Michaelp,
It will help you to know that I was kicked out of an Evangelical Free Church of America for questioning the church schedule. The pastors, in particular, the woman pastor (of children’s ministries) falsely accused me of heinous things, and the pastors told me that I was “striving against the leadership of the church.” (A year later, this woman pastor was fired from this church after she was caught in a lie).
We also suspect that one of our daughters may have been abused by someone in this church. For the seven years of our sojourn there, she hated the church and constantly asked if we could find another church. When the end came and we came home crying after the “tribunal” that ousted us, our daughter screamed out, “I TOLD YOU! I KNEW THAT CHURCH WAS EVIL!”
So I have a bit of an axe to grind against Protestant churches, in particular, evangelical churches.
Mind you, I came from excellent evangelical churches. I grew up with Evelyn Christenson as my pastor’s wife. Gary Smalley was my associate pastor. John Ortberg was in my youth group. I had excellent evangelical credentials and a 40-year record of service in evangelical churches that could have won me “Laywoman of the Year” in almost any evangelical church in the U.S.
Now I don’t trust any evangelical church, and I think Sola Scriptura is an invention of the devil. Those pastors used their Holy Bible to prove that I should be ousted. Because they were the ordained “Leaders,” everyone in the church took their side and considered me “anathema.” Once I was “outside,” I had no life. You know how it is. In the evangelical world, church is your life, especially if you are a woman.
They never called, never wrote, never checked to see if I was OK. I wasn’t. I cried for weeks, and had grisly, sickening nightmares about me and my family being chased down and executed by church people.
Almost two years later, neither of my two daugthers will have anything to do with any church, although they still profess faith in Jesus. My older daughter says, “Mom, if they could treat you that way after all your work in the church, how would they treat me?” She calls herself “damaged” by our church, and still has thoughts of entering a morning worship service and telling them all off.
And my younger daughter simply says she “can’t trust churches.”
The evangelical churches of the world have NO ANSWER for me and my family. There is no “pope” that I can go to to seek justice and restoration. There is no “mediator,” no “structure” that I can appeal to. Just thousands of individual churches, each full of people who “follow the Holy Spirit’s guiding in interpreting the Scripture.” Dandy.
I doubt that any Protestant publishing house would even publish a book about my horrific experiences in this church, although I have worked on one. They would say that I was “striving” or “being unforgiving” or “giving non-believers a weapon to use against us.”
Yet, from what I have read online, there are thousands of evangelicals who have the SAME KIND OF OUSTING EXPERIENCE, and have been horribly “damaged” by their churches. People should be warned and churches held accountable for the havoc they are wreaking in the name of “following the Bible alone.”
My question to you is, “If your church is following the ‘New Testament Church,’ why don’t you accept ALL the teachings of the early church fathers, for example, Eucharist? Why do you pick and choose those teachings that ‘fit’ with YOUR denominational beliefs?”
Thanks for the invitation to your church. I will come back and visit you only when I have been publicly and nationally “restored” to fellowship and those pastors made to admit that they did wrong.
Yes, I believe you are a Christian and that your church is a Christian church, but a poor copy of the original. Heaven help those who go to your churches.
