One of the most loaded statements in the entire Bible is found in the Old Testament book of Habakkuk. I have always loved Habakkuk the man. He is one of those guys who won't take any BS from anybody. Not even from God Himself. He looked around, didn't like what God was doing, and demanded his day in court with Him. His eyes were telling him one thing. His faith was trying to tell him something else. It was in that context of eyes vs. faith, what you see vs. what you believe that God spoke these words to a pissed-off Habakkuk: "The righteous shall live by faith."
"Living by Faith", I have learned, is a dangerous business. An old English saying goes: "Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword." I have learned the same thing can be said about "Living by Faith". Few things in life is as painful as finding out that you have placed faith in the wrong place. When faith breaks, It doesn't snap into two. It doesn't crumble into a heap. Rather, it shatters. Those who have experienced a breaking of faith know that you don't just "pick up the pieces and move on." Rather, you sit there, and you pull out the shrapnel embedded in your soul, one at a time. It is a painstaking, excruciating process (think of Job, scraping his sores with a broken piece of pottery). It is a process that leaves you scarred, and changed forever. Eventually you move on: the pain dulls, the blood dries, the wound closes. But you are never the same. Part of you died.
For as long as I can remember, for as long as I have considered myself a "person of faith", I have placed my faith in a religious institution called the church. I embraced it, I poured my life and youth into it for almost 20 years. For me, believing in Jesus and believing in the church are the same thing. I have since learned that to be a deadly mistake.
I no longer attend church. I doubt I ever will again. My experience and the experiences of others close to me have shown me the hypocrisy that is so common in "institutional Christianity". I gave 18 years of my life, the most vibrant days of my youth to the church. "Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained..."
When faith shatters, you are left with two choices: You either give up on having faith in anything, or you get up, and start searching for a better faith. I chose the latter. I chose to believe again. I need to believe again. I need to believe that my life, with all its brokenness, can be woven into the grand story of redemption that God is writing for the world. I need to believe that God's goodness is inherent in the human spirit, and the world is a better place when we help each other to find that within ourselves. I need to believe that I am placed here to bring the presence of Jesus outside the four walls of the church. I need to believe that one day, one day, the anger in me will stop, the bitterness will subside, the raging storm will calm. I need to believe...
25 years ago I thought I had found faith as a high school student when I joined the church. 25 years later, I start looking again for faith....hopefully this time, I will find something "better"...
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12 comments:
Sure, you will, you will find a better faith, Alfred.
I heard a few of my friends told me that they truly believe in God but they don't believe in the church at all. I don't blame them.
I will not say all visible church are hypocritical, I will not say all faith proclaiming Christians are hypocrites but I do know there are many, indeed many around us.
For times in my life, I was a hypocrite myself too, not doing what I said, not practising what I believe, accusing others of one thing but doing the exactly same thing in a different way, isn't that all hypocrisy. Do I know that, I do; do I like it, I don't.
I am still in a church, I am praying that I can be less hypocrite for less days in my life, I am praying that the hypocrisy will be less in the churches.
Will there be hypocrisy outside of the four walls of the church, I think there are, this is deeply rooted in our human nature.
What we need to do is to seek the better truth and to live better with the truth that we believe in.
Alfred, keep searching and keep living. No one can live without faith, the question is what kind of faith and how do we live it out.
Thank you Bill, as always for your wise and encouraging words. I don't want to discourage anyone (like yourself) from serving in church or believing in the church. It's just that for myself, it is not a world that I want to be a part of anymore. But perhaps within God's redemptive story, there is room for those who will do His work within the church community, and those who do His work outside of the church, and may be even those who do His work without even knowing they are doing so...
I will keep searching and looking. But, you know, Bill, at this point, I am just looking forward to the day when I can wake up and not be angry anymore.
Thank you for your post, Alfred. Many days, I wake up and have the same feelings as you about institutional religion, the church, etc. It all started a long time ago, and I haven't really looked back either since that time despite efforts at going back to church. While I am not sure what is "right" anymore, I too hope that one day you will wake up and not be angry anymore. As a person who is also still struggling with that in many ways, I can say it is a long road.
As Bill said, I do think that it is human nature to be hypocritical - I don't think it is confined to the walls of the church. It is in all of us. However, I think that the betrayal hurts that much more because we had put our trust in a community that we thought would be redemptive and forgiving and at a minimum respectful. Unfortunately, it has not turned out for a lot of us -- and I'm not sure we can even hold ourselves to that standard sometimes.
Good luck in your journey!
I think the problem is that many churches have bought into the culture of institutionalism. However, not all churches are that way. Christ loved the church and he gave his life for it, perhaps not the institutional kind, but Christ's kind and what it was meant to be, a community that seeks to love, forgive, and hope. I believe the church exists to gather people together as a community of faith to encourage one another in their spiritual journey and worship 24/7. If we look at that definition as "church" and compare that to how many understand "church", for instance, as a place, a structure, a building, a time we meet on Sundays. Well, somehow we do indeed fall short.
Perhaps you gave your youth and energy and even the "best" years of your life to God. And at the end of it, it seems like a lost cause or nothing to show for it. I can understand that if one thinks about it from a purely "self" perspective. But if you look at it from God's perspective, and remove "self", your life has indeed blessed many many people and has brought tremendous value to the Kingdom.
I am confident that there will be a day where you will wake up and the anger and bitterness will no longer be there. Continue to search Him. God loves you unconditionally. You're still in my prayers.
Thank you folks for your comments! Like all of you, I too agree that hyprocrisy is in all of us and it's definitely not confined within the church. I think my difficulties is that in Christian institutions, like the church, para-church organizations, missions agencies (especially missions agencies) we 'advertise' so much, and 'deliver' so little. We call ourselves a 'redemptive' community, a lofty claim by any standards...yet rather than experiencing redemption, people are judged, labelled, and marginalized. We talk about grace and forgiveness, yet I have seen how people are treated when they failed...in churches, missions agencies and other Christian organizations. Never mind being 'forgiving' and 'grace giving'...we fail even at the level of basic respect and decency. And we do it all in the Name of God. As I said before, I am not here to tell anyone NOT to go to church...but for me, I have seen enough. I am done.
I have never considered my faith as something that I need to declare and wear like a badge. Though I have been to church, I have never felt like I "belonged" to any one institution - nor any denomination for that matter.
People should "see" Jesus in you not because of the church you attend, but how you treat others.
Our society often looks at the church and God as if they are the same thing. The Church can fail people, it breaks promises, it can do more harm than good at times. God on the other hand, never fails us, nor breaks promises. We might not like what He has to say at times, but I believe when we get hurt, it's not God who inflicts the pain - we either do it to each other or do it to ourselves.
The fact that you are here, fighting a good fight, tells me that you still have faith....and therefore you will find what you are searching for.
Hey Alfred, recently I am also thinking something about "church". Partly is because of this blog and partly i think you know why.
You know, I have that strange early morning awakening thing. And this time the enlightenment is about "church". Recently, I have a feeling that "institution", to a large extent, is a projection of someone's ego.
For instance, those mega church in State's, I think they are simply the projection of their senior pastor's ego. And when I compare this hypothesis to our church community. I realize the pattern is just the same. And we just know who is the "ego master" behind each Chinese church, some are senior pastors some are "uncle tigers". And I believe, etcbc used to be the projection of your ego.
Lay people might not able to feel this raw truth, but they are being "influence" by people in power day after day. There are different ways of delivering one's ego, some ways are gentle while other could be ruthlessly brutal.
Also there are different outcomes. Some ego masters successfully influenced a lot and they become the "successful" leaders. Some, usually are those less egoistic, crafty or both, feel frustrated because only a few listen to them - and they "failed".
I don't know. I don't know whether my analysis is right. People in the church claim they are looking for truth. But I have a feeling that they are more looking for an "alpha dog" for the pack more than anything. When we look at Jesus' ministry, I think we know Jesus was the rejected "alpha dog". The Jewish leadership was looking for someone to make them feel good and Jesus was not the one. Also, by "evaluating" (I hate this word) his life time performance, I can fairly say he "failed".
Do you remember many years ago during Christmas time you were waiting for me at karaoke lounge with others because I was late? I told you I was watching Lord of the Ring and it took much longer then i expected to finish. I told you the film was about "calling". Frodo was called to deal with the Ring of Power, but sadly, at the end, Frodo was poisoned by the Ring too. I do not like power and I hate manipulation, but I have a feeling that I am slowly tainted my the Ring of Power too.
I just want to go karaoke with you again.
b&b daddy: i think you are right in saying that sometimes the institution end up being an extension of the leader's ego...which is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself. But when the insitution becomes more important than the people in it, and protecting it, rather than protecting people becomes top priority, bad things happen...
well, that's not my world anymore...the best thing for me is probably to just leave that part of my life behind and walk away... let's go karaoke sometime
Sorry, I cannot agree with you this time. Yes, people are influencing each other all the time. But I think intensionally influencing other in order to achieve an objective (good or bad) is a bad thing. Intensionally, projecting a one self's ego (we usually name it vision) to other is a bad thing.
I don't know better than you because the voice deep in your heart will tell you what to do with your life. Other people's opinion is simply sound pollution hindered you to be true to yourself.
So, my point is - don't listen to me. Listen to yourself, be true to yourself and there will be no place you can't go - even church. Sorry, but you don't have to listen to me.
BTW, I won't sing Edison's song.
Alfred, I do agree with you that placing our faith in the wrong place is a bad thing. My understanging that that's also what Jesus told us. He never told us to place our faith in the church nor did His apostles. I don't think we can find any such instruction in the Bible. Jesus always insists that we place our faith in Him and Him alone.
If we place our faith in the church, definitely we'll be disappointed someday. 'Cause the church contains people, and people by nature are sinners. What can you expect from a bunch of sinners. These people include all of us called "Christians". We are not perfect. Everyone has his/her weakness. Some with good intentions, some bad. Some are more matured and some are immatured. Some are even self-righteous, like the Pharisees. However, there are still some genuine ones, like the humble tax-collector praying in the Temple.
Despite the imperfection of the church, Jesus never tells His disciples not to go to church or not to build His church. He still loves His Church (those He redeemed).
For the past 17 years, you've helped us to understand what grace is. We could see in you what that means. Thanks for showing us.
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To me, the Christian faith is a personal faith. It means faith in a person, the person of Jesus Christ.
The Christian faith is also communal. Because the Lord draws us all into a community who share the same faith. We are all part of the same family. This is what the "church" is meant to be.
Problem comes when this organic body (the church in the biblical sense) turns into an institutional body void of life and relationship.
Structure, administration, institution and organization are necessary evil. But they become lethal when we lose sight of the person of Jesus Christ.
Faith can go on without the institutional church. But faith cannot go on without the Body, the community of believers.
By all means. Walk on. Just walk on. Keep walking. But don't walk it alone.
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