The Day My Old Church Canceled Me Was a Very Sad Day (by David French)

A lot of respect for French even though I don't agree with all of his stuff. But at least he struggles to be fair and have a larger soul. Almost the whole chapter was devoted to his persecution in Tim Alberta's book

 

From the thread title, Phil, I thought it was your church that canceled you. Glad that didn’t happen.

 

While there are specific issues I will disagree with French I do like to listen to him. I’m an atheist, but in more recent years I’ve tried to take a live and let live attitude towards religion, because it fills a void for many people. However, my patience is growing thin, because so many of these “Christians” have been co-opted by the far right and white nationalists. It isn’t the fault of Christianity per se that its doctrines have been bastardized, but at the same time religion can often be a vehicle for people to stop thinking for themselves.

Watching a TV show last night where a family was busting to get to church Sunday morning, then showing them standing and singing at church. It brought back feelings of really hating church as a kid - mostly out of sheer boredom, but also because of the perpetual guilt trip it left you with, as well as some nut jobs who took more conservative interpretations of scripture. Life became so much easier when I left that all behind around high school.

 

He shouldn’t go away mad. He should just go away.

 

It’s okay to be libbie man.
Just let it go…you were probably never conservative anyways.

 

I don't think David French understands what cancel culture is. He's on the Rockefeller pay roll, and he got a nice cushy job at the NY Times. That is pretty much the opposite of getting cancelled. He's leftist royalty now, and he's getting paid to do their bidding. People who are truly cancelled can't get nice cushy jobs at the New York Times. That is a privilege very few Americans have. That is his reward for taking money bags from godless leftist elites and serving their interests.

Now, words sometimes have consequences. If you are a political journalist with a deeply partisan reputation when it comes to certain topics maybe you are not going to be well received in your own congregation or denomination to talk about these topics. He's financially connected to leftist billionaires, so there are valid questions to be raised about his neutrality.

 

Similar to my experience as well. I got dragged to a couple church events while visiting my old stomping ground in Florida last year a couple days before we drove up for the Tennessee game. One of them was at the church my family attended when I was growing up, the other at a megachurch. I left that world 15+ years ago and haven’t missed it, but I was taken aback by just how much it’s changed in that time. Our old church was sparsely attended, whereas the megachurch was booming while being borderline nakedly political, with just a hint of anger thrown in. Even ran into some old friends from the old church who had switched to the megachurch.

It was an eye-opening experience, but also a sign of the times. The megachurch business model works. It’s drawing more and more customers away from the smaller ones these days.

 

I will say the Trump threads have decreased in frequency. We're down to only 4 a day now.

 

This thread reminds me to ask you Phil, how your shift to more liberal politics has played in your church.

If I remember correctly you’re Mormon, right?

Do you keep your politics to yourself at church? If not, how have your political leanings been received by your follow congregants?

 

Thankfully the poll threads are down too

 

I can’t speak for every church in every denomination, but there is a long history there to study regarding this topic. In my own personal life based on my own personal experiences most theologically conservative churches do not spend much time talking about politics at all, but theological conservatism and political conservatism seem to go hand in hand. You can’t take too strong of a stand where the Bible is silent, and there are some people who might vote Republican and some who might vote 3rd party. You are in a big gray area there choosing between those two options, and the subsequent voting philosophies associated that motivate both ways of voting. But very rarely would someone with an unblemished theologically conservative Christian worldview vote Democrat. If you believe fire came down from heaven to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah for homosexuality among other sins, then you can’t vote for government representatives that will push that kind of a culture in your country so that you essentially become a carbon copy of Sodom and Gomorrah. If you believe the Israelites were ordered to genocidally kill the pagan nations around them for their pagan idolatry, which included child sacrifice and rampant sexual immorality then you can’t vote in a way that would inevitably make the USA a carbon copy of those nations God ordered the Israelites to kill.

And you can actually see that reality play out right here on this board too actually. There are many people who claim to be Christians, but many of us sharply disagree on issues like the nature of biblical inspiration, the deity of Christ, the Genesis narrative (whether it is to be taken literally or not), the nature of biblical miracles, is salvation of works or of grace, should women be allowed to preach, is homosexuality a sin, is abortion a sin, etc…these are the leading indicators that provide huge clues to whether or not someone might vote Democrat or not.

Why? Because voting involves the application of one’s worldview to the political realm. The nature of that worldview is everything.

As a church begins to compromise on these issues a true Christian worldview gets subverted for a worldview that votes differently. As that worldview is subverted theological conservative members start slowly leaving congregations allowing for even bigger compromises in these churches to happen. More theologically liberal people start to find it is more comfortable to attend these places of worship when the theological conservatives leave. Eventually the church becomes almost unrecognizable from what it used to be in the past.

 

DJT is virtually the antithesis of Christ. He is the total opposite of Jesus and Jesus' preachings in every way. It's sad to see how very wayward so many churches have become in America.

 

And we should just take your word and opinion on this?
lol, read your post again…wow, how self important of you to make such a claim…
Smh

 

Meh, I cant think of a political ideology that is more at war with the tenants of Christianity than right wing republicanism. For one hour on Sundays they raise their hands toward the Heavens and singing songs about ultimate love and then spend the remaining 167 hours of a week talking about the lazy poor, the unfairly persecuted wealthy, the immigrants poisoning the blood of the nation, the evils of graduated tax burdens, the atrocity of tolerance, and the crime of diversity.

The churches I attend generally are non-political but the Roe/Wade glee of last year was almost toxic at times for a topic the is clearly not Biblical.

 

I was going to reply to the article by pointing out how awful and mean-spirited many people can be, including the hypocrites professing to be Christians, but I'll let your post make the point for me.

I didn't detect an ounce of kindness and Christian tolerance in your missive. You present more Satanic than Christian.

 

I heard an interesting podcast on Satanism. I think most of hard right "Christians" fare worse than satanists that are following the tenets of Satanism, the first being:

"One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason."

 

"Mega churches" work for two reasons. Yes "business" is sadly part of it, for a noisy few...but secondly, they are mostly attended because of opportunity. Tiny churches have very little influence and ability to serve the community. (Recourses being very low.).

My fairly large church is incredibly involved in our community. (Homeless, food, community fun days etc) and globally, (foreign aid work, missin work etc). The larger churches can simply do more service because of greater recourses and that is very much the draw for many of us.

It's not unlike the bigger charities like the one I work for tend to attract the most money and volunteer base. People want to be involved in a bigger picture.

So yes... Some mega churches (Osteen types) are certainly big business, but most local large churches. Probably 99%... are never heard about outside of their city where they live and serve.

My preference is a large church that follows the narrative of scripture by having a serious impact on the unchurched, underserved and hurting....NOT...the large ones that lose their way (Osteen) or the small ones that never find it.