Mystic Journey 2.0

The following quotation is from Richard Rohr:

The foundation of fundamentalism is fear. When people feel distance from the Father, they may feel they can’t trust him because he is hard and out to get them. When they believe they can’t please the Father, they get into what the Church has so often gotten into, in almost every denomination, the merit/demerit system. They need to make sure they are right with the distant Father.

In Catholicism it takes the form of legalism and near idolatry of the institution. In Protestantism, at least today, it takes the form of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism creates a system of words, bible quotes and techniques for salvation that are supposedly certain, so you can always know the ground on which you stand and keep the feared Father on your side. It’s very popular today in America, and wherever else the family system is collapsing and fathers are absent or abusive.

I would say that people who are attracted to fundamentalism are suffering from a lack of masculine energy, a lack of union with the Father. When you are in union with the Father, you don’t need petty certitudes to overcome your fear. You can relax with God; you can even feel free to make mistakes. You resonate with the words of the Father, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased,” and such perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18).

I couldn’t agree more with Rohr. I was trained in a very legalistic fundamentalist bible school back in the early 70’s and during my last year of school God began to teach me about His grace. But, I continued to attend fundamental churches, although not necessarily the same narrow-minded denominational churches. Even after becoming a Charismatic, I was still attending fundamentalist churches - only I didn’t know it because I thought I had left fundamentalism behind years ago. The truth is - fundamentalism and it’s merit-based belief system is rampant among even those denominations (or ‘non-denominations’) that pride themselves on being ‘Spirit-filled’ and therefore privy to the secrets of the spirit life.

Since I have become aware of the heresy of (merit-based; performance-based) legalism, I am seeing just how utterly rampant it is, even among the most popular and revered ’spirit-filled’ preachers or churches. In almost every case, I hear preachers and televangelists presenting an obedience-based (merit) message. Whether these preachers tell us we must tithe, read our bible every day, or join a church, we are told that we cannot expect to receive the graces and goodness of God unless we are being obedient to whatever ‘certitudes’ they prescribe. In other words, Father’s favor is only available to those who ‘obey’ whatever laws the preacher dictates.

I often listened to Kenneth Copeland, because I am convinced that God really does want His people healthy and prosperous and I wanted to get my theological head around the truths that Kenneth and his guests presented. But, I was still hearing a merit-based fundamentalism being taught - in order to be financially blessed by God, I must be tithing as well as ’sowing financial seed’ (into their ministry, of course). And, in order to receive any of God’s favor, I must certainly be a faithful member of a local church, and I must discipline myself to spend hours reading bible passages.

I never cared much for Joyce Meyer’s teaching in the past because I heard her consistently telling her audience that life with God was very difficult and we just need to buck-up and get used to hardship and suffering because God puts us through hard times in order to build our spiritual character. Baloney!  However, I tried to extend grace to Joyce because her view of God was obviously based on her frequently mentioned abusive father. She came across to me as a very frustrated person. Yet, tens of thousands of people - especially women - thronged to hear Joyce’s messages about an adversarial God, but who supposedly abused out of love. Women must love to be abused by their lovers in our society!

Lately, however, Joyce has learned the healing power of forgiveness and has changed her entire ministry and message to that of ‘enjoying everyday life’ and her messages are much more positive. She even looks happier now! But, I still hear her - like most others - inserting the ‘obedience-requirement’ into her instructions about just how to enjoy everyday life. There’s still a lot of ‘righteous performance’ required if you want to be happy, according to her.

It’s as if all preachers fear that if they don’t insert the ‘obedience-factor’ into their teaching, the people of God may not fear God and just go off and ‘live like the devil.’ Ironically, that is exactly what is happening as a result of their fear-based message! Christians are so sin-conscious that they keep committing that which they abhor (Rom 7:15,19). But, I’ve discovered in my own life - as Rohr has - that knowing God as Grace removes my fear of Him and allows me to love Him; and amazingly, not be faced with constant temptations to ’sin’ or ‘live like the devil’ (Rom 7:6).

Now, don’t get me wrong - it is obvious that living a life in ‘obedience’ to that which God has designed for our good is just plain smart; whereas living a life consistently in violation of these guidelines can wreak havoc in your life. Havoc from abusing your body, your relationships or any other part of your life - but not havoc because you are ’sinning’ and therefore being punished by God. God doesn’t punish. Neither does He reward your good behavior. (If that shocks you, then you don’t really know God.)

But, what we misunderstand about this ‘dance’ between obedience and grace is that our love of God comes first, and then we can love our neighbor as we love ourselves. You won’t love a God whom you see as your adversary or taskmaster. Neither can you love yourself if you constantly feel you are falling short of His expectations (lack of obedience). Therefore, we cannot love our ‘neighbor’ as God does - instead we judge and divide ourselves from our ‘neighbors’ by putting them in the ‘lost’ category or the ‘other denomination’ category of our divisive Fundamentalist belief system.

Yes, fear-based fundamentalism is rampant in our ‘churchianity’ because we just cannot seem to get our culturally infused performance-based-acceptance way of thinking out of our heads when it comes to our relationship with Father God. We have merit-reward motivation planted deep inside us by our culture. We have spent years in an education system that rewarded (or punished) us based on our performance; then we become an employee or business owner in a system that rewards us based on our performance; and we live in a society that punishes us if we break the laws.

But, the church is the one place were we should be taught that our personal value and our qualification to receive love and favor is not based at all on how well we perform. Unfortunately, God Himself appraised the American church as ’so far behind, they think they are ahead” (read more on this statement here). I have often said that we have a culturally-compromised Christianity in our society, because we have made God into an American version. Westerner’s have a very difficult time accepting the truth that because God is Infinite Love, everything He does and all He gives is based on who HE is - not on how we perform. It’s not really about US - it’s about Him. He is always good, and He gives and gives and gives - out of love and goodness - because that is who He is. Furthermore - He cannot give us anything evil or harmful or hurtful because He doesn’t have any of that in His nature. Sickness & poverty, for example, are not in His heavenly inventory.

Lately, I have been challenged during my meditations that perhaps (just maybe) God wants to demonstrate His infinite goodness and love by extravagantly blessing anyone who will allow Him to do so without attaching any merit-based qualifications to it. I think I’ve been hearing Him say that He wants to show Himself as Infinite Abundance - and that His blessing is not based on us being in ministry or doing anything that our church culture believes is worthy of His favor. In other words, He wants to extravagantly bless someone who probably isn’t tithing; isn’t a church member; and isn’t involved in any formal or informal ministry of any kind - just a ‘normal’ believer who loves Him and loves people. Hmmm. That would be me!

I’ll let you know how it turns out. Stay tuned.