My notes, observations, and thoughts on the sermon.
36:20 Surrender to the lordship of Christ. Jesus at the steering wheel analogy.
38:05 How do you know what Jesus knows? This leads people to believe that when they feel like the ‘Spirit’ is leading them, then whatever they are believing and doing at the time is sanctified in their own minds. This is the certainty which is so destructive. This teaching leads us to not look behind the curtain at the Christian political machine running us and just accept that we are doing what we ought to be doing if we feel okay. This feelings-based teaching makes slaves of the laity. Men like Tim enjoy being in charge and for the little people to not question.
38:30 no argument that God knows everything. Trouble is, we don’t. Again, we are being led into feelings-based certainty.
40:37 ‘The Holy Spirit knows where to tinker.’ Why is it then that the people who claim to be in the closest ‘apostolic’ conversational relationship with God are so much at odds with other people who claim the same thing when it comes to what we little people ought to believe and do? Just send money, and elevate me to your highest positions of honor no matter how contradictory (and tolerant of evil) we are? Spirit-filled people have told me that I must bend the knee to a political party (unofficially) led by an accomplished liar and con man.
41:55 ‘Live wisely among those who are not Christians.’ That’s just it, Tim… Millions are leaving the church; membership declining in the past 20 years from the mid-70’s% to less than 47% and still falling. You listen to the testimony of the ex-vangelicals and they will tell you it’s because of the political enmeshment of church and state, the nationalism (which well-encapsulates the following qualities,) xenophobia, the coverups of abuse, the authoritarianism, the exclusionism, the misogyny, the arrogance, the tolerance of lies as the ends justify the means of the ‘spirit-led’ church. The problem is often not with the teachings of Jesus found in the gospels.
44:19 What would God have us seek? To value everyone, to seek what is just and merciful, to be with ‘the others,’ to love, welcome, and help them without seeing ‘them’ as an existential threat to our survival, and to not try to lord over them using political power to make them ‘behave’ and remain in their proper place? The truth? Or power?
46:46 Pray with an alert mind. Agreed. 47:30 with gratefulness. Agreed
49:37 Pray for opportunities to preach. NewsMax, FoxNews and the GOP/Christian Right creates quite a context for preaching to those who do not think like we do. So much for living wisely.
49:48 We are God’s plan to reach unbelievers. How are we doing there? Teach them to obey? We are working hard that one—to obey us that is.
51:00 We understand how to love people? This is so self-centered. Do we suppose that non-Christian cannot experience, feel, and convey ‘real’ love? It is what is being implied, however gently. The shallowness and religiocentricity (my word) of this sentiment that only Christians can convey true love leads naturally to the ‘us’ and ‘them’ problem. The sentiment springs out of and in turn feeds ‘experiential Christianity.’ This short-circuits the path from fulfilling cares and needs at our expense to immediately move forward to ‘you need to think and act as I do’ first. (Fortunately, I think the Spirit teaches us otherwise since people who’ve been transformed will be ‘liberal’ in who they will help. This is where all the fear which drives us politically clashes with what the Spirit teaches the transformed heart about charity.) Deny it all you want, but this the history of ‘become as we are’ (submit to authority) colonial Christianity. The actions of the Christian Right are commonly perceived to be quite hateful to people (and to truth itself.) Again, so much for living graciously (and wisely.)
52:00 It’s clear to me what you are saying because I’m familiar with the code.
52:44 They see the truth lived out. Well, now that Christianity has crawled into bed with the political Right, the GOP, the American flag, a system of lies, obfuscation, coverups, xenophobia, force, and patriarchal authoritarianism, which all claims to fly under a banner of love with a laity who just blindly follow where they are led, the ‘lost’ are seeing our ‘truth’ lived out.
52:55 The qualities above are anything but winsome and attractive. You are deliberately obfuscating the fact that we are seriously divided over deadly (literally,) serious matters. You don’t get to say ‘not in this church’ because that isn’t true.
53:30 And this is where you say that people like me are the problem—who ‘inoculate’ people against the gospel. Sounds to me that you are saying that to be a good Christian one must submit to the leadership who is telling us to be submissive to the sin of nationalism, which is idolatry. The sinner is the one pointing out the complicity of the church to abide and support the many sins of the GOP and the Christian Right? ‘Walking around smelling armpits and choosing up sides on an issue.’ Is that what I’m doing? What we are currently complicit in Tim is wrong. This is not a dunking or sprinkling issue Tim. This is idolatry Tim. We are allying with a system of lies to force people to behave as we think they ought to behave. Does not God have the power to make us all behave? Why doesn’t He then? What did Jesus say to the Devil when offered all the kingdoms of the world? Oh… He wants us to grab political power so we can be in charge and do it for Him. Got it.
53:44 A ‘hissy fit’ over a serious moral issue which is currently destroying our witness to the world?
54:04 ‘Why would I want that?’ Going back to the notion that non-Christians can’t know real love or morality, the fact remains that Christianity itself has picked up a lot of values from humanism which did not spring out of the Bible. Fact. A lot of the ‘lost’ are morally appalled by the complicity of the church’s getting into bed with the political system to forward what the world sees as sins—complicity, coverup, xenophobia, misogyny, patriarchal authoritarianism, homophobia, and the use of violent force and deception to enact an increasingly fascist ‘theocracy.’ Could it be they wouldn’t want to bend the knee to what they see as being hateful? I think what that you find hateful is that some who have identified as Christian will not bend the knee to you and the way you think things ought to be. Authority doesn’t work on me Tim. Arguments and evidence does. What you are doing here is using your authority to bully and shame people to submit. I will not. Nationalism is evil. I will continue to talk to whoever will listen.
54:20 Unity to a lie is not loving.
54:46 What is the Christian Right’s gospel? It is very different than the one Jesus taught; this is what confuses the issue more than the simple fact that people, all people, disagree, sometimes very strongly, with each other. So much for ‘iron sharpening iron.’
55:45 A wise walk is a consistent walk? What if you’ve been deceived and you’re walking in the wrong direction? Nothing to see here; just keep walking.
56:30 and how do you know it’s Jesus doing the tapping? We are assaulted with massive amounts of various claims and information telling us what ‘Jesus’ thinks we ought to be thinking and doing. This information is conveyed by men in a myriad of different human ways. It is impossible to consciously be aware of all of them. Fact.
58:45 ‘Preserve me from those who are plotting evil against me.’ This Psalm of David is what it means to walk carefully? That everyone is out to get you? Well, if you claim authority, and teach people in such a way as to keep them passive and unquestioning of the way the church is witnessing to the world, of what we are (at the very least passively) endorsing, and somebody calls you on it, are they ‘plotting evil against you’? Shouldn’t be putting it into people’s minds that we are being picked on here anyway—socially, we are on the top the heap.
59:30 People read the news—and many fear what the Christian political machine is going to do to them. They recognize the nice Christian lady across the street who brings them cookies and see nice acts as that happening despite what they see the church writ large is teaching.
59:50 ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.’ I understand our differences Tim will likely never garner such a response because in your eyes, and in the eyes of the nationalists, I am an enemy of the church.
1:02:03 No impact without contact. Yep. That’s what I’m doing. Boom.
1:03:04 Fear is what is encouraged by the Christian media machine, eschatology, apocalypse, crisis, immigrants, homosexuals, massive voter fraud, sexual immorality (but not frequent mass murders with AR-15’s, heavens no!) so we’ve got to act drastically now to ‘Save America’! Fear is our faction’s main motivator. Sorrow and anger are mine.
1:03:25 Just be you and the Holy Spirit will speak through you. Following the logic of the sermon: As I’ve been told, I’m a ‘hateful divider.’ A ‘divisive’ person cannot be led by the Spirit, right? So… Just a Pharisee. Godless. Lost. An enemy. So says the authority.
1:04:25 ‘Just plain rude.’ So, we trade ‘You’re going to hell’ for ‘we are accumulating the political power, through any ugly means necessary, to make you ‘others’ speak and behave according to our rules to lift our God’s glory’?
1:05:36 ‘What did Jesus say to the woman at the well?’ This teaching here contradicts the teaching of the Christian Right which seeks to shame, silence, condemn, and punish those who do wrong in our eyes. This is not a conspiracy. It’s in the news. It’s in the legislation. We want big teeth to back what we say is right.
1:06:49 We shouldn’t put people on a scale. This is another religiocentric thing to do. Just because I am hostile to the teachings of the evangelical church doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m hostile to God. When one equivocates the teachings of the church and the teachings of Jesus, that is divisive since it forces us into serious contradiction with the teachings of other churches of which, practically speaking, we must gloss over for unity’s sake. (Our history used to be much bloodier because in the past we had harder time doing this.) All your talk of unity must remain within each local body and denomination which sets up a hierarchy by necessity to have order. This is good for the people who run things. This hierarchy of authority becomes then the very structure and framework from which all ‘good’ Christian teaching flows. This leads to scales of perception in which you may assume a person’s hostility towards God in relation to your assessment of that person’s perceived hostility towards your own teaching. I’ve done my homework—for decades. You would not like my assessment of where on the scale I would place the teachings of the nationalists as compared to my understanding of what Jesus taught. If I were to join a ‘liberal’ church, one whose teachings are hostile to nationalism and all that comes with it, would I then be a non-divisive brother equal in your eyes? Or would I still be a heretic and/or a Pharisee? (Jesus never got angry with the Pharisees for misleading the people, right? Such is not possible for the ‘Spirit-led’ people today, right?) Either way, the main instructive to the masses is that the principle of hierarchy itself is maintained. This is good for people who want to be in charge and feel important. This upholds the God-willed Christian Right program to ‘Make America Great Again.’ Good Christians submit to this as we proudly salute the stars and stripes despite all the associations of that symbol with a plethora of very ugly things being done in God’s name under this red, white, and blue banner.
1:06:59 ‘They ask really good questions.’ As do I. I don’t believe you when you say you like to interact with the negative 10’s. It is unclear where I would fall on your scale. You’ve demonstrated what is important to you, order. You like the way things are. Getting to the root of what is dividing the church and the source of why people are leaving doesn’t seem to interest you one bit. What is important to you is that you are important; the scale helps with that. Good riddance to heretics and sinners like me—because we are a threat to the order.
1:07:20 ‘Jesus went to where people were.’ Once again, trying to have it both ways. Christian Right struggles for the power to use force. Jesus rejected the use of force while physically on this earth—which I believe serves as our example. But this is where pre-millennial dispensationalism, the ‘Left Behind’ tripe, reimagines Jesus returning as an all-powerful conquering warrior who literally (I read the whole series) melts His enemies with something like laser beams which come out of His eyes. This was very helpful to the Christian Right’s goal to acclimate the average Christian to the use of force and violence to achieve the conditions we think need to happen for Him to return. This attempt to force Jesus’ hand is akin to the sin of Iscariot.
1:09:18 ‘Witness ought to be compelling.’ I admit that I am just plain intimidating. But, if given the opportunity, I will lead you to think deeply on matters if you should spend any time with me. Little, if anything, is simple. And believe it or not, and to what was my surprise, I have been called an encourager by someone who dropped their fear of me to then spend the time to get to know me.
1:12:00 ‘Focus on what we have in common.’ A cross? A flag? We say ‘Jesus’ a lot? This is spoken by someone who is, again, not the least bit interested to even acknowledge the depth of the problems caused by the common call to be complicit with Christian/political nationalism. Tim doesn’t see any problem with it other than it causes people, who see the misplaced hope in political power as idolatry, to speak out against it—which disturbs his peace and, possibly, his certainty. There’s plenty in the OT about Israel religiously blending with other systems—the theological word describing this is syncretism. I know lots of you will be calling for my head—but nationalism is idolatry.
1:14:00 ‘3000 get added.’ This is my second to last salvo to serve my conscience that I didn’t remain silent, complicit, to warn the church I’ve spent 20 years into a little of what we’ve all been duped into believing is the will of God. The last salvo won’t be as dramatic as it will be in my resignation letter to Pastor Bissonette (since Tim denied me that courtesy) which will briefly outline why I am leaving. I know many will be deeply upset with me. Many will be relieved. Although upsetting, and contrary to all Tim had to say about divisive people, you all deserve to hear from the ‘other side’ another perspective on the deadly, destructive seriousness of our divisions from someone who has been a somewhat consistent troublemaker for almost two decades. I care, deeply. This will cost me as people will blame me, and people like me, for the divisions to avoid addressing the problem itself. The shunning will be sad—but I must do this. I won’t be darkening the door of Centralia First Church again, since (on principle) I will not pass by those flags at the front door. I told my wife that I would only accompany her if those flags weren’t up. Whoever put them up front, I got your message. That will do it. Take care.
In Sorrow,
Mark Jennings