Three years ago…

Three years ago…

I have mixed feelings about this.

First, this is the week that my former denomination would hold its annual meeting. So those memories come up in my feed.

I remember how miserable those meetings were.

The horrible things that leaders of the church would say out loud.

The pride and entitlement that they didn’t earn

The hardened hearts and disregard of covenants

For the last ten years, I was just looking for an out. I stayed too long, but I kept thinking about the women and children still left there and the horrible things they were enduring and didn’t want to abandon them.

And it is hard to break away from the church of your childhood…

Then they tried me for “false teaching” without telling me what that false teaching was, tore my congregation apart, and left us to pick up the pieces. There were a handful of families left who hadn’t bent the knee to Baal, and we decided to sell the building and close the doors.

Three years ago, my wife and daughter and I said goodbye to my daughter, my son-in-law, and my grandchildren. We had one last breakfast at their house and hugged, and then left California for good.

This is where the mixed feelings come in. I miss them intensely and still get choked up.

I had a few very close friends that went through the fire with me and I miss them so much it hurts.

But when I think about everything else we left, there is a lightness in my heart and a spring in my step. I see the old pictures of our meetings and shake my head.

“I can’t believe I sat through that garbage. I can’t believe I participated in it.”

And I’m so, so glad I’m out. And I love our new town and our new community. I get asked so many times about “why I left California”, and it is always asked with a sort of hushed incredulous tone. I left because after spending most of my life there, and being born and raised there, it wasn’t home.

My niece told me a while back “You were just in the wrong circles…”

For the first time in my life I feel like I’m home, like I belong, like this is where I fit. I think she was right.

I know my old circles think that I’m a far left, liberal lunatic, who has gone off the rails. I know that they tell each other that I left the safety of the “church” and now I don’t have any rails on my thinking…I know that I am the topic of many conversations as a warning…but I don’t care.

Those in the cave never understand the ones who got away. Those who are afraid that God will punish them if they step out of line will never understand a God who loves freely and unconditionally and calls us to freedom. To release fear and suspicion and hatred of the “other”.

But those who got away understand completely. They are my people.

A lot has happened in three years. My thinking has become for firm, and less dogmatic all at the same time. The destruction caused by conservative Reformed churches is reaching its peak and will burst soon.

For those who don’t know, Pete Hegseth is a member of a cult lead by Doug Wilson, who has been corrupting Reformed churches for thirty years. Those who think like Wilson, have his books on their bookracks in church and follow him were those who destroyed my congregation.

The breaking of covenants that I saw repeatedly in my denomination is now carried out internationally and is destabilizing the whole world.

This is one area that I really wish I wasn’t right about. But I had warned about it for years. And then I see the architect of patriarchal rot standing in the Pentagon “preaching” and I say – I was right about this.

Those who whisper in hushed tones about feminism like it is a dirty word; those who crush the poor and the widow, those who mock the orphan and the fatherless…

By the way, in those circles a “feminist” is a woman who expressed disagreement with her husband or her (male) church leaders. They believe that “feminists” must be defeated or society will fall apart.

But this rot will tear itself apart. We live in similar times to Isaiah, who wrote to the faithful outcasts:

“Fear not, says your God, I will never leave you, nor forsake you.”

And he never has. Even through fiery trials, hard times, hard goodbyes, nights of vomiting, heart palpitations, heart attacks,

He is still there, walking with us. He hates what is happening because he hates injustice and cruelty. The one who loves me also loves Iranian schoolgirls and hates what happened to them. And he will come in vengeance when the time is right.

For now, he is giving us all a chance to reflect and turn away from this course before it is too late.

But I fear it might be too late.

Hold on. Be kind to each other. Encourage your neighbors. Give to the food banks. Fight for justice and integrity, and walk humbly with your God, and he will lift you up.