Call For Mass Resignation Of All UK Church Leaders! (Or Should We Just Sack 'Em?)
Captain Sensible writes: Okay, maybe that is more of a Frieda Fruitcake-esque heading than a Captain Sensible one!
But you know what, I am not in a very good mood this evening.
Witnessing the resignation of a man that really should not be leaving his job, whilst hundreds, or even thousands, of others who really should be going, are staying...
I am talking of course about Tony Blair and our UK church leaders respectively.
This thought occurred to me after a conversation with one single Christian woman tonight, who turned 40 this April. She told me, rather coyly, that she was "trusting in God" for a husband, and that in fact God had actually told her who her husband was to be, and this was confirmed with a vision, no less!
The man concerned lives in America, and she first contacted him after seeing him on some satellite Christian TV channel.
That was in 1997.
Since then, she has sent him one email, one card, her mobile number and a picture. He has sent her two texts messages.
The last of which was in 2006.
They have never met, or even spoken on the phone, but apparently God has given her other visions since, where they are together and holding hands, so she actually feels like she has met him!
With a serene smile, she told me she is "trusting God" to bring them together in "His timing".
Perhaps she reads Carolyn McCulley?
She certainly is not getting any help or teaching from her church anyway, that's for sure.
An undercurrent of anger and desperation was however revealed when she confided that at her church, they tell her to forget about her desire for marriage and focus on serving God instead. (There goes that false dilemma again! Choose to serve God as a whole, content single woman and forget about worldly, idolatrous notions of marriage!) "But it's my heart's desire", she said to me, pleadingly, "and I am now 40! How can I just put my hope of marriage aside like that?"
How indeed.
So she has instead become fixated on a fantasy, and the church isn't helping her deal with the reality of the situation. She may not even have dared to tell them. Instead, they scold her for being a normal woman expressing normal, God-given hopes and desires. And with no real man pursuing her, because single men just aren't in the churches and she has absorbed the idea that it is dangerous to look outside them, all she has is her fantasy man.
Shocking, isn't it?
Our church leaders have collectively failed us all miserably.
Here in the UK, just 6.75% of the population go to church, and probably nearly 70% of those are women.
Our contemporary church leaders are presiding over continual drops in church attendance, with a statistical projection that, if nothing changes, in just over 20 years time we will be looking at the extinction of men from our churches completely.
What exactly are our church leaders achieving at the moment?
Surely, if they were directors of companies, they would all be bankrupt by now?
Yet it is seen as virtually forbidden to hold them accountable. Not one word of criticism is to be tolerated. We are not supposed to be angry at the numbers of single Christian women that are destined to remain barren spinsters, nor are we to care about the lost generation of men that we are virtually ignoring in the world.
All anyone is allowed to do is run or attend ministries for women and/or children, with occasional overseas mission trips thrown in as a bit of a distraction and to maybe give the few men something to do occasionally.
Teaching on singleness and marriage is either ignored completely, or false, and the lack of men in the Body is met with lip service at best, with complete denial not uncommon.
Shouldn't they all be sacked with immediate effect?
And maybe charged with theft for the loss of Christian women's fertile years? Or criminal neglect for the lost generation of men who are left to fend for themselves in the world, looking for fulfilment in all the wrong places?
(Hmm, yes, well, I did warn you that I wasn't in a good mood this evening!)
But you know what, I am not in a very good mood this evening.
Witnessing the resignation of a man that really should not be leaving his job, whilst hundreds, or even thousands, of others who really should be going, are staying...
I am talking of course about Tony Blair and our UK church leaders respectively.
This thought occurred to me after a conversation with one single Christian woman tonight, who turned 40 this April. She told me, rather coyly, that she was "trusting in God" for a husband, and that in fact God had actually told her who her husband was to be, and this was confirmed with a vision, no less!
The man concerned lives in America, and she first contacted him after seeing him on some satellite Christian TV channel.
That was in 1997.
Since then, she has sent him one email, one card, her mobile number and a picture. He has sent her two texts messages.
The last of which was in 2006.
They have never met, or even spoken on the phone, but apparently God has given her other visions since, where they are together and holding hands, so she actually feels like she has met him!
With a serene smile, she told me she is "trusting God" to bring them together in "His timing".
Perhaps she reads Carolyn McCulley?
She certainly is not getting any help or teaching from her church anyway, that's for sure.
An undercurrent of anger and desperation was however revealed when she confided that at her church, they tell her to forget about her desire for marriage and focus on serving God instead. (There goes that false dilemma again! Choose to serve God as a whole, content single woman and forget about worldly, idolatrous notions of marriage!) "But it's my heart's desire", she said to me, pleadingly, "and I am now 40! How can I just put my hope of marriage aside like that?"
How indeed.
So she has instead become fixated on a fantasy, and the church isn't helping her deal with the reality of the situation. She may not even have dared to tell them. Instead, they scold her for being a normal woman expressing normal, God-given hopes and desires. And with no real man pursuing her, because single men just aren't in the churches and she has absorbed the idea that it is dangerous to look outside them, all she has is her fantasy man.
Shocking, isn't it?
Our church leaders have collectively failed us all miserably.
Here in the UK, just 6.75% of the population go to church, and probably nearly 70% of those are women.
Our contemporary church leaders are presiding over continual drops in church attendance, with a statistical projection that, if nothing changes, in just over 20 years time we will be looking at the extinction of men from our churches completely.
What exactly are our church leaders achieving at the moment?
Surely, if they were directors of companies, they would all be bankrupt by now?
Yet it is seen as virtually forbidden to hold them accountable. Not one word of criticism is to be tolerated. We are not supposed to be angry at the numbers of single Christian women that are destined to remain barren spinsters, nor are we to care about the lost generation of men that we are virtually ignoring in the world.
All anyone is allowed to do is run or attend ministries for women and/or children, with occasional overseas mission trips thrown in as a bit of a distraction and to maybe give the few men something to do occasionally.
Teaching on singleness and marriage is either ignored completely, or false, and the lack of men in the Body is met with lip service at best, with complete denial not uncommon.
Shouldn't they all be sacked with immediate effect?
And maybe charged with theft for the loss of Christian women's fertile years? Or criminal neglect for the lost generation of men who are left to fend for themselves in the world, looking for fulfilment in all the wrong places?
(Hmm, yes, well, I did warn you that I wasn't in a good mood this evening!)
posted by Captain Sensible at 2:23 PM
4 Comments:
The person who wrote the article "Stop Sugar-Coating Singleness" has a free singles website for Christians. I am almost considering trying it someday. I am scared however of upsetting my non-Christian father who I live with; and that is tearing my heart apart that I would otherwise be nothing short of ready and content to pursue marriage proactively through an online singles service for Christians that entails no fee.
My 2 friends are unfortunately Gift of Singleness advocates (yet both of them have a man in their lives!) and even though they ARE compassionate with me when I have cried about my loneliness and singleness, they are "Carolyn McCulley" fans at the end of the day (with regard to their views on singleness and waiting on God, etc. ) So in a nutshell, while I get the compassion, I do not exactly get the SUPPORT. While I definitely could use the former, I certain am in dire need of the latter.
So what are we to make of Hebrews 13: 17?
"Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you."
Interesting point made below taken from an article here:
www.ntrf.org/articles/article_detail.php?PRKey=2
"In Hebrews 13:17, believers are encouraged to “obey” church leaders. Interestingly, the Greek behind “obey” is not the regular Greek word for “obey.” Instead, peitho is used, which literally means “to persuade” or “to convince.” Thus, Hebrews 13:17 should be rendered “let yourselves be persuaded by.” This same verse also instructs believers to “submit” to the authority of their church leaders. As with “obey,” the common Greek word for “submit” is not used. Instead, hupeiko was chosen by the author, a word that still does mean “to give in, to yield”, but after a fight."
So, does this mean we are allowed to try and persuade, and even put up a "fight", but at the end of the day we should yield to them?
Okay, sounds fairly reasonable, and in any case, they will need to give an account to God over their conduct.
But it's not quite as simple as that, is it? Suppose some serious misdemeanour came to light. They would no doubt be removed from their position, right?
So I guess it boils down to how seriously we take false teaching and the neglect of a whole generation of lost men. Plus, you could perhaps argue that in effect they are forbidding marriage, because they are making it practically impossible for Christian women to be the wives and mothers that God intended them to be.
Hmmm.....
Shazia - You have OUR support!
Yours is of course a very difficult position because of your non-Christian father.
I wish I had an answer for you! The only encouragement I can give you, maybe, is to remind you that God knows and understands your position.
I don't have much sympathy for people that only pray about a situation, when there are actions they could, and should, take if only they were to use a bit of wisdom.
But it is my personal opinion (and only that!), that in your situation it really is down to prayer alone.
And remember, miracles can result when people pray!
Lots of love to you!
Thanks Captain,
I know jealousy is a sin but it feels impossible for me not to get jealous when I learn of anyone having a significant other in their lives. I feel as if I have no choice but to adapt the Carolyn McCulley approach of "waiting on the Lord" even though it goes against my instinct to take her advice because I think her passivity in her ideas about securing a spouse repulses me.
Yes I guess there is nothing stopping me from becoming proactive and using a site such as the one provided by Lee Wilson (the author of that article) but it might be difficult for some to understand how fearful it is for me to get my non-Christian (i.e. Muslim) father upset over dating a Christian. In Muslim societies/religion the woman is not permitted to marry a non-Muslim man. It is also not easy to simply say to my father that I made a new "friend of a friend" because I would make him suspicious if I were to start wearing prettier outfits/hairdos/makeup all of a sudden to meet this "friend of a friend." NOT that I do not care about how I look in the clothes that I wear now but you probably know what I mean.
The GOS advocates who castigate those who choose proactiveness when it comes to marriage, seriously take their opportunities to pursue marriage, for granted. The GOS advocates deliberately do not actively pursue marriage, but I wonder how they would feel if they were KEPT from pursuing marriage. Would they feel the same and find some way to brainwash themselves into accepting their current state, or would it make any difference?
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