In my experience, I do not see that the church has a realistic perspective on contemporary issues of marriage. This is only my take based on my experience... yours may be different... I am not here to say anyone is wrong.
My church experience has included a lot of naïve theories about what should be. I have also experienced a lot of black and white thinking by people who have never walked the walk.... meaning the walk through the valley of the shadow of death of a marriage.
The attitudes I speak of... I once had. I feel my naivity was part of what allowed my marriage to fall apart. This naivity of how life works (as I now see it anyway) kept me blind to the dysfunction that was growing in my own household and in my own heart and mind.
I thought my marriage was bulletproof. I never thought I could become an alcoholic. I disdained the notion because of the drinkers I saw in my family. I never began drinking more than on an infrequent social basis until I was in my 30's.
I have not experienced the church to be prepared to handle the type of pain that I have seen people deal with in the worlds of drugs, booze, abuse and divorce. The Pentecostal approach of laying hands on people and ... well... I am sure many of us know the rest of it.... just is, in my experience unmeaningful to what happens to a person who is ripped apart by divorce and betrayal.
I have learned more from fellowships like these message boards and the rooms of AA and NA from people who either don't believe in God at all or don't believe the way many Christians define God, than I did in church. Yet I still believe in God as I have come to know him.... the God of the Bible.
My experience with much of the church is that it pursues conformity more than truth. By that I mean that the my church experience has included a lot of forcing facts to fit church concepts.... rather than being open-minded enough to accept new ideas or just simply admit that we don't know everything.
Many people I have experienced in church shun AA for encouraging people to accept God "as we understand him"... feeling that it taints true belief in God as the church prefers to define him. Why? Do new ideas compete with the comfort of our old ones?
What is my point in all of this? I believe it is simply this.... I have found more healing and recovery from the hell of my divorce and subsequent alcohol and drug problems by fellowshiping with other vigilant seekers of all faiths than I ever did amongst many church people I once knew.
Truth is freeing. Truth is healing. Truth will always show itself in time. Truth does not need my or anyone else's help or spin.
Thank you all for being a part of my healing and recovery. I hope you find yours as wonderfully as I believe I have found mine. And I hope I can continue to give back what has so freely been given to me.
Hi Chazz Good post. My uninformed opinion is When one honestly seeks the truth it eventually find them. I've seen two completely honest learned people look at the same messages, verses, proverbs or what have you and come up with differening conclusions. We say we come to the table with no preconditions but we all are a mass of preconditions.
Now in Christianity the leaders are held to a higher standard than the sheep. Speaking of which it seems to push the idea of being sheep and manipulating that message to total acceptance thus the wolves make easy pickins. The areas you speak of are not unique. I was advised by a PD friend there are three types Sheep Sheepdogs and Wolves
The sheep hate the sheepdogs until they see wolves. The bible says the sheep will inherit the Earth and I personally believe they already have a very long time ago. Just see the entitlement programs.
Every time I put my trust and faith in someone who publicly proclaimed their Christianity outwardly I have burned. The only exception are some preachers, priests, very few lay people, and most missionaries. Thus when someone tells me to lay my guard down the antennas go up like the turning ones on a warship at general quarters.
I would suggest Mere Christianity by CS Lewis and the Problem with Pain but the same author after his wife passed away. CS Lewis held himself to a rigid standard until he met Joy his wife who was a divorcee and his later writings tended to relax his standards and he seemed to pursue truth as in the manner of which you spoke.
Since I am somewhat of a different mindset of those around me I do not do well in the weekly gathering. I've heard more stupid lectures on false promises than I care to repeat so I just don't go.
One stat on Marriage did strike me from Promise Keepers People married 50% divorce rate Christians married 50% divorce rate People of any faith that prayed together as a couple more than 3 X weekly .4% divorce rate.
Even if those figures were skewed they sure got a huge amount of skewing to make the 50% figure. I did not pray with X 3 times weekly and I'm on the wrong side of those stats thus I hold fast to the opinion my D was preventable to a certain point and my behavior (though I do not defend my X) was to a level where I reaped what I sowed. The harvest was bitter for you in this area Spring has come.
Mine has also but not in the same form as you. To thine own self be true. Shakespere
"All I want is a weeks pay for a day's work" Steve Martin
I came back to my spirituality through AlAnon...found my way into a Methodist congregation lead by a progressive woman. It just fits. I don't think it was by accident, either. Too many coincidents.
I am getting what I need, learning, growing and healing. And I'm grateful.
Another statistic that I read: 85% of second marriages that happen within 2 years of a divorce, fail themselves. Bad news for stbx's adulterous relationship. Reminds me to keep the focus on me and what I need to learn before trying to involve someone else.
Another statistic that I read: 85% of second marriages that happen within 2 years of a divorce, fail themselves. Bad news for stbx's adulterous relationship. Reminds me to keep the focus on me and what I need to learn before trying to involve someone else.
What about remarriage within 14 DAYS of divorce??? ROFLMAO!!!!
"You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." Jon Kabat-Zinn
Hill... wow man... quite the a-typical persp. Thanks for the frankness.
Am aware of CS Lewis but have not yet read anything by him. I have enjoyed Philip Yancey (The Jesus I never Knew and Whats so Amazing About Grace). I connect with his perspectives in that he comes accross less tied to mainstream Chiristian Culture. Not affraid to think and ask freely.
I suppose it is the propogation of culture that bothers me. When you look at Jesus... he appeared to be a clutural maverick. Not defiant for the sake of defiance.... more that he stood against the tide for what he believed to be truth.... or I suppose I should state it "knew" to be truth. Hes kinda in his own category as a truth-seeker.
I guess I am also expressing disappointment at the institution that I found so much value and comfort in. Frankly, the good years of my marriage and parenting were amazingly great, happy, and satisfying. I have largely the teaching I got from church groups... including Promise Keepers as you have referred to... I have these teachings to thank for the successes in my marriage and family.
The perplexing thing is that when everything blew up... the church had very little meaningful or effective guidance to give. I was told to "Stand for your marriage", or "Just praise the Lord more", or "Are you tithing"?.
While I see none of these as wrong, I do see them as insufficient. Frankly, I did all of those things and things still did not work out so I self-blamed for my insufficiency as a Christian. The image of the world I once believed in was shattered. So bad that I uncharacteristically taking a pathway that led me to drugs. I was in my late 30's by that time. I basically had to go far, far out of my way to end up where I ended up.
Once I was out there, all the church had available to offer at the time was a thinly veiled chrisitian recruitment program that they called a "recovery program". Heavily funded and endorsed by the Pentecostal Church. Run by people many of whom knew nothing first-hand of addiction, alcoholism, and the pains that many of us went through to get to those stages. "Ministers" they were called. They had no clue. All were welcome but if you didnt "Accept the Lord" within a few weeks you were not welcome to continue.
They thrived though on having their front rows of pews filled with us dopers and drunks that they were graciously trying to help... frankly it was show-boating to the own self-agrandization. Little did they know we were required to sit in the front rows and take notes.
Then when someone relapsed, the affiliated church and "Recovery" program leaders would cover it up and rationalize it. Again... the relapser could not be brought to cultural conformity... that was the problem and it looked bad on the institution. Also... the head of the "Recovery" program was a social drinker. A little unwise wouldnt you think?
I found my church experience's approach to divorce equally naive.
Anyway.... yes... "let God be true though every man be self deceived and irrelevant" (paraphrased to my understanding).
Life is awesome today. God is more real than ever.... now that my thinking is less blurred by the phylosophies of men. The Bible is pretty amazing.... more relevant today than it has ever been. Proves itself out time and time again. Yet I am prepared at any moment to be wrong. Maybe I am the oblivious and naive one. Doesnt feel like it but hey.... I've been wrong before.
So will journey on. Thanks for your dialogue.... I welcome it further.
Well... my references are to many church experiences. It would probably encompass at least 6 church bodies that I had been a part of over my lifetime and through my hell period.
So... I dont feel it is so much the wrong church as it is the wrong church culture. These were all "Full-Gospel", "Charismatic", and/or "Penetcostal" churches. They were all equally irrelvant to what I was going through. I will never forget a guy who was chronically unemployed and suffered from severe depression come up to me and recommend a program for substance-abuse recovery.
I know that bizzare stuff can happen anywhere so I do not mean to pick on one particular group. We have highly odd and irregular experiences in AA all the time. Someone tried to pick a fight with me the other day at an AA meeting because I was aked to share and he wasnt.... not exactly in keeping with the tradition of AA unity coming first. So wierd and unusual stuff is everywhere.
Also... I will be clear about the fact that my journey through all manner of chaos has never led me to believe anything other than what the Bible has taught. If anything... it appears more true than ever.
As you are likely aware, 12-step recovery is completely based on the Bible and was originally a discipline practiced by a group of Christians that Dr. Bob and Bill W had become a part of.
My church experience has included some narrow-minded disdain for 12-step because it welcome other concepts of God (as we understand him). My experience with many Christians is that they are often recationary to any aparent threat to their faith. Any phylosophy that competes with what they believe is theologized away.
Yet the 12-step quest lead many people to God as we understand him... meaning the God of the Bible and Jesus Christ.
So... perhaps your church experience has been different. I do believe there are good churches out there. Hey.... I have experienced them too. I really find relevance in many Vineyard churches with their looser style. So my intent was not to criticize.
I am just so please to finally find some longer term healing from the pain inside and the choices I ended up making around it. I found it in places like this and my AA meetings. Oddly, not in Church. Yet Church in my experience professes to be God's people and carry his message. I find that only partly true.
Dang Fig.... I just googled that book and read a synopsis... sounds rather entertaining as fiction.... but nothing short of blasphemous if taken out of context. You read this in a theology class???? wow!
Chazz... I can relate to your feelings on the church's way of dealing with drugs, divorce and such.... I encountered some of the same type of things going through my divorce ( my x had relapsed after 16 years in recovery). I got the feeling that they'd just rather not have anything to do with it... ignoring the whole thing was easier than addressing it.
Yada...yada...yada.... anyway great thread! Looking forward to reading more.
Psa 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
