Buffalo, the SBC report into systemic church sexual abuse, the sentencing of Josh Duggar, the Australian election, Laguna Woods and then Uvalde all happened within days of each other, in May 2022.
This is my lament.
Oh church, you are breaking my heart.
What has happened?
What has become of you?
Church, you showed me Jesus
You loved me when I felt un-loveable
You taught me to pray
You taught me to worship
You taught me to commune with Holy Spirit
You prayed for me
Because of you, I fell in love with Jesus, who gave his life in love for the whole entire world
And I physically went to the absolute ends of the earth just to follow him and to reach the people he loved with his love.
But you white-washed misogyny and told me I was the rebellious one
You said I had to spank my children because that was “God’s way” to “train up a child”
You didn’t love people with the same brown skin as my Jesus, as if they were
Jesus
You didn’t look after poor people as if they really were “my little sisters and brothers”
And I was sad, but I understood that no church is perfect, and we’re all learning, and we shouldn’t judge, and, and,
and
But then you embraced a corrupt and predatory man and told me he was Cyrus and that God could use him -
anyone!
Except for those evil, progressive SJWs, of course
You believed and consumed Qanon and told me it was prophetic revelation
While I was the voice, howling in the wilderness
And the People of Truth turned out to be the ones most gullible, the ones with the biggest appetite for disinformation and
lies
You told me I was deceived, I was the one with the “reprobate mind”, believing the Strong Delusion
While you re-posted memes, memes and more
memes
I was alarmed and I said, “But male headship doctrine is wrong, it is not the heart of God!
And spiritualized sexism propagates secret sexual abuse!”
And then it did, by the hundreds, the thousands, the hundreds of
thousands
But then you said it was the victims who were doing the devil’s work and being a distraction to the Gospel
And the unbuckled Bible belt consumed the most porn
And Q told you, “evil democrat pedophiles” and Pizzagate and Wayfair cabinets and Hillary and Ivermectin
And then the Family Research Council guy from Christian TV gets 12 years for kiddie porn
And a godly pastor publicly confessing his "adultery" omits to mention -
She was 16.
You said you were pro-life
You said I have to support Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer and Craig Kelly and Bernie Finn
Because they are "pro-life"
You said every other political party left of them is doing the work of the devil
And that the ones doing racism, xenophobia, conspiracy theories, coal mining corruption and claiming that sex ed in schools is “grooming” - they are the only godly ones really doing the will of the Lord
And I said that abortion bans aren’t pro-life
Because they don’t reduce abortions
And they don’t save babies
And they don’t help women
And the pro-life platform is a political device
With racist roots
So you told me I was a bad influence
I shouldn’t teach my children
or God's children
I shouldn’t
speak.
And you must not "partner" with me.
I warned about algorithms
Of deliberately addictive and deceptive YouTube grifters who know how to monetize
hypnotize
But you learned from one such YouTube video that waterbirth and almond oil and placentas were witchcraft
And that I was a witch, because I know herbs, and I help women birth
And because I wore a tree of life pendant that looks just like a placenta, like a river delta
Like the tree of life with the leaves that are healing for the nations, and that was
proof
“Take my healing to the nations,” the old song echoes in my deepest heart
All the beautiful worship songs that drew me into the presence of God
The soundtrack of my whole life
But you said Let Us Worship instead of black lives really DO matter
And turned young love-bombed lovers into political Christians
soldiers for your Jericho March to victory -
supremacy
And I only wanted to let justice roll like a never-failing stream
And I said, but so many guns!
The body count!
How many O Lord?
How long O Lord?
Is this what freedom looks like?
And you said, "You can’t take our freedoms!"
You want CRT out of the schools
But I want GRT out of the churches
And you only want to regulate wombs not
guns
And you make it harder to vote than to buy a rifle
because, "values".
“You can’t bubble wrap the world”, you say
Oh, but I would if I could
I would bubble wrap the whole hurting, suffering world with the greenest of wrap
If I could
That is the kind of freedom I want
Not just for thee, not just for me
But for
WE
Yes, we
For the others
The ones who don’t look, speak, worship, dress the same, or have the same sexual orientation as,
me
All the Others
But you tell me I am compromising with the world
I am a hater
I am not a laid-down lover like you
I am a deceiver
I don’t have fresh revelation like you
I am luke-warm and God will spit me out of his mouth
I am not anointed like you
I am only
rebel
Jezebel
Marxist
witch
murderer
reprobate
deceived
apostate
wolf
And worst of the worst -
Woke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If reading this makes you feel as sad as writing it made me, here is a song that I hope will bless and comfort you.
Hymn for the 81% by Daniel Deitrich
And then, Daniel Deitrich wrote one more verse:
"Maybe I was too naive
Or I just didn't want to see
There's always been a little poison in the well
Churches sit on stolen lands
A nation build by stolen hands
And we used the Word to justify it all.
From slavery to segregation
To mass incarceration
This is who we are but not who we have to be
There's so much work to do
To pull out the evil by the roots
And repentance has to come before there's peace."
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| Julie Bell is 54 year old Australian mother of four, married to her American husband for 27 years. They spent 17 of these years serving as missionaries together. Julie has been, at times in her life, a nurse, missionary nurse, Bible courier, preacher, birth doula, herbalist, worship leader & church elder. |
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