We’ve Been Tolerant of Megachurches and Their Twisted Beliefs Too Long

Maybe they should be called Magachurches.

Whether they’re called evangelical or megachurches, they are dangerous. Before, the beliefs they encouraged were simply comforting to their followers, who seek them out because of a need for God to be a controlling parental figure who tells them what to do and not do. To the rest of us, the churches and their members were simply annoying.

Now however they’ve become dangerous and heretical, when weighed against what Jesus reportedly said and did.

. . .

As some of you crank up your computers to take me to task and ask how I’m qualified to make such pronouncements, here’s my background. I’ve been a student of religion since I was a teen. My church, yes I belonged to one, is a major denomination that encourages questioning. In college, I majored in religion at Texas Christian University for two years before changing majors.

My first husband was in seminary at Brite Divinity School at TCU. We had two small churches. At one, where the youngest adult members were in their late forties, and I was the twenty-three year old preacher’s wife, I taught Sunday School to women in their eighties. In my forties I was education director at a Unity Church. I’ve read deeply in Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Protestantism.

As a therapist, when clients have spiritual and emotional issues with the type of Christianity, they’ve been taught, I suggest they get a bible with the words and actions of Jesus printed in red, and read only the red.

When you read only what Jesus reportedly said and did, much of the trappings of modern megachurch Christian religion are exposed for the controlling efforts of an uneducated “pastorate” that they are.

Not only is that a clear direction to separate church and state, it was also Jesus’ way of telling his more radical disciples that he didn’t come to overthrow Rome and establish his, or Judaism’s, own government.

Evangelicals who believe a certain, deeply immoral, former president was sent by God to make the U.S. a Christian nation completely ignore Jesus’ words about mixing politics and faith.

What would Jesus say about some of the actions of that former president and the evangelicals who worship him?

Disperse and tear gas worshippers and protestors for a photo op where you borrow a bible to hold upside down?

How about the man who declared on video for all to hear that he just walks right up to women and kisses them, or grabs them by the pussy? The man who has had three wives, all of whom he cheated and still cheats on. Here’s what Jesus is reported in the book of Matthew to have said about that.

I’m pretty sure today he would add, “Anyone who grabs a woman by the pussy against her will is committing sexual assault.” Or maybe that’s just me.

That’s not even taking into account Jesus’ words about divorcing a woman. He said divorcing her makes her a victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman an adulterer. Granted, he said that in a time when all a man had to do to divorce his wife is say, “I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee,” and she was out on the streets, so Jesus was addressing the sexism in that act.

By any terms or interpretations, the T man comes out an adulterer on every count.

Don’t start quoting to me about forgiving the sinner. These sins are the ones your megachurch acknowledges, and the T man has never confessed, asked for forgiveness, or changed his ways.

. . .

Lately the evangelical megachurches have been all about opposing the COVID vaccine. According to a few people who’ve directly told me their religious reasons, this is about trusting God to keep you safe, or barring that, trusting God that it’s your time to go.

Before we even look to Jesus for this one, I have questions. If you trust God, why don’t you run stoplights? Won’t he protect you? Or, if it’s your time to go, then why take the precaution of following any rules and laws designed to protect you? Why go to the ER if God will heal you, or it’s your time to die? Why ask for monoclonal antibodies once you have COVID? Which were developed from stem cells from fetuses, but somehow you don’t Have a problem with that.

I realize there is little logic to any of the church arguments against the vaccine, and I’m shouting my questions into the wind, so let’s look at what Jesus said instead.

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” He later adds, “If you had known what these words mean, ‘desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.”

Jesus isn’t calling you to sacrifice your health. Preachers, stop causing the sacrifice of the lives of your parishioners. That’s causing “the least of these to stumble,” if not actively contributing to their illness and death, and you know, or should know what Jesus said about that.

Preachers of megachurches, you are doing an injustice to your congregations. They deserve an educated and trained pastorate, not self-proclaimed “Bishops.” Traditional denominations require education and licensing in doctrine and theology. Nondenominational, or megachurches do not.

They deserve to be protected by you from actions and inactions that endanger their lives.

Congregants, read the entirety of the four Gospels for yourself. Work on understanding the contradictions in those Gospels, because there are several. Learn the historical references.

As for those of us who aren’t in those mega/magachurch congregations, one option is to learn to quote scripture better than they do. It causes a screeching halt with those who only know what their preacher quotes.

Another is to not argue with them at all. Realize, though, that their teachings have now become seriously dangerous to the rest of us.

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This post was previously published on An Injustice!.

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