Turning Over the Pews

There was a time during the life of Jesus when He got really mad.  So mad that He lost it in the temple.  Why did Jesus become angry?  He saw that the temple had turned into a "den of robbers" where people were greedy in their sale of animals for sacrifice and the money changers were set up in the Court of Gentiles preventing non-Jews from coming to worship God.  The greed and exploitation of worshippers by the merchants was defiling a holy place.

I think Jesus needs to get whip back out and overturn the pews in churches in America today.  Churches have turned into a place of politics.  I’m tired of how politics have infected Christianity.  I'm not casting a blanket over all churches but you could agree with me that there are way too many churches concerned about political agendas.  

I don't attend church anymore.  I haven't since 2010 when I left the church organization I had belonged to all my life.  I won't say that I will never be involved in a church again but at this point I don't see it happening. I certainly don’t know how I could do it today with the influence politics has on it now.

I didn't leave church because of politics.  Why did I leave the church? There is a long story but I will save that for another time. The short answer is that every Sunday I was more miserable and frustrated with my life after I left church than when I arrived. Something had to change. I had to change. 

I left the church but I didn’t leave God. My personal relationship with God grew stronger and remains strong.  I have become very disgusted with the American church today and how politics has perverted the reason churches exist in the first place.

I am very careful who I listen to now and not be taken away by a preachers opinion or how they slant the truth. Honestly I read or listen to my audio Bible more than listening to any preaching. We are living in the times when we must fight to hold onto the truth.

A church should NEVER tell you that you can't be a Republican or Democrat to be a Christian.  It's not about that.  The church needs a good shaking back to the main thing again and it's not who is the president.  

Preachers are slanting the gospel to politics.  The Bible tells us that "we are no longer children, tossed around by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine by human cunning by craftiness and deceitful schemes." (Ephesians 4:14)

Tell me that we aren't seeing these "deceitful schemes" being played out today?    

We are in a time where we have to  “work out our own salvation” now and we must be careful what we see, hear and scroll. 

If Jesus were going through many churches today, He would be saying "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations but you have made it a den of politics and hate."  

The church should be a place of safety for all. A place where the human rights and civil rights of all are affirmed and defended inside and outside the walls of the church. If the call for justice and advocacy for “the least of these” is the action that deems us political and involved in politics, may the church always be that! Silence in the face of tyranny and oppression is antithetical to the prophetic call to seek justice.

Ignoring the hungry, the poor, the unhoused, the uneducated, the undereducated, the sick, the anxious, and those whose very existence is threatened by injustice is to deny the example set by the ministry of Jesus who spoke out against the empire of his day and against the religious leaders who had the power and position as they contributed to the oppression of the people. Jesus had a lot to say about the religious elite who cozied up to the emperor and the empire while collecting temple taxes and tithes.

Preaching politics is something that some pastors have chosen to do.  The problem is that if you are more identified with your politics than your preaching of the Word of God, then people will often come to you for your preaching on politics rather than your preaching of the Word of God.  We don't need a Bible with the Constitution or even the American flag in it.  

I would urge you to resist the current pull of politics and make it about the main thing again. The main thing is this: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”