Why anti-Gay theology is just another worldly system

The Bible -- especially the New Testament -- talks a lot about the world, and about things that are "worldly" -- meaning, things that are about human values and for sinful human benefit, rather than about God's way.

Jesus said that neither He nor His original disciples were "of the world". And that makes total sense, since the Bible also tells us that the devil is the ruler of this world. Anything done according to the usual way of the world, then, is done according to the devil's -- and not God's -- way.

So, to do right by God sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

• Hold to God's stuff -- the stuff that's all about good.
• Push away the devil's stuff -- the stuff that pretends to be all about good.

But which is which?

The human church and its theologians and translators and pastors/priests/popes are quick to tell us that answer, aren't they? Most of them will tell you whether someone is "worldly" or not depends on how they think and what they do about sex, human authority, and economics. Some others will add in that you can tell if someone is "worldly" or not by what how they stand up against wealth, oppression, and exploitation.

But very few will add that "worldliness" is also about whether one lives a Christian life the human church's way -- or God's way. 

I've come to realize over the last several years that there are certain ways that human systems "work" in the world. And I do mean all human systems, including the medical system, political system, justice system, economic system, and more.

Whether in ancient history or modern day, and in every human culture, every human system invariably:

1. Claims to be highly responsible, but fights against having to be accountable for much of anything.
2. Claims to be beyond questioning or above investigation, but obsessively hides its errors and sins and attacks those who threaten to expose them.
3. Claims to have tons of data to support or justify it, but that data just doesn't exist or it's been fudged or faked.
4. Claims to  be responsible for great benefits, but those are either not real or were caused by something else.
5. Claims only it can protect us from great, looming dangers, when actually it's one of or the largest threat we face. 

Quick example -- today's modern western medical system, which:

1. Claims to be highly responsible, but fields one of the most powerful political lobby groups in the world to maintain and promote profit and prestige first before everyone and everything else. 
2. Claims to be beyond questioning or above investigation, but obsessively hides its mistakes and incompetents, and punishes those who report even gross negligence.
3. Claims to have tons of data to support or justify it, but doesn't use real science anymore for its medications and treatments. Research by MDs shows that more than 80% of the time, doctors are simply guessing or just doing what everyone else is doing -- without any real data to demonstrate what they're doing works or won't do more damage than good.
4. Claims to  be responsible for great benefits, as in how it promotes itself as the cause of much longer lifespans, when it's actually only added about 3 years to anyone's life (if not taking more than that away -- see #2 and #3 above). What actually doubled our lifespans? Modern sanitation practices, which allowed for cleaner food, water, and living spaces.
5. Claims only it can protect us from great, looming dangers, that only it can protect our good health and wallets from bad medicine and charlatans, when actually modern western medicine causes more death and injury than heart disease, and more than cancer, each and every year.

It would (or should) be very easy to understand the human system of modern western medicine, then, as a worldly system -- one about human sinfulness, and not about God's way of loving and caring for people. We may work within it. We may need it. We may enjoy what it actually is good at.

But modern western medicine still remains a human system, run according to human values, and therefore a worldly system. 

What about anti-Gay theology?

Well, anti-Gay theology is actually only one part of a larger human system that calls itself "the Church", but which is more appropriately called "the human version of Church".

And this human version of church:

1. Claims to be highly responsible, but can't even manage to live out the most basic of Jesus'  commands, like turn the other cheek and don't be fooled by Pharisees. (Yet we're supposed to learn to be "good Christians" from them and their example).
   
2. Claims to be beyond questioning or above investigation, but hides, protects, and promotes some of the most evil-living people on the planet, including child-rapists, those who lust for wealth, the self-righteous, and power-obsessives. (Yet we're supposed to be "safe" there.)
   
3. Claims to have tons of data to support or justify it, but has had to twist and remake God's real message (as He gave it to us in the original languages, contexts, history, and so on) to make it seem so. (In other words, it has to lie to make itself seem to be the real Body of Christ)
   
4. Claims to  be responsible for great benefits, but has actually been responsible through the centuries and into today for everything from mass murder and torture to driving people away from the real and only Jesus Christ (Which sounds more like the False Prophet, to anyone listening).
5. Claims only it can protect us from great, looming dangers, when actually only Jesus can protect us from anything -- and one of the things Jesus must protect us from is the human church system (and which also means it's put itself in Jesus' place -- that's called blasphemy anywhere else).

And the anti-Gay theology part of this "church"?

1. Claims to be highly responsible, but drives Gay people and their loved ones to deep depression, self-hatred, condemnation of what God has approved, drugs and alcohol, legalism, and even suicide. (Even though neither Jesus nor anyone among God's people in the Bible ever did anything like that).
   
2. Claims to be beyond questioning or above investigation, but is all part of the same "Christian" thinking that defends and demands sexism, racism, classism, and other exploitive ways of being in the world. (Which means that even if it wasn't anti-Gay, it would still be ungodly.)
   
3. Claims to have tons of data to support or justify it, but only has scripture ripped and mangled completely out of context, completely out of what God actually meant for His people to understand. (Which means they are worse than Gay-haters: they change the Word of God to suit their own itching ears.)
   
4. Claims to  be responsible for great benefits, but has accomplished nothing beyond promotion of hatred, driving Gay and straight people away from Christ, and destroying whole families, just as the rebellious, empty-talkers and deceivers of the legalists in Paul's day did (Which puts them at odds with God even more than with Gays).
5. Claims only it can protect us from great, looming dangers of being Gay, when actually it's only "dangerous" being Gay around people who follow anti-Gay theology (Which makes this one of those "Jesus, protect me from Your followers!" things).

Anti-Gay theology truly is just one more ungodly way of imagining God. It's worldly, because it functions according to the world's -- and the devil's -- values, and not God's. 

And so it rightly remains on the "Push away the devil's stuff" list.

• Even when it's "nice". 
• Even when it's smiling. 
• Even when it tells us it loves us.

In fact, it could come attached to a million dollar bill -- or the end of a rifle -- and it would still be just another worldly way of doing God's stuff wrong. 

If you are still trapped by the worldly human system of anti-Gay theology,

• Open yourself to the Holy Spirit, resting in His love, peace, and healing,
• Pray that God will help you let go of the worldliness we're calling anti-Gay theology, and
• Pray for all those -- Gay and straight -- still caught in its anti-God ugliness

And, as always -- keep to Jesus!

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed! [John 8:36]

Fundamentalism kills Fundamentalists

I just finished watching the film Born Again, a documentary by lesbian and ex-evangelical / ex-Christian Markie Hancock.

Wow.

What a reminder how, even when it's full of love, laughter, and commitment, fundamentalist Christianity is also full of pain, grief, and death not just for Gay people caught up in it, but for the straight people there, as well.

Which is just like Jesus and the New Testament writers said it would be.

The documentary also reminded of my own journey out of fundamentalism. While Markie and I grew up far apart in distance (she in the eastern USA, me in the west), class (she in upper middle class, me in working class), and family situation (she with mother and father both still in the home, me raised by a single mother and my grandparents), the actual experience and practice of growing up devoutly evangelical was so similar it was spooky.

Worse, though, was the sameness of the spiritual and psychological disease that infected and laid waste to both our families and the individuals in them.

It's easy enough to recognize the damage from fundamentalism we're conditioned to see. The scenes of Markie's brother (who also came to reject God) and his no-food-but-lots-of-beer apartment after his divorce, and his feeling that he had had to waste half his life trying (still not successfully) to heal from his fundamentalism-infused childhood certainly brought to my heart and mind my own God-rejecting family members who live within alcoholism, or who've otherwise lived lives of broken bitterness and pain born of the fundamentalist "family values" they were made to grow up under.

I wonder, though, how often we see the other damage fundamentalism causes? The damage we're conditioned not to see?

Markie's parents and other brother remain fundamentalists. This documentary presents their insistence that it's Markie's homosexuality that antagonizes God. What the film misses is that fact that the only thing antagonizing God in this setting is the fundamentalists. 

Fundamentalists are among those counted as modern-day Pharisees. But they are more than that. They are also the builders of the modern-day Tower of Babel, imagining they can prove themselves by their own works. They are also the modern-day Eve and Adam, some tricked into believing Satan while some prefer outright Satan's ways over God's. And they are the modern-day fallen Hebrews, honoring God only superficially in ways that please their own psychological needs and teaching and clinging to human ways as if they were God's.

Fundamentalists live lives of the flesh, and the damage done to them (and their families) by their lives is so obvious to those who can or will see.

Despite their white-washed tombs exterior, for example, legalistic Christians are rank with:

• Immoral behavior (like sexually abusing children and spouses)
• Sensually loving things (like praying for cars and living with more wealth than they need)
• Worshiping human power and place (like setting up, adoring, and always-excusing-the-abuses-of  hierarchy in families, churches, and society)
• Glorifying death (like blessing, adoring, and living the torture, rape, and destruction of war)
• Creating enemies to fight/hate (like bearing false witness against Gay people)
• Remaking God into their own image (like pretending that God supports their most beloved sins)
• and more.

 These are all deeds of the flesh, and Paul and others in the Bible warn clearly that:

...those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:21b)

Unfortunately, though, while it takes very, very little to unmask the God-rejection of fundamentalism, it's an incredibly aggressive spiritual disorder that only screams louder when you try to discuss anything healthier with it. Talking to someone still trapped in fundamentalism is like trying to tell a drug-user high on methamphetamine, and who lives surrounded by others who also live and breath and take meth, about the real world.

Fundamentalism really is an addiction. And just like meth and other drugs kill the body, fundamentalism kills the mind. It makes people think and do crazy things. Things like:

• Believing it's "love" to treat someone like filth (even though Jesus said to treat everyone like you'd like to be treated, and I'm doubting that fundamentalists want protections for their jobs, families, and homes to be legally denied them), and 
• Believing they are Jesus' disciples when they do the opposite of almost everything He taught (even though Jesus said those who love Him do what He says, not what they would have preferred He have said).
• and more.

All of which means that the people most deeply in danger of hellfire in this film were Markie's fundamentalist parents and brother. 

See, God understands people like Markie and her other ex-Christian brother. He understands and will do something about sheep like this being hurt and chased away from Him. When we know to look for it, His assurance about this is all over the Bible. Here's just one place we can find it:

"Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!" declares the LORD. Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: "Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done," declares the LORD. "I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing," declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 23:1-4)

Here's another:

(Jesus said:) Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie -- I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and make them know that I have loved you. (Revelation 3:9)

And I myself am just one of millions upon millions of proofs that one can be raised in a fundamentalist church, infected with the spirit of fundamentalism, and to escape that wander for many years far into hating and rejecting God because of confusing Him with those in my life and culture who blasphemously claimed to represent Him -- and still be completely healed of fundamentalism and its siblings through the still and always present love of the real Jesus Christ. I am also proof that one can make that journey and return to Him as a Lesbian, and remain a Lesbian.

God understands stumbling blocks. God understood why I went so far away. And He actually even used my time away from Him to burn off fundamentalism from my soul, like burning away a cancer. And then He helped me to see that He'd never been far from me at all.

But what does God think of those who put the stumbling blocks out there? 

(Jesus said:) Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’ (Matthew 7:15-23)

(Jesus said:) But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes! (Matthew 18:6-7)

(Jesus said:) So just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 13:40-42)

As long as any human being remains within fundamentalism, they are in danger of hellfire. Because they are fundamentalist? No. They are in danger of hellfire because fundamentalism is Jesus-hating, despite its false belief otherwise.

God doesn't hate fundamentalists. Fundamentalists hate God. And they treat Him with the same false-"love" they treat us: pretending good; delivering bad.

There are too many people still needing to release and heal from fundamentalism and its siblings. So, which fundamentalists can you pray for in your life? Not in the self-righteous, self-lifting way that fundamentalists pray, but in the Jesus-way. Who needs help - not to become or start thinking like you, but to start opening more and more to the real Holy Spirit and the real Savior who wants more than anything for them to find and invite Him in?

To whom in your life is Jesus saying:

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. (John 5:39-40)

A final note:

Fundamentalism is insidious. Its warping of our hearts and minds is stealthy. Treacherous. Subtle. And those of us who were raised or otherwise immersed in it can think we've moved beyond it -- yet still carry it like germs to infect and kill other parts of our lives.

If we have fundamentalism anywhere in our past, we have to recognize that it marked us then and probably in some ways marks us even now. Makes us think in black-or-white ways, for example, and to think that's "smart". Makes us think domination and control is a good thing, so that hurting people is "Ok". Or makes us believe even that dysfunctional families and churches and jobs and schools and governments are "normal". And so on.

All of which means that if we aren't noticing, we can still be very hurtful - in our families, in our churches, to the spread of the true Gospel, and more - and not even realize it. We should all to spend a lot of time with the Lord, allowing Him to continue healing us of this spiritual disease so that we don't continue to spread it, even as we think we are rejecting it.

There's nothing sweeter and more healing, than the true Gospel of Jesus Christ!

(Jesus said:) Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30)

Come out, come out - from wherever you are!

Coming out can be a fearful thing. Events like National Coming Out Day help, because they can get us in touch with others who have made or are making the journey to being fully who they are in the world -- something we can never do while we are still "in the closet". And even if we still don't "come out" ourselves that year, we still have the opportunity to hear more of the truth about being Gay or Lesbian:

• We can be as normal and healthy as straight people (but like other oppressed minorities, we have to choose to be).
• We can be as loving and moral as straight people (though, like most straight people, we should aim higher than that!). 

Some informational and helping resources for coming out as Gay or Lesbian can be found in HRC's A Resource Guide to Coming Out (you can direct-download the PDF here).

HRC also offers A Straight Guide to LGBT Americans, a guide for straight people who are or have found out about Gay people in their lives (PDF here).

Other coming out guides can he found on their site, as well. 

One other guide I noted on their site was Living Openly in Your Place of Worship (PDF here). And that's what I'd like to spend a few minutes on, this morning.

Struggling to be allowed -- by other human beings -- to be who God created us to be in "places of worship" can be a mighty work of God. It truly can.

But it can also be a devil's errand. 

And we have to know which it is in the "place(s) of worship" we want to be a part of.

See, most Gay Christians simply want "in". Or back in. We are nearly always just as contaminated by human-created "churches" ("liberal", "conservative", and in between) which change or ignore God's Word when it doesn't match their  human- and demon-inspired "theology" and live by human-pleasing "values" that only mimic God's way, as straight people are.

And it's understandable we'd be that way. We (and straight people) grow up in cultures where fake-church and fake-Jesus permeate absolutely everything. In such an atmosphere, it would be an amazing thing if we didn't at least start off thinking we see and know what God really wants when actually we've only absorbed what human beings want to pretend God wants.

In that sense, we're a lot like the paganistic Hebrews still living in Egypt: we think we already have it right -- and we have no idea what God really has in store for us and our future. 

So here's the thing:

If we Gay people are struggling to get in or back in to Egypt, aren't we going the wrong way?

Praying, talking, discussing, picketing, arguing, pleading, preaching, and fighting to get back into what only pretends to be God's house is sure the wrong way.

But it hurts, I know, to be separated from our community or the church.  It really does.

But we have to ask ourselves why. WHY does it hurt to be separated?

I know from personal experience:

When we're really, truly, finally honest with ourselves and each other, we can only admit that it hurts because we're missing the human connection we find "in church".

How can I say that? 

Because God is found everywhere. When God let the temple be destroyed, He let be destroyed the last place He'd ever let Himself be "housed". Instead, our bodies -- individually and collectively -- became His temple, the place where His Spirit works and rests and lives. So if we want to "be with" God, then we simply need to turn our thoughts and heart toward His presence within us.

So, is it wrong to hunger for that human connection? Absolutely not. God created us as social beings. We need other human beings around us and as part of our lives.  

The problem comes, of course, when we start mixing up our need for human connection with our need for God connection -- when we start believing the lie that says satisfying what human beings want from us will also satisfy what God wants from and for us, as His people.

Human beings are sinful wretches. Religious human beings are the worst sinners on the planet. And that includes Gay people too.

And that means that if human-church people aren't blocking or attacking Gay people, they're blocking or attacking African-descent people, or women, or the poor, and so on. And if they aren't doing that, they're full of people who cheat and abuse the poor, or treat women like garbage, or give themselves respect and authority that belongs to God alone, and more.

Even "nice" churches are chock full of a nasty case of humanitis, simply because they are full of religious human beings, if nothing else.

And that's what we're struggling to be allowed back in to?

That's what we can't wait to become "clergy" in?

That's what we think God wants from us?

Don't know about you, but my own answer -- after years of answering wrong -- is today:  

No way!

Being a follower of Jesus Christ means walking a lot of fine lines. It's all part of that "narrow road" He told us to make sure we keep to.

As Gay Christians, one of the fine lines we have to walk isn't that much different from the walk that straight people have to make, too:

• Rejecting what only pretends to be about Jesus
• Accepting with our whole, exclusive heart the real Jesus. 

The difference for us is that those straight people who have hatred and condemnation in their whitewashed-tomb-hearts have actually done us a great favor in removing us from their churches. 

Being kicked out of a church that even the real Jesus isn't allowed in is not as bad as we think, once we get past the real human hurt we feel!

So do consider prayerfully whether the church you want so badly to get back in to, or be a more open part of, or otherwise "serve" in some way is actually what Jesus wants you to do.

Is there something more godly you could be doing? Like maybe...

• Joining with others who have also rejected human-church for the real Jesus and His real, worldwide Body (as in making friends, not simply in joining another religious organization).
• Shedding all the human-invented theologies and contraptions that are simply pagan practices painted with a Jesus face on top (the book Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices is one place to start).
• Allowing the Holy Spirit to heal your human hurt, and to grow you new courage and contentment in God's real ways
• Doing God's work like He intended: through your own effort, and not simply via some pastor or committee. (Like, how about learning a homeless person's name and bringing them some coffee and a smile the next cold morning? And then how about not telling anyone you did it, so it stays between you and God?)

God had a LOT more in store for the Hebrews than to simply half- and fake-worship Him in Egypt. He has a lot more in store for us too, when we'll finally let Him lead us away from Pharaoh's way of doing things.

So do come out today! -- As a Lesbian or Gay man in love with the real Jesus Christ and His way of doing things, even to taking up the Cross of rejecting human versions of Him that have sunk themselves like hooks into your heart.

Let Jesus heal, direct, and own - even this!

Christian? What do you owe Gays & Lesbians - and Jesus?

With the recent attention on Gay teen abuse and suicide, something else has become even more apparent: just how much deeply Gays and Lesbians have been spiritually, emotionally, and physically abused by false Christianity and religion in general. What's also becoming more and more apparent in the face of escalating attacks upon us by false Christianity is a greater willingness by Gays and Lesbians to express disgust, rage, and hatred toward anything Christian.

I just watched, for example, this clip from (Gay man) Michelangelo Signorile's radio show, where a straight Christian man - who said yes he believes that Gays are going to hell, and yes he believes the Bible condemns us - called in to respond to what Michelangelo was saying about Gay teen suicide. The conversation pretty well illustrates where most straight Christians and most Gay people are in the USA right now.

Here are just a few quotes from their dialogue. If any of what they express does not sound familiar to you, you haven't been listening to those both Gay and straight who most need to hear from you:

Michelangelo (after Christian man said his being polite to Michelangelo proved he was being respectful): "You've not shown me one shred of respect. You've spoke nicely, and you've been polite, but that's not respect because you think I'm less than you. You think I'm a sinner."

So Michelangelo calls nonsense on the idea that you can label someone's life perverse, unnatural, or ungodly and do so with a good conscience because you were polite and nice when you did it. And he's completely correct in that call.

First of all, the idea that homosexuality is wrong comes right out of the same perverse and ungodly "scholarship" that also convinced most people at one time or another that:

• Women can only "serve" God by being object for men's pleasure and sexual reproduction and otherwise shutting the heck up and making dinner.
• People of African descent should only be slaves - and God likes slavery anyway.
• People have wealth and/or power in the world because God favors them. 
• People who are poor and/or powerless are supposed to shut the heck up and live short, brutal lives under the thumbs of the wealthy people God likes more.
• Christians can torture and kill other people and God likes it, as long as they do it with a military uniform on. 
• And so on.

We should all be calling nonsense on all of those, as well, because these also only "work" scripturally when sinful human beings twist the Scripture out of the linguistic, historical, cultural, textual, and Jesus meaning that God gave to us, and into their own version of "God should have really said/meant THIS".

And there just isn't any way to tell lies about what God said and do it in a "respectful" or "loving" way.

Second of all, this whole idea that the "proof" of our Christianity is that we're "nice", is more than ridiculous. Some of the nicest, most respectful and even caring people I've ever known have been atheists, buddhists, new agers, hindus, and more. "Niceness" only proves you know how to interact with others without stealing their toys or spitting on them. "Respectfulness" means you hold the other person to at least the same level of Ok-ness that you hold yourself to.

This Christian man's "niceness" and false-"respectfulness" only proved he knew how to play the "good Christian" game to a degree that he'd even fooled himself. Problem is, fewer people - Gay or straight - are buying that garbage anymore.

Even BIGGER problem is - more and more of them are rejecting Jesus completely because of how poorly so-called "Christians"demonstrate Him to the world. After all, here's Joe Christian who "loves" the people he trashes and hurts, and there's the God he claims to represent. How hard it is for anyone outside of Joe Christian's cult of Scripture-twisting to not assume that God's love is just as fake or shallow as Joe Christian's is?

What kind of fixes can you see here, that you can make a part of your own life? For me, I see things like:

• Helping people see real, nonjudgmental love from my heart. That means speaking up against something only when it's obvious wrong (like - its hurting people, causing them to kill themselves, or chasing them from God - DUH!). That also means constant repentance for those times I screw this up, and my trying to find ways to make things right again for those I've wrongly made think the Lord is just as stupid as I am.
• Helping Gay teens and adults to understand God's real love for them. That means going out of my way to tell them the truth. Not just assuming they'll get it from church or the internet or something. Something like telling them, "I'm not pushing you at all to become a Christian, but it hurts me when bigoted people tell lies about what's in the Bible and I just want to point out that the real Bible, in its real languages and such, does NOT say all those stupid, hateful things a lot of people say it does. What the Bible does really say is that God has gone to an awful lot of trouble to try and show every person -- including every Gay person -- that He created us just as we are because He loves us dearly, and He can't stand the thought of not wanting to be with us through eternity."

 More from the dialogue:

Michelangelo (challenging Christian man's reason for calling): "You called because you're feeling really guilty because you felt the finger was pointed at you and you wanted to convince me you're a nice person, but I think that you are a sheep. I think that you don't think on your own. I think you have a cop-out here. You want to believe you're not doing anything wrong but you are doing something terribly wrong, very wrong. You are part of the climate of hate if you give money to that church. If you in any way support that church, you are a hatemonger. You're not going to convince me of anything else and you can once again say 'I've been nice to you', (but) I don't give a cr*p how nice you are. Tell it to the kids who are being bludgeoned on the streets and who committed suicide because of your beliefs."

Wow. Any person with Christ in their heart hearing that shoved at them should feel - what? Anger? Sorry for the sinner that said it? Happy not to be such a heathen?

Nope. A person with the real Jesus in their heart would be cut to the quick by that. 

Would recognize that what's described is THE number one sin of modern Christianity:

Going mindlessly along with all sorts of human and demonic garbage whorishly painted up like a smiling Jesus-from-hell, never challenging the false-Christianity, and feeling really good about it and their salvation because that's what the pastor/priest/pope said is right and because the best way to be a Christian is to not make waves in the Christian world.

And a person with the real Jesus in their heart would immediately do a self-check and see if what was said was really true, and if so, get on their knees and repent of it immediately, apologizing to God and people alike for being such a poisonous, "inoffensive" sheep.

Because what is this person (in this case Michelangelo) saying? S/he's saying:

"People are suffering beyond their ability to stay mentally and spiritually healthy, and in some cases physically alive, because of how you and the people you stand with are being so-called 'Christians'."

It shouldn't be hard to figure out. If because of our "witness" people are: 

• Crying,
• Hurting themselves,
• Drinking,
• Drugging,
• Crawling away from God,
• Hating Jesus,
• Despising themselves and others like them,
• and more...

...then it's darn sure what we're practicing ain't what Jesus taught, and it's dang sure we are to be counted amongst those false Christians that Jesus sends in the End to the fires of hell, no matter how many healings and exorcisms and good works we've done in Jesus' Name. 

We should get that, and straight Christians should get that: 

It isn't being Gay that will send you to hell or makes God hold His nose when you pray. What does  send you to hell? 

• Being a poisonous sheep. 
• Being a nice hypocrite. 
• Being anything like what the church that humans' built calls "Christian".  

But now, what if we look at ourselves and we are not guilty of this Number One Sin of the modern Christian world (at least not now) that we've just been accused of? What should be our response then? 

• Love. Because this person is someone deserving real love from us, because whether they ever decide to follow Jesus or not they still already have real love from God. 
• Agreement. Because they do have it right, even if they need to narrow down that shotgun blast range just a bit.
• Help to hopefully begin to see the difference between the good God and the bad Christians He actually warned us would show up in droves, and who He warned us to protect ourselves from.

What every Gay and straight Christian owes to Gay men and Lesbians is the truth of God. The REAL God. The one who created a whole world just because He loves us. The one who stands on the side of the oppressed, and sends the oppressors away empty and hell-bound. The one who knows our sorrows, has suffered them Himself, and who promises to make things all right in the End, just to make sure He gets to love us forever.

So I ask you what I ask of myself, today:

• What can you start doing today for Gay teens and adults in your life, community, church, and city?  
• What does God require you to speak out against, because it doesn't represent who He really is?
• How can you better show the real Jesus to yourself and others, more and more each day?

Here are some other resources and articles you might find useful, or that might get you started:

• The GLBT National Help Center (for both adults and youth)
• Gay Teen Suicides, Bullying and Christianity: A Talk with the Trevor Project Director
• It Gets Better - Youth Pride Chorus

Yes, we really CAN - and should - figure it out without "leaders"

Yesterday, completely by accident, my wife and I ended up in the audience of a same-sex marriage debate forum.

Most of those on the panel were local to the state we currently live in, but there was one very famous national figure: Maggie Gallagher known most for being president of the so-called "National Organization for Marriage". That's the group that lies about Gay people and our  families and then gets all emotional accusing Gay people of "attacking" them when they get even a tiny response [check out some NOM info here and a YouTube discussing one of their ads here]. And Maggie sure lived up to the ideals of her organization, yesterday.

Maggie Gallagher pushes what she believes, and she wholeheartedly believes her belief is of God -- as do those who follow her. And the same is true of almost all other Christian leaders, from Right to Left and back again. From James Dobson to Pope Benedict XVI to John Dominic Crossan to Martin Luther and more, people most often understand God's way through the human Christian leaders they choose to follow (in church, through television, through books, and so on).

What's wrong with that? Well, for one thing, it's against God.

Speaking prophetically through David, God said:

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.

Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you. [Psalm 32:8-9]

Yet that's what almost all of us do, almost all of the time. We're like horses (more like mules) that don't come to God unless we have something that's not God that makes us move. In David's day, that something was the Mosaic law -- something given by God for and to the ancient Hebrews, but certainly not itself God, not meant to be used forever, and never able to save us by itself. Today most often we use other human beings - Christian leaders and their churches and organizations - to guide us to God's truth.

Problem is, being just as human as the rest of us, there's no guarantee that Christian leaders are actually any closer to God's truth than we are. In fact, if their surety of being closer to God's truth is a theological education, pastoral or priestly ordination or confirmation, or something else gotten via human beings, they may actually be further from God's real truth than someone without.

And when that's the case, do we really think that the bit and bridle they have in our mouths is going to lead us to Jesus?

What did Jesus say?

..the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. [John 14:26]

So, the things for any Christian to know to be right with God are the things that Jesus has said. And these are the things we don't need any teacher to learn once the Holy Spirit begins to teach us.

When does the Holy Spirit begin to teach us?

..you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. [1 John 2:20]

When the Holy Spirit enters our hearts, we have God's anointing. Then we can and should learn and know God's truth:

See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—even eternal life. I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him. [1 John 2:24-27]

What should we learn and keep in our minds and hearts? What keeps us tight with God? What guarantees us eternal life? What was taught at the beginning. 

What what taught at the beginning? The original message, right from the mouths of Jesus and His first disciples.  

And why don't we need anyone to keep us in God's truth? Because (hopefully) we have the Holy Spirit in our minds and hearts. 

As Christians, if we're doing what God says, we're learning only from God what Jesus taught from the beginning. And that excludes a lot of things human beings have added on or changed in the last 1,900 years. In fact, it excludes almost everything we often count as "Christian" or ok for Christians today.

Maggie Gallagher's own description yesterday of what God means for marriage, for example, is classic Roman Catholic teaching, rooted in pagan and very human ideas thought up four hundred and more years after Christ, and added on to the poo-pile of "just as good as Jesus" teaching still called "Christianity" -- and all by men who loathed women and God's natural creation (things Jesus never went along with). 

So, while those who follow Maggie Gallagher think they're doing things God's way, they're actually simply going along with the human-created belief system Maggie Gallagher has taken on because it attempts to give honor to and makes sense of Maggie Gallagher's very messed up life (as she described it). 

And that's what we all risk when we decide to be or follow human leaders. Our flaws always lead first, even when (especially when) we believe ourselves trained or mature beyond such problems.

In fact, there's only one human being who wasn't completely full of his/her own ridiculous, sinful, self-centered human nature - and that was Jesus. All of the rest of us human beings should come with a large, flashing label:

WARNING:
Do not follow!
Potentially spiritually dangerous to self and others.

So, if we're doing anything except going right and only to Jesus? We should be cringing right now just imagining it...

Two more things:

First, does this mean we should never listen to each other? 

Absolutely not. We are (hopefully) a gift to each other, and we are all parts of the body of Christ. If the arms and legs aren't listening to each other, or the ankle thinks it can get where it needs to go on its own - they're all in big trouble. Paul wrote to the Hebrews:

Let's consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let's not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let's encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching. [Hebrews 10:24-25]

Working and living and loving and challenging together (not sitting in a stained glass box once a week and repeating prayers and songs someone else leads us in) is what we as Christians are called to do. It's one of the things we should be learning from God, through our Holy Spirit anointing. It's certainly one of the things the first Christians had down pat. We know that because their love for each other was one of the things that drew so many new people to what they had to offer: the real Jesus.

Second, just how does it work, to use our anointing to get back to and stick with what Jesus taught?

It works like this:

Whatever you're considering, always check out what Jesus or one of His first disciples had to say about it, and go with what they taught.

Does that mean we have to live their exact lives? No, of course not. Times have changed, cultures have changed. What hasn't changed? What God expects of us. So, if God expected loving enemies 2,000 years ago, He expects it now. Does that mean we only have to love enemies that still dress or act like Roman soldiers, or that we have to dress or act like Jews or Greeks 2,000 years ago? Of course not! We live in Jesus to the extent that we follow what God means to accomplish, and not to the extent we play stupid-literal with His words.

Now, doing that can be difficult because, in accepting the original and only real teachings of Jesus, we have to peel away the added-on and changed garbage human beings insist goes with it. That garbage is like a smoking or drinking habit - it seems like our best friend, makes us feel good about ourselves and our world, even while it's killing us and destroying our families. But that's what the Holy Spirit is there for: that teaching and reminding part. 

Keep in mind too that doing things God's way doesn't mean having all understanding. It doesn't even mean we have to be really smart. For example, there are probably three people in the world who truly understand all the causes and problems with the various wars going on right now -- wars against terrorists, wars by terrorists, wars against terrorists by terrorists. Everyone else has a bias, and -- sorry -- nearly all of us simply get our "information" from whatever propaganda source we like most. We just don't have access to the information sources and wisdom it would take to truly sort out who started what and what it all means and so on.

But we don't have to be Christian Albert Einstein to figure out God's way, because Jesus not only told us what it is, He also lived it. Take a look at these few scriptures, for example:

You have heard that it was said, ‘AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect. [Matthew 5:38-48]

While Jesus was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people. Now he who was betraying Him gave them a sign, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He is the one; seize Him.” Immediately Judas went to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed Him. And Jesus said to him, “ Friend, do what you have come for.” Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him. And behold, one of those who were with Jesus reached and drew out his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus to him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword. [Matthew 26:47-52]

Wasn't Judas an enemy that night? Weren't those who came to arrest Jesus His enemies? Heck, they were acting against God Himself!  Today's Christian world overwhelmingly authorizes and promotes attacking enemies, shoving and hurting back under the human-created "just war theory" and other ideas added on to Christianity after its beginning. If we follow Christian leaders, then, we are most likely going to go along with if not participate in torture, rape, and killing other human beings, and even blasphemously call it "God's will" or "God's work". In doing so, we are living and acting and believing completely opposite of Jesus' teachings.

Opposite.

At odds with.

Against.

Separate from.

In opposition to.

Contradicting.

Hostile to.

Don't know about you, but in the end I don't intend to stand before the Ancient of Days and tell Him I chose to go completely against Him and the orders He gave because my pastor/priest/pope told me it was the most godly thing to do.

What about this:

Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor questioned Him, saying, “Are You the King of the Jews?” And Jesus said to him, “It is as you say.” And while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He did not answer. Then Pilate said to Him, “Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?” And He did not answer him with regard to even a single charge, so the governor was quite amazed. [Matthew 27:11-14] 

I'm guessing we'd all agree that Pilate and other Jewish chief priests and elders were all pretty much Jesus' enemies that night. It couldn't have been more obvious to anyone watching that they meant to kill him in the most brutal way -- there was no other reason to bring him before the power of Rome. Yet today the Christian leaders most people see can't wait to scream louder and louder, and to get more and more confrontational and belligerent in the rest of the world's face -- all while claiming they stand for Jesus Christ and His way. But is that what Jesus did? Don't think so. These in-your-face-for-God Christians are, in fact, living in opposition to what Jesus lived, and what the Holy Spirit would teach them. 

 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him.  They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him. And after twisting together a crown of thorns, they put it on His head, and a reed in His right hand; and they knelt down before Him and mocked Him, saying, “ Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat on Him, and took the reed and began to beat Him on the head. After they had mocked Him, they took the scarlet robe off Him and put His own garments back on Him, and led Him away to crucify Him. [Matthew 27:27-31]

 Ok - now's when Jesus gets off His knees and calls down a zillion angels to kick enemy butt, right? He's had it with this ungodly behavior, and He's not going to allow them to insult God or God's people or God's ways any longer, right? Wrong, of course. Jesus gave very specific instructions regarding how to behave when we are abused and even killed. He said and lived that we are not to become the evil that we are angry at and hurt by, even when that evil attacks God and God's people . But, once again, that's not the message we get from most Christian leaders today. Oh, we get lip-service, of course. And we get told Jesus only allowed all this because He was paying for our sins. And we get reminded that Jesus did say He would come and kick evil's butt.

But what they forget or ignore (because it doesn't fit their own human-created version of what Jesus said) is that Jesus only had to pay for our sins because we human beings have from the beginning insisted on completely messing things up by constantly making up our own versions of what God wants. 

See, Jesus took one lash because God said don't kill other people, but instead, throughout human history we've not only made up reasons He shouldn't care we've killed people, but also reasons He should even like it.

Jesus took another lash because we human beings love-love-love to reinvent His plan. Jesus said He's coming at the End to finally answer every prayer that asked Him to finally and completely get rid of all evil in the world (especially including all the evil that pretends to be godly in the world). But then Christian leaders change that to mean (1) He can't possibly mean us, even if we've lived completely opposite every way He said to live and still called ourselves His followers, and (2) since He's coming to wipe out just the bad stuff in the end, that means we get to wipe out everything that our puny human minds have decided is bad stuff today.

(How in the world does God manage to put up with us? Can anyone ever doubt His mercy and the huge effort He's put out to save us from ourselves?) 

The first big secret to living a truly godly life is to do what Jesus said. He wasn't making any of it up. And He never said we're allowed to change or adapt His few simple rules to make them "make more sense", or because we're "smarter" or "more enlightened" now than people were 2,000 years ago. He just said "Do it, and I'll know you're Mine."

The second big secret to living a truly godly life is continually purging all the made-up human crapola that's been added by Christian leaders to what we think is "normal", and cemented on by their followers for that last 1,900 years. You spiritually hungry? Tired? You want meat and vegetables? A decent roof over your too-human head? Then stop eating the dirt and poo your fellow human beings brought forth out of their own dark hearts and messed up lives, and get into the Jesus Diner, where the Bread of Life never runs out, and the Water of Life fills the pool of the free mansion out back.

What do real leaders look like?

"Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open." - Corrie ten Boom (April 15, 1892 – April 15, 1983)

It can be very confusing and even scary. There's just so much poor and false leadership among those who call themselves "Christian" today. It's very easy - as Jesus warned it would be - to end up on the wide path to destruction, instead of the narrow path that actually leads to God and life.

So where do we find people who've done it right?

Well, one of the leaders I've learned most from is a woman who never would have called herself a leader, and who never had any intention of becoming a well-known anything (though I'm sure she would have loved being known in her local community as a really good watch repairer).

I never met Corrie ten Boom. In fact, when she died in 1983 I was a young lesbian still in deep hurt and hatred of all things Christian, having been chased away from God by those who were claiming most loudly to be His best (and often only) representatives.

I wonder if I'd been able to meet Corrie before she went to the Lord, would I have been spared another 15-20 years of struggling to find out that God had nothing to do with the rejection I'd been dealt, and that being a follower of Jesus actually did mean something good (and not something vile and hate-filed, as I'd been taught)?

Truly, God only knows. And although those were horribly painful years, I don't regret them. I learned as Corrie learned: the pain in our lives can come from outside evil, or from within ourselves, but neither of them is God's real way. What is God's real way?

That's the other thing that Corrie ten Boom can show us so very well.

Corrie grew up Christian in the Netherlands, and was in her middle life when the Nazi's took over her country. She and her family soon were hiding and helping Jews escape, stealing and making food ration cards to feed their charges, all while continuing to work their family business. All until they were found out and taken by the Nazis, first to prison (where her elderly father died), and then she and her sister to the horrible Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. There, her sister died and Corrie was spared death only on a technical error (so the world would say!).

And it was in the midst of all this pain that Corrie learned about the real Jesus, and about allowing Him into her heart and strength to do the things she could not do under her own power.

What things? Well, things like:

• Risking all she had -- even her beloved family and ability to make a living that fed her family - to stand up against what was wrong. 
• Surviving horrible evil that beat, starved, reviled, and killed her family (a sister right before her eyes), when so few were able to. And,
• After the war and being released, actually shaking the hand and forgiving one of the camp guards who'd done all this to her, releasing her worldly right to hate and perhaps even hurt this man (she later wrote of that experience, "For a long moment we grasped each others' hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's love so intensely as I did then.")

See, one of the things I appreciate most about Corrie ten Boom is that she is a real Christian hero. She's also a real Christian leader. She was confronted by evil and pain the likes of which most of us reading this post will never know, and she did things wrong. She hated. She failed her Lord over and over again.She was just as human as all the rest of us.

But then she allowed Jesus to heal her. She allowed Jesus to teach her. She allowed Jesus to correct her day after day after day, again and again and again until there was so much of Jesus in Corrie ten Boom that few could walk away from even a conversation with her without knowing the depths of Jesus' love for them. She brought untold numbers of people to Jesus - both in the camp and later throughout the world - not because she helped them learn the prayer that would get them a new car, or pay off their bills, or even to have a happy family or strong nation. Not because she got them hooked on her own church. Not because she zoomed them up each Sunday so they'd have enough spiritual zip to make it to the next Sunday "hit".

No, Corrie ten Boom was truly the hands, eyes, feet, mouth, and heart of Jesus in this world because she gave people Jesus - just Jesus.

If you haven't checked Corrie ten Boom out, I invite you to do so. If you think you've learned all you can from her life, I invite you to take a new look. Jesus never stops teaching through the example of those who are real leaders in His real church.

Here are some things to check out:

Her life:

• More about Corrie's life from Wikipedia

Her books (note that a lot of these can be found at the library or in used book stores - I list links only so you can see more about them):

• The Hiding Place - the one she's most known for. It's the story of her life through surviving Ravensbrück. It was also made into a movie, which is not as good as the book, of course, since they have to leave out so much in a movie.
• Tramp for the Lord - the followup, this one goes from after the camp through most of the rest of her life. 
• I Stand at the Door and Knock: Meditations by the Author of the Hiding Place - this is a collection of essays that were originally radio talks Corrie did after the war. 
• Prisoner and Yet - more details about Corrie's time at Ravensbrück.
• Defeated Enemies -  Corrie writes about deliverance and our power as children of God.
• Not Good if Detached - Corrie writes about how to live attached to Jesus
• Each New Day - a devotional by Corrie. 

 Other stuff: 

• Some quotes from Corrie ten Boom 
• The Corrie ten Boom museum

Real shepherds really repent

Recently a large group of Gay Christian church leaders of a certain "brand" (not named for privacy, but it’s a familiar kind of modern Christianity I'm referring to here) invited a number of us here locally to take part in its newest venture. They're attempting to build a new worship community, and offering all the things that normally attract people to church (even to the "unchurch" they say they're making this time).

Funny thing is, despite there being hundreds of spiritually hungry Gay Christians of this "brand" here (just that I know of), these church leaders are failing miserably even to come together amongst themselves, much less to attract other so-called "laity" to their endeavor.

How can that be?

Over the last three decades, these church leaders – counting themselves and each other "apostles", "pastors", "evangelists", "prophets", "worship leaders", and more – have, sometimes together and sometimes by themselves, run dozens of church groups. Most were in some kind of straight ministry for more years or decades before that. So, they more than know how to build and lead religious organizations.

Problem is, they don't know how to live as part of Jesus' church.

Like most of us, these church leaders' spiritual training began early in the legalistic, self-righteous, self-serving God-clubs that call themselves "Bible-based churches".

Like most of us, they absorbed translations of God's Word that twisted His meaning, ignored context, and only lived by certain Scriptures (while claiming to cling to all of it).
And like most of us, they learned how to be "church" and "church leaders" based on this false Christian, only-living-(a sorta)-Jesus-on-the-surface world.

The problem with all that is obvious. Especially for those who want to be church leaders, as they learn to:

• Continually sing praises to and ask God for His healing,
• but consume human filth,
• become spiritually sick,
• and then go out and convince others to also consume human-filth
• while praising God and asking for His healing.

People in this kind of muck soon start thinking evil things are "normal" and "biblical". They start finding ways to ignore or justify things like lying, cheating, power-tripping, sleeping around, hurting and killing people, misrepresenting God for their own benefit, failing to speak up for Jesus' real way if it would cost them something, attacking and monitoring others for sin instead of oneself, and more.

And that's what these church leaders have demonstrated in too much of their "ministry" and "churches" in the last decades. And worse, they've yet to repent of any of it, which means that, whatever their intentions today – and it's a good bet that each and every one of them counts themselves as loving, godly Christians – they are just as dangerous and anti-Christ now as they were before.

Jesus referred to this kind of fake God-living when He said:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one new convert; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. (Matthew 23:15)

This kind of "Christianity" has been mainstream for 1,900 years, starting when the Greek "saints" first began reinventing God's Word so it "made more sense" and was "better" than what Jesus and the first disciples taught. This more-human-and-less-real-Jesus "Christianity" rooted and branched out from there, so that through the centuries and even today all kinds of religious and secular "scholars", both Bible- and tradition-based, have continued to "improve" God's Word and His way so much that it really reeks.

And many of us – especially our leaders – are still up to our eyeballs in it.

But hey, if we've grown up in a vat of muck, we can't help having absorbed it into every pore of our body, right? And we probably can't be blamed for thinking that's the only right way to be a disciple of Jesus, since we've never seen anything else, right?

Right.

But if we're going to be a real follower of Jesus, and especially if we're going to claim to be one of His shepherds, we've got to get out of that filthy vat and let the Holy Spirit hose us off in the yard before finding ourselves a hot bath with a lot of real-Jesus soap, somewhere else.  

And that's what these, and too many other church leaders, fail to do. Instead, like worldly leaders, they press for more limelight, more power, more gain, while refusing more and more accountability and openness. They do this again, and again, and again, all in the Name of the Lord.


That's what makes them not worth following – because that proves them to be false leaders.

Today, it really doesn't matter how much these local or any church leaders want to create a new worship community. It doesn't matter how deeply in their hearts they feel a "call" to do so. Until they clean up and correct the messes they've already made in their own hearts and in the lives of others, they are false prophets and anti-Christs, faking the love and miracles of God without producing the Real Thing.

And they aren't to be followed or heeded by any who love and obey Jesus.

Some will hate them for their falseness. Before God healed my heart now years ago, I certainly held my share of hatred toward false Christian leaders that hurt me growing up. And since false Christian leadership has been one of the biggest causes of personal and world suffering the world has ever know, it's easy to see why they're so easy to hate.

But hating isn't the answer. Not only because as Christians we are forbidden to hate, but also because hating them means denying that God will wants these people in His (REAL) kingdom – if they will only choose to let go of their sins and come.

As for so many things, love (even of those who make themselves our enemy) and prayer (even for those who don't "deserve" it) are the answers here:

• Love of those who have sinned and need deep repentance – just as so many of us deeply sin in our own ways.
• Prayer for those who think they have the real Jesus and the real Holy Spirit, but do not – so that they will not be fooled into thinking their "good works" in His name will be enough to get them into heaven.

This week, I'm praying:

• That false leaders will find their false-humility and selfish vision as repulsive to them as it is to those they've hurt – and to God.
• That those who've been injured by false teaching will come to recognize how different it is from the real Jesus. 
• And that those that I've hurt and mislead in my own life will be revealed to me, so that I can also repent of and correct the wrongs that I've committed.

In Jesus' Name – Amen!