Why We Leave: a memoir of why I left the Assemblies of God church
Why We Leave: a memoir of losing faith
(a work in progress, written about a year ago. I don't usually do nonfiction but this seemed the only thing I felt strongly to write about my personal history)
Preface:
It doesn’t happen immediately. There seems to be an illusion that some outside force grabbed hold of you and pulled you from the righteous path. Seldom is anyone willing to look inward. But no one is more responsible for the exodus from the church than the church itself.
There’s an abundance of people who tell you that your faith is not in people but in God, that leaving because of people is wrong. In fact, this was the topic of one of my pastor’s sermons in the thirteen years I spent at his median sized church in the West Michigan countryside. This message was for the people who stayed behind when someone was asked to leave our church. This message was not a warning to people not to leave, it was a pillow for those still behind. They didn’t have to feel guilty about abandoning the relationships they fostered with those people they were now asked to ignore, and essentially shun. The guilt didn’t have to come because they were there for God, not for the people after all, and if you were caught up in the lives of people, you were not faithful.
Guilt is a quintessential tool in the Assemblies of God arsenal. In other factions and denominations of Christianity I’m sure, as well. The Pentecostal/Evangelical crowd hooked in people with the prosperity Gospel. Despite a number of passages, including many spoken by Jesus himself that the rich were going to have trouble entering the kingdom of heaven. But it was through blind faith of tithing especially that they turned up the guilt. If you didn’t give, for any earthly reason: behind on bills, medical costs, gas money; this was considered faithlessness. To worry about yourself and your family’s well-being at the expense of not giving was grounds for shame.
It seems at first that tithing – in my church’s case, as in many churches, was my passing around a tray or bucket to deposit money in – was an anonymous gesture. But you recorded your true tithe, that is money you didn’t place in extra, on a small little envelope. Thus, the church always had a record of how much you gave. There was of course, because of this an unspoken hierarchy, those that gave a lot, who could afford to give a lot were seniors in the church, leaders of the varying departments that the church ran. These people had the most influence. They could afford to put in money, their ten percent without any worries. These were not the targets of guilt, in fact, I’d argue that they became more prideful, because they never had to feel guilty about deciding in giving to God or buying ground beef to feed their families.
Because they knew who wasn’t giving with a faithful heart, I can’t even count the number of times that I’ve heard the guilt speech. After a full six days hearing my parents complain and fret over paying the bills, of hoping to get us some sort of gift for our birthday. Six days of shouting, and crying, and then to walk into church and have our pastor guilt trip my mother and I’m assuming any number of others for not giving. You reap what you sow, is of course the Biblical mantra. Meaning: if you give you will receive.
But then what happens if your circumstances don’t change?
Traditional Christianity. The denominations that aren’t as popular, won’t say this is because of your lack of faith in your seed. Because the Bible doesn’t make mention of giving and then being blessed like Santa Claus with some future material gains. You are supposed to give just because it is your duty.
In my childhood church, you were supposed to give and then were told because of that you would receive God’s blessing, often in material wealth, tenfold was a popular buzz word. The next six days God’s blessing never came. The message again, give with a joyful heart, and receive. Believe. Giving with your faith in the gift would promise that God would bless you. The next six days God did not bless us. The depression, the anxiety festered. We weren’t starving of course, but the fear of losing our house – which eventually did happen – loomed over us. There were repairs that needed to be made, not only to the house, but the car, the lawnmower. My brother needed money for baseball practice, I probably should have gone to a dentist, but didn’t because of financial reasons.
After another six days, the message comes, if you aren’t receiving your blessing, it’s because you aren’t giving enough. If you are giving enough, it’s because you don’t believe in your future promise of God’s gift. If you do believe, but still aren’t receiving your upturn in life, then it’s because you aren’t giving joyfully.
These were all goalposts that kept moving, even while my family struggled. Occasionally my mother would pull out of her purse a twenty and a five, and on occasion she was supposed to have given a twenty but instead she thought of having to buy groceries after, so she put in a five. On other occasions by father would urge her to put in the full amount against her explanation that she needed to buy groceries. But he was the husband, in charge, as the church had told him he was. So, he must be respected.
My father isn’t smart. Not, in part, because of his own actions. He was illiterate because as a child in the 50’s when Child Psychology was in its infancy, he had a learning disability, and at that time they deemed that if you had a learning issue that would stay with you forever. He never handled the finances in our house, that was the sole responsibility of my mother, who was smarter than my father, but she still wasn’t the wisest with spending. But the Bible said he was in charge, so our financial woes continued, but he made sure he put in the ten percent, or more commanded of Jesus, as dictated by our pastor who had records of our contributions to the church pot.
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