Checklists, idols and loving God
A preacher said: “You cannot love the Lord if you do not do these things.” Paul wrote: “I tried keeping rules. It didn’t work.” Why checklists lead us astray.
Abusers like Ahab & Jezebel use one another
They’re eerily alike: Ahab and Jezebel, who ruled in Elijah’s day. Men and women in church leadership who use one another in order to control everyone else.
Spiritual schizophrenia and the two-headed snake
"How long will you try to go both ways?" Elijah cried. Where people identified with God cling to deep double-mindedness, they empower a two-headed snake.
Bucking the system: Shunning, submission, Jesus
Jesus grew up in a religious system God had instigated, and people had hijacked to use for their own ends. Jesus’ life shows us when and how to buck the system.
Burned out on religion? I will give you rest
“Religion almost killed me,” she said, then paused, waiting for my response. I had no words. But I believed her – and I could identify. She saw it in my eyes.
O say, can you see?
I did not dream that, in my lifetime, leaders in the US church would convince so many to embrace such skewed views of God, Christianity and country.
Exploited in the church, but Leah no more
For women who see: I’ve given myself to a church culture that has used me and used me, while profoundly rejecting my personhood, my adulthood, my worth, me.
Celebrity culture in the church
It’s so enticing, and so much a part of evangelical church culture. Yet the lure of celebrity can deceive us into agreeing with much that is not God.
To the exiles scattered by toxic church
Maybe the church has become bewildering to you. Leaders you trusted and people you respected are acting in ways that do not reflect who Jesus is, nor what they profess to believe. They have turned on anyone among them who appears to threaten the status quo. What is going on?
Nat Arnett / freeimages.com
Beware the illusion of refuge: Abuse in the church
Leaders in our church systems can create an illusion that refuge for the abused exists, where it does not. How can we recognize when this is happening?