Actually, I’m a low-tempo kinda person

How humorous it is that out of all the blog posts I’ve been mentally drafting, this one should win – all the more so because I literally just thought of it in the last 5 mins.
I’ve been mentally drafting out the other posts, rather than committing them to paper, which means that I will invariably forget them  -such is the amount of things that my mind focuses on.
So for my own benefit I will write here the titles that I can currently remember (this is completely irrelevant and not at all a post, of course – but I recently trimmed my finger nails, which were only a couple of millimetres long each – and Hallelujah, I can type fast again!!! Seriously, I spend so much time at my keyboard on a daily basis that not being able to type quickly was causing me significant distress!!!)

Blog posts I have been thinking of:
Why church does not work: In short, the Bible is true. Please please believe me, the Bible is true.  God is real, and utterly dependable. However, church just does not work in our times (so loving this fast typing, I can’t even begin to express it!)  The fact that church does not work has caused me some intense consternation.  However, as much as God is real, and as much as the Bible is true, Church in our times just does not work. By extension, marriage also often does not work.  I believe that the reason for this is because the Bible assumes a certain level of commitment from Christians which most modern Christians just don’t give, or are unable to give, sometimes through no fault of their own. So instructions to Christians are given assuming that level of commitment from other Christians/the Church at large, which then don’t hold up so well when the assumed level of commitment is lacking.  One quick example: When Jesus is talking about what to do when your brother offends you, the last stage is to go to the elders of the church…. “and if he does not listen to them, let him be to you as a tax collector”.  What is not addressed here is if the elders of the church themselves are the ones at fault.  The assumption is that the church elders will always represent deep maturity and truth.  However, in my experience that has not been true at all. Another example is this:  the mere fact that there are so many churches in one place at all.  In the First century church, there would often be a single united collection of believers in one city, all interconnected with and accountable to one another, hence Paul could write to “The Thessalonians”, or Corinthians, or Philippians etc. In our days, there are often countless small churches or collections of Christians in any one city, often openly competing with one another, and the elders of one “church” definitely do not recognise the leadership of the elders of another.  The idea of there being one single group of leaders over a city is, to me, unthinkable in our times.  To me this widespread disunity illustrates the fact that the “Christianity” or “Christicarnality” of our times has embraced and absorbed so many pseudo-values that actively contradict the message of the New Testament, which is why so many of us Christians are in conflict with one another. For instance, it seems to be widely acceptable in our days to make money from “the ministry”, over and above providing for simple everyday needs. Many people have famously become millionaires through this which to me is so, so unbiblical. So of course this would attract people who are not truly sincere about the message of Christ, if they can see this as a means of making a quick buck or two. And of course this would encourage these insincere people to set up their own churches in competition with one another, if this means that they will also be to get their own slice of the church money pie. And of course if you make the mistake of going to one of these churches you would be unlikely to find the true, loving heart of Christ there, finding instead the heart of greed and manipulation that inspired the foundation of the church in the first place. Some people seem to orient their entire “ministries” around trying to extort as much money as possible from their members. Is this ever going to be a recipe for love, peace, belonging for the members?  As the Bible says in James 3v16: “For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. ” (NKJV).  So yep, this in a nutshell is why church simply does not work in our days.  Above all, it has been deeply corrupted by money. And instead of working hard to rid the church of this corruption by money, many Christians are actually apologists for this, and try to claim that it is somehow good, or Godly.

Following on from this post:  Don’t let the church put you off God! This post follows on so neatly from the ideas I have expressed above. However, it was actually inspired by the story of a woman that I recently read online who said that she had grown up in a hyper-evangelical church, where “Purity Culture” (avoiding pre-marital sex as an act of worship to God and a gift to your future spouse) was so deeply engrained that she felt that her entire worth was tied up in her abstaining from sex.  So, perhaps invariably, she grew up to reject these ideals, she started having sex and celebrating sexual pleasure, she left the church. You know, on one hand, I wanted to complain that magazines will always have these articles about people becoming enlightened to reject the faith of their youth. However, I am yet to see a single article about someone being brought up in a strict faith – and staying, and actually being grateful for it.  That is, someone just like me! Although there are articles where people talk about having a strong faith. What I mean is that I have not seen articles where people analyse their reasons for staying, or coming into the faith, and talking about the grounding that that gives them. People will analyse their reasons for joining anything else, but there is something about faith, and especially Christian faith, that seems to mean we only seem to hear of people’s relief on leaving. So then my first impulse was to complain.  But then I thought that in a bid to relate to this lady, where she was coming from, I could write a post titled “Don’t let the church put you off God!” Because the truth is, the Bible is true. God is real. And yet, for reasons I have discussed above, the church just does not resemble what it could and should look like. So if you were to evaluate God by means of the church, then guess what?  Many of us would walk away.  I think that the reason I have stayed is because I have learned to distinguish between the realness of God and the fakeness you find in the church.  Because the truth is this:  If God is real, then He is real, and the levels of insincerity/inadequate commitment to be found in the Church do not cancel out the fact that He is real. Speaking specifically to that lady, I would say this:  Yes, guess what, many people are attracted to the church for power reasons, in that they want to exert power over other people. So they will police personal aspects of your life, including your sexuality for the sake of feeling powerful.  However, I personally have learned to distinguish between man-made laws and God-made laws. If God has given us a law, then from experience I know that obeying that law will be in our own interests.  However if a law is purely man-made, then I don’t have to obey it in the same way.  While churches and pastors do seek to police the sexuality of their members, especially women, the fact is that abstaining from sexual activity outside marriage is ultimately a God-given law. So it will be to our best interests to obey it.

This is at least the third article where I have read of a woman throwing off the constraints of an upbringing that (overly?) emphasises sexual purity to embrace the joys of sexual pleasure. However these kinds of articles never seem to talk about the messy potentials of casual sexual relationships, like abuse or getting pregnant or STDs or single motherhood (Yes, I am aware that these things can happen in marital relationships too, however, I would hope that if a marriage were built on a strong foundation of commitment to one another and obedience to God, such things would be greatly minimised. )  I believe that these are some of the things that God would protect us from.  Some of these things can be heartbreaking or can literally ruin our lives – especially as women. So while I would suggest that women could diplomatically ignore the sexual policing that they would receive in church, it still makes sense to obey God’s law, knowing that He has our best interests at heart.

Plus a few other posts, I’m sure, that I have completely forgotten all about. Most times, I can remember that there was something I was thinking about, but I just can’t recall what the idea was – but in this case, I can’t even say for sure that there were other posts that were going through my mind – I have completely and utterly forgotten them. However, usually posts will reoccur to me, thankfully, so posts are rarely gone forever.