Subjective

     It was over between them.  The relationship she had thought would result in marriage had ended, and her heart was broken.  

     She missed him so much, and wondered if there was some way God could bring them back together.  Was this breakup just temporary? she wondered as she fingered the special keychain he had given her.  He had the same keychain, and it always felt like a link between them when they were apart.  Now, it felt like all she had left.  But no, this breakup was for the best, wasn't it?  She needed to move on, right?  She purposely left the keychain in her dorm room at the college when she left to fly home, knowing she would never see it again.  To her surprise, two weeks later, one of the profs was in the area and made a point to stop and see her.  He told her, "You left this at the school," and handed her the keychain that was a symbol of that relationship.  Was God bringing it back to her against all odds in order to have her hold out for him?  She tested in a few more times, leaving it in odd places, and in every instance, it was amazingly brought back to her.  This did a number on her heart, and she began to wonder if maybe this boyfriend would be back.  Was God using this keychain to tell her something?  

     Megan* was unsatisfied in her job and life in Los Angeles.  God had to have more than this for her, didn't He?  As she was considering this, she noticed several cars around her on the freeway that day with Oregon license plates.  Hmm.  That's interesting.  She had always wanted to go to Oregon.  Was this a sign?  The next day, it happened again.  She saw several Oregon license plates on her way to work.  Was God urging her to uproot and move?  

      Susan* was a Christian.  She had promised herself she would never marry a man who didn't share her faith in Jesus.  And yet she had fallen in love with an Orthodox Jew.  He was a kind, good man, who believed in God and loved her.  But he didn't embrace Jesus as the promised Messiah, and that was the deal-breaker.  Right?  While she was wrestling with this, a friend who lived 100 miles away surprised her by showing up late one night.  This friend claimed God had given a vision for Susan, and the friend had gotten on the next train out to share it.  Allegedly, God had told this friend to tell her that she should marry this Jewish man, because they both believed in God and that was good enough if they really loved each other.  Taking this as a divine word from the Lord, Susan went ahead and married this man she loved.  From the account of the story, they were happy together, and agreed to disagree about their faith.  But what's wrong with this scenario?  

     In 1820, a fourteen-year-old boy named Joseph Smith claimed to have been visited by God the Father and Jesus, who told him not to join any of the local churches, but to restore the true gospel.  This vision is the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the Mormon church.  In fact, much of their religion rests of subjective experiences that can't be proven or disproven, such as determining truth through a burning in the bosom.  

     

     What are Christians supposed to do with subjective experiences?  The first two examples I gave were interesting occurrences, that may or may not be God's way of communicating something, but the second two were directly against God's word.  All four examples are missing something.  I repeat, what do we do with people's stories and testimonies that don't quite add up biblically?  

     The first story, about the keychain, was my story.  For a few weeks, it seemed like I couldn't get rid of that keychain.  I started referring to it as a boomerang, because it kept coming back to me, making me wonder if this past boyfriend were going to be back in my life.  It was interesting, and I can't account for all the odd ways it seemed to come back.  However, it got to the point where I was using it as a crystal ball, instead of trusting God Himself with my future.  When I realized this, I threw the keychain into the Pacific Ocean, and that time, it never came back.  

     Some look at stories and take them as pure gospel, changing their lives and beliefs to align with them.  They do this at the expense of all other beliefs, including biblical truth that might oppose their experience.  This is dangerous to base your life and decisions on something subjective.  Experiences do teach us things.  But we need to know how to rightly interpret them.  Second Timothy 2:15 says, Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.  We need to decide before anything ever happens that we believe God's word to be the ultimate truth, and reject anything that goes against it.  We also need to be so aligned with God's word (which requires time, study and dedication) that when we do have a subjective experience, we know how to interpret it in light of what the Bible says.  Believers who are studied up in God's word know that Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light (Second Corinthians 11:14), and that he can mislead and deceive.  This is why we just can't believe something we think we're being told by some subjective feeling or experience.  The enemy knows how to attack.  It is also important to realize that when God guides us, He very well may use these types of subjective experiences, but He will do so in conjunction with His word, spiritually-led believers in your life, and what the Holy Spirit is impressing on you as you pray and seek Him.  When all of these things line up, your subjective experience is probably of the Lord.  

     Others go to the opposite extreme of saying, "If it isn't printed in the Bible, it isn't true and we don't believe it."  These people not only don't fall for untrue messages associated with subjective experiences, but they deny them altogether, even when they align with the Bible.  While I respect their desire to stay with the Bible, I find people who say this often deny the work and power of the Holy Spirit to work in our lives today.  

     People in the Bible had these experiences of hearing from God and experiencing supernatural guidance.  It would take a long time to look at every example, but let's just examine a few.  He spoke to Noah and told him to build the ark (Genesis 6:13ff).  He spoke to Abram (later Abraham) and led him out of his land, and gave him the promise (Genesis 12:1-3).  He very specifically guided Abraham's servant in finding a wife for Isaac (Genesis 24), including several things that would have been pretty strong coincidences without God's involvement.  One of my favorite examples is Elijah, in First Kings 17-19.  God spoke to him and through him, and guided him.  If God did this for these biblical believers, why not us today?  It is vital to note that He will never lead us against His written word, but within obedience to the Bible, the Holy Spirit can propel us into any number of directions.  His plans for me are different than His plans for you, but we're guided by the same Spirit, and will always align with the Bible.  In the Bible, when God spoke to people, they knew it was Him, and we really do too, when we're honest with ourselves.  

     Subjective experiences can't be our main source of truth, even if they are of God.  They need to be subservient to the Bible.  Even when something is real and true, it is easy to doubt it.  Gideon had that problem.  In Judges 6, Gideon asked God for a sign that he would win the battle.  He left a fleece out and asked that it would be wet with dew the next day, but the ground around it would be dry...and God honored his prayer.  It was exactly as Gideon had prayed.  But then Gideon wanted further confirmation, and asked for the reverse to be true the next day, dry fleece and wet ground. Again, it happened as he prayed.  God was at work, and He gave Gideon these signs, as He sometimes does for us, but He also knew that the sign in and of itself isn't enough.  It never is.  Having subjective experiences can encourage our faith, but our faith can't rest 100% in them.  These things can support what God is saying to us in the Bible, and we can think of those things when we need the faith boost, but by themselves, they're not the lens by which we should look at reality.  Our faith needs to rest in God, not His signs.  God tells us what He wants us to know about Him in the Bible, and that is the lens by which we need to look at everything that happens to us.  There are many apologetic reasons to believe in the Bible (which is an entirely other subject).  

     More than once, the Bible warns us not to be deceived (Matthew 4:24, First Corinthians 15:33, Galatians 6:7, Second Thessalonians 2:3).  It is your responsibility to avoid deception.  The best way to do that is to already know God's word, be dedicated to obeying and following it.  

     When I had that boomerang keychain that I eventually threw into the ocean, I was in deep grief over a broken relationship, and I was in what psychologists call the bargaining stage of that grief.  I was looking for a reason to believe there might be restoration, and chose to view that keychain as a sign...but it wasn't.  It didn't line up with the truth of the sitaution at all, and I eventually felt free hurling it into the ocean.  When Megan saw all those Oregon license plates, God may or may not have been using that to confirm a need to move, but she needed more time to seek God and His will for her life.  When Susan's friend felt compelled to take the train 100 miles to tell her to marry her unsaved boyfriend, she should have immediately looked to God's word, and thrown that out as deception.  As for Joseph Smith's 1820 revelation, anyone who considers that should also consider that everything he said and did in crafting his so-called restored church went against the Bible, and it should also be thrown out as a deception.  Just because someone has (or claims to have) an amazing experience doesn't mean it's true, or that the person interpreted it correctly.  

     Don't be deceived...read the Bible, and when you are doing so, the Holy Spirit in your heart, who knows the mind of God for you, can give you the guidance and direction you need!

Near Death Experiences

     How should we view someone's near-death testimony?  There are a lot of people who have experiences where they die, but are brought back, and share their stories of what they experienced.  Some, like Don Piper (90 Minutes in Heaven) align with the Bible.  Others do not.  What do we do with that?  Some Christians are skeptical of any account of the afterlife, even those aligning with the Bible, because of verses such as Proverbs 30:4 (Who has ascended to heaven and come down?), Hebrews 9:27 (Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment), and John 3:13 (No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.).  And yet other scriptures talk about believers getting a glimpse of eternity.  Paul describes being caught up to Heaven in Second Corinthians 12, but he says in verse 4 that he heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.  Then, in Revelation, John saw the vision of eternity, and he was permitted (commanded, actually) to share what he saw.  

     All this said, Christians are often divided on how they view near death experiences.  Atheist-turned-evangelist Lee Strobel (author of Case for Christ) argues that all near-death-experience accounts (NDE's) indicate that our soul lives on after our clinical death, and that is an encouragement to Christians.  He goes on to say that important thing to consider in NDE's is the main elements, not the way the person interprets them.  New Testament scholar Gary Habermas says that I don't think the nature of NDEs helps us construct what kind of worldview is true, only that the naturalistic [atheistic] alternative is probably false, since there is strong evidence here for an afterlife.  This indicates that we shouldn't look at NDE's as a source of truth.      

     I recently heard this account of a NDE.  Karen Thomas, a church member in Alaska, had a near-death experience in a hospital during a routine surgery.  The story she recounted changed her beliefs.  She allegedly had an out of body experience in which she went to an indescribably beautiful place.  She assumed it was Heaven, though she didn't see Jesus, and that confused her.  She claimed she saw her Dad there, whom she claimed was not born again, causing her to conclude one doesn't need to be born again to go to Heaven.  Her father, as well as everything she saw, was across a river from her, and she didn't cross over during this experience.  A telepathic voice told her to follow a guide (whom she instinctively knew wasn't Jesus) who led her to a location where they talked about her life and she lived it all over again in the space of a second, and then she was given the choice if she wanted to return to earth or not.  She claims this guide told her what would happen in life if she returned, as well as some things that may or may not happen, since it was dependent on other people.  She said she was given this information in order to make the choice to remain where she was or return to life, but as soon as she chose, that part of the experience was erased from her memory.  This guide apparently said she wouldn't be able to remember what would happen in her future, or it would remove her ability to have free will.  Next she knew, she was waking up in the hospital.  She left her church (which she described as "fundamental") and joined a more "open-minded" one, and she claims now that she believes everyone goes to Heaven.  She says she now communicates with spirit guides, including the guide who led her during this trip.  So much of her story opposes what the Bible says.  What do we do with this, and other accounts?

     First, we need to conclude that this is someone's experience.  It is subjective, and, while I don't question how she experienced this, I do question her interpretation of what she experienced.  I do believe she had an out of body experience, and I believe that this is definite evidence that life continues after death, as Gary Habermas suggested (disputing the secular/naturalist view that this life is all there is).  However, nowhere in her account did she actually get confirmation that this was Heaven.  She didn't see Jesus.  We know that Satan masquerades as an angel of light (Second Corinthians 11:14).  He could have staged this to deceive her.  As another possibility, maybe she got a glimpse of Heaven and her father had been born again and she just didn't know.  She didn't actually cross the river to this place, so she didn't really know everything about it.  The whole part about experiencing her life all over again and being told about her future and given the chance to choose if she wanted to go back--none of that really gels with scripture.  As I said, it could be a deception.  

     She said she went to a "fundamental" church prior to this experience.  From what little she said about it, though, it sounded like she didn't understand salvation or the Gospel.  She said she had tried to dot all her i's and cross all her t's.  The Gospel of Christ is that we don't have to be perfect, because Jesus perfectly lived out God's law for us, and with His death, He paid for our sins, and with His resurrection, He defeated sin for all time.  By placing our faith in His finished work, we receive His righteous standing with God, and our sin is gone.  A godly life should result from true faith, but in no way contributes to our salvation.  She also said she "tried to be baptized in the Holy Spirit" to be born again.  Being baptized by the Holy Spirit is a subject different Christians believe differently about, but everyone agrees this happens as a work of the Spirit at or after salvation, not something we have to try to do, and it doesn't make us born again.  Being born again is our salvation experience.  So, it sounds like she might not have truly known the Lord.  I can't say.  What I can say is that her experience isn't the be-all and end-all, nor the determiner of truth about life after death.  It did not lead her closer to biblical truth.  It led her into very unbiblical teachings and beliefs.  That is the danger of some of these NED experiences.  It removes the fear of death without Christ.  

     There are multiple videos on YouTube with similar accounts of near death experiences.  As Lee Strobel said, these experiences do indicate that life continues after death.  The spiritual world is very real.  As Christians, this can bolster our faith and encourage us.  Beyond that, though, as I already asked, what do we do with accounts that don't align with the Bible?  Well, we also need to consider the fact that these experiences don't all align with each other either.  What does that prove?  They are not an indication of absolute truth.  Our faith needs to be in the Bible, not in someone's subjective experience.  In fact, in my next post, I am going to look at how we should interpret and view subjective experiences (our own and other people's).  Ultimately, our faith needs to rest in the Bible, but sometimes, when these experiences align with scripture, that can be an encouragement.  

     I have not had a NDE myself, but I have had some spiritual experiences that I believe God gave me.  One of them was a time at age six, when I almost drowned in a swimming pool.  I remember being at the bottom of that pool thinking, It's time for me to die.  But I wasn't afraid.  I was already saved, and at that moment, I had 100% assurance I was going to Heaven, even more than I would normally have in daily life.  It was real to me in a deeper way.  In my 20's, I had an experience where I faced a person who had a demon.  This demon acted exactly the way demons in the Bible acted when Jesus or Christians challenged them.  The demon was afraid of the Holy Spirit in me (not me, but the Holy Spirit who lives in me).  It gave me a very strong glimpse into the spiritual world, and bolstered my faith, and assurance that God is in my life.  Still another time, also in my 20's, I had a very vivid dream about Heaven, and it was more than just a dream.  I believe I saw a glimpse.  I shared this with a friend, and it was exactly what she needed to hear, further confirming it was from the Lord.  However, all of these experiences are subservient to the Bible, not the other way around.  I don't base my life on these things.  These things are encouragement for what I already know to be true in the Bible.  It's like archeological artifacts that support the Bible.  Those things give us encouragement, but our faith doesn't rest in them--it rests in Jesus.  

     Were there NDE's in the Bible?  Not many, but a few.  Elisha saw Elijah taken up to Heaven in Second Kings 2:11.  This must have bolstered his faith in eternity.  On the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-9 and Luke 9:28-36), Jesus allowed Peter, James and John to witness His glory, and see Moses and Elijah, Old Testament believers who were already in eternity.  Interestingly, Peter knew who they were with no introduction.  This technically wasn't a NDE for Peter, James and John, but it gave them that glimpse into deeper things spiritually.  When Stephen was stoned in Acts 7, he describes seeing Jesus and God the Father right before he died.  I already mentioned the Apostle Paul's trip to Heaven, and John's vision in Revelation.  God gave us what He wanted us to know about this.  Much of the Christian life is lived in faith, and faith pleases God.  Our trust needs to rest in Jesus, not the latest story of someone's experience (or our own).  Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2).  

For further information, I suggest reading Heather Tomlinson's article Do near death experiences contradict Christian belief and doctrine?  It was a source for this post, and you can read it here.

Virtue II

     Have you heard (or said) statements like these?

     "I never read the Harry Potter books."

     "I don't shop at Target."

     "We don't really do Disney."

     "We don't buy Hershey's anymore."

     "We don't watch TV."

     "We only give to causes that support XYZ."

     What do all of these statements have in common?  They can be construed as virtue signaling. Not that they necessarily are.  They are personal statements.  But they can be used in the wrong way, and I'll explain.  

    On December 29, 2021, I wrote a post called Virtue (you can scroll back and read it if you want).  In that post, I talked about different virtue signals people were making, and how virtue signaling doesn't really make the person doing it morally superior, but it is often made to look like it.  At that time, a lot of the virtue signaling I was hearing about were Covid-related.  People who not only wore a mask and got vaccinated, but also felt the need to broadcast it to everyone, and villainize those who did not.  Sometimes, it was even disguised as compassion (IE: I don't wear a mask for me--I wear it for you!).  

     To quote that 2021 post: The Oxford Languages online dictionary defines virtue signaling as, the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.  In other words, it is demonstrating your own goodness in a way that others can see.  Sometimes, it is done in such a way where others are not allowed to disagree with you without looking like the bad guy.  

     I also shared Matthew 6:1, which says, Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.  Even if they are right in what they are doing, virtue signalers have received their reward in full.  

     Why did I feel there was a need to do a Part II?  Well, Part I was my response to virtue signaling I was seeing that really bothered me.  Now, I am responding to myself!  Ways I virtue signal without knowing.  I have caught myself saying statements similar to the ones I started with.  Simply stating these things is not sinful, but if the motive is virtue signaling, then I have received my reward in full.  

     To be honest, I never did read the Harry Potter books, for a few reasons: They came out after I was a college student, and it seemed to me that they were geared to people younger that myself (though I know people of all ages have enjoyed them!).  For another thing, I'm not as into fantasy--the only fantasy I ever really got into were The Chronicles of Narnia, and since I'm not really a fantasy person, even those were almost beyond me.  For still another reason, I didn't feel completely comfortable with the premise and subject matter of Harry Potter, and little things I would hear about the plots of the books and movies were a little dark for me.  In spite of that, I have never made a declarative stance for or against them, because I know godly people who enjoy this series with a clear conscience, and other equally godly people who are very troubled by them.  I think to have the right to a strong opinion, I would have to read them myself, and I just don't have the time to invest in a long series I'm not that interested in anyway.  Life is too short to read books you're not interested in!  I made the choice that was best for me, but I also choose not to have a really strong opinion about them.  It was only recently that I heard myself in a conversation assert that I had never read them, and then wondered if I were doing it as virtue signaling.  I had to do some soul searching about that one.  Not reading them certainly doesn't speak one way or the other about my character.

     To be honest, I don't shop at Target anymore--and I miss it almost every day!  My husband and I signed a petition in 2016 that we would not shop there until they changed their bathroom policy to only allow biological males and females to use the bathroom of their birth sex.  I don't need a man in a dress walking in on me going to the bathroom.  Whether he's confused by the lie of transgenderism and thinks he's a girl, or whether he's a predator who is taking advantage of the situation, I just don't need that.  As a friend of mine said (and excuse the language, but it makes the point), "I'd be really pissed if a man walked in on my twelve-year-old daughter in the restroom--pun intended!"  For a very basic reason, shopping there now would be going back on our word, since we signed a petition, and we don't believe God would want us to do that.  Our word matters.  More recently, Target has carried questionable products and pushed an agenda that we don't want our son exposed to.  I don't see this as a store I want anything to do with--but I know very godly people who disagree with me and continue to shop there.  Almost all stores carry questionable products a Christian shouldn't buy, and possibly support causes we disagree with.  If I stopped shopping at all of them, there would be nowhere left!  It would be exhausting to go through every business and determine their worthiness. In principle, I mainly just say that as long as the product is okay, the business isn't as big a deal.  However, Target has been pretty public about their stand, so it has been easy to make this choice.  Where we do business is a second vote, or sorts.  It's a chance to decide where we want to give money.  It's another way to voice our beliefs.  I don't expect others to make the same choice we did.  They need to follow their own conscience.  Our family's decision on this doesn't make us better than those who have a different conviction than we do.  

     To be honest, we are about 90% boycotting Disney.  There are still some old films, like Mary Poppins, that we love and have shown to our son, but mostly, we feel Disney no longer reflects what we believe family values should be, and we don't want to spend a lot of our money on them.  A pastor friend of ours recently pointed out that even older Disney films often didn't have a good message (very few in-tact families in the old stories, Jiminy Cricket saying humans are animals, etc), and could be quite traumatic (IE: Dumbo's mother being locked up, or Pinocchio's friend turning into the donkey).  We aren't 100% against everything Disney, as I said.  If Tommy sees a Mickey cartoon at a friend's house, that's fine.  There are still a handful of Disney movies we'll watch.  We know that this conviction doesn't mean we're superior to those who still enjoy Disney.  There's a lot to enjoy!  Titus 1:15 says, To the pure, all things are pure... and many of our good-hearted friends can enjoy Disney in good conscience.  Mostly avoiding it is a direction our family is led to follow.  

     To be honest, we try not to buy Hershey products anymore, for similar reasons to why we don't shop at Target.  And for the same reason, there are people who agree and who disagree with us.  People need to make their own choices.  Does anyone really need candy?  There are alternatives, though...

Jeremy's He-Him and She-Her bars.  The He-Him ones have nuts!  Get it?  A great, non-compromise alternative.  But as I've been saying all along here, and will continue to point out, our eating these over Hersheys doesn't make us better than those who still eat Hershey's.

     To be honest, we don't have cable TV (not because we think it's bad, but because we're cheapskates!).  We watch videos and DVD's, and also stream what we want to watch.  On the rare occasion, we'll watch non-cable "regular" TV.  So do we knock all TV?  No!  And this one is kind of funny for me, because I chose not to watch TV for most of my upper teens and most of my 20s.  From about 16 onward, I didn't really watch TV.  And I really did virtue signal about it, I'm sorry to say.  This was before social media, so it was all in-person virtue signaling.  I'd proudly tell people I didn't watch TV, or that I hadn't watched it in years.  Any benefit I received from not watching TV was lost by this, because I received my reward in full by people acting impressed by my discipline of not watching TV.  A lot of them weren't that impressed anyway!  Some felt sorry for me and thought I was missing out!  I don't think I missed out.  But I also don't think my avoiding TV made me a superior human being.  I slowly got back into some TV when I married.  There are some good shows out there.  In fact, there are more wholesome and even Christian shows than there were years ago.  It's a matter of discernment.  Watching or not-watching doesn't make someone superior or inferior.

     To be honest, when we give to ministries, we make sure they are ministries that actually preach the Gospel.  If they do humanitarian work, but don't meet people's most important need of salvation, we prefer not to give them our hard-earned money.  Humanitarian work is good.  But we'd rather give to a humanitarian cause that also preaches the Gospel.  But again, this is our conviction.  It doesn't make us better or worse than others.  

     Those are a few examples of virtue signaling I have wrongly done (or at least implied).  My choices in these things are from my real heart and conviction, and as such, it was right for me to make these decisions for myself...HOWEVER, none of those decisions makes me morally superior to someone who doesn't do these things.  Someone can disagree with every one of my convictions listed here, and still love Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind and strength.  None of those convictions has anything to do with my relationship with Jesus (they can stem from that, and be a result of how God led me, but on their own, they're not a mark of godliness).  Nobody is going to look at my life and say, "Wow, she doesn't shop at Target.  I'm going to give my life to Jesus because of that!"  Even though I have reasons for my convictions, and believe they are important to a point, very little of it really matters in the sense of eternity, with the possible exception of giving to causes the preach the Gospel (and even then, though, nobody is going to receive the Lord BECAUSE we refuse to give to other humanitarian works.  They're not going to say, "The Stoermers didn't give to the city flood relief fund, but instead gave to an evangelistic work that helped out.  Wow, Jesus must have really died on the cross after all!  I'm going to receive Him now!").  

    So far, I've shared some convictions I have in my life that could be virtue signaling, even though these things do not make me better than anyone else.  But I've also met other people who virtue signaled to me about decisions they had made.  Some examples involved people distrusting the FDA and thinking it was morally and spiritually better to grow one's own organic vegetables, and if you were really godly, you wouldn't shop at regular grocery stores.  This same bunch also believed deodorant was harmful (maybe they're correct, maybe they aren't), and viewed it as right and moral to make your own deodorant at home and never use store-bought.  They would talk about how they kept it in the fridge to keep its consistency, and the whole family used the same container.  For some of these people, these things were how they measured their spirituality.  Who knew my deodorant stick in the medicine cabinet made me such a lousy Christian!  

     I had a different friend who had different beliefs medically than I do, and believed I was sinning to take a certain prescription my doctor gave me (to be clear, it wasn't something most people would think was controversial at all.  Nothing scriptural is said about it). This friend had to make this into a show of moral superiority.  

     Other people virtue signal by being book snobs and putting people down for enjoying a movie more than the book it is based on (yes, I can be one of those book snobs, so I'm pointing the finger back at myself with that one).  On the flip side, I had someone become very angry at me for liking the TV show of Little House on the Prairie more than the books.  

     Do our opinions on any of these things (Harry Potter, Target, Disney, Hersheys, TV, giving to one cause over another, organic vegetables, deodorant, medicine or movies vs. books or shows) have anything to do with Jesus or our walk with Christ?  No!  None of it does!   If any of this becomes our focus more than Jesus Himself, we have lost our way, and are making an idol out of these convictions!  

     I know people who act as if having stricter standards about something makes them a better Christian, or stronger in some way.  Actually, though, according to Romans 15:1 (which is a continuation of the previous chapter's discussion on different convictions Christians can have), having more sensitivity classifies one as being the "weaker" believer.  Accordingly, I have a weaker conscience than my friends who shop at Target, and a stronger conscience than my friends who make their own deodorant.  Ultimately, Romans 14:5 says, that Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.  Later, 14:23 closes the chapter with these words: For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.  If my friend doesn't have a clear conscience about watching Little House on the Prairie, then it is a sin for her to watch it, but if my conscience is 100% clear on it, then I can enjoy, without needing to justify it to anyone (it is actually my husband's and my favorite show to watch together).  Nobody is wrong, even though our convictions propel us in different directions in this instance.  

     The only instruction here is not to pass judgment on fellow believers who have different convictions.  They might have had some very different circumstances in their lives than you have, and it shaped the kinds of things that might hurt their spirit, even if it wouldn't hurt yours.  But to the one who has the stricter standard, don't virtue signal about it.  You're not better than the person who doesn't share your conviction on this.  If the Bible is 100% clear on something, we must agree with it.  If there is room for differences, than we give that liberty.  This passage of Romans 14 talks about not making fellow believers stumble.  But the flip side is, don't strut proudly with your convictions, as if that makes you spiritually superior.  Your'e not.  Only Jesus is.  It is to Him that everyone will answer!  

     Quick challenge before I close.  Here's a test to see if you have a tendency to virtue signal.  If someone mentions your pet conviction, do you feel compelled to jump in and lecture everyone about it?  For me, that might be someone mentioning a recent trip to Target, and I might feel like I need to tell everyone, "We haven't shopped there in years.  That store has all the wrong values!"  But do I need to do that?  No!  But if I feel that inclination, that can tell me about my own heart.  Do this with your convictions, and ask God to help you give the glory to Him, not to yourself for following your convictions.  

The Persecuted Church in America

     The title of this post, The Persecuted Church in America was meant to be a grabber!  Did it work?  This was actually meant to be a book, and I was working on writing in back in 2009--fifteen years ago as of now.  For several reasons, I laid the project to rest long ago, but I saved all my notes, interviews and stories that were shared with me.  The time has come to bring it back to the light of day--with a vastly different perspective than I had back in 2009.  I was onto something then, but I'm at a better place to share it, and it is even more timely today.  

      This post is not about Christians being under attack by a world that never knew God--that has been happening all along.  In a sense, there is more persecution from the outside today than there was in 2009.  Churches are being pressured to compromise biblical standards about LGBT issues.  Conservative Christians are being targeted by a hostile culture.  This year, President Joe Biden declared Easter (the holiest day on the Christian calendar, of all days) to be "Transgender Visibility Day."  And don't even get me started about all the attacks on churches during Covid, while strip clubs were allowed to remain open.  But none of that is my point right now.   I can and have written about that.  But this is different.  In 2009 (and I still think this today) the church's biggest enemy in our nation isn't the government.  It isn't a political party.  It isn't the media.  It isn't some outside source.  The church's biggest enemy is itself.  And this is wrong!  Christians are hurting each other, and going on self-righteously as if nothing happened.  I have seen the hearts of those I love deeply broken and shattered by fellow Christians.  Back in 2009, I didn't see anyone saying "This is wrong!"  The strongest and loudest voices won, leaving many hurting people in their wake.  The stories of the wounded were crying out to be told, and I felt that burden.  

     Jesus said that the way a watching world would know we are His children was by our love for one another (John 13:34-35).  Yet are we exemplifying that?  I would say sometimes, certainly.  But there is so much corruption in churches, ministries, and Christian communities that must break the heart of God.  

     As I said, a lot has changed in 15 years.  Social media technically did exist in 2009, but was not as widespread as today, nor had it changed some things in our culture yet.  Since that time, it has come a long way, and has given people greater access to share their stories and feelings, and garner support.  There is more a normalcy of sharing difficulties openly, where before (especially much further back) people stuffed their hurts and emotions.  There is definitely a dark side of social media, but that's not my point right now.  

    My focus in 2009, and today, is that Christians keep hurting and wounding each other.  I have never been someone who turned against God, or said, "If that's how mean Christians are, I don't want anything to do with their God!"  That was never me.  By God's grace, I was always able to distinguish between God and people, and between God and institutions.  But for a long time, I distrusted my fellow Christians because of this stuff, and it is worth mentioning.  

     I'm going to share a few people's stories from back then.  Some have since gone to be with the Lord.  I will then draw some conclusions.

     Virginia was a woman of great faith, and she always shared her "Gideon" adventure, giving glory to God for what happened.  As a busy mom of four girls, and with an unsaved husband (at the time--he eventually came to faith), and high blood pressure on top of that, Virginia resisted the Spirit's calling to get involved in evangelistic ministry.  She wrestled with the Lord about it for six months, until she finally asked God to make her willing.  She eventually got into leading groups and teaching, bringing the Gospel to many.  She developed a mighty band of prayer warriors, and they helped each other fight many spiritual battles they encountered.  Over the years, Virginia's family moved a few times, to different locations in the state of California, and every time, she would connect locally with the ministry, and get involved in teaching and sharing the Gospel.  Finally, she reached the golden years--retirement age.  Her husband retired from his longtime job, and they moved yet again.  This time, they settled in a new community with ministry a dire need.  Virginia contacted some leaders, and found out that in order to get the ministry going in her area, she would need to put together a committee and raise funds to keep the minsitry going.  She was filled with arguments against all of this, such as, "I'm too old for this!  I don't have resources to begin!"  But the Lord kept telling her, "I will be with you," reminding her of the story of Gideon.  By a work of the Lord, Virginia was able to get the ministry going within two years.  They saw countless come to the Lord, and many trained to share Christ.  Their ministry was a shining example to everyone.  

     But not all was well.  There came a time when they were in desperate need of a new chairman for their board, and Virginia asked one of the members to consider taking that role.  She believed him to be knowledgable about the ministry, but it turned out he was only knowledgable about one very particular aspect.  He didn't know the first thing about being a chairman, but it was discovered too late.  He refused to have his name on legal documents, claiming that if there was a problem, the IRS would look for him first.  He also didn't get along with another member, and it caused tension on the board, but at first, Virginia just thought it was their personal problem and let it go.  This chairman eventually tried to hire a new director of the ministry without consulting Virginia, and wanted her to stay on as a volunteer.  This was not the way it should have been handled at all.  The would-be new hire felt so badly at the meeting where she was introduced that she didn't accept the position (she didn't know this had been orchestrated behind Virginia's back).  Virginia was invited to a meeting with this chairman, while a ministry higher-up was moderating between them.  Virginia's husband really took the chairman to task, and the higher up used this as a reason to dissolve the ministry.  Another factor they used was that Virginia had also moved some of her own money that she was in the process of giving to the ministry to a different bank, and they saw that as her "stealing" the ministry funds, even though it wasn't in the ministry's name at all, and she was within her right to do that.  Her intent was that it was still going to be for the ministry.  The other bank had a better interest rate.  This was another thing they used as reason to close her down.  The way Virginia found out about this was dreadful.  The day after the failed moderated meeting with the chairman, she was teaching one of her evangelism classes.  The chairman came in the middle of the class, handed her an envelope, shook her hand, and left.  The class was dismissed, and everyone left.  The letter told Virginia the ministry had been dissolved.  She was in shock, and ended up on tranquilizers for months.

     Virginia and her husband called the main ministry office and shared what had happened.  The person they spoke with talked with the higher up who had allowed the chairman to dissolve their ministry.  A returned call revealed to Virginia that there were "hurts" on both sides, and that the reason the higher up hadn't tried to help resolve the issues was that he said that his wife had broken her hip.   More of an excuse than a reason.  There was a pretty big conflict of interest as well, because the chairman was the son of the higher up in question.  He allowed his son to run a perfectly good ministry into the ground.  Nobody ever addressed this on any level.  Virginia, who had served the Lord for over 40 years, died with a broken heart from the betrayal she received from fellow Christians and friends.  I knew her before this happened, and  continued knowing her until the end of her life, and she didn't want to be bitter.  She worked hard to forgive, but it was one of those things that required giving back to God constantly every time the bad feelings came back.  She wanted to forgive, like Corrie ten Boom, and I think God honored her desire, but she never found peace in her heart about it.    

     Virginia's is only one story of countless believers who were hurt, and the institution took the side of the ones who hurt them.  Why does this happen?  I would guess to avoid having to get involved in conflict, which can be messy.  It's easier to overlook it.  

    I have my own stories, which I have shared in other posts.  One of the most notably, as a high school freshman, I was kicked out of a church for leading fourteen second-graders to the Lord at Vacation Bible School.  It was a very political situation, and I guess the pastor felt threatened and thought I was bad PR.  The pastor was wrong, and it hurt our whole family. This pastor did a lot of good, and I don't diminish that, but it broke my heart and spirit. As a young teen--what should have been the most exciting time of my life, I was deeply depressed, borderline suicidal, and really believed nothing good would ever happen to me again, or that any other Christians could love me.  Even not considering this was me, it breaks my heart to think of a young teen feeling this hopeless and lost.  That young girl needsed love--still does.  Even today, I sometimes struggle with it, just like Virginia did.  Satan uses it to attack me on bad days.  Like Paul's thorn in the flesh, I'll probably have to battle this hurt my whole life, but I can have victory.  But what's hard is, nobody ever acknowledged my wounded heart back then.  They wanted to defend the pastor.  That pastor ran into my dad years later at Kmart and apologized to him, which was definitely something.  I know God used that pastor for the rest of his life, and I'm happy about that.  But the damage to my heart was done, just like Virginia's.  

     Sometimes, when hurting Christians try to get help, they are silenced and accused of gossip, or told that their sharing could hurt the church, the ministry, or Christianity in general.  The truth can never harm the cause of Christ.  And if an institution can be hurt by the truth, maybe it needs to be.  Maybe it is built on lies.  The walking wounded shouldn't be silenced so the wrongdoers can save face.  Christians need to love the hurting and broken among them! 

     Back in 2009, I interviewed Dan and Ernie, two pastors I respected (Ernie is in Heaven now).  I asked them a series of questions (I won't share all the questions or answers here, just the highlights).  The first question I asked was what they each believed was the goal of the church.  Dan said that the goal of the church was to fulfill the great commission and the great commandment.  Ernie was more specific, saying to win souls, make disciples, be a testimony to the community, and to get involved locally.  When asked how they measure success, Dan said a big way to know if there was success was if people were being trained to reach others, and starting small groups where discipleship was happening.  Ernie said that a changed life meant success, and that members were still praying.  Ernie hastened to add that numbers were not a good measure of success.  I asked both men the question: "If someone were offended in a worship service at your church, why would that be?"  Dan said that probably, there would be a conflict within and someone contacted the leadership to have it dealt with.  Ernie said the reason would be that someone disliked something he said.  I closed the interviews by asking what they believed the biggest threat to the chruch was today (today being 2009).  Dan said "Religious tolerance--not being able to call sin sin.  Cultural relativism."  Ernie said that people just don't know the truth.  

     The thing that prompted this whole project 15 years ago was that I attended a service at a large "cool" church in town--one a close friend went to.  This church does have Christian doctrine.  From my experiences with them in the past (which were not recent at all) they were very seeker-sensitive, bordering on the emergent church (if you don't know what that is, it was what seeker sensitive churches of the 90s evolved into in the 2000's and 2010's.  A lot of churches learned the hard way that this was a slippery slope to progressivism).  From all I know about this church, they do not biblically teach false doctrine, but they were too "cool" for me to feel comfortable.  It wasn't for me.  

  When I visited that particular day, they showed a video to promote their children's ministry, but they did this with a very mean skit making fun of other ministries (including the one I worked for) to make theirs look better.  The skit (and other things I knew about their ministry) revealed that they viewed children's ministry as a need to be trendy and new or kids wouldn't want to come.  This shows a major lack of understanding of human nature.  Kids have cool computers and gadgets at home.  They aren't impressed by these things in church.  Not to say it's wrong to utilize them in ministry, but they aren't the draw.  Relationships are the draw.  A teacher who loves them and makes the Bible come to life for them--with or without technology--goes a lot further than trying to be "relevant" with the latest, coolest thing.  

     The skit that day had a very mean-spirited feel to it.  I wrote them a note on the bulletin and left it with an usher as I walked out.  The note stated: I found your skit offensive and hurtful.  I serve with __________ ministry, and I refuse to return to a church that makes a mockery of my livelihood.  I was so hurt that one of the most influential churches in the area would promote themselves by making fun of others.  A few days later, I received a response in the mail that made it clear to me that they had no idea why their skit was so mean.  They apologized for "offending you" but then went on to justify it, and explain why their ministry was better.  They didn't grasp that they had made fun of others with crude caricature.  They did it at the expense of others.  I wasn't the only one hurt by that.  Another friend had recommended her prodigal son attend that church, praying it would draw him back to the Lord.  He was deeply hurt by the skit, because the implications of it made fun of his home church.  He walked out and didn't return either.  Was that damage really worth the promotion of their own ministry?  I think not.  And that wasn't grasped.  I still have the letter, along with the other paraphernalia for the book I wanted to write.  My blog on the whole has become a book of sorts, and I've talked about these things.  But this scenario at the church is just another reminder of how mean Christians can be to each other.  Rather than building others up, we so often tear others down.  People are left heartbroken and feeling invalidated.  

     I'm going to close with a quote I was going to include in the book, a quote that has stayed with me.  In his 1994 memoir Standing Firm, former Vice-President Dan Quayle laments, But conservative Christians are considered fair game for caricature and abuse...sadly, prejudice against Conservative Christians is probably the only acceptable form of bigotry in today's America.  I agree.  Let's put a stop to this by loving each other as brothers and sisters.  Let's stop the institutions of our faith from hurting the very people it stands for.  Weap with those who have been hurt.  Fight for justice!  Share truth at all costs!