What is wrong with us? (An honest look at Fundamentalism)

             I have spent my entire life inside Baptist fundamentalism. I began as the unfocused teen simply interested in success for my life and Jesus as part of my culture. I went on to discover faith and surrender. It is there that I sought completion solely in  Christ. Unfortunately, instead of staying there, I went on to join the ranks of the Pharisees. I glamorized my works, belittled "lesser" Christians, placed all my faith in performance holiness, and did my part to help build the intimidating, authoritarian side of this movement by associating myself with the shunners and avoiding the injured. When one is a Pharisee, it's healthier for his pretensive reality to pretend like those who have been hurt have somehow brought it upon themselves. Mind you, I'm not throwing stones; I'm just speaking from personal experience.

More recently, though, I've stepped away from the political side of fundamentalism and begun to get to know the side of this movement that seems desperate to overcome the movement itself. What is wrong with us? I want to know because I want to see it fixed. I've done a considerable amount of homework on where fundamentalism came from. Honestly, I was afraid it was going to turn me off even more to what I have known my whole life.  In reality,  I found a sincere group of revolutionaries that lived a little over two hundred years ago -- imperfect people, mind you, that were weary of religious authority. I found a group of people with the desire to base their beliefs on a literal interpretation of Scripture. Nothing added, nothing taken away. They were our country's first non-denominationalists. Had they been able to look ahead in time and see the "denomination" we've made it into today, where churches strictly adhere to the oral traditions of camps and successful preachers are emulated more than the life of Christ, they would surely be sick at their stomachs. The Christian life has liberty because of the personal element of the relationship with God. I have my own copy of God's Word, my own access to my Father's throne, and my own ears to hear reproof and encouragement depending on what I need. The authority hierarchy that many fundamentalists have begun to subscribe to in recent decades has brought fear into this otherwise good movement. People must hide their past, camouflage their current struggles, dress the part of perfection, and leave the wounded behind. Those who comply to the system have pride struggles that can get bigger than life itself. The pride then goes on to form more false authority, more intimidating pressures, and more discipled hypocrisy. Play along or else, you know? The oral traditions become a sort of law that scripture can't attest to, but who is brave enough to question it? 

Why am I saying all of this? I'm saying it because I want to remind everyone that faith and spirituality are between you and God. Holiness is sincerity of heart and purity of motive.  You can let God purify you to that place, even while not meeting someone else's spoken law or tradition. You can live without man-made systems. The names "fundamentalist" and even "Baptist" have the potential of souring. Don't pass out on me, now. These titles are just like my own home church's name. If my home church goes crooked, I don't have to go down with the ship because my relationship with God doesn't depend on anyone's system. The guidelines need to be simplified. Does your church pledge its allegiance to only Jesus? Does it preach faith as the basis for salvation AND spirituality? Does it love people -- even those inconvenient backslidden ones? Does it operate free of outside influences and fear of external politics? Does it promote honesty? You probably attend a good one if you can answer all those right. Does it constantly demean and insult those it disagrees with? Does it push you to throw away relationships with friends and family over preferences that it pretends are doctrines? Does it inspire you to be a tattler and a gossip? Does it leave you making excuses for  heart sins that nobody wants to admit or recognize? You may be in a church that could potentially ruin your marriage and turn your children off to Jesus. 

People only have the power over you that you give them. We need revival, and I'm not  afraid to admit it. Don't be afraid to detach from opinions and live as God gives you liberty to. Ask Him to purify you from sin. I'm talking about those nasty, murky waters of motive. Ask Him to strengthen your faith. You can't be His disciple and a slave to man's approval at the same time. Ask Him to relocate you spiritually to a place of dependency on only Him. I'm not saying it won't be painful. However, if our lives are to matter, then what is REAL must become top priority in our minds. Fundamentalism began when guys picked up their Bibles and said, "We can survive with ONLY this." We need that passion back. Revive us again, oh, Lord....

Dear Zach,

I had a phenomenal day today. The last few days have taken a lot of weight off of me as God began completing some huge life lessons in my heart. The last two years of my life have been filled with huge life lessons, really, and I see several more beginning as I enter into this new segment of my life. I've been saved by the grace of God for eleven years next month and that eleven years encompasses most of my mature life (if you consider age seventeen to be mature). I got to thinking about what it would be like if I could sit down and write a letter to myself to mail back in time to when I was seventeen years old and a brand new child of God. There are a thousand things I could say, I guess, but I've narrowed it down to the items I feel like could have steered me clear of some of the areas the monster named "experience" has had to teach me. I can't send this list back in time to myself but I'm going to write it anyway and let you read it right where you are today in hopes that it may change your tomorrow for the better. 

1.  Don't lose yourself in other people's expectations.

When I surrendered my life to God in my early twenties He developed some specific burdens in me and put some callings on my life to help make a difference in those places. A lot has changed about me since I gave God everything but every one of those burdens is still alive and kicking in my heart. The segments of my life where they went dormant or got propped up to collect dust in the corner was the segments where I allowed other sincere Christians to pull me in to what they thought I should be doing. People can pin all sorts of responsibilities onto us, some of which we may even be good at, that God just simply didn't ask us to do. Before you know it, good intentions and a lack of an ability to say no has got you stretched thin. Usually the things that really suffered most when I lost control in this area was my wife and my children. I really missed a lot. Way more than I'm comfortable admitting. All I can do at this point is learn from it and refuse to let it happen again. 

2.  Don't let passion for God turn into self glory.

Sometimes all the Devil has to do to ruin a good Christian is encourage him. When God began to open my eyes to spiritual things I came alive to the cause of Christ! Then the pastor said something like, "It's really encouraging to me how active you are in the church. You teach Sunday School, run youth meetings, sing, go on visitation with me every week..." and the battle began. Can you believe how amazing I am? If you AREN'T aware of how amazing I am I'd like to run all my stats by you! Seriously...when pride takes over a Christian's life of service it becomes a shiny life of sin. As much as I hate that you guys don't know every little thing that I am doing for Jesus right now it really is better this way. Motive can shift in an instance and we must guard it with our lives!

3.  Don't let your separation unto God make you a judge of your brother.

I canned my secular music, I got rid of my television, I became more faithful to church: I drew a lot of lines in my life, some that needed to be drawn and some that didn't, but almost instantly I became critical of the people around me that had not drawn those same lines in their life. Like a five year old boy making fun of his two year old brother for not being able to quote the alphabet. I really did get like that. Not only in the areas of growth but in areas of culture and education. What if these "inferior" people I looked down on so quickly just simply didn't have the light or the opportunities that I've had? What if these backslidden, angry Christians with horrible attitudes are where they are because of people like me that lack the good sense to see what drove them there? What if all the people around me that are wrong and burnt out and even God haters need me? What if I'm the problem? Let's work on me instead of them and see what that does for a change. 

4.  Don't live for approval. 

If you have two or more friends, you are bound to do something on a preferential level that one of them is not going to agree with. Pray about your preferences. Every preference you have is vital in your life to keep you guarded from slipping in principle areas. Which genres of Christian music do you think are right? Where are the lines for modesty? Is your taste in churches more country in culture or do you like city style? Make these decisions in your life for God and make them for your family and make them for nobody else. If you make one decision in your life to please an outside source you will become a slave to that outside source and it's likely that you will never get out or get hurt bad trying. 

5.  Be careful who your friends are.

Inevitably, when I failed in areas one through four I built a faulty system that caused me to fail here, too. Friendships should never ever never ever be built on what you can do for each other; that is a business relationship and not a friendship. Friendships should also never be built on sins that you have in common: "We are both jealous of this group, or bitter at these people, or better than those over there." If sin is the common ground then progressive sanctification is going to eventually wreck the relationship. When you manage to fill your friend list with relationships like these you set yourself up for a whole bunch of drama. Build on positive camaraderie, build on love, build on spiritual connection:  these are the sorts of relationships that won't let you down.