Chapter Five — Reasons That Are Not Yet Reasons (2 of 2)

Paul saw the pull of this coming: "For there will be a time when people will not tolerate sound teaching. Instead, following their own desires, they will accumulate teachers for themselves, because they have an insatiable curiosity to hear new things. And they will turn away from hearing the truth, but on the other hand they will turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3–4, NET.)

John's counsel is the old one: "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (1 John 4:1, NET).

The conviction of this book: a church that set boundaries around what is read as Scripture was caring for its flock, the way the Father prunes the vine so that it will bear more fruit (John 15:2).

And the steady stream of "they hid it from you" is one of the enemy's oldest ways. He is the father of lies (John 8:44). He does not argue you out of the truth. He pulls your eyes away from it. He teaches you to distrust your church before you have asked your church anything.

Curiosity is not the problem. The problem is a story that has already decided your church lied.

Check the claim. Then take your question to your pastor or priest, and hear what they say. The truth is not afraid of the light.

A disagreement not yet talked through. You heard a sermon you disagreed with. You read the church's statement of faith and found a line you do not hold. The elders made a decision you would not have made.

Before any of these becomes a reason, ask whether you have talked to anyone about it.

Some disagreements dissolve in the first conversation, because what you heard was not what was meant. Some do not, and Chapter Six is for those.

When politics comes into it. People leave churches over politics. A pastor said something in public. A church took a stand on a question in the news. The church seemed too political, or not political enough, or on the wrong side.

This is a real reason. Many who have left name it.

The conviction of this book: a church's stand on a party or a candidate is rarely the gospel. A disagreement about that is, for most believers, a difference a family can hold.

But some questions in the news are also questions of moral teaching, and believers on every side hold some of them as a must. If that is your case, this book does not call your question small. It is a difference on a must, and Chapter Six is for it.

For the rest, treat it as you would any other difference. Talk to the pastor or priest. Ask what the church holds as a matter of faith and what is one man's opinion from the pulpit. Ask whether you are welcome there if you vote differently.

If the answer is yes, you have found a family that disagrees about politics. Many families do, and they still love one another.

There is a harder case. A church may make a political loyalty a test of fellowship, or its leaders may use the pulpit to treat other believers with contempt. That is no longer a disagreement about politics. It is a question about what the church has put at its center, and it belongs in Chapter Seven.

The grass on the other side. Every church you have not yet joined looks better than the one you are in, because you have not yet met its people.

The new church has the same human nature and the same sins. That is not cynicism. It is Augustine's net and Jesus' field.

A person who moves from one church to another will likely meet, in time, some version of what he left. The question is whether what drew him away was something real, or only something new.

What leaving costs. Leaving is not free, and its cost is rarely counted beforehand.

It costs relationships that were years in the making. It costs children the friends and teachers they grew up with. It costs the church the gifts you carried and the work you did.

It costs you the people who knew you at your worst and stayed. It costs the slow shaping that happens only when the same people pray for you for twenty years.

For some readers it costs more still. A Catholic or Orthodox Christian who leaves the Church leaves the altar where, in his tradition's teaching, Christ gives Himself.

"For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn't sit down first and compute the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?" (Luke 14:28, NET.) Jesus said that about following Him, and it fits every serious decision a disciple makes.

What staying costs. Staying is not free either.

It can cost a conscience that never rests. It can cost a child who does not feel at home. It can cost a marriage where one spouse goes alone.

Count both. Count them before Him, and in the light.

And if your church has harmed you or your child, count the cost of staying first. Chapter Eight is for you.

Leaving in small ways. There is a kind of leaving that never makes a decision. It is attending less, serving less, giving less, until a person is a member on paper and gone in fact.

Hebrews names it: "not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing" (Hebrews 10:25, NET). The word is habit.

If you are going to leave, leave well; Chapter Ten describes how. If you are going to stay, stay with your whole heart; Chapter Nine describes how.

Half-staying is hard on everyone. It is hardest on the one who drifts.

Dear friend, if you have already drifted, you have not gone too far to come back.

And if you pulled back because you were hurt or afraid, this is not about you. Stepping back from harm is not drifting. Chapter Eleven says more about that verse.

Whatever your reason, small or large, bring it into the light, and bring it to Him. He knows it already. He has not stopped loving you.