This post is by Kim Teller. You can follow her on Twitter.
If you are familiar with the movie Fight Club, staring Brad Pitt, you will remember that the one and only rule of “Fight Club” is that “you don’t talk about Fight Club”. So, no matter how bad your face looks from getting bashed in or how bruised and bloody you are, you NEVER talk about fight club. You don’t talk about Fight Club with strangers, family, friends or even other members. The commitment and obedience to this one rule signifies your loyalty, strength, toughness, sacrifice and commitment to keep the group intact regardless of any individual pain, trauma and/or possibility of death.
Fight Club reminds me a lot of most of today’s “churches”. (Churches that crush you with law and refuse to set you free with the gospel.) It’s this church that beats you up with a do better, try harder and it’s never enough mantra and no matter how shitty this church makes you feel, how bruised and bloody you get or how little the church looks like or sounds like Jesus, you are not allowed to talk about it. One of many rules in this church is “we don’t talk about the church”. You don’t talk about the church with strangers, your family, your friends and definitely not with the other members. By obeying this rule, you prove to yourself and the Fight Club Church that you are strong, loyal, committed and willing to sacrifice yourself at any cost. Sounds righteous.
There have been some people who have left these “churches” and have dared to talk openly about their wounds, pain and even the abuse they have suffered but their voices are few. In fact, wounds have to be so massive, like the type of wounds caused by the horrific abuse that can be prosecuted in a court of law, that people do not have a choice to keep quiet. They are forced to talk. Even then, these victims have been some of the biggest victims of shame and threats to keep quiet by their ex-church members.
Today’s church leaders have exalted themselves into a role, just like Fight Club’s leader Tyler Durden, that demands blind obedience, unwavering respect and protection above any questions of competence, mental stability, emotional integrity or spiritual understanding. If one dared question a “spiritual leader”, they are accused of being divisive, gossips and against Jesus. They have been taught by the “church” to believe that talking about the “church” is the same thing as talking about Jesus. To question the “church” can often invite the questioning of one’s very own eternal salvation. The Do Not Talk Rule usually alleviates any questioning of authority and, if by chance that fails, members are then conditioned to guilt and shame each other back into silence with accusations of discontentment, self-righteousness and unwillingness to submit and obey.
The “church’s” unspoken Do Not Talk Rule reflects an unhealthy community that is ignorant of scripture and void of Jesus and his teachings. This unhealthy community can only exist by blind obedience and blind obedience ends up supporting the Do Not Talk Rule with their silence. This type of community is a breeding ground for physical, mental, emotional, sexual and spiritual abuse in the church and in church member’s homes. The behavior and mentality of church leaders of this type of non-gospel church is appalling and in any other type of organization it would not not only be unacceptable, it would be prosecuted.
Fight Club was a community, like the “church”, that had willing participants. No one was ever forced to be in the club but to be in Fight Club, one had to fight- everyone took a beating and everyone gave a beating. This cycle of violence actually bonded the members of Fight Club and it made them equal, to some extent, because they all participated in the violence. At the same time, hierarchies were established based on strength and toughness. In a church you see the same thing. Members participate in the violence against each other by denying individual voices (like women’s voices that are denied in the PCA, Sovereign Grace, Church of Christ, Southern Baptist, EPC, Reformed Baptist) or they ostracize the “real sinners” with silence or the removal of fellowship. The “caught” adulterer is annihilated in the “prayer request” and if that doesn’t work, the letter to all 2,500 church members telling the sins of it’s leadership team member, or even a church member, only guarantees that a family will be destroyed.
Church is the place for the wounded to gather. But here’s the problem: Instead of preaching the gospel to heal wounds and to set people free, church leaders teach a message that takes advantage of these wounds by keeping wounds raw and members fighting harder to prove they are better. Better than who? Better than they used to be? Better than other members? Or better than anyone outside of their “church”.
Fight Club was abusive but not because of the fighting. Fight Club was abusive because it took advantage of people’s basic needs for love, community and truth. It made people pawns in a game. It used people as a means to an end. Tyler needed an army, he didn’t need friends. He used his power and influence for his kingdom, his truth and his desires. He used his power to use people.
The same is true for the church today. The “church” is not interested in setting people free with the truth of the gospel. How can you set people free when you need to pay salaries, feed egos, grow an army and gain power? The church is not abusive because it pretends to preach the gospel and cares more about playing church than being the church but because IT DOES NOT PREACH A GOSPEL THAT SETS PEOPLE FREE. Instead, it uses people as a means to an end. It takes advantage of people’s insecurities, fears, and need for love to sell them something that keeps them begging for more.
In these “churches”, the gospel is not free. It costs something. It didn’t just cost Jesus everything. Guess what? It’s going to cost you too. Are you willing to give up your voice, your brain, your body and your emotions to become a solider that just obeys? Most churches today are not even the church, they are a business that sells a product and they need to keep you in the “NOT TALKING” about all the ways they have hurt you and harmed you by using you as a means to an end, their end, so you can keep buying this product they so fervently hawk.
They never give you the gospel…. fully. That means they never give you the gospel. The “It is Finished” gospel sets you free to trust and enjoy your guaranteed relationship with Jesus, and actually moves you to love yourself and your neighbor…not beat continually beat the shit out of yourself or your neighbor.
Another reason the “church” has been a breeding ground for abuse is because it has tried to hold onto to it’s power. The church that Jesus established was never meant to be an organization that tried to gain power, hold onto power or use power (control people). In fact, Jesus came to destroy the church that existed and the power that it had over people. Jesus and His church would set people free and extend grace, mercy, love and forgiveness to all people. The power that Jesus’ and His church had was given away in love, sacrifice, healing, forgiving sins and being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
“Churches” today try to use power.. for what they have decided is good (insert Frodo’s evil ring of power here). They think they can handle power but no one can handle power, not even the church. Without money and power, where would today’s church be? Would they be trying to meet people where they are? Out in their homes and communities. God forbid the day that the church has to leave it’s million dollar church building or shut down one of it’s satellite campuses. What would these pastors do if they were forced out of their church offices and around real people who don’t treat them with the ‘utmost respect’? Would that article on ‘football being an “idol”’ be so relevant to a single mom who can’t make ends meet? What about that study on complementarianism? Infant baptism? Or how about apologetics? Would that help feed the hungry, love the lonely and provide help to the poor? Would the church that lived in the real world and experienced real world problems, now give away it’s power to love, feed and help people live? Would you spend time loving people, instead of shaming someone over their quiet time, lack of humility or flipping off the cop directing after church traffic? Would you be less interested in teaching people a lesson and more interested in just loving your neighbor?
It’s time I break the “do not talk” rule, not because I want to destroy the church but because I want to set the church free of it’s split-personality-leaders and the “It Is Not Finished” message that have imprisoned the real church. I want to drop a bomb on anything that tells Christian’s they still owe something to God. I hope this truth-bomb obliterates anything that says you still have a debt to God and only the “church” knows how to pay off that debt. The church is not a club that doesn’t talk, it’s a group of men and women who have been set free to talk and use the voices God has given them to tell the truth without fear that they could destroy the real church.
The truth is… the church is not supposed to hurt you. You shouldn’t be beat up, asked to be tough, told to be strong and brought to believe that you have to reduce yourself to a solider (that doesn’t think or feel but just obeys) in God’s army. The church is supposed to be a safe place for you to be healed through love.
The only way we can grow the church and the only way we can strengthen the church is to love the church and love does not exist without truth and truth should not cost you anything. Truth and love cost Jesus everything. Love and truth have been bought and paid for by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This truth is free and the love we receive from Jesus and from the people who love Jesus should be talked about and talked about and talked about with strangers, friends, family and members. This truth and this love WILL set us free to give away our time, money and power to help heal and love people. The church is not a building or denomination, it is a bunch of people who believe in a free gospel of grace and are empowered by the Holy Spirit to love and live in the type of truth that sets you free to experience and enjoy all the gifts of life. This is what the church should look like, feel like, smell like, taste like and sounds like.
So, here we go…BOMBS AWAY… It’s time to LIVE like we really do believe the gospel.
