You didn’t see this coming. You didn’t expect it at all. You still may not be sure what happened. You may feel guilt and shame, along with grief, exhaustion and pain.

All you know is: You had a “tribe,” a church culture. And now you don’t. Oh it may still appear that you do. You may still tell yourself that you do. But something has dramatically changed.

Or perhaps, that description doesn’t fit you. If not, may I tell you how very many people it does describe – how very many believers who truly want to go with God? May I admit how clueless I was, until this happened to me? Would you be willing to explore what you haven’t yet seen?

Wherever you are in this scenario, would you notice what Jesus says about the world in John 15:18-19?

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

When Jesus spoke about the world in those verses, he was talking about people. But what people?

Christians today may think of those “belonging to the world” as people out there, people not us, people different from us, that we can distinguish by any number of obvious indicators.

But who hated and shunned Jesus? Who rejected and persecuted his first followers?

Leaders the people had trusted to lead out in knowing and following God instead led the way in rejecting and crucifying the Lord, and imprisoning and killing the apostles. They led people to equate loyalty to God with loyalty to the religious system that gave those leaders status and power. Jesus called them hypocrites and snakes.

In John 15:18-19, the world refers to people in the world, and pinpoints:

Any social system
in which people live and relate
according to values,
character qualities,
and an established order
that oppose God.

That includes:

Any religious system that purports to represent the one true God.
Yet instead cultivates loyalty to the system.
While calling for faithfulness to the Lord.

Confusing? Disorienting? Yes, extremely. And very, very insidious.

When you do not fit where you used to fit – when you’re being spurned and shunned where you once belonged – the Lord may be exposing the world in church clothing, and calling you to follow him.

Here are some indicators that’s what’s happening.

Your church culture defends and aligns with what Jesus hates

Maybe you began to see something amiss, something going on in the church that did not reflect the love and faithfulness, holiness and truth, of the Lord. Maybe Christian people acted in ways opposite to what they themselves would have called godly and good.

Maybe you spoke up about it to someone you thought would set things right. Maybe, instead, anyone you approached became patronizing, defensive, hostile.

Maybe a few leaders influenced a lot of others and, ultimately, you witnessed a collective choice: People continued to announce, “We serve Jesus alone,” yet they agreed to collude with what he hates – and to rationalize, minimize and deny it, even to themselves.

Maybe they further agreed, “You must always agree with us, to continue to belong with us.” Or perhaps you realized you had ceased to belong before any ultimatums were made.

Either way, you never dreamed that being “hated by the world” might include being shunned by your particular tribe in the church. You never thought that exile would look like this.

Your church culture primes people not to see

The world, as Jesus used the term in John 15:18-19, is characterized by toxicity. It is rife with thoughts, words and deeds poisoned by such things as:

• arrogant pride,
• greed,
• power-seeking,
• people-pleasing (aka “fear of man”),¹
• envy and resentment,
• immorality and excess,
• violence (emotional, spiritual and physical),
• idolatry and witchcraft,
• hate.

The world in church clothing is characterized by the same things.

We might think that, where such evils rule – and especially where they have invaded the church – they would be obvious. Yet evil can profoundly deceive. And wherever it wears church clothing, it is cloaked, hidden, denied. People look at the wolf, and see a sheep – especially those expecting, and desperately wanting, to see a sheep.

Until we have eyes that see, we will be fooled by the illusion of goodness and godliness that hides what opposes the Lord.

In Christ, we have the capacity to see, but that doesn’t mean we always do. The Scriptures that urge Christ-followers, “Do not be deceived,” tell us: Christians can be deceived.

And contrary to what we may have believed, immersing ourselves in a church culture does not assure us we won’t be deceived. It can, in fact, invite deception.

Immersed in a church culture, you can begin to equate your culture – its perspective, its dictates, its ways – with God. You can begin to count everything approved by “us” as right and holy, and to count everything disallowed by “us” as bad and wrong. Seeking to follow God, you can choose against him, and not know it.

Indeed, you’re primed not to see what’s lurking behind the facade when any of the statements below is true. The more of these statements that do, or did, apply to you, the more pressure you’ve been under not to see.

• You are, or were, active in a church culture. It may have become your primary place of belonging.
• Your church culture has provided you some measure of significance. Any time significance comes from status in a system, and not from Jesus himself, there are always strings attached.
• Your church culture presents itself as the best way (and maybe the only way) to follow Christ.
• Your church culture belittles, casts suspicion on and even labels as heresy, beliefs that are well in line with the foundations of the faith but not in line with “what we believe.”
• Your church culture shames and silences those who question its accepted teachings or try to discuss other views, even views based in Scripture and evidenced in historical Christianity.
• Your church culture abuses and shuns anyone who dares to suggest that, in significant ways, any of your church leaders or other “good Christians” (typically, big givers and otherwise powerful church members) are not practicing what they preach.

Your church culture bullies by threat of exile

Jesus said, “The world hates me because I testify that its works are evil” (John 7:7).

Would your church culture hate Jesus if he exposed something in your ranks as evil? Don’t answer that question too quickly.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. (John 3:19-20)

Certainly, Christians sin. Christians collude in sin. We may also dig in and continue in sin, perhaps to the point that we embrace true evil. And we may hide from the light.

But the church of the Lord Jesus is not characterized by such behavior. At some point, when confronted in love, people who are being the church humble themselves to see, to confess and turn.

Ah, but the world in church clothing keeps spreading toxicity. Relentlessly, it denies and covers up the wrong. It says in a thousand covert ways to any of its members who try to confront:

“We are good Christians! We are godly leaders! And remember – do not forget: Everything you are and have you owe to us!

“If you really look to see whether our teachings and our behavior match the character and ways of God and, worse, if you speak up when they don’t, no one will believe you. And you will pay. You will get blackballed and ousted from the people of God and from the place you belong and from the God you want to serve.”

In other words, “If you testify that our works are evil, we will hate you, and shun you.”

But overtly, the world in church clothing smiles and intones:

“Dear one, you’re confused / angry / wounded / crazy / unsubmissive / negative / pitiful. But we will help you if you let us.”

Other sheep who hear these words understand: If I dare to speak up, I will get blackballed too.

You have a choice

Determined to appear righteous, deftly threatening exile, the world in church clothing wars against our seeing the truth and going with God.

Holy, faithful and true, our Lord says, “Follow me.” He says, in fact, that the only way to be his disciple is to choose him above everything and everyone else. That includes any system that would have you believe it is him.

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See also

• Illusionists! The abusers we have not seen
• Adulthood and the church
• Checklists, idols and loving God
• Witchcraft in the church
• When Christian leaders reject God
• Journey to a divided heart
• Bucking the system: Shunning, submission and Jesus

Posts in the series, To the exiles scattered

• To the exiles scattered (by abuse in the church)
• The world in church clothing
• Shunning in the church
• A promise of real belonging
• The most freeing thing
• A future filled with hope
• And the future starts now

Footnotes

1. See Galatians 1:10; Proverbs 29:25; Isaiah 51:7, 12-13. ↩︎