Because I said so

An alternative title for this post would be Spiritual Abuse Part III, because I've already posted a Part I and a Part II. Yes, I'm still only about halfway through that book about spiritual abuse that I started reading two years ago, and God has still been healing me, and I've still been thinking through stuff.

Have you ever cleaned out a closet that's been dusty and cluttered for several years, and sifting through and understanding what's in there makes the cleaning process less daunting and even helps you put your entire apartment in perspective? Eww, this has been sitting here since forever. (Dusts off relic.) Gasp, so THAT'S where that was! (Joyfully rescues lost treasure from the closet's bowels.) Why the freakin' heck have I been storing this? (Flabbergastingly tosses ancient, unwanted junk into Dumpster.) Old issues can be like that. I think for me, spiritual abuse hasn't just been a one-stop-shop issue. It's been more of a three-story-shopping-mall issue. You might start out just strolling through and minding your own business, but suddenly POW! something sticks out at you, and you gotta check it out. Girlish shopping squeal! (I really don't like shopping unless it's for CDs or DVDs. I'm just mixing metaphors.)

"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17, NKJV)

I will talk about Catholicism in the next couple of paragraphs. My disclaimer is that, in general, I respect the Catholic Church. I honestly admire the way Catholicism involves the entire family and how Catholics make a big deal out of things that are supposed to be a big deal -- choosing a Pope and televising the ceremonies, for example (I mean, when was the last time a nondenominational church did something that nice when they hired a new pastor?). I appreciate and agree with Catholics' involvement in the political process and pro-life efforts. I know people who came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through the Catholic Church. I want to respect anything that points people to my Jesus -- who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life -- and I don't want to disrespect anything that helps people meet God for the first time and grow in their faith in Him. However, I have major issues with Catholicism in terms of spiritual abuse. My desire here isn't to debate theology but to shine a light on something that might help people have a light-bulb moment of "Gasp, is THAT why such-and-such situation felt so wrong?"

Earlier this year, a friend attempted to convert me to Catholicism. I can understand her reasons for trying to do so (she insinuated that only Catholics go to heaven), but the persuasive materials she asked me to read significantly eroded my respect for the Catholic Church. Much of this inside information on Catholicism was new to me, because I didn't grow up Catholic; I grew up extremely Southern Baptist. (To get the full effect, pronounce it "babb-dist.") That verse in Romans that I quoted a few paragraphs ago was quoted in a book that was written by a Protestant-turned-Catholic. He basically said, "You don't need to READ the Bible. Faith comes by HEARING. Come to Mass and let the priest read the Bible FOR you." (He also said that it's OK for religious services to be boring and for love and thankfulness to become ritual, but whateva.) Being told to NOT read the Bible is one thing (I grew up memorizing the Bible's table of contents, and they won't unstick from my brain easily), but being told to let someone else read the Bible FOR me is not just a red flag. It's a three-story shopping mall with clearance sales of red flags at every store and packed parking lots that will make your children scream to go home and your "carry my purse for me, honey" husbands groan and shamelessly beg to escape retail red-flag pandemonium. Do you realize how dangerous it is to base your faith, your life's direction, your daily soul sustenance -- or even any teeny-tiny shred of information -- on what comes out of somebody ELSE'S mouth?

This danger isn't just in the Catholic Church. For example, I attended a Baptist college. In one of my classes, if memory serves, the professor stated that the apostle John did NOT write the Johannine epistles as is traditionally upheld. (Actually, this point of view was taught in much of the textbooks and professors in that particular department.) In English, that means that although traditionally it's believed that John the beloved disciple wrote the Book of John and also the Book of Revelation (he basically left his signatures in John 21:20-25 and Revelation 1:1-4) and also the books of 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John (the Johannine epistles), modern evidence supposedly doesn't support that John wrote the Johannine epistles. My professor said in class, straight out of his mouth, if I remember correctly, that the same guy didn't write all of those books. And yet, if I crack open my Bible and check it out for myself, I see things that seem too obvious to be coincidental.

For example, I know these books probably weren't written out in the chapter-and-verse format that we usually read from today, but here are some side-by-side snippet quotations in English. John 1:18 says, "No one has ever seen God." 1 John 4:8 says, "No one has ever seen God." Was my professor trying to tell me that authors used to plagiarize each another back then? John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 1 John 1:1 says, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched -- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life." Was my professor trying to tell me that the authors of these two books called each other and compared notes on how to write introductions? "Hey, Dude, I'm thinking of doing an 'In the beginning' allusion to Genesis 'cause I like how that John guy talks about Jesus being the Alpha and Omega in Revelation. You wanna copy me?" John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." 1 John 3:16 says, "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." Was my professor kidding me? Do I need a Ph.D. to opine that maybe the same guy wrote all 5 of these books? Is there a reason why modern scholars are too bullheaded to just agree with traditional teaching on this particular issue? Why the freakin' heck did my professor teach that what was staring me in the face, written in black and white, wasn't for real?

This particular professor lost a huge amount of credibility with me. For example, if you check out Matthew 6:4 in the NKJV, and then you look up the same verse in the NIV, you'll see that the NIV omits the word "openly" at the end. From what I understand, this is because many of the more "modern" translations don't include the word "openly" in their texts. But what sticks out in my brain is this particular professor standing up in class and declaring about the word "openly" with a teenagery scoff, "Jesus didn't say that." And my professor knows this because he was there when Jesus spoke it live? (Perhaps my professor had never been rewarded openly, and that's why he didn't have a problem teaching that God won't reward anyone openly for doing something in secret.) As I've thought about it, I also remembered that this particular professor once criticized how people pray -- not openly critiquing prayers that were offered aloud during class but simply stating his opinion on prayer in general. He said that he didn't like how people use the word "just" when they pray. For example, "Lord, just heal this person and just be with them." Well, Professor IForgotYourLastName, I just think you may have just accidentally caused just a tiny bit of disillusionment in just a few scores of students who have taken just a few of your classes over the years. Do you realize how dangerous it is to form opinions about the Bible on just what comes out of somebody ELSE'S mouth?

I'm about to offer a major example of the potential of "because I said so" spiritual abuse not because I want to stir up a huge controversy but because it's the biggest, most brain-ready example I can think of. Regardless of what you believe about speaking in tongues, I think it's safe to say that the people who wish to disprove the current existence and validity of tongues truly need to watch their mouths. Around the time that I was first experiencing the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues -- whether it was myself or whether it was listening to other people utilizing this gift -- I was given at least a couple of "because I said so" arguments which I now find faulty.

The first argument was "tongues will cease," which is straight out of 1 Corinthians 13. The argument was that in the days of the early church (i.e., right after Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to the early disciples), the Bible wasn't canonized yet; the thing "which is perfect" that is talked about in 1 Corinthians 13 hadn't come yet. The New Testament hadn't been written yet, so the only way to access this part of the Bible was through a word of tongues. This argument says that tongues have ceased because we have a complete Bible now. However, when I cracked open my Bible and checked it out for myself, I saw that the 3 verses in 1 Corinthians 13 that supposedly disprove the current existence of tongues were quoted out of context. (Excuse me, but isn't this how cults form? They take a tiny little verse and build a shrine around it and rewrite their own Bible to make it say whatever they want?) These teeny little verses are sandwiched between entire chapters that discuss speaking in tongues and other "my convention doesn't approve this" spiritual gifts. These entire chapters go into a great deal of detail about protocol and vision and what the utilization of these spiritual gifts is supposed to look like during a church service. 1 Corinthians 13, in context, is basically saying, "You can be as spiritually awesome or as spiritually weird as you like, but it's all supposed to be done in love, or it's all no good. Grow up and stop trying to draw attention to yourselves. Lay your lives down for one another and use your giftings to serve people." I really think those teeny little verses nestled inside 1 Corinthians 13 are basically just saying, "Sure, when we all get to heaven, we're all gonna be perfect, and we're not gonna need tongues or prophecy." I really don't think it says, "Just kidding, you can ignore all of 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14 and other places in scripture that talk about manifestations of the Holy Spirit, because the expiration date on these spiritual gifts will take effect during the first edition printing of your Bible, coming soon to a Christian bookstore near you." Do you realize how dangerous it is to ignore how the Bible validates or invalidates an experience that you're having just because somebody ELSE'S mouth is trying to tell you that God ISN'T the same yesterday, today, or forever?

Regarding the subject of tongues, many years ago, I listened to a 1974 audio teaching by John MacArthur. The entire series was offered to disprove the current existence of tongues and, frankly, I think to deprogram people like me. What I got out of this particular series came at the very end, when John MacArthur quoted Ephesians 4:15 and said we should "speak the truth in love" and tell charismatics that they're sorely mistaken because tongues don't exist anymore. Well, John MacArthur, in love, you quoted Ephesians 4:15 out of context big-time, brother.

"Jesus answered, 'It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' " (Matthew 4:4)

I was much wordier in this post than I had originally intended to be, but here's my main point: Depending solely on somebody ELSE'S words can dangerously open the door widely for spiritual abuse. (And for me, it has.) I'm not saying that we should be cynical or suspicious about everything. I'm saying that it's OK and healthy to question the food that other people -- especially those in spiritual authority -- try to feed us, no matter how small the morsel. Yes, we need other people to help us follow God and get to know Him better -- to help us with our RELATIONSHIP with God. But it's the person's job to point us to God, not to become our god.

Have you ever been in a relationship with another person, such as a friend, where all they did was talk and you blindly accepted everything they said? Unfortunately, I have, and those kinds of relationships are extremely boring, and after a while, they can make you feel non-human. I think the deepest, closest, most fun relationships that we enjoy are the ones in which we spend time getting to know the other person and experiencing who they are. To get to know them, we dig deep, investigate, and ask questions.

While it's true that we can accept everything that God says, period -- because He IS truth -- having a relationship with Him is the most exciting relationship that we can and should ever have. Is it because I said so? His words, His food, are our life. If I blindly depend on someone else to feed me without my inspecting the morsels, I could end up getting spiritual food poisoning. I could end up being controlled or manipulated in a way that could harm or damage me. (And I have.) To get healing from that, I need to go directly to God, anyway, so why not just start with Him in the first place?

I don't care how big a crowd is drawn to a clearance sale -- I don't want to go shopping for any red flags.