Fear

Several times recently, we’ve bumped into some acquaintances from the church we left seven years ago. There have been several splits in that church since we left, and these folks left more recently.

Their reason for leaving was different than ours. We left because we lost trust for leadership, which operated with such heavy-handed control, and used such manipulative tactics, that it amounted to borderline spiritual abuse. These folks left because the new pastor comes from a Renovare background and seeks to implement Renovare principles. To them this was heresy. Questioning them further I learned that they associate the notion of spiritual formation with the rough equivalent of New Ageism. “They talk about mystics,” they explained, nodding significantly. “We want a church that focuses strictly on the Word of God. Just the basics.”

I’m no expert in Renovare, but I know it’s headed by such respected thinkers as Richard Foster and Dallas Willard, of whom I’ve read a smattering. My understanding of the movement is that it’s about equipping people to cultivate their relationship with God, rather than having a church-centric, sermon-centric understanding of spiritual life. Heresy? Hardly.

Interestingly, another family I know of recently changed churches over a doctrinal issue as well. What the two families have in common is fear. They fear incorrect thinking.

I fear a different range of things, I guess. I’m not sure I would leave a church strictly over a doctrinal position. To me there is ambiguity in the Bible, and I’m comfortable with a range of understandings of things like the literalness of the Creation account, predestination vs. free will, end-times prophecy, and the like. I wouldn’t say that doctrine is unimportant; for the early church, distortions of the claims of Jesus, and his identity as the son of God, were the first wave of confusion and led to some of the earliest codifications of creed. The core issues are crucial — particularly the divinity and lordship of Jesus, and the centrality of what he has done for us. But at the outer periphery, there are different positions on various issues and emphases that I can live with.

This is because the institutional church is not my main spiritual course. My daily time with the Lord — reading and praying and renewing my commitment to listen and follow — is my main course. Church is a small fraction of the total spiritual pie. I’m not really threatened as much by doctrinal issues as by abuses of authority or the absence of heart. Jesus said that they’ll know we are Christians by our love. If that heart of fellowship within the church, and compassion for the world without, is missing, why bother?

These folks are on my mind. I know how deep the injury can be when someone tears free of a church that trespasses on the soul. Even for them, the real problem in that church was less doctrine than dysfunction. It continues to operate under the same dark cloud of human control rather than divine grace, and they have suffered from that. But their eyes are on doctrine. I pray that they will find not so much the doctrinal infallibility they are seeking as a trustworthy, loving church family that will provide a safe context for healing.