An Open Letter With A Broken Heart to My Beloved Church
[Editor’s Note: This is a letter from a member to her church explaining the reasons she left a church she loved after being a member for eight years. We are publishing the letter anonymously to avoid publicly impugning anyone’s integrity and to allow the content of the letter to be read on its merits.]
I pray for God to send a Spirit of healing to work among his church. And that moving forward, there will be a stirring of the Spirit to turn our attention to the condition of our own hearts, rather than to try and discern the condition of the heart of the person sitting next to us. Scripture describes our hearts as stony ground, and God’s Word as a plough. I urge you, as I urge myself: Do not shrink back from Christ’s hand at the plow in your own heart. It is from Him that true enlightenment of the heart (i.e., love) comes, not from humanity, not from cultural sensitivity, or anything else.
To the Beloved at My Home Church,
It is with considerable trepidation that I take this opportunity to inform you, my brothers and sisters, that I have left my local PCA home church. The reasons why I have left are relevant to this collection of essays; therefore, although I am no longer a member among you, I hope I might be given a voice alongside you, to describe my experiences at my PCA church which have led me to this point.
After having been a member/regular attender at this PCA church for close to 8 years, I began seeing a lot of changes in our preaching and worship that seemed to detract from the message of God’s free grace, and instead place more and more emphasis on issues of black and white relations. In particular, I felt a sense of antagonism towards white people coming from the pulpit. Many unfair assumptions were being made about a broad group of people based solely on one physical attribute: their skin color.
I acknowledge that sin can be passed on generationally. However, I put forth that it is from Adam whom I have inherited my flesh. And it’s because of my union with him that sin comes to me. He was the first fruit of death and condemnation and, before I was saved, I was merely a seed after his kind. I know almost nothing of my own “white” heritage; but I don’t need to know whether or not my ancestors were involved in American slavery, or segregation, or racism, to fathom my sin. I already know that I stand utterly condemned under the federal headship of my first parents in the Garden.
This is Truth, and it is irrespective of skin color. Black people and white people are the seed of Adam. We are all guilty. Therefore, based on what I know of scripture, any clamor for “justice” is a fool’s errand. We think we want justice, but if we got what we thought we wanted, we would all stand rightly condemned, with no hope, before a God whose real standard is complete, perfect holiness. Who among white people or black people could measure up to this standard? God’s holiness will not be satisfied with changes in our worship music, the racial demographics of our congregation, or our church’s culture. No; the standard is complete, perfect holiness–nothing less will meet God’s requirements. And His requirements are just.
We all desperately need to hear assurance of God’s grace. His grace for sinners. I don’t want justice for myself, because I don’t want to receive the just penalty for my sins. I don’t want justice for a person who’s been victimized, and I don’t want justice even for a person who is a victimizer. Because I can’t say, “God’s marvelous grace for me, but justice for somebody else.” What we all really need is to hear grace preached; not to be assured of our condemnation but to be assured that there is a covering for our sins in the precious blood of Jesus. We ourselves satisfy none of God’s demands for holiness; but the precious blood of Jesus satisfies them all.
We cannot usher in the Kingdom of God through our own merit, our own agendas, our own efforts. If we, as believers, are truly sensitive to the Holy Spirit of God, then He will teach us how to love our neighbor, black or white. If the leadership of our PCA church feels strongly that the congregation does not love our neighbor, then one must ask: Why not teach us how to become re-sensitized to the gentle whispers and promptings of the Holy Spirit? Why not preach and pray for revival in the Church, and acknowledge the need for a super-natural refreshment that only The Spirit can provide? Why focus on trying to guess whether or not the white individuals at our church are loving enough towards black people, when we could together beseech the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13) who alone has the power to move the hearts of men?
When Paul went to Athens, and (supposedly) engaged with the Greeks by using their own culture to reach them, we see that it was not because Paul respected or valued their culture. It was because he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw there (Acts 17:16). This was not the sentiment of a man who felt that all human cultures have something valuable to give, and that a worshipful knowledge of the True God should be based out of a culture comfortable for those Athenians. Paul merely pointed out that their culture acknowledged the True God completely by accident. And he used that observation to open their eyes to their own idolatry-riddled surroundings. That, I believe, is an apt description of all human culture. Culture reflects the idol-prone human heart. And to make culture such a large focus from the pulpit of a church of the Trinitarian God of the Bible leaves so much to be desired.
Now we come to me. I never wanted to cause conflict. So, I sat with my troubles for many years, and attempted to discern if what I was hearing was really true….. was I secretly a racist because my skin is white? After much soul searching and investigating the scriptures, I believe the answer is “no”. I do not feel this is a self-deception. My conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit.
However, I was still hearing preaching from the pulpit which condemned me for this reason. When I tried to express my concerns to people of authority over our worship services, as well as in my prayer group, I received more pushback and more slights against my character. Had I been a stranger among you, I might not have been so surprised or so hurt. But these were people to whom I had made myself intimately known over many years. People whom I considered my brothers and sisters in the most real way possible. Very few took my own conscience, or my own relationship with the Holy Spirit, seriously.
I could have engaged more (as I know some of you are now attempting to do in my absence) to take a stand against the party spirit that is seeping into our PCA church from the surrounding culture. But I am not strong. I do apologize to you, for my weakness and my cowardice. I found I couldn’t stand against even a little persecution and exclusion in my own church. So, under the advice of Godly men who know me and know my limitations, I decided to leave. But this has been a confusing and difficult experience. I can’t stop loving you as my brothers and sisters, and it is hard for me to understand and accept why I can no longer be with you.
If there is no unity in Christ, there is no unity. If some “thing” is destroying our unity in Christ, whatever it happens to be, perhaps pursuing it is not good. Even good things can become idols.
My last words will be of blessing and caution to you. I pray for God to send a Spirit of healing to work among his church. And that moving forward, there will be a stirring of the Spirit to turn our attention to the condition of our own hearts, rather than to try and discern the condition of the heart of the person sitting next to us. Scripture describes our hearts as stony ground, and God’s Word as a plough. I urge you, as I urge myself: Do not shrink back from Christ’s hand at the plow in your own heart. It is from Him that true enlightenment of the heart (i.e., love) comes, not from humanity, not from cultural sensitivity, or anything else. Once our own hearts are broken by the Word, the Holy Spirit will grant us the loving unity with our brothers and sisters that we are longing for.
It is for the Lord to discern the hearts of men…. and when people attempt to discern the heart of their brother or sister on a human level, I can testify from my personal experiences at my PCA church over the last few years: there is a lot of room for error and hurt.
1 Corinthians 4:1-5:
This, then, is how you ought to regard us: as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the mysteries God has revealed. Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God.
I miss you all, and I love you. I am praying for God to comfort you during this difficult time.
With Love in Christ, I Remain Your Sister
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Envy and the Abandonment of God’s Love
The more we consider the nature of the wealth of our identity in Christ the less and less will we either worry or be anxious about the temporary accumulation of things which our neighbor has. Our envy is born out of not being thankful, taking our eyes off the glory of the cross and the empty tomb, and in some ways more importantly the bounty of our Lord’s reigning as the king of kings. Time spent in the Bible is a vital way to encourage the heart of our soul to be grounded in this peace.
Our last foray into the Ten Commandments specifically ends with a word on a subject we are all ate up with, if we are honest: envy. It stalks our heart, our soul, and our mind. In some sense it is the motivation for the breaking of all of the laws of God. We want what we don’t have and we are jealous of those who do. This is especially the case when our eyes turn toward the wicked. How is it if we are the chosen people do men who are reprobates seem to have so much and do so well in this life? As we know this was a common lament of the Psalmist, yet as David usually does he reminds us of the vanity of it all. There is a saying which I hear from time-to-time that if you are living your best life now, than there is a problem. Central to our keeping of the Tenth commandment is remembering the simple truth of the value and worth of Jehovah, and in a very real sense, our value to Him. Any attempts of the evil one to move our conscience to quibble or complain is quickly defeated, or at least should be, by meditating on the goodness of God to sinners in Christ.
However, getting to that point can be a difficult climb. That’s why it is helpful in our fight against the old man to heed the challenges presented by our fallenness. There is a reason why when the writers of the Catechism put it together they follow the pattern of the law, its requirements, and ways we break it. All in order to point us to the one who has kept it perfectly on our behalf and calls us likewise to love Him and rest in Him in our keeping of His law.
Here’s this week’s Q/A:
Q. 148: What are the sins forbidden in the tenth commandment?
A. The sins forbidden in the tenth commandment are, discontentment with our own estate; envying and grieving at the good of our neighbour, together with all inordinate motions and affections to any thing that is his.
Taking a positive spin on the warnings we first hear the testimony that in breaking the tenth commandment we show a discontentment with our own condition (that’s what estate means). We’ve talked before about how in the Christian faith what separates us from the Pagan world is this idea that the substance of the love of Jesus for His covenant people, which we experience in our spiritual union with Him, through which flows the benefits born through redemption is our true hope. It is wrong though to think about this in a way where we imagine the goodness of God comes only in the future. You may not be a baseball fan, but there is much hullaballoo right now over Shohei Ohtani’s 10 year contract for $700 million.
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Why and How We Approach the Bible as God’s Word
The Christian faith is the sole and direct product of God’s word. He who made the whole world by the word of His power, is the one who awakens our spirit from death to life by the word of Christ. And faith comes by hearing the word of Christ. Therefore, by virtue of teaching and training, God’s word ensures to reprove and correct.
As Christians we believe that the Bible is important, but how important is it really? Is it enough that we read a passage every day during our family devotions, only to forget about it the rest of the day? Is it enough that we stick to the simpler parts of the text and avoid the difficult passages? If you ask the average Christian if the Bible is God’s word, he’ll probably say yes. Ask him if we should live according to this word, he’ll still probably say yes. Yet, one of the main problems in the evangelical world today, is not an acceptance of the importance of the Bible, but a misunderstanding of how important it really is, or the nature of its importance. This affects the way we approach the Bible and how we handle different passages.
Too many evangelicals today pick and choose what they like to read in the Bible because they find some passages either too difficult to understand, or too contradictory to other passages in the Bible that they are unable to resolve. Yet, that is the task of the Christian who understands what the Bible is. People have either forgotten or misunderstood what it means to be Bible-believing, or to use a more contemporary phrase, bible-centred. A bible kept as a showcase piece on the centre table in the living room is central in a way that is not the kind of Bible centrality we are talking about. Being bible-centred is not a superficial ideology that one agrees with, it is an objective reality that one experiences when they believe and apply all of Scripture for all of life.
I would like to direct your attention to 2 Timothy 3:16-17, as I try to use Paul’s directive here to give you 5 key points on what God’s word is, that helps me realize how important it is, and the way it affects our lives.
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Breathed Out by God
It may be true that Paul has the Old Testament in mind when he writes this, but it is plain to us through the nature of the New Testament texts and how they were cited and received during the apostolic era, that the same applies to all the New Testament as well. God’s word from Genesis to Revelation, in the 66 books of the Bible, though it was written by men, was divinely inspired by God.
Jesus in answering the Sadducees, when they questioned Him on the resurrection, used the tense of a verb in Exodus to make His case. That is how much our Lord trusted the veracity of His own word. As bible-believing Christians, this phrase “breathed out by God” is enough for us to believe that texts of Scripture in their original writing were inerrant, infallible, and sufficient.
What about the contradictions in the Bible? Well, there are none. Now, I could get into the details of arguing this case (and the arguments are solid and are plenty available) but doing so here would compromise the reasonable length for this article.
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How Valuable Is Bodily Training?
Bodily training does have some value, because God created the body and he will one day redeem the bodies of his people—but what will bring about the redemption of our bodies one day in the life to come is not bodily training. Our bodies are only part of who we are. When God formed Adam’s body, he breathed into Adam’s body the breath of life, and man became a living soul. We are not only physical, we are also spiritual.
Should Christians care about their bodies? How much emphasis should we place upon bodily exercise?
Some professing Christians in past history have argued that the body is bad—we don’t need to give attention to the body, we just need to focus on spiritual things.
But notice what Paul says in 1 Timothy 4:8: “Bodily training is of some value.” Don’t read that and think Paul is saying bodily training is worthless; he’s not. He is acknowledging here that bodily training does have some value.
Why is bodily training valuable? Well, the Bible actually has much to say about our bodies.
Our bodies matter to God.
First, God made our bodies.
For you formed my inward parts;you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Psalm 139:13–14
Genesis 2 tells us that God formed Adam’s body, and remember, he did this before sin entered the world. The body is a good thing that God made—he saw it, and it was good. God made our bodies, and therefore our bodies are good.
Sin affects our bodies.
But second, sin affects our bodies.
For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8:22–23
God created Adam, but Adam disobeyed God; and as a result of Adam’s sin, God cursed the whole creation, including our bodies. From the moment of our conception really, our bodies begin to wear down and decay. It’s not so bad when we’re young and growing, but you hit 40, and it’s all downhill from there.
I jest, but it’s a reality, right? Even the youngest experiences aches and pains. Our bodies get sick. We break bones and sprain ankles. Our bodies are significantly affected by the reality of sin.
Bodily training is of some value.
The reality of sin is exactly why bodily training is of some value. Disciplined exertion of our bodies through exercise and athletics can help to hold back some of the worst effects of the curse upon our bodies. If we stay in shape and eat well, that can have positive effects on our bodies.
However, ultimately, no matter how much bodily training we engage in through the course of our lives, no matter how healthy our diet, no matter how well we keep our bodies in shape, they still will wear down. The best we can do with bodily exercise is to slow the breakdown of our bodies, and that does have some value. But one day each one of our bodies will fail, and we will die. And our bodies will be placed in the ground, and they will return to dust.
Christ will redeem our bodies.
But there is hope. The third reality that Scripture teaches about our bodies is what Paul said Romans 8:23: we eagerly await for the redemption of our bodies. One day our bodies, along with all creation, will be redeemed. That redemption does not come as a result of anything we do—in other words, the value of bodily exercise is not that our own bodily training somehow redeems our bodies. No, Christ will redeem our bodies.
And we know this for one very important reason: Jesus Christ—who is 100% God, and has existed co-equally with God the Father and God the Spirit for all eternity—took on a human body at his incarnation.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
Philippians 2:5–7
That body was truly human—Jesus was hungry, he was thirsty, he got sick, he had aches and pains—his body was affected by sin just like ours is.
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