This video gave me chills in every bad way. It's only 2:32 long, so if you have time, please watch it and give me your feedback. Especially listen to what is being said in the background and about the girl.
Why is it that a few short years ago this would have seemed entirely "normal" to me, even praiseworthy, and today it makes me feel filthy dirty, furious and entirely manipulated?
For obvious reasons, seeing how my beliefs have changed. But I watch something like this today, as a complete outsider, and wonder how these things are NOT branded as cults. Is it just because they claim to follow the most widely read book in the world?
It makes me so heartbroken for that girl, I want to run and rescue her, to warn her about the hell this life will become -- always trying to please others, and never being able to, and her choices will be to conform or to fail in the eyes of her church.
Watching something like this today makes me feel like I USED to feel when watching -- oh, maybe video of a druid reenactment at stonehenge or something. Shaking my head, wondering at how misled* people are, worried for their impact on others. If that makes me fallen away, pagan, atheist, whatever, I'm actually grateful for it. I hope to never return to a place in life where this seems "normal".
Seen at Stuff Fundies Like.
*Misled in the sense of their fundamentalist interpretation of Jesus -- not necessarily meaning that faith in and of itself is a bad thing.
You know, this never felt "normal" to me. When I was doing the church thing at the very beginning, the church I attended was a small Presbyterian church. The people there were lovely, and while it felt weird in ways different to this, it never felt as overtly manipulative and coercive as this is.
ReplyDeleteBut this ... coercion, this "make a decision for Christ, make a decision for Christ", with the dude up the front going on and on and on, and that bloody SHITTY "just as I am" music and it's not about "just as I am" - it's about "just as YOU say" and "just as I need to be to conform into pleasing this angry god that's gonna maybe possibly send me to hell". It's NOT "just as I am". It's the very opposite of that.
I hate this, all this coming down the front, making a public confession, it ALL FEELS LIKE IT'S BASED ON FEAR!!!! Fear that they must be seen to make a public confession of Christ so that they can say they're not ashamed of him. And a million other fears.
This is not normal behaviour, is it? Is it how families behave? It's just so so so so creepy.
So yeah, that's what I think :p Hehe.
Completely agree with Sue! Coercion, manipulation, fear tactics.
ReplyDeleteI just kept thinking, "He's getting his suit wet! Why is he wearing a suit in the water?!"
This never felt right to me either, and I can't attend a church where they do the "alter call" crap. In fact, the preacher did that at my sister's WEDDING, and I about walked off the stage I was so mad.
I think when I said "normal", I meant "acceptable" or "reasonable" because it used to seem that way to me. My husband's denomination is much more like this than the one I was raised in...but we did try to be a part of his denomination for awhile and this reminded me very much of it.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I used to feel like this was just one way to do things. Now I think it's just utterly sick. So twisted and so psychologically manipulative. The damage that was done to me by this way of thinking is immeasurable. I just think "Mon Dieu, what have Your followers created? What has Your religion become? It's a monster!"
Oh, and Kari, I was thinking about the suit, too. Like what was the urgency that he couldn't change his clothes? Is it somehow more holy that he was in such a hurry?
ReplyDeleteI didn't notice the suit until the very end, and then it provided some much-needed comic relief to the spectacle.
ReplyDeleteI wonder at the fact that I would have considered that normal a few years ago, perhaps even would have shed some tears. My evangelical church was not fundamentalist, wouldn't have had the suit on the preacher and would have had some soft electric keyboard during the altar call instead of a hymn. But I realized watching the video that the words could have been identical, just some yelling in place of the southern twang.
I left the faith at the point where my oldest child was at the point, about age 10, where he was getting some of that strict dogma, rather than the cutsy stuff prior in Sunday school. That made me want to leave all the more. I am so glad we left.
I have a very negative reaction to this video, too. Probably because the pastor said that she was saved this last year. This makes it sound like something she did saved her. That kind of mentality is usually what leads to fear... it can give you the understanding that if you can gain your salvation you can also loose your salvation. Then the fear can come from the constant state of wondering "Am I doing the right thing? Will my latest screw-up be what plummets me to hell?"
ReplyDeleteIt's just like Sue said - how is that in any way reinforcing the words to "Just As I Am"? Oh, right. It's not. Talk about getting conflicting message and confusion and fear!
Yeah, it is a monster. It's ... pathetic. Thank God you are free of it :)
ReplyDeleteYeah, Stephanie, absolutely. I don't believe in "being saved once" anymore. I think you can be saved and damned many times in one life. I think "being saved" is an ongoing thing. I guess it depends on your theology, too - all of these things change their meanings so much depending on what the rest of the theological dogma is. And ours is very, very, very wrong
ReplyDeleteSue - that's an interesting perspective. One I've never heard before. I have two questions, just so I can understand more fully: 1.) What do you see "being saved" as meaning? and 2.) What, if any, purpose do you give to Christ dying on the cross?
ReplyDeleteattr: I think what I saw being taught to my kids had a lot to do with my leaving, too. In our ex-church, children's ministry was all about the headcount: how many kids were being saved each week. So when one of my kids brought home an "I accepted Jesus" card three weeks in a row, I started checking what they were teaching. Very dogmatic, not to mention that all they were interested in was getting those hands raised so they had good numbers!
ReplyDeleteStephanie - I don't think we've met, so "Hi"!
ReplyDeleteI do think for some people the fear of losing salvation is a motivating factor -- and then like you said, the fear of not doing "it" right is very significant.
Sue - I agree, completely. I think salvation is ongoing, and the primary purpose is saving us from the evil that is ourselves. Motivating us to do good and to care and extend grace....there is a process and a maturity that is ongoing and repeated.
ReplyDeleteStephanie - I can't speak for Sue (well, maybe I could but I won't :) , but I can answer your questions for myself...
ReplyDelete1) In my mind as I have unraveled my faith, my idea of being "saved" has changed a great deal, and that change is ongoing. But for now, I believe Jesus' point was to save us from evil...but not so much some supernatural evil or some eternal evil, but the evil that exists in humanity -- greed, selfishness, all the things that lead us to persecute others. What he taught about loving the person one is most inclined not to love, to extend grace to others, and to teach that narrow rules are NOT the point. In other words, "Be excellent to each other." :)
2) I guess that more or less answers question #2, also.
Hi Sue,
ReplyDeleteThanks for introducing yourself :). I've been reading your blog for a while now but until I finished grad school I never had much of a chance to comment - to devote time to having these meaningful discussions.
It seems like the way you are defining "ongoing salvation" is what I would call "restoration" rather than salvation. (And sometimes I used the word redemption, but restoration seems less "scary" or "bible-beating-like". And I think the two - salvation and restoration - are very different in action and purpose.
Restoration is what we need because the world around us (and ourselves) are broken. The bible talks about how the earth is groaning, waiting for restoration. We are being restored toward what is good, what was intended by our Creator. This is ongoing and will be until we die or the world is made whole once again.
I worry that by saying salvation from the evil in ourselves and others is ongoing by being a good person (being excellent to each other, which we of course are most certainly to do) is not all that different from the idea that we can earn our way into heaven (which is the result of salvation). And maybe that is what you believe at this point in your journey. Feel free to clarify.
I also worry a bit that if we do view Jesus' death on the cross as saving us from evil *and* we believe that we are still in the process of being saved, then why did he even have to die in the first place, if it didn't finish the job? What was the purpose, then? It seems like, under this idea, that his teaching would have been enough to accomplish this goal.
Fear is absolutely the wrong motivation for any good act toward one another, for in that is simply is "lip service." But being good to one another because your Creator has been good to you - makes a lot more sense to me. :)
Hey Stephanie,
ReplyDeleteErin did a pretty good job of summing up where I tend to be myself these days.
I think "salvation" and "damnation" are things that Christians have been extended out to a one-time event at the end of our lives, with God sending some to heaven and some to hell. I don't believe that at all, and I think that reading of the Bible is just false. I did a lot of study around this several years ago, and came to a lot of pretty wonderfulc ocnlusions from searching through the Bible that that's not what it says.
I think hell is used by religion to control the masses.
I don't really know what I think anymore about Jesus' death on the cross. To be honest, right at the moment I'm struggling to believe that Jesus existed in any miraculous sort of way at all, or at least not in the way that we have come to ascribe to him.
BUT I'm open to being wrong about that, too. I just don't see it these days. But I think that if something DID happen on the cross in terms of God reconciling the world to himself/herself, it was a one for all deal. So I guess for me I don't think it's possible to earn your way into heaven because I don't think people "get" there or get to hell instead because of what they believe in life, a set of dogmas or whatever. That seems just patently silly, and any sort of a god who is gonna make his/her kids jump through intellectual or spiritual hoops is not much of a god at all, really.
I do, however, think that what we believe right not has everything to do with experiencing life, and experiencing God and wholeness, and those states are most certainly "heaven" and "hell". I think humanity is the devil inside, the God inside also, for all of us. I think a great deal of what Jesus was talking about involved the necessity for humanity to be able to hold the good and the evil that is mixed together, without flinching.
Sorry for the ramble :)
Stephanie - I think I have to be honest with you here. I no longer hold to much of what traditional Christianity says we ought to believe about the bible. I also don't believe the traditional views about the fall, heaven/hell or Jesus' act of redemption.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do believe is that Jesus spoke to something in humanity that had not been tapped into by the dominant religion of the day -- compassion. He told the Jews of the day that they were "doing it wrong" -- that they were missing the entire point. The entire point of everything they believed was love -- but they didn't realize it.
Then, as Sue said...I don't believe that heaven/hell are end of life events and I do agree that they are concepts that have been twisted to control people.
Also, I don't agree that the idea of salvation from evil in ourselves is the same as earning our way. I think in the end that we should be motivated by love, not by the hope/fear of heaven/hell as an end result. Jesus showed us that the power of God is found in loving the other. In truth, much of modern Christianity is no different than the Judaism of Jesus' day. The Judaism that Jesus came to overcome. In other words, they are doing it wrong.
I hope this helps. In case you hadn't noticed, I don't really submit to traditional theology anymore. ;)
It all seems so weird to me - the altar call, the "choose Jesus," the "she was saved this past year."
ReplyDeleteMy experience with Christianity, growing up where I did, is SO different than that. (Though what I' familiar with definitely has its weird aspects, for sure.)
This video is pretty close to the fundamentalism of my husband's upbringing, and I've seen it often enough to know it's pretty accurate for some conservative denominations.
ReplyDeleteI do think many evangelical denominations treat baptism similarly to this -- with all the drama.
It makes me crazy these days to know how many times I watched this kind of thing and thought it was normal.
No, let me rephrase that...I TRIED to think it was normal, because I was made to think it WAS normal. To be entirely honest, it always seemed strange to me in some ways.
How old is this video? I know this sort of thing happened over 30 years ago but I thought we had moved on. I’m surprised anyone, in this context, is still singing, Just as I am.
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ReplyDeleteIt's so weird watching that video now, through the eyes of an atheist. A few years ago I would have applauded the whole thing; I probably would have been a bit emotional about it too (albeit internally, because I'm an introverted man!) and I would have rejoiced that I had another "sister". Now I just find the whole thing embarrassing as I see another precious human being swallowing the blue pill and choosing to stay in the Matrix. She's in for brainwashing, restriction and browbeating at best, and abuse with a large side-helping of guilt and shame, all covered with condemnation sauce, at worst.
ReplyDeleteIn answer to your question, Erin, the only differences between a cult and a religion are number of followers, money and political clout.
Susan - It doesn't say how old this is, but if you read the comments, it sounds like it's pretty recent, less than two years, maybe. Visiting the church's website makes it not seem unbelievable that this was very recent.
ReplyDeleteBarry - I absolutely agree with your summary of what she is facing. Spot on.
ReplyDeleteI don't necessarily think every expression of faith is a cult, but so many are. I can't help but wonder what Jesus would think of what "his" religion has become. In my opinion, almost none of Christianity, as an institution, is true to what Jesus is reported to have said, done or taught. I believe there are some expressions and some people who "get it", but anything that can be branded (i.e. a denomination) misses the point because it is all still very separatist. Far too much focus on who is "in" or "out", "us" or "them", etc.
To jump in on Erin/Sue/Stephanie's conversation, for me, I have no idea if I believe heaven or hell are actual places we go to when we die or not. I do think the church has DEFINITELY used this concept to control and scare folks. I do agree that in this present life we can experience both a little bit of heaven and a little bit of hell. I guess I'm at the point in all of this "understanding" where I have to think of it a lot in terms of "faith." As in, faith is believing in something you cannot see. I have never seen God, heaven, or hell. I have "experienced" all three I believe, but to actually put it down in stone that it is this way or that way makes me feel claustrophobic. So as of now, I've chosen to believe in God, and that God is good and is working together with humanity to bring about good. I haven't begun to get too deep into the reality of heaven or hell yet, but it feels good to me to think that there is a heaven...that the loved ones that are not on earth anymore are in heaven.
ReplyDeleteKari - I do have to back up and think for a moment -- I believe in heaven, at least of some kind. I just don't believe that the naughty go to hell. I guess it's universal reconciliation on some level.
ReplyDeleteSo much of the experience of faith, I think, is being willing to reevaluate as perspective changes. I don't know that I'm set in stone about anything...it's fluid. Like you said, putting anything in stone seems claustrophobic.
Here's a question: why the @#$% were none of those ppl smiling when that girl got baptized?! Aren't baptisms supposed to be, oh gee, I don't know...joyous occassions?!
ReplyDeleteI went to this new church about a week ago. I had already been there once. THIS service was a baptism service, and I was expecting something similar to this video. But it was amazing! All these ppl (there were probably a couple dozen up there, in a church of 200 or so) were coming up and giving hugs to the pastors (both MALE and FEMALE) and whenever someone would come up from the water, everbody would cheer. And the worship band was actually WORSHIPPING during this whole baptism thing, and people were laughing and crying and cheering. It was so bloody uplifting, and I had the mascara smears to prove it. :)
I feel so sorry for the people of this fundementalist church. They have no joy. They have no zest for life or spirituality. They've become zombies, and I just want them to feel the joy and the love I felt when watching all those people get baptized. I want the people who GET baptized to feel joyful and loved.
I think, Paige, that many fundamentalist denominations believe baptism should be a somber experience -- at least that's what I learned in my husband's family's denomination. That's the only explanation I have.
ReplyDeleteThat's too bad. Baptism should really be a celebration. Heck, church ITSELF should be one big celebration! Yes, there ARE times where we need to get serious. However, too much seriousness and...well, look at the video!
ReplyDeleteHee-hee...WHY SO SERIOUS?!
Anyway, love your blog, Erin. And Pam's and Kathy's. Muah!
Well it's very nice to meet you Paige. Any friend of Kathy's or Pam's is welcome here.
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