Are Grace Walkers Anti-Church?

Speaking out against the dead religion that exists in the modern church world lends itself to misunderstanding and criticism. When a person is in a rules-focused, performance-based, man-centered, self-serving institutional church that is more interested in using than in building up people, could anybody call that an authentic New Testament congregation? The fact is that it is a counterfeit, a caricature of the true church of Jesus Christ.

Sadly, that's the kind of congregation where some people have spent their lives. They've only seen manipulative, guilt-based, religious church life and think that's normal. They don't know any other way. So along comes those who teach grace, speaking against dead religion with all of its subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle perversions of what God's church really is and the lifelong legalistic church-attending victim of the counterfeit church thinks the grace walkers are speaking against God's church. After all, to them it sounds just like their church.

The things spoken against describe their congregation to a tee so, to them, you must be against the church. It's next to impossible not to be misunderstood at times. Without speaking plainly and pointedly, people don't get the point. Speak plainly and pointedly and they think you're being ungracious.

The Apostle Paul ran into the same problem. When he plainly taught that all our sins are already covered by God's grace, some accused him of being soft on sin. They said he was teaching that sin didn't matter. (I've heard that one before too.) Paul mentioned it in Romans 3:8: "And why not say (as we are slanderously reported and as some claim that we say), 'Let us do evil that good may come?'"

Paul's accusers either heard him wrongly or else were simply trying to discredit him with their commentary on what he taught and believed. It's a hard situation, even if you're the Apostle Paul. Try to be nice in how you say it and they won't get the point. Say it plainly and run the risk of being misunderstood. What's a man to do?

So - back to the church. Are grace-walkers against the church? I've been accused of sounding at times like I'm against the church. Nothing could be further from the truth. I love the church. The Bible says that "Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it." Why would anybody who understands God's grace not love the church?

What I don't love is the religious garbage that has been dumped into the church by the enemy of our souls. Satan has infiltrated the church through legalism more than any sin you could imagine. And I hate what I constantly see because of that.

I think of the girl I met who had recently tried to commit suicide because her church had shamed her to the point she had come to feel that she could never be a good Christian.

I think of the pastor whose Bible school expelled him in his senior year during the week of final exams because his wife left him for another man. The school's response was, "If you can't govern your own home, how could you ever lead the house of God?"

I think of the lady who, this very week that I write this, was shamed by her Sunday School teacher for sitting at the table with a gay man who had come to the church for a luncheon. "He'll think you're condoning his lifestyle," she was told.

The list could go on and on. To see this kind of abuse happening in the religious world of the modern church stirs me deeply. It angers me and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Yes, I love the church but I am filled with contempt for the legalistic abuses I hear about and see going on somewhere in the church world almost every week of my life.

So I speak against it and I will continue to speak against it. I know there are well meaning people who think that grace requires we just "make nice" with everybody, but I don't agree. Grace motivates us to act in the most loving way and sometimes acting that way may come across as harsh, though its intent is to save a life.

I'm not anti-church nor are any grace-walkers I know, but I am against the cancer that is destroying the church. There is a world of believers who are being beaten up and spiritually abused every week by sanctimonious godzis who believe their role is to condemn then control everybody with whom they have influence. It's wrong. Whether it's a Bible College Dean, a pastor, a Sunday School teacher, or whomever -- it's wrong. And what's more wrong is for those who understand the true grace and love of the Lord Jesus Christ to idly sit by without saying a word or doing a thing while the children of God are being abused.

If you're in an authentic grace-based, Christ-centered congregation, then thank God for it, but know this: Many aren't - and they need to be helped.