Now see what I've done. I've opened a door before you that no one can slam shut. You don't have much strength, I know that; you used what you had to keep my Word. You didn't deny me when times were rough. And watch as I take those who call themselves true believers but are nothing of the kind, pretenders whose true membership is in the club of Satan—watch as I strip off their pretensions and they're forced to acknowledge it's you that I've loved. Because you kept my Word in passionate patience, I'll keep you safe in the time of testing that will be here soon, and all over the earth, every man, woman, and child put to the test.I'm on my way; I'll be there soon. Keep a tight grip on what you have so no one distracts you and steals your crown." [Revelation 3:8-11]

Make it your mission in life to learn more and more each day about the real Jesus. Spend time with Him in prayer -- sometimes talking, sometimes listening, sometimes just sitting with Him. Laugh with Him. Read with Him. Keep Him alongside you when you go to dinner. Learn from your heart of hearts how much Jesus IS on your side, and how much He did to give you an eternity where there will never again be a tear or a pain, and where you can live right next to God, forever.

Take back your crown from those who practice crappy Christianity. Accept healing. Accept Jesus' love.

And stop sacrificing your salvation on the alter of other people's sin & bigotry.

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This article written by Lynne at No Junk. Just Jesus. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

2 maze lessons that work us, even if we don't work them

Not the route I took...

More than a few people have asked me in the last few days about various parts of my spiritual journey. Guess it's been awhile since I made that thing some Christians call a "testimony". ...ok, it's been years.

But the really important thing -- I think -- is not telling about my life so you can be oh-so-impressed with how spiritual my path has been or how wise or strong or faithful I am (because truly, there's no reason you should).

No, the only really important things to pass on are the two lessons I've learned (nearly always the hard way) in my getting-close-to-50-years. The kind of lesson-things hardest to learn, hardest to accept, and hardest to appreciate -- until you finally start to reap some benefits from them.

The first lesson is:

Human beings (especially, but not only, educated ones) can always-always-always be counted on to make healthy things hurt, simple things complicated, inclusive things cliquish, loving things hatefilled, and easy things hard.

 The second lesson follows the first:

...But, if in the deepest recesses of our deepest heart (where maybe even we can't see it yet), if we are even the slightest bit willing, God is always at work behind the scenes to get us where we need to go, anyway.

Let me share briefly how that worked out in my life, just to show an example.

Maze Turn # 1 - I was introduced to God through a fundamentalist church of the 1960s.

That was how I spent my childhood. So, yeah. Do I even need to detail the mess of ungodly, unbiblical, and anti-Christ ideas I absorbed from the truly very well-meaning and intensely (false)-Bible educated people in that church? Most of you will say "No. I get it." But for those who don't, let me just sum it up this way: By the time I was eight years old, I was convinced I had already been such a sinner that I deserved hell so bad even Jesus couldn't save me.

And it just didn't matter that these church people adored me (and they truly did -- all the way up to when I was an adult and they discovered I'm Gay.) They all belonged to a faith culture that takes the Good News of Jesus Christ and turns it inside out, remaking it into something fearful, painful, violent, self-centered, hypocritical -- just like their unhealed hearts. Even though I left their church when I was eleven years old (they couldn't answer my questions, and that bothered me) their false and twisted and self-serving Christianity damaged me in ways I wouldn't even begin to understand until forty years later, when I finally encountered and was healed by the true Jesus Christ.

Yet what was God doing behind the scenes with all that? He was instilling in me a love for the Bible, for one thing. Unlike my fundamentalist forebears, I use and study the Bible correctly now -- but like them, I also cling to it, and refuse to be parted from knowing its truth. 

Maze Turn # 2 - Trying to push the filth of fundamentalism out of my head, I became a tenacious, even vicious atheist by my 20th birthday.

I'd always been a huge science geek (even when I was a teeny little kid, my birthday presents were things like biology and geology books). But while before I'd understood science as just a way to study what God had created, now I started using science and logic to attack and level any and all religious belief -- including Christianity.

I meant well. I truly did. Like all my atheist buddies and mentors, I truly believed that any idea of "god" was nonsense and evil. I really believed that the only way to make the world a safe and healthy place was to eliminate all religions, and run things by logic and science, only. 

Yet what was God doing behind the scenes with all that? He was using all that atheistic insistence on logic, and that hot flame of bullheaded atheistic arrogance, to scorch the fundamentalism from my heart. It took a number of years, but when He was done? Gone. All gone. Nothing ever even tempted me to believe fundamentalism, ever again.   

Maze Turn # 3 - Once my heart no longer had to keep a door slammed against God to keep out the devil of fundamentalism, a tiny part of my heart slowly began to want God again. But the rest of me fled.

I had really done a great job convincing myself during my atheist years that God didn't exist. I now really had NO belief in Him any longer. So imagine my confusion to now all of a sudden have a sort of secret longing for God -- a God I was convinced was nothing more than a neurotic superstition. What was wrong with me??? The only conclusion I could come to for some time was that I had a mental illness of some sort. Nothing else made sense to me -- but nothing made my longing go away, either. In fact, it just got worse and worse.  

And what was God doing behind the scenes with all that? If you're a Christian, you know exactly what God was doing: He was calling me back. He'd let me fall into the flea dip of atheism to rid me of fundamentalism cooties, and now it was time to dry me off and comb me out. Was I going for that? Of course not. I'm much too bull headed for that!

Maze Turn # 4 - So I started (reluctantly) checking out other religions. At least I wouldn't fall to the disgusting depths of Christianity! (or so I swore).

Pagan stuff is big in certain areas, as you no doubt know. I tried to get in to some of that, but I kept coming back to the same thing: "If I can't go with a God, why the heck would I go with a goddess, or multiple gods, or fairies, or wood spirits, or whatever!" It just seemed a put on.

I did check out some other religions, too. But same problem: if I'm not believing it works here, why would I believe it works over there?

What was God doing behind the scenes with all that? I'm sure He was shaking His head at how stubborn I can be, and how I continued to torture myself. Here I was trying to patch my longing for Him like He was a computer virus, but at least He kept me from falling into another vat of flea dip I didn't need. His hand was there.

Maze Turn # 5 - Then, since I hated the whole idea of "God" but couldn't make myself stop wanting God, I decided maybe I could soothe my longing by getting into a religion that didn't even have a god. That was my Zen Buddhist period. And I did pretty good at it. Got real good at being able to sit and do nothing for a very long time. Even decided at one point that I would become a Zen priest. THAT would fix that nagging God-longing, I was sure! I was starting to feel good about all this, finally.

But what was God doing behind the scenes with all that? Well, He seems to have let me go for a time. Just as I did get some healing from my atheism time (but couldn't stay there), I also got some healing from my Zen time -- but couldn't stay there, either. So one day a Zen priest that I admired more than anyone else in the world told me that because of who I was I belonged back in the Christian world. I was devastated.

The Zen priest's reasons were very Zen-like, and came right out of his Asian culture and beliefs in reincarnation (etc) -- so they had nothing to do with Christianity or God. But I'd gotten the healing I could get from my time there, and God knew it was time for me to go -- or I'd probably never leave. So, mad as a wet cat, out I went.

Maze Turn # 6 - Try as I might, I found myself still just too damaged by fundamentalism to go back to anything Protestant. So I became a Roman Catholic. Getting back to Christianity of any kind was still not easy for me -- in fact, it was more painful than anything I'd ever done before, with a LOT of stops and starts, before I could finally let God start to heal the damage false Christianity had done to me. In the end it took me three times and several years to complete the Roman Catholic mumbos you have to go through to join up, but then let me tell you -- I was full bore. I've never done anything spiritual halfway, I guess, so after finally getting baptized and so on, I was one intense Pope follower. I even let the priests abuse me for being Gay (one yelled at me so loud the whole church turned to see), and I just knelt there and took it. But dang it -- I'd decided to be a Christian, and I was going to stick it out!

What was God doing behind the scenes with all that? Continuing to heal me. Teaching me. And then turning my head ever so slightly so I started seeing a new angle. So I started seeing the (really BIG) false Christianity of the Roman Church, too. Since the "newness" was no longer covering for the fact that this wasn't a place to satisfy my longing for God either, after a number of years, I started thinking maybe it was time to go "home".

Maze Turn # 7 - Except I thought "home" meant a Protestant church. In fact, I thought that through several of them over several more years. But it didn't matter: Gay churches, straight churches, mixed / "welcoming" churches, and conservative, liberal, medium churches -- all. All just inevitably got me all excited thinking this was finally going to be the place I could be whole with God. I even became a pastor and church leader, myself (would have made my grandmother proud, and maybe healed her horror of my previous Roman Catholicism). And yet every single church / denomination / fellowship was a big #)^%*@ pile of human beings, along with all the cultural "church" poo they'd decided to pack on top of God as if that made God "better" or "more accessible". True, some where more poo-filled, some less. But since all that poo covered up the fact that Jesus is supposed to just be there, in your heart, without all the human poo (even your own), nearly all these folks were just as happy to sit around making more poo and calling for new revivals or campaigns to fill in the Holy Spirit gap even they sense on some level in their churches.They were so happy-tranced on what they could do with their religious doo-dads and titles and organizations and good works that they just assumed that must be Jesus in there, making their hearts swim. I still couldn't fill my longing for God. Plus, it was all just starting to gross me out. 

And what was God doing behind the scenes with all that? Quite simply, He was doing exactly what He's been doing my whole entire life: trying to get me to let go of all the nonsense people (including me) make up about Him, and instead just sit with Him and do what He says! Doesn't mean I don't hang out with church people any longer -- I just no longer buy that they corner the market on Jesus, any longer.

CHEESE!

It's taken me nearly every decade of my life to figure out that ideas like "God is about relationship, and not (even Protestant pretend-its-not-ritual) ritual", and "Jesus was serious" are true far, far beyond the self-congratulatory platitudes we make of them when we're twisting His meanings so we still get to do what we want to do, but now feel God-approved in doing it.

I guess if my life would have a "testimony", it would be that God moves even when we're in His way. He can see even when we're blocking His light. And He can work even when we're sleeping on the job. And my ridiculous maze of a life is good proof of that. 

Thanks for taking care of all that for me God. 

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This article written by Lynne at No Junk. Just Jesus. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

How left-wing Christians have failed - but could recover

This is how 90% of Gay people see ALL Christians -- and Jesus.

I have to say, the times in my life when I've been closest to losing my faith have been those times I've relied on left-wing (liberal, progressive, etc) Christianity to teach and guide and protect me.

That seems strange, considering I'm a Gay person -- someone who is traditionally thought to count on and need the left-wing world for my emotional, spiritual, and even physical safety.

After all, the political and religious right-wing, with its idolatrous worship of power and hate, and its masturbatory spirituality, has made billions of dollars and earned hundreds of millions of votes getting already-prejudiced people to their checkbooks and to the polls to agree that Gay people like me must be stopped (even at the cost of our lives) from "destroying" everything "good and decent" in the self-loving delusions of right-wing Americans. The secular and religious right-wing has guaranteed in my life that I've been denied employment, housing, family protections, union protection, decent medical care, and even the truth about who I am to God and what God thinks of me -- all because it believes me (as it used to believe people of African descent) a better scapegoat than an ally. And all that because of the sexual orientation God created me with.

But in steps left-wing Christianity to my rescue -- sort of. 

Sort of.

Like men who define "being a man" as whatever they've decided is "opposite female" (and not just its own manly thing), too many of the left-wing have simply defined being "good" or "progressive" (etc) as whatever they've decided is "opposite right-wing" (and not just their own lefty thing).

So, since the right-wing practices exclusion, the left-wing decides being left-wing means all-inclusion.

Since the right-wing practices disciplined hate, the left-wing decides being left-wing means undisciplined love.

And since the right-wing obsessively clings to the Bible (their version of it, anyway), the left-wing decides being left-wing means letting go of the Bible.

All sounds good. And often done from a good heart, to be sure.

Unfortunately, though, simply living life as opposite whatever crapola the right-wing has invented to torment the world with today doesn't really work real-world. Instead, it just denatures the truth and effectiveness of the whole left-wing philosophy -- and leaves those counting on left-wing values at the curb. 

I've been in left-wing churches, for example, that continued to allow an unrepentant child molester to remain in their church -- and therefore around their little girls. Why? Because to even lovingly kick his rear end out would mean being exclusionary/right-wing, right? And heaven forbid a left-wing group of people exclude even someone who's actively harming the weak or vulnerable, because exclusion is what right-wingers do all the time, right? No, the decision was made to continue including this evil man in their fellowship, to put their anti-right-wing living ahead of the safety of their daughters.

I've also been in left-wing churches that continued to allow people who spout anti-Gay teachings into positions of place, teaching, or authority in their fellowship -- so anti-Christ hate becomes part of their church's left-wing message not only to those hidden and known Gays in their congregation, but also to the greater Gay (and straight) community. Why? Because to tell Gay-haters to stop representing Jesus Christ as a Hater would be an unloving/right-wing, right? And heaven forbid a left-wing group of people not lovingly ignore the damage done by those who participate in driving Gay people into alcohol/drug abuse, self-hate, God-hating religions, and suicide, because letting people keep hurting other people means "we love everyone", right?

And left-wing churches that proudly leave the Bible on the recycle can are a dime a dozen, these days. So while the right-wing has falsified the Bible and its message through mistranslations and misinterpretations that distort and lie about what God thinks of war, wealth, Gays, women, the poor, and so on, left-wing Christianity has "countered" that by simply refusing to take the Bible seriously. In fact, there's a whole left-wing academic industry that puts out great scholarly works that do nothing more than assure the left-wing that Jesus was nothing more "embarrassing" than just a Really Good Guy (and not that unscientific God-person the right-wing believes He is). So, while the world is starving for the God-strength justice, comfort, and truth found only in the Bible, left-wing Christianity passes out fliers telling people food is oppressive.

Which all means -- what? It all means that if I as a Gay person go to right-wing Christianity, I'm going to:

• Be among people who would actively harm me or others who are weak or vulnerable; 
• Be among people whose "Jesus" message includes hate against Gay people; and, 
• Be among people who don't put forward the real truth of God, and God's power, and God's values, as given to us in the original languages and historical, linguistic, and cultural contexts of the Bible, because it doesn't fit how they want to see the world.

And if I as a Gay person go to left-wing Christianity? Well, that means I'm going to:

• Be among people who would actively allow others to harm me or others who are weak or vulnerable, in order to remain "inclusive";
• Still be among people whose "Jesus" message includes hate against Gay people, in order to remain "loving"; and, 
• Still be among people who don't put forward the real truth of God, and God's power, and God's values, as given to us in the original languages and historical, linguistic, and cultural contexts of the Bible, in order to be "smarter" than that silly stuff right-wingers hold on to. 

And you know what? To me -- and to millions upon millions of other Gay people -- that's just not enough of a difference to mean that modern left-wing Christianity is any less full of unsafe crap than right-wing Christianity. It just means that if you're a right-wing Christian, you're going to be unsafe and expect me to see you as unsafe, but if you're a left-wing Christian, you're going to be unsafe and expect me to see you as a hero.

And -- truly -- that's a sorry shame, because it hasn't always been that way. And truly it's not supposed to be that way, at all.

The values of speaking truth to power (in our fellowships, and not just in the voting booth), of standing up for the oppressed and vulnerable (in our fellowships, and not just in academia), of recognizing and acting against enemies because we're loving them and praying for their hearts to change (in our fellowships, and not just in other countries), and more -- all, all are God's values, and all are demonstrated and talked about over and over and over again in the Bible.

And you know, those are all left-wing values, as well. Problem today is that modern left-wing Christianity has become as complacent and attached to the world as left-wingers in general. A hundred years ago, lefties put their lives and fortunes on the line for the oppressed, making mistakes -- sure -- but still doing their best standing up for what was right in the Name of God -- while today most lefties just want to go home, write a check to some political organization, and show up to church and congratulate themselves for not being right-wingers. A hundred years ago, lefties still understood that doing things God's way was THE way to get justice and goodness in the world -- while today most lefties think the best way to be a good Christian is to dump everything that marks one as a Christian (including everything the Bible -- "that silly little book of myths and stories!" -- has to say about Jesus and so on).

The "fix" for left-wing Christianity to be anything more than narcissism (and any more real than right-wing "Christianity" is), then, is for left-wing Christians to once again: 

• Take back the Bible from the right-wingers and the trashing they've given it, and start preaching its real godly message to the world again (sorry, but little academic-focused, middle-class, friendship book clubs just aren't cutting it);
• Start promoting Jesus for all his Godly Goodness to the world again, and stop being embarrassed that your religion has a REAL GOD who does REAL GOD THINGS (even when your other secular lefty friends try to shame you for it -- grow a spiritual backbone, for heaven's sake!);
• Start looking for Jesus coming back to wipe away all the injustice and evil lefties hate, and stop living as if human politics -- even left-wing human politics -- can do more than band-aid the mess this world is in;
• Start handing out inclusion and protection from the ground up, keeping safe and helping heal those who are the "least of these" (including, but not only, Gays) first, and not helping perpetuate their harm by assisting and comforting those who hurt and abuse them (take a new look -- that may be one of those instructions your left-wing Christianity left out). 
• Get off that easy-think-that's-really-no-think B.S. that says being "good" is just a matter of saying "yes" when right-wingers say "no", and "off" when right-wingers say "on", because it just makes left-wingers look like educated-idiots, and does nothing to improve what left-wing Christianity produces. 

In other words, left-wing Christians need to start being the real followers of Jesus their spiritual ancestors were, and that the Bible calls them to be. Until then? Sorry -- it's pretty, and I'm sure it makes you happy. But still not real. Not safe. Not Christian.

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This article written by Lynne at No Junk. Just Jesus. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.