To All the Wounded:
Just the mention of the word “church” leaves a bad taste in your mouth and may cause you to throw up in your mouth a little. You recall old scars that you’ve been trying to cover up for years. I get that.
At some point (or maybe for much of your life) someone or a group of Christians have blatantly mis-represented Christianity to you. Maybe you got turned off by a televangelist or street preacher. Perhaps you received a million dollar bill tract as a tip at a restaurant where you were working the dreaded Sunday lunch shift, full of high maintenance, crabby Christians who are fresh out of a church service. To you, “church” has become a four-letter word.
Someone has turned the Bible into a blunt weapon against you.
Someone has told you that the “good news” is that you’d go to hell if you died tonight.
Someone has emotionally torn you down and left you in a heap of tears.
Someone’s arrogance/ignorance made you cringe and want to disappear.
Someone has caused you to never want anything to do with Christians, church, or God ever again.
Those people are condescending assholes. There is no excuse in the universe for these kinds of attitudes and actions. My heart breaks for you and what you have experienced. I don’t think therapists are qualified to deal with the kind of hurt and pain that has been inflicted on you and continues to weigh you down at just the glimpse of a lame saying on a church marquee.
I am no better. Sometimes I cuss (see above). I have looked down on people who I perceived as “big sinners”. I’ve had hateful attitudes towards those who I deemed “unrighteous”. I don’t want you to follow my example.
Thankfully, though, I have caught a brief glimpse of the church living up to its full potential. I think God wants Christians to wage war not against Democrats or hippies or homosexuals, but on poverty, HIV/AIDS, and injustice. I think that God loves when we ask lots of questions and when we honestly struggle with life.
I believe that God loves you just the way you are; God made you very specifically with all your quirks and idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, people aren’t perfect and often warp the idea of what God is like.
What I ask is that, if any of this stuff strikes a chord with you, you will let some of these words sink in and you’ll take some time to process what this means to you. I totally understand if it takes quite a while before you trust Christians, church, or anything that has to do with God.
My hope for you is that at some point you are re-introduced to God in a new way–whether you see God in the eyes of a homeless man, in a gorgeous sunset, through a friend who cares about you, or even on a Sunday morning, inside a big room with stained-glass windows.
You’ve been burned, but you don’t have to stay burned…
With All Respect,
Curtis Honeycutt
Filed under: Desktop Wallpaper
Just Wallpaper T-Shirts
Dude, that is one of your best-written, most powerful posts. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Wow. Well said my friend.
Good stuff. Despite its failings at times there is still life and community taking place in the Church.
I hope we can break down the stereotypes of what being a Christian and Church are… and I think you’ve offered up a great big piece of the puzzle.
Thanks again.
Let it be heard!! I have experienced both sides-wounded by church and knowing the “real” God. Bad church cannot destroy Him-He wants to be our friend-talk to us, and he says so. Thanks for this encouraging article. Needs to be said.
That is great! So many people need to hear that. I know so many christians who stay away from church because of it, but then they have NO support system. They are hanging out there with no help from the rest of the body.
Wow! This Was Powerful and so true!
I Recently Had an Experience With a Christian School That Made us Feel Like we ” Didn’t Measure up” and Thankfully, We Know Better and Belong to a home Church that Loves us and accepts us. But, It Breaks My Heart though for those People who don’t know, and are Exactly the people that you are writing to. Way to go!
One of the toughest parts of being back in a place of faith is trying to convey the contempt for church that is not really the church.
It’s like trying to explain why you love going to Disneyland when you hate the crowds, the expense, the crying kids, and falseness of so much of it. But at the core, some of what goes on is real magic. And it captures you in a way that you can’t let go.
Keep looking for and finding what is real.
I just ran across this verse: I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
- Ezekiel 34:16
Whoa.
Thanks for all the responses so far. I really hurt for those who have been hurt.
Thanks for writing this. This is exactly what I try to convey to so many people I know…
Jesus came for the broken, not perfect people.
So, who’s going to fix the church? I’ve been involved with the Roman Catholic, the Anglican and the United Reformed Church. At many levels, they are all busy hurting people and making themselves irrelevant. I’m exhausted with trying to change anything. Many people I know are also exhausted. Few churches value the people who might change them for the better, and instead drive them away.
Maybe organised church simply has to die a messy death – the way many of us as individuals have to die to be reborn.
Awesome post. Really enjoyed reading it. Really respect your thoughts.
Curtis– beautiful.
Mark–no institution is perfect as long as it is filled with broken, imperfect people. But it is also filled with holy, spirit-filled people struggling just as Curtis wrote. Unfortunately, no news is good news, and good news is no news, so we don’t hear about those people. We only hear about the hypocrites, the fallen, and the self-righteous. What Michael said is absolutely true. At the center of all that *doesn’t* work is something that is true, and holy, and good.
[...] http://justwallpaper.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/an-open-letter-to-those-who-have-been-burned-by-church... [...]
ckbasi – very nicely said.
If we would just look for the gold.
Ephesians 5:25 and 2 Corinthians 11:2 paint the picture of Christ loving the Church with the passion of a groom loving his bride.
Imitating Christ means loving the Church with that kind of passion.
Why are we so quick to be patient and kind with the sin and messiness of individual people’s lives and yet so impatient and harsh toward the sin and messiness of the church?
Jesus views the Church as his bride, his wife. How would you treat a woman who is struggling in sin? That is how we must treat the Church.
We, the Church, are a wayward wife in need of grace and forgiveness. I think Christians would be much more gentle in their criticism of the Church if the Church were a person. But that is kind of how God see us collectively. We are His bride and His body. The two have become one.
Maybe it is time we show the Church the same grace we show the “outsider.”
Great post, Curtis. I would love to republish this on Wrecked.org, with your permission, of course. Let me know.
Jeff, Absolutely! Let me know when you put it up…thanks!
“Thankfully, though, I have caught a brief glimpse of the church living up to its full potential.” Phew!!
When church becomes “us” and not something outside of ourselves we critique, then we are at a starting point in this conversation. I get the burned part… been there. But, I did not stay there no will let anyone stay there.
We could say the same things about marriage. (Mark above mentioned the passages). For instance: you may have burned in a marriage, abused, and have life-long scars from it. It does not mean that just because people mess up that we give up on the institution of marriage. It’s still the best!
The same is with the local church. Some people mess up and give it a bad rap. People fail. That is just life, unfortunately. The fact is sometimes we need all around us–even the church–to fail in order to depend on Jesus.
those religious folk were never the church, they just happened to go to a church building.
someone hurt you? get over it and stop picking up offenses. to pick up an offense whether intentional or not is sin…..of all people, christians should get this above all else!!!!! after all they killed Jesus and He said Father forgive them, they ain’t got a clue!
First let me say, loved the post. It rings true in so many ways. It also brings up some questions. One’s that I struggle to find answers for.
To me, the Gospel is offensive. We are sinners AND we need to repent. That’s offensive to this generation. It was offensive back then and its still offensive. How do you share it and not burn some people?
My other question is was Jesus really about waging war against poverty, disease, and injustice? He could’ve wiped away all those things, but he didnt. My perpsective is he waged war against the sin that separated us from God. Sure, he said the meek shall inherit the earth, but he didnt make the poverty level of Jerusalem go away. Sure, he healed people of leprosy, but he didnt destroy leprosy. He spoke against injustice, but it was still thriving when he left. The only thing I think “waged war” against was the sin barrier. That, he obliterated. I think the other issues were symptoms of the bigger issue. Maybe, if spend more effort on waging war on what Jesus waged war on, the other issues would be defeated as well. Just my opinion, for whatever its worth.
Well said, Curtis!
WOW these comments and thoughts have really helped in my thoughts. I have to say I am one who was burned badly by a churches staff and felt unwelcome by most members after I found out I was 18 almost 19 and pregnant. My parents and I did find a church that was VERY willing to accept me! The members were great, the older women always helped with clothes, watching him while I was attending college, and most importantly giving me their wonderful advice. I didn’t always like the advise at the time but now 6 years later it makes sense. They all attended and helped plan my wedding 3 years ago! My church family were the bulk of the guests there. Now that we have moved away I’m back to the being burned by churches. It’s never just the first visit it happens around the second or third. First Sunday someone will ask us how old the kids are and how long we’ve been married. I think this is just normal married couple conversation, but by the third week we walk in and it’s like we are no longer accepted by people. We get looked at weird and you can get the feeling people whispering or have been.
I will admit we have given up the hunt for a church that is right for our family, because I’m just not sure there is one like that where we live now.
Maybe God will give us the answer someday, but for now I just can’t bring myself to taking my family. With a 6 year old that notices everything how do you explain that there are people in this world that feel it was wrong of me to raise him myself and not allow a GOOD christian family adopt him. Yeah no thank you not at this time. I just can’t do that one, I have better things to try and explain to him that really matter.
Like my first post wasn’t long enough, but I wanted to take the time to add, that I do agree with Mark. I believe that those who do care are driven out because they try to help bring change.
Those who care and those that have been burned should be joining together in small groups at home to maybe form their own churches. Why not have those who care and want change reaching out to those who are being hurt and working towards an ideal church that see everyone as a sinner no better than the person to either side of them and in need of forgiveness. I would be there in a heart beat worshiping next to someone who believed that we have all made mistakes and no mistake is greater than the next. In the end GOD will judge us I don’t need to be judged by others about actions that I have already sought forgiveness for.
I would love to meet the perfect Christian because it means I am meeting Jesus Christ himself and that to me would be the most amazing honor. I also strongly believe that the turns that organized denominations have taken have only lead them futher away from the message and what it is all about.
The link I have added shows the many concerns and controversary that really do surround how the Bible we know today actually came about.
Honestly, the Bible we know today isn’t the original Bible. The Bible we have is the one that Constantine, and the religious leaders that attended the Council of Nicaea created and chose to be of importance. Yep I believe that is where it really started to happen, people hurting people while using the name of God in the process. So breaking this pattern would take a large movement one that would resemble the Protestant Reformation.
Sorry for my soap box and story. I just strongly believe that this is behavior in churches has been there as far back as Constantine and probably even longer that that. and I’m not really sure there is a way to change it, because it’s been going on for so long.
Great post! I posted it as a note on my Facebook page (not without giving you credit) whereas I feel this may speak to some of my friends/acquaintances. Thank you.
Wow! I’m hearing this everywhere I go (except church)! Read a book recently called “So You Don’t Want to Go To Church Anymore” written by Wayne Jacobson and Dave Coleman. It really addresses the issues in a powerful way – even though it’s fiction. Check out Wayne’s websites: Lifestream.org and weekly podcasts at thegodjourney.com. BTW, I picked up the book at Wal-Mart..
@John: It’s one thing to say people who have been hurt should just get over it. I would say I’ve been taken thorough advantage of by Churches with little or no concern for my welfare given in return – but I am getting over it quite nicely, thanks
What worries me more is that way this kind of thing is institutionalised. I’m afraid I can’t see God at the centre of many church institutions – just a bunch of committees engaged in power-play.
I really don’t think this is simply an issue of trying to remember the good as well as the bad. I think there is endemic corporate failure in most of the major church institutions. This is what I’m suggesting needs addressing – or, as I said, perhaps these institutions are simply dying off, to be replaced with new movements guided by the Spirit.
Never forget how much time Jesus himself spent critiquing the religious authorities. For example, how he denounced the laws of ritual purity as simply wrong or out-moded. By no means did Jesus disdain the Jewish religion of which he was a member, but I think his example was to keep looking at it and changing it radically whenever it looses focus. Our religious institutions of today have forgotten how to do this, it seems. Maintaining the status quo has become more important than meeting people in their everyday need. Where this characteristic rings true (and I think it’s true *a lot*), I think we’re looking at a moribund institution.
@tegan: Yes, I think that’s what has been happening for some time – people joining together in small groups to form their own “churches”. Olive Branch is a community I belong to that is trying just this – not because we’re experts, but just because we’re a bunch of friends that want the freedom to share together as Christians away from the human institutions and authorities. Which is what church should have been from the outset, surely?
in my experience so far the people talking about this arent any different than the people perpetrating it and while its certainly easy to admit that we are all broken there seemed to be something in wot jesus was saying that promised something better.
i havent seen it.
all these voices in the conversation are calling for working from within or starting something alternative but really its just perpetuating the same problems in different forms. maybe its time we crucify the church right alongside its founder. a resurrection from the dead might give it a better shot at being wot was intended.
@Lee Taylor: I definitely see what you’re saying, but I agree with this quote from Alvaro Barreiro, a Brazilian Catholic theologian: “There can be no evangelization without incarnation.” We need to not polarize over evangelism vs. acts of social justice but do both simultaneously.
I mentioned our need to match Jesus’ passion for the Church in my above post. And we can’t do that if we continue to talk about the church as a “them.” It’s not. It’s us.
I like how Rich put it in his above comment: “When church becomes “us” and not something outside of ourselves we critique, then we are at a starting point in this conversation.”
WE ARE THE CHURCH. There is no “them.” It certainly makes it nice and neat if we can just blame others. But those crazy, judgmental folks are in the same family that I am in. They are my brothers and sisters. And while they embarrass me sometimes, I am sure I embarrass them sometimes. We all have sinned and fallen short.
I can’t disown them by wishing a “death” on the church so that it can be resurrected. The reason I can’t disown them is because there is no “them.” It’s only “us.” And I can’t disown myself. We are all parts of the same body, the body of Christ in the world.
We can’t wish for the death of that body and we can’t start lopping ears off. A body heals from the inside out. This is always what the Church as done since the beginning of the Church.
If you want to critique the Church, great. But do it humbly and gently with an attitude of “us” rather than an attitude of “them.”
we talk of dying to self with regularity. why cant the church take on a little death of its own?
I think many churches will die a natural death. That’s always been the case. Hopefully they can die well and give new life to other churches.
But I don’t even know what “crucifying the Church” would look like. The Church is people. So changing the way we do “church” is one thing. But calling for the death of the Church seems irresponsible.
@Mark S: I can’t fully agree with you. I don’t think your perspective can speak to those who church institutions have made into “them”. I have a couple of friends who would love nothing more than to be part of the solution, yet they are blocked and excluded by the authorities.
Believe me, I haven’t adopted a preference for getting things done outside of formal church on a whim. It’s just, in my personal circumstances, all the open doors have been those leading away from the buildings and the authorities.
church dying looks like the people who are the church ending the torturous abomination that is church institutions and consumerist church worship services and high profile televangelists and dropping monstrous amounts of money on edifice while pitching the poor and widowed and orphaned table scraps. it is apology and abolition of the thinking that god wants a certain morality legislated by our governments. it is countless atrocities that stand against the very face of the savior.
this could go on and on. but better if it dies completely in every sense. the trouble is that these things are so very ingrained and interwoven in the fabric of the church today that it will take death in order to be rid of it.
the talk of change from the inside is bullshit. there is a plethora of miserable failure in this department despite wotever hip young speakers at appetizingly named conferences are saying.
dont mourn. celebrate!
graceshaker: They are not just “ingrained and interwoven in the fabric of the church today,” they are ingrained and interwoven in humanity in general. The death of the church won’t get rid of it unless you decide that the new church that resurrects will not allow any people in it. People are sinful. People make up the Church. That has always and will always be the case. Your idealism seems to have given you a myopic view of the Church
Mark G: As a pastor of an independent, nondenominational church that meets in a movie theater, I understand the need to get out from under buildings and institutional hierarchies. But we all submit to an authority of some kind, even if that authority is ourselves. All authorities are subject to being skewed. But that has always been the case and will always be the case even if you get rid of “institutions.” It only takes two people to make an institution and it won’t be long until even that is corrupted. Grace need to abound, not condemnation of the Church.
But isn’t there still a significant difference between institutional inflexibility and individual inflexibility? It is a difference of scale, for sure, but surely it takes very different strategies to effect change within individuals on one hand and institutions on the other?
Mark G.
Certainly individuals seem to be more flexible than institutions. But the Church is a community of believers. A community necessitates more than an individual. It also means more than a collection of people all acting individualistically. We are a “body” that must work together and live life together.
That means that while creating new and different ways of being the Church is a great and necessary thing, there will never be a day where the institution of the Church doesn’t exist. So I think we should reform certain “forms” of the institution of the Church but not wait for the destruction of the institution itself.
Phyllis Tickle, a church historian, has a great book called The Great Emergence about this ongoing process of making corrections in the church. Her theory, which I believe is true, is that every 500 years the church goes through a great upheaval where two things happen: 1) a new form of church is created, and 2) the old forms adjust and reform themselves.
This is what we saw in 1054 when the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches broke away from each other. It’s also what we saw in the Protestant Reformation. It is what is happening now. The Church is ever adaptive to the changing culture around it.
Though we may be the Church differently, we need not be so critical of the old forms of being Church. In many ways, those older forms are the parents of the newer forms. We must honor and respect those who have passed the gospel down to us even when we disagree with them. We are all one family.
One day, the next generation of Christians will be criticizing us for our sin and our short-sightedness in being the Church. I hope they will show me grace for not getting it all right when it was my turn to lead in the Church. And while they will criticize me, I hope they do so with humility and gentleness. This is what we must offer to the parts of the church that we have the hardest time with.
if the church considers itself a sinful wreck we always will be but if the church dies…
one who has died has been set free from sin.
romans 6:7
Mark S,
I don’t think it is wrong to criticise destructive behaviour – especially in institutions – and I don’t believe it is disrespectful. If it is, Jesus himself set a strong example of disrespect.
I do believe it is dangerous to confuse the Body of Christ (meaning each of us) and the church institutions. An institution or an organisation is a tool for getting a job done. It is no more to a church than the hammer and chisel are to a piece of furniture. When a tool wears out, we might repair it, or throw it away and replace it with something new.
I do not personally believe anything is “due” to the church institutions. They are simply models, patterns and tools. Some are working great, but the largest are showing signs of terminal decline in my vicinity. Whether there is any hope that they can re-form depends on who one talks to. I personally think most are in the “throw the tool away and replace it with a better one” category. I accept this isn’t everyone’s viewpoint, but, at the moment, it is mine. But this doesn’t mean I don’t respect those who are working hard to improve their organisations and institutions, or the fantastic people who have kept our faith alive through their work within the institutions. Together, we are certainly part of the same family – it’s just that we all are given different talents and must try to discern where our talents can achieve the most.
I’m very grateful for the discussion here. I’ve been reflecting on the tendency to create “us”es and “them”s. I do need to be careful not to do this.
Mark S wrote: “Jesus views the Church as his bride, his wife. How would you treat a woman who is struggling in sin? That is how we must treat the Church.”
This is potentially quite problematic. The Roman Catholics would view ‘The Church’ institution as an entity in its own right, which Jesus cares for deeply. Other Christians might view ‘the church’ here as the people that make it up. The former view makes all sorts of religious oppression possible, whereas the latter view encourages tolerance and community.
Curtis, Thanks for the reply. Good call on simultaneously. Thanks again for the post. Great letter.
[...] http://justwallpaper.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/an-open-letter-to-those-who-have-been-burned-by-church... (Just Wallpaper – Curtis Honeycutt – @curtishoneycutt) [...]
hmmm…. incridable
i like this one
Curtis, thank you so much for that I needed it right NOW. It’’s been a little over a year since we left our former church and it’s sinking in that I’m not even aware how damaged I am. I’ve been going to another church held hostage by my wife to the very church I did my very best to make our former church not be like, it’s of the 1st Babtist sort. So now here I am getting brothered to death by happy Christians and I feel like everyone is thinking “what’s his problem?” Even after a year Im just so tired of thinking about it. And if one person says “leave it up to God” I’ll textually punch them in the face. God got me into this mess. I’m a Calvinist too in a community of Armenians so that’s a problem too. Thank you again for the post though. Keep up the good work.
Brad B-
I wrote this for people like you. I’m glad you found it. Thanks for your response.
[...] Honeycutt recently wrote an Open Letter to Those Who Have Been Burned by the Church. Well worth the [...]