Gratefully Disillusioned
I have spent countless hours pondering what went wrong with Christianity in our generation. What happened to our religion to make everything so crazy and off track? How could something centered around authentic relationship with God become so dangerous and hurtful to its participants? More than anything, I've asked myself; why wasn't it working for most people?
I've found that the pattern of growth for those who seem to truly know Him has been pretty much the same. The common thread I see over and over is that every person in relationship with Him must go through a shedding period where all that they have been told and all that they have believed is gently taken from them until they are left with nothing but what is. Each person discovers a contentment in knowing they were wrong all along and the stresses of what they had been told all their lives, whether good or bad, trickle away, leaving their spirit relaxed and satisfied.
It's not as if merely the bad things they'd heard about God were proven wrong. Everything was wrong, the good and the bad. The spectacular claims that used to thrill them during worship services and the absolute promises that they stood on when they felt weak. It all gets stripped away as relationship blooms.
I've come to the conclusion that somewhere in the last 200 years, we felt that we needed to market our relationship as a religion. At some point in time, someone decided that Christianity needed to be packaged and presented in a way that would appeal to the masses. In other words, we purposefully marketed our faith to unbelievers. I am convinced that this is where the dominoes began to tumble.
If you're going to market a pair of shoes to a specific group of people, you must find out what excites those people the most and convince them that if they wear your shoes, they'll find it. If you're selling shoes to gang bangers, you'll need to convince them that these shoes will make them tougher and stronger, perhaps even invincible. You must make them feel like others will be intimidated by them if they are wearing the shoes. They should believe that once they put those shoes on, something will happen to their very soul that will make them fearless and powerful. This is how marketing works. Once the idea is planted into people's minds, they buy the product without thinking it through.
I believe that Christianity has been marketed to the carnal nature of unbelievers. We successfully got people who would not have otherwise become a Christian to sign on the dotted line and join our religion. We did it by presenting "relationship with God" in a way that would appeal to power-hungry money mongers who want to escape the cold reality of life. We told people that God would financially prosper them. We told them that they would never get sick and if they did, God would make it go away. We've promised them that if anyone hurt them, their God would stick up for them and get revenge on their behalf. We convinced them that God would also give them godlike powers and they could dazzle their friends and family with magic tricks. We promised them that God would make sure they held a position of leadership in life where everyone would respect them and pay them honor. I've even seen different ministries claim that Christians have better sex than non-Christians. The list goes on and on. One by one, people signed up for Christianity. People who would not have otherwise given it a second look, found themselves strangely tempted with a religion that promised to fulfill their every carnal desire. The offer was just too good to be true.
Generations later, people are holding onto the promises the sales agent gave them, in spite of the fact that they've never seen the results manifested in their own life. Others finally leave the "faith," drained and disheartened. They didn't get what they wanted from Christianity so they continue searching for a religion that will give it to them. Then we have the people who would have given their heart to God without any marketing at all. It was already in their heart. They came to Him because they wanted Him and nothing else. They would have come without the fancy marketing and boastful claims.
Sadly, these sincere people go through life thinking they are always one step behind the rest of the crowd. They secretly feel like they're doing something wrong and failing God because they get sick and are short on cash and are stuck in a dead-end job at the bottom of the totem pole. They aren't full of intense joy and happiness 24 hours a day like they were told they would be, so they blame themselves for not getting it like they should. They beat themselves up because they truly love God and yet none of the explosions they were told about are happening.
These are the people who will eventually become Free Believers.
These are the people who will still stick around once the good and the bad of their religion has been stripped away. They never needed promises of power and prosperity to pique their interest. They didn't go into it looking for an escape from normalcy. It was never about avoiding life's hardships or obtaining magical powers. It was relationship that drew them. It was the Spirit of relationship that they first heard and listened to.
The process of stripping the good and the bad of religion is a long and painful one, but I've found that Free Believers love every minute of it. Their faith doesn't shudder for even a second during the process. When the embellished things of God disappear, they find themselves becoming more pleased and pleasured by what they find behind it than most of their institutional friends would ever have been. In fact, they would willingly give up everything they had ever been promised, if it meant they could be one step closer to the heart of the one they love. This stripping away of religion's boasts and promises is truly what separates the sheep from the goats in our generation. The goats become angry and faithless and the sheep become "Gratefully Disillusioned."
Darin Hufford
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Once again Darin... you hit the nail on the head. I still feel many times like I'm looking for the real Jesus. ALmost daily I find another piece of junk that's been dumped in my head (and heart) by marketed "Christianity," sometimes one I didn't realize was there. It seems this is not going to be a quick process. Better to be getting better slowly than not at all though...
"leaving their spirit relaxed and satisfied." Those words stood out more than any other. Over the last few months I have had such a joyful spirit due to the realization of how comfortable my relationship with God has become. In my life I have friends. When I visit them,even though I call them friends,there is a stiffness or uncomfortable feeling because we really haven't moved into a relaxed relationship. Image management is still the white elephant in the room. Then I have friends who have been friends for so long I don't even have to knock when I go to their home. When I call they know by the tone of my voice if I am excited or upset and ask whats going on before I even tell them. Our relationship is that comfortable. This is where I am with God. No more shuck and Jive just comfortable.
I believe in all the blessing and promises of our Loving Heavenly Father even when i dont see them all the time. Most of the time i do see them all. But we need to remember that he is are promise. When it comes down to it i would say, just dont seek the hand of our Loving God, Dont even seek his face. Seek his heart.
I like the fact, that you don't despise healing, prosperity and other God's great gifts given to us out of love. You just hate the way they are used to crush kill and destroy people. Love has disapeared, freedom is gone. Most of the time I see people in lukewarmness or in spiritual jail. Spiritual jail is the worst thing because it changes people into computers without soul. But beware. Because when Free Believers lose their freedom they'll become million times worse then any IC. William Marrion Branham was once an amazing free believer bringing freedom and unity to the dead denominational world. But in the end everything got twisted. Every little 20-membered group is today a horrible spiritual jail. I come from this environment. Beware of extremes. FREEDOM in Jesus Christ be renewed.
Thanks. I needed that. We needed that. And I cried. It was good. Love ya.
Beautiful Darin! I am gratefully disillusioned! The Journey free from Religiousity, life now, millions times better, even the rough patches and seasons. Why? Because I now know and am living IN Relationship with Him and with Others. Love, Relationship, Grace, Truth...that's what it's ALL about.
Great stuff. One thing though. I would beg to differ with your last para. I have found that while I am willing to be subjected to whatever is required to diss the illusions, I wouldn't imagine anybody would get through it without a bit of anger towards God. For me, coming from a family with an emotionally distant alcoholic father, to be able to be angry at God has actually been an amazingly healing thing. I am safe enough to vent my anger onto him because I know that he knows that it's just venting, you know? He's very gracious about my dummy spits. Funny, now one of the sweetest memories I have from my 6+ years of chronic illness is yelling at God, furious with him for allowing this to happen. Weird, huh? :) http://discombobula.blogspot.com
Great blog Darin! Like Sue, my reaction to the stripping process has been one of ambivalence. I wish I could say I've loved every minute of it.Most days I'm a "gratefully disillusioned" sheep who is glad to be one step closer to the heart of the one I love, and grateful my faith has remained intact. Some days though, the carnage in my life from being manipulated by the marketing scheme for so many years makes me angry. The losses are so great. The concept of "purposefully marketing our faith to unbelievers" is something I'm just beginning to see. I've never thought of it in those terms, but it makes so much sense. It cheapens God. For years I've been disillusioned with building multi-million dollar clubs and calling them churches. Elaborate housing for master manipulators!
I find myself in a place where anything that religion has even a thread of hold on it; and I want to just completely turn the other way. Recently moving back to where I first became a christian - I went back to an old fellowship at a home; finding myself really not into it...seeing it as taking regular church and just doing it in your home...so I find myself after a year/half not participating in sunday church - unconnected, but see the hand of God working; ever so slowly...my patiences have always been to my detrament. I feel I have been a freebeliever ever since I became a christian...
Thank you Darin, this is good! We love you.
Darin, man have enjoyed finding the free believers voice. I have so much to say about the failures of the the Inst. Church that I don't know where to begin. The only word that comes to me is "Fraudulent." Nice guy syndrome replaced truth seeking a long way back. Now it seems that truth seekers are forced out of an institution that is, as you hit it the nail on the head, marketing to carnal desires, and as i see it, based on man's traditions instead of the Spirit. it's like the Jesus-day synagogue of satan all over again. ...how I wish I could erase my church indoctrination. thanks for helping me recover my brain - feel like it at the door of the church in exchange for "fellowship". now i know better. keep keepin it real - b/c Jesus is still simply, the Truth. Ben
ps. fyi, meant to say 'feel like i checked it at the door in exchange for fellowship". keep up the honesty! it's healing. imagine that, the Truth heals:)! Ben
Another bullseye! I've been getting "stripped" for the past 18 months. No, I didn't love every minute of it, and yes, my faith DID shudder. But now my faith is restored and my spirit really IS "relaxed and satisfied." I'm with Sue: knowing you can tell God you're angry with Him is VITALLY important. I said some pretty shocking things to God this year after I left the church in despair. In spite of my rants, He has taken care of me as I lost my job twice in 7 months, started my own business, and finished the year with the same amount of money in savings that I had when I lost my job for the 2nd time. He has made me one of the "Gratefully Disillusioned." So go ahead and "cry your heart out to Him." It's the best and most honest prayer you can ever pray!
I think that your exactly right. Religion has gotten way off track somewhere a long time ago. I think along the time that Paul the Apostle started saying go ahead and save some with fear in the bible are whole future was changed. Now a majority of Christians are sons of hell or of fear instead of sons of Love or God. Then they go on to use money, its crazy is right look on tv or radio today and all you see is them asking youfor damn money. Now its half of there message. I think that we have been heading down a slippery slope as Christianity as a whole for a long time. The Gospel should be preached out of Love, Hope, and Faith. Thank God so much for you that you do so out of Love,
I am definitely in the "stripping" phase. Ouch!!! But I am looking forward to the real me that's under all that #@%#! that was marketed to me as Christianity.
I'm not protestant so for me I'm looking at this from the outside, but it appears as if it's really just called growing up. We were never promised anything but salvation if we followed Him. That's it, but that's everything. All the stuff is just stuff. It reads like "whaah God wants me to be happy and that means having this and that" God's will is (I think) simply our salvation. all the other stuff may or may not help us to get there.When we cooperate with His will we don't get more stuff, we get salvation.
The draw - "If you were to die on the way out of here, do you know where you would go? Don't leave here today without that certainty." They dangle us over hell and give us the choice "God or hell." Hmph, and I'm not even a rocket scientist.
"They dangle us over hell and give us the choice "God or hell." What a great quote. That says it all doesn't it.
I realized a while back that the church retails Jesus. Think about it. You will not find him in the world because piety precludes the "faithful" from associating with sinners. So the seeker (must be a movement of the Spirit - I've known few in the IC that are a draw) come on Sunday, and is advised to "count the cost." What they don't tell you is that the preferred currency is the ego of men. Believe me, they'll be "out of Jesus" until you exchange your belief in the benevolence of a Holy God and His Living Word for the knowledge of men. By the way, you must show an ID. Forget that spiritual seal. No, it is actions of the flesh that bear proof. Don't worry, though. If your heart is full of hatred, arrogance, and lies, this is accepted. Contempt might even get you a better deal!
For anyone interested. www.throwinghammers.net Say YES to the product, and NO to the packaging.
I've posted quite a few comments today. That's me: I always have something to say. Guess that's why i didn't do so well in the institution. =) Loved this blog, especially the paragraph in which you write,"It was never about avoiding life's hardships or obtaining magical powers. It was relationship that drew them. It was the Spirit of relationship that they first heard and listened to." What led me to a relationship with God was hearing His voice and feeling the peace that came with being in His presence. While I haven't always been in that place of peace and rest, it's the promise of that which keeps me on this journey. It's the hope of knowing there's Someone out there who gives a damn about what's on my heart, who doesn't think less of me when I screw up (which I do often). Thanks for doing what you do.