Why Do They Stay?

Here on Banned, after reading all of the various and crazy seeming behaviors, ideas and perspectives of the spiritual leadership in the myriad of Church of God splits, splinters and slivers, we often are forced to ask ourselves, "Why do they, the membership, who can't be this naïve and gullible. stay?" 

One valid reason is that indeed they are that gullible and naive. Another is the sincere belief that have that in spite of the seeming craziness and prophetic blunderings, "I sincerely believe this is God's True Church."

 But also, and perhaps a more primordial and subconscious belief,  is the absolute fear of the loss of connection and of belonging.  I get that and so do you.  

For several years before I departed WCG as both minister and member, I could see it coming. 

Originally I thought that my generation of ministry would right the wrongs of the WCG and stop majoring in the minors as well as practice minding our own business on topics which are not actually the church's business.  

That idea got crushed early in my ministry , which began in 1972, with the failure of the Systematic Theology Project, in 1974,  that addressed just such needs in the church.  Herbert would have none of it nor would he yield his supposed authority to others to recognize the need for changes on such topics as healing, divorce and remarriage and a number of other topics that were both meddlesome and troublesome in endeavoring how to apply them in our times.  The church nor HWA could err on the side of compassion , love and common sense.  It had to be technically and literally correct if it was to be "God's true Church." The rest is history. 

But even more than simply choosing to quietly not apply some church teachings and requirements to the congregation because I disagreed with them, it was the loss of community, connection and belonging that also weighed heavy in the background.  It is a subconscious human need that goes back a very long ways. 

. Being "disfellowshipped" or "marked" is a very old way of stirring up the fear people have of these losses and was used by the Bronze Age Old Testament types and the Iron Age New Testament types to keep the "all speaking the same thing, that there be no divisions among us" family together in peace and harmony. In the OT the penalties for stepping outside the box of the Israelite religion was severe and often fatal. In the New Testament it was a more conscious attempt to make the person lonely and cut off from the herd with the hope that would teach them good not to stray again. 

In the ancient history of tribal man, being put out of the group was literally a death sentence. Being put out of the church was deemed a mere death to the flesh in turning one over to Satan, but so the spirit could eventually be saved in the tale of ultimate salvation. I doubt it worked either.  

Somehow it never seemed to strike the NT types to wonder just why someone felt as they did, asked the questions they did, had the doubts they did or made the mistakes they did, and perhaps actually get them help and encourage them. 

Today with the increase of knowledge, a good thing, that approach has lost much of it's punch in motivating people to pray, obey, pay and stay where they are not comfortable.  And yet, the need to belong and the connections people have with family and friends in their faith is still strong and the major reason people stay put. 

It is when they find themselves sitting on the outside to Church beliefs but standing up on the inside when they disagree.  The inside and the outside don't yet match and may never depending on the degree of loss of connection and belonging a particular person is willing to live with. Perfect love, the opposite of which is not hate but fear, does not strike the NT church as a way to keep a church together. Fear of loss works just fine. It also causes a church to be made up of people who seem one way but are another. 

The reality of "why they stay" is perhaps illustrated in the life of Charles Darwin as well in relation to his wife Emma.  His "evolving" views on the Origin of Species" caused great distress in his personal relationship with his very religious and church going wife Emma.  

But in his personal life and relationship, Emma wrote him of her concerns. 

" My reason tells me that honest and conscientious doubts cannot be a sin, but I feel it would be a painful void between us."

Emma, wife of Charles Darwin,  upon her recognition of potential consequences to Charles discoveries as to the Origin of the Species. 

"May not the habit in scientific pursuits of believing nothing until it is proved, influence your mind in other things that cannot be proved..." 

Emma to Charles one year later in 1839.

Charles Darwin's "Sandwalk " Path where he often spent time alone in his thoughts. 

By the 1840's, Charles is escorting Emma to church, stopping at the door to drop her off and going off to take a walk alone while she is in Church.  It was this fear of the loss of his bond to Emma that caused Charles Darwin to postpone the publication of his Origin of  Species for another 20 years. 

Some do feel that this had little to do with Darwin's fears about either the reactions of his peers or his wife and were more a function of being busy and in poor health, but "all of the above" would seem true with such a revolutionary theory and understanding in that day. Today we have ample proof he was correct where Darwin simply had the concept lacking all but some relatively simple proofs of his time and by observation during his trip on the Beagle. 

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/%C2%93darwins-delay%C2%94-the-stuff-of-myth

In modern times and in such cases where walking away from religious practice, people and beliefs that one no longer can support or count as a credible reason to stay put, we can see the same fears expressed when contemplating the losses and realities that will come from no longer being able "going along to get along. "  Going along to get along is the dilemma I see many of my former and now older minister peers stuck in because of age and the price of leaving being way too high if not impossible to do at this stage in their lives.   I get that. It's a dilemma they never would have imagined when young and it is not a function of doubting their sincerity.  

"I have a compelling reason to believe in God. My parents are deeply committed Christians, and would be devastated, were I to to reject my faith.  My wife and children believe in God...Abandoning belief in God (or a specific faith and church as with the splinters) would be disruptive...sending my life completely off the rails."

Carl Giberson, "Saving Darwin: How to be a Christian and Believe in Evolution"  2008

In my own experience in coming out of ministry and membership in WCG many years ago now, I participated in The Clergy Project. This was a private and secure website for members of the clergy, male and female, to talk with those who have already had the experience, about their loss of faith and how to navigate all the potential emotions and losses associated with it. It was always the fear of loss of a marriage, the love of children and the safety and comfort of belonging to community that held them back or was the stuff of nightmares "coming out." . One pastor asked me if the divorce he feared  and his children rejecting him had to happen.  He wanted reassurance that it would not.   I could not give him that. No one could. It is often inevitable depending on what actually holds a relationship together. If it just church, then no.  And if no is not something one is willing to consider at this time, the struggle for one's personal authenticity and the consequences of a  loss of faith in faith will come calling again another time to see how it's going. 

UPDATED: Sheldon Monson To Speak Saturday August 22 @ 2:00 EDT

 

For anyone interested: 

This is sure to irritate Gerald Weston and some of the boys in Charlotte.

Sheldon Monson will connect to a YouTube livestream COG Event scheduled for tomorrow, August 15th at 2:00pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). August 15 2020 Sabbath Services 2:00pm EDT

You can find the live stream event at the COG Broadcast Youtube page. 

If someone wants to share what he said please feel free to do it here. I will be out of town all day tomorrow and in an area with limited to zero cell service. 

UPDATE:

Sheldon Monson will connect again to YouTube for another Event scheduled for tomorrow, August 22nd at 2:00pm EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). August 22 2020 Sabbath Services 2:00pm EDT.

You can find the live stream event at the same place, COG Broadcast on YouTube.

I believe this time around there's a greater possibility he will discuss his current situation involving LCG. The upcoming sermon from Sheldon is entitled, I believe, "Its better to obey God rather than men."

LCG: Wally Smith's verbal contortions on our obligation to submit to "substantial people in the church"

 

From an LCG source:

An Overlooked Aspect of Faith. Wally Smith, Living Church of God. Sermonette transcript. Aug. 8, 2020

Thank you very much, Mr. Ruddlesden. Howdy everyone, I hope that you are doing well. It's a privilege to be able to be connected with technology and all the goodness that is provided in our age today. I want to ask a question here at the very beginning. What is faith? And people define it in many different ways. Actually, I did a search online to find a way some outside of the faith define faith and it wasn't actually all that encouraging. We've understood for some time. Actually, Mr. Herbert Armstrong said it very well, and we continue that idea is that faith is believing what God says in his word. That faith is actually reading the words and recognizing God does exactly what he says he will do. God does fulfill the promises we see there and that God does work in the world and in the church exactly as he describes in this book. Believing that to the core of your being is faith. So, with that that in mind I have an often overlooked aspect of faith that I want to discuss here at the beginning of the sermon. I'm sorry beginning of the message. Do we have faith in, do we have trust in, do we believe in Jesus Christ when he tells us in his word and records plainly how he governs in his church? Because if those things are recorded in the Bible and we read those things in the Bible, but we do not take Christ at his word if we do not believe those things, then we lack faith. Faith isn't open to us to define and determine however we want. It's defined by God in this way. Do we actually believe what Jesus Christ says when he describes how he governs his church? And so that we're going to take a look at today. 

We're going to take a look at just a few verses that discuss how Jesus Christ himself from God's mouth to our ears through these papers, how he himself says he governs in his church. So we can ask ourselves if we believe Jesus Christ and have that faith, or whether we don't. My title today is An Overlooked Aspect of Faith. Now the verses and passages about this topic are many in the Bible. In fact, it might take a little bit of faith for some of those in the audience today to wonder if Wally Smith can give us sermonette-sized message. So I'm sure they're all praying right now, I hope that you are too. We're just going to focus on a few and definitely not take a look at all of them. Let's start in Deuteronomy Chapter 17. You probably have your Bibles with you, 'cause you're in God's Church, Deuteronomy, Chapter 17. And Deuteronomy Chapter 17, we're going to see beginning in verse 8, that God understood that disputes come up that disagreements come up, not because, say, one person is evil and one person’s not but legitimate attempts to understand how to apply his word and what to do. And did he abandon us to chaos in that regard. Absolutely, he did not. In Deuteronomy Chapter 17 and verse 8. Starting there, we read, “if a matter arises which is too hard for you to judge between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of controversy within your gates, then you shall arise an go up to the place which the eternal your God chooses, and you shall come to the priests, the Levites and to the judge there in those days, and inquire of them. They shall pronounce upon you the sentence of judgment.” It’s plain, he didn't allow this to just swim amongst the people. It certainly wasn't a democracy of any sort. He said, "I have appointed people. I am going to take care of you. I'm your God who loves you and I am going to ensure you do have a body of people that you can go to and discuss these things and hear from them what his judgment is and he takes it seriously." Take a look at verse 10, “You shall do according to the sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the eternal chooses. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you according to the sentence of the law in which they instruct you according to the judgement which they tell you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence which they pronounce upon you. Now the man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister there before the Eternal your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So, you shall put away the evil. From Israel.” And it says, “that all the people shall hear and fear and no longer act presumptuously.” This was something that was meant to keep the people unified. It wasn't just about whatever particular circumstance came before the appointed judges sitting in the place of authority that God had placed, it was meant to have an effect on everyone so that everyone continues to work together in peace. 

Now, it might be easy to say, well, what does God actually want though? But he literally says. Do we actually have the faith to read what he says? In fact, if we were to ask ourselves how is it God would run his church? How is it God would want his church to be run in to be governed and for decisions to be made? If we haven't taught ourselves by now, that this is how we figure that out we go to this book and we ask him, he gives us the answers, though it does take faith to believe them. Now, thankfully at least in the Church of God, most of us wouldn't say this, but there are those out there in the world that might say, well, that's the Old Testament. You know? What about the New Testament? We see this repeated in the New Testament as well. Turn to Matthew, Chapter 16. Again, there should be no doubt God is speaking here of his design in these things. These are not words that are being made up by human beings. This is in the inspired word of God. Just like when you're trying to figure out how marriage is supposed to work, and I know a lot of us sometimes wonder how is this supposed to work? The answer to that is to look in his word and see how God describes this is how marriage works. “I designed it. Do you trust me or not?” When you're that wife - and now I've known a lot of wives that don't have perfect husbands like my wife does, and it's difficult sometimes. Sometimes your husband, maybe I have as well, makes a decision that you're pretty sure is kind of a boneheaded decision. You think about that and you think, “Honey, I don't know; there's something about that that just doesn't look right,” and you do your best to convince him and he's like, “I don't know, honey, I thought about it and you know I think we've got enough bananas to pull that off,” and I have no idea what that would be, but regardless, you know he's looking at and thinks we can do it. And I actually did have a faithful wife in the church days ago. I think she was just talking about her experience as a wife. And she said that she's found If she goes against God's small government, it still God's government in the family and tries to undercut her husband, try to make things work out her way, God doesn't bless that, even when she's right. But when she learns like Sarah did with Abraham in his moments of weakness, where he was worried about dying, though God had given him promises. If she yields and supports her husband then sometimes he makes it work out when it shouldn't. Sometimes he does help the husband see a year or two later. “Boy, honey, I'm really sorry that was dumb,” and sometimes he helps her see that she was wrong. But it works when we do it God's way in the Bible makes it plain what God's way is. So we see, because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever, we see that in Hebrews 13, Jesus Christ is consistent. The God of the Old Testament reigned through his people as he himself described in the Old Testament, and he reigns through his people today as he describes here, and it is the same.

We see in Matthew Chapter 16, where he's actually talking about the creation of the church and starting in verse 18. He says, “I also say to you that you are Peter, verse 18, and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Now we don't need be distracted by the difficult scripture aspect of this. We understand that he was the small rock, Peter was, and Jesus Christ was the big rock. The point is he's building his church and he's speaking to his leaders. And what does he say to them? He makes the same assurance that he made to the leaders of Israel. Read the next verse. Verse 19, “and I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on Earth will be loosed in heaven.” Now let's understand. Does that mean that somehow people can decide? Well, here's what we bind on Earth: Sunday instead of Saturday. God is a Trinity. And no, that's not the same thing. Deuteronomy taught us. These were matters of trying to figure out how to apply the law, not how to discard the law, not how to jettison the law and replace it with nothing but human Pagan concepts. These were legitimate matters of how to apply the law, and let's be honest, if we have any kind of relationships with substantial people in the church and we talk about God’s things here and there, which hopefully we do, it's a wonderful thing to do on the Sabbath. We do not always agree, right? But someone has to make the call from time to time and Jesus Christ makes it plain who does. Now, it's important to understand there's other translations like the New American Standard Bible translation translates that as what you bind here on Earth shall have been bound in heaven. What you loose here on Earth shall have been loosed in heaven. It’s the same principle we see in the Old Testament, it’s the same principle we see in second Chronicles chapter 19, where God talks about being with the judges. In their judgment. It's Jesus Christ promising his church, “I really am the same yesterday, today and forever.” It's Jesus Christ, saying, “you can have faith in me and I do reign consistently among my people.” It's Jesus Christ saying that “just like there was a council of elders meeting in Acts chapter 15, in which I worked with my people through a contentious issue to come to my conclusion. I do not change and I work through a council of elders in the 21st century as well.” And I must say it's a privilege to be able to do that and to see Mario Hernandez’s smiling face, “Hello my friend,” you know, and everybody's his friend. And to see Mr. Ames sitting there like a rock so faithful and to reflect on these promises and to know that those promises are still true. You know, brethren, we are in a time in this world that is one of the most divisive and fracturing that I have ever seen. I'm 50 years old. I know some you think that's really young and some you think you must be almost dead. 50 years old in my whole life I have never seen times like this. The world is fracturing and people are being filled with division and hate. And Satan the devil smiles at the opportunity that he may have to inject some of that inside the body of Christ and the Church of God. Brethren let's not make him happy. Let's believe and have faith in Jesus Christ. Satan may want to do that, but we don't have to let him. And if we have faith. We won't.