Celebrity culture in the church
It’s alluring, deceiving and so pervasive you may live and breathe it, and not see it. How to recognize celebrity culture in the church.
It’s alluring, deceiving and so pervasive you may live and breathe it, and not see it. How to recognize celebrity culture in the church.
In 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, God silences women and Paul affirms it, right? What if God and Paul both snort at the idea – and we haven't known?
Jesus said, “the truth will set you free.” Now I see this diamond in its setting. I hear the urgency in his cry to us all.
When people manipulate, intimidate, dominate in the church – that’s witchcraft. See how it looks and how fully it can fool us.
Sitting in my car at that gas station on that winter afternoon, staring at Isaiah 58:1, I began to cry ... Oh. Lord. Not. This. Assignment.
When it comes to dealing with anything spirit, the church has a long history of ignoring, twisting, adding to and taking away from the truth that gives us rest.
The day I realized what I had been seeing for years, it broke my heart: church leaders bullying people, rejecting God, leading their followers to do the same.
In the middle of that dark-valley time, I often found myself alone with God, crying aloud and writing passionately in my journal. During that time too, I came to identify with David, the shepherd-poet-warrior-king, in ways I had not before. For David was also ostracized by people he trusted. And he cried out in distress - and in faith.
Why, in midlife, did I suddenly find my boundaries battered and my adulthood denied? The answer hinged on the skewed view of womanhood in my church culture.
Frustrated, exhausted, I realized: I would never count as an adult in my church system. Free at last, I’m embracing the adulthood God works in his own.