Over the past week, I was talking to one of my buddies about life in the local church and why at this stage of life; he was not too keen on joining a church.

From there, the conversation steered itself towards some recent books he had read. As he told me his opinions of these books, we analyzed those opinions back and forth until he stopped and decided to read me this excerpt from page 101 (softback) of a book entitled “Tangled Ropes” which is the autobiography of retired professional wrestler Superstar Billy Graham written by Graham himself along with help from Keith Elliot Greenberg

But now, in January, the dry, cool air had tamed the desert. We talked about Jerry Graham a little bit, and analyzed the wrestling business. It was a strange world of trickery.

“Do you ever feel bad about conning the fans?” Brick asked.

It’s a subject I’d contemplated a lot.

“I think we’re doing them a favor,” I responded. “Living in a delusional world of fantasy is good for them. It’s an escape hatch for their frustrations. The violence is organized. They can scream obscenities at the heels, right in our faces. But imagine what would happen if they did the same thing to their bosses, or some cop who just gave them a ticket.”

I glanced over at Brick, smiling broadly at my dissertation.

“You go to wrestling to release stress,” I continued. “Then, you go home calmer and relaxed. I mean, they call us ‘wrestlers’. But really, we’re kind of like mental therapists.”

I drove on, feeling pretty good about myself and my most recent career path.

The very first thing I thought about after hearing my friend read this excerpt to me was…..

the church

the gears in my head started to spin but there was no smoke coming out of my brain….

The words that came from the autobiography of a retired professional wrestler sounded too much like the clergy/laity relationship of the seeker-sensitive, purpose-driven church of today. I thought about these words that Superstar Billy Graham (later I was to find out that he had been an evangelist before entering the world of pro wrestling) stated and I really wondered if this was the same mentality that many pastors viewed their congregations/fans as being. I thought about the non-legitimate pastors that are in the ‘ministry’ to con people and wondered if their conscience bothered them. I thought about if pastors see their services as simply going through the motions and doing the congregations/fans a huge favor or really trying to develop an atmosphere of learning, worship, and fellowship.

I then turned my thoughts over to the congregations/fans and wondered about their motives of going to church.

Do we go to church to learn, worship, and fellowship or do you go for a couple hours to the ‘weekly escape hatch’ and get away from the frustrations of life that the pastor claims you should be having victory over. However in reality, the victory is not present and you experience week after week of being blamed for the victory not working because of ’secret sin’, lacking faith, disagreeing with the pastor…

Do we go to church to learn, worship, and fellowship or do you go for a couple hours to experience the delusional world of dominionalism that seems to only work at a restaurant Sunday after church?

Do we go to church to learn, worship, and fellowship or do you go to participate in the ‘organized violence’ of ’spiritual warfare’ screaming mantra chants and Christianized obscenities at the devil demanding the drug demon to leave Fifth Avenue from your plush sanctuary on Church Street never witnessing or making an impact physically on Fifth Avenue? Or do you go hoping that one day after you have ruined your vocal cords from yelling too much, God will kill off the “DEMONcrats” and ‘reform America’ to be the nation of Republicans, homeschoolers, anti-lottery, butterfly-kissing “Ned Flanders” type of feminized men?

But the sobering reality is found in Graham’s statement when he asked the reality shattering question

But imagine what would happen if they did the same thing to their bosses, or some cop who just gave them a ticket.”

And the brutal honest truth is that in many of these dominion oriented churches, you are expected to treat your boss who treats you bad as ‘great Satan’ and pray for his firing, eventual poverty of the inability to find gainful employment, and/or his future children are born retarded. You are expected to treat a police officer who gave you that speeding ticket on Sunday on the way to church as ‘great Satan’ and pray for God’s wrath to come down on him and the city he patrols. You are expected the tell that disagreeing Christian in public that you ‘love’ them but pray in private that they will miss the rapture for not being one of the ‘chosen ones’.

Because you’re a ‘King’s Kid’
Because they ‘touched God’s anointed’
Because they ‘exposed’ your weak point (curse of Ham)
Because you’re a “Super-Apostle Mega Prophet”
Because you’re the ‘mand of gawdddddddd’
Because you’re in Gideon’s Army
Because you’re a member of the “Joshua Generation”
Because you’re the remnant

It works only in the two hours in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings before performing the dominion experiment at the diner afterward. The ‘real’ world that occurs four hours a week on Sundays that is totally unreal the rest of the week. But if we just pray harder, give more money, vote Republican, rebuild Ezra’s temple, hold a mega fast on 9-09-09 and a ‘if my people shall humble themselves’ fast-a-thon…. That ‘real’ world that occurs four hours a week on Sundays will be forced on our society to where the ‘fantasy’ world will be cast down and the ‘real Christian world’ will be reality one future day that all will have to follow.

When you leave that ’secular’ job and go to work for or create “Christian Company USA”.

You tell your boss that doom from God is coming to him and his family for the next four generations because he treats you like crap and see what he does…. He treats that statement as a communicated threat and fires you and if needed, gets a restraining order against you.

You tell that police officer as he writes you that speeding ticket on Sunday morning that he is touching God’s anointed and he better tear up that ticket or else and see what he does… He shows you what real authority he has when he puts you in the backseat of that police cruiser and takes you to jail and if the magistrate / judge hears the same thing, you may ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation…

You go to pray for someone’s healing and decides that you need to place your knee in their stomach knocking them down as the condition for healing and see what happens… An assault charge.

Do we go to church to release stress and go home calmer and relaxed to get wound back up for another 166 hours until you repeat the cycle next week or do you go to worship, fellowship, and eventually learn how to have a prayer life and disciplined Bible reading life to daily manage stress?

Do we really want to hear a sermon from a true pastor of God or do we want a three point sermon from a pentecostal psychotherapist? Do we really want to hear a sermon from a true pastor of God or do we want a ‘positive prophecy’ from a pop-culture prophet?

At the end of every Sunday, as the pentecostal psychotherapist and pop-culture prophet lays their head on their pillow to sleep, one has to wonder if they can without a clear conscience feel pretty good about themselves and their current career path? One also has to wonder as they ‘lay me down to sleep…..’ if they can without a clear conscience feel pretty good about themselves and their current Christian walk?

I wonder at the end of every Sunday, if I can even remember what the pastor preached on and if can apply it to my life somehow. As I wrestle with the issue of fellowship, I grieve at the shallowness of other Christians who only speak to me when they need their ‘Techno geek nerd’ to fix their computer. I grieve at the shallowness of other Christians who only speak to me when they need to recruit potential ushers or small group members. I grieve at the shallowness of other Christians who only speak to me when they see a single naive person and want to ‘be friends’ to attempt to bring you into their MLM pyramid scheme. I grieve at the shallowness of other Christians who only speak to me to tell me that America is doomed unless we vote for their candidate.

I deeply grieve at the shallowness of other Christians who only speak to me (in the name of fellowship) when they want to turn my salvation into another ’superstition’, faith into ‘formula’, spirituality into ’superficiality’, fraternity into ‘fanaticism’, and ‘anointing’ into ‘activism / affluence / agenda’.

I want to worship. I want to fellowship. But most importantly, I want to learn and put into action the words of God in my own life.