What I learned at an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church, It had nothing to do with "God Is Love"

I don't like discussing religion.  It inflames people.  It makes people uncomfortable when they hear beliefs that differ from their own, even when those beliefs may involve some pretty small and insignificant details.  What is significant is highly subjective.  No one is going to budge an inch on what they believe from engaging in an argument about religion or faith, if you'd rather call it that.  I don't like talking about religious matters, but something has been nagging at me for a few days now, after I read a blog post from an Independent Baptist preacher about how the Independent Baptist Movement has gone astray.

It is a good piece that lists some of the areas (from an IFB preacher's point of view) where IFB churches need to get back on track.  (You can check out his blog post by clicking here ).  I agree with most of what this preacher has to say; however, there are several very important issues he didn't touch at all.  So, I guess I'm going to have a go at it.

I grew up in an Independent Baptist church.  When I was a little girl we had a pastor who was red-faced and happy.  He didn't holler at us from the pulpit, and he was super sweet to all the kids.  He had a big family himself that was a close-knit bunch.  I loved him.  I loved my Sunday School teacher too.  She was the most awesome person in the world, so far as I knew.  She made Bible stories come alive, she smiled all the time and she encouraged us to sing loud.  My best friend was in my class.  After Sunday School was over we would march out together holding hands and beg our parents to let us sit together for the worship service, referred to by most, as Preaching.

When that pastor left and another one came, things changed very little.  The youth group still went to the skating rink once a month.  The girls wore jeans and the rink was allowed to play rock music while we skated.  In fact, it wasn't even a big deal if women wore pants.  It didn't matter if we went to the movies and no one fussed at us about the music we listened to.

These two pastors, who were aged and wise, never spoke in a demeaning way about women, and if a woman spoke up about something, they listened.  In fact, if my Sunday School teacher hadn't spoken up once, I would probably not be intelligent enough to stumble through this blog post.  We had been using crayons with lead in them.  As soon as she found out, she went straight to the pastor.  He not only told the congregation about the crayons we had been using at church, but also urged our parents to throw out our old crayons and get new ones.  Then, he thanked Miss Sarah for letting us all know.

Back in those days, the attendance averaged about 200 every week for worship.  I wish I could say the church is still going strong, but from what I've heard, it isn't.

When I was 12 we got another new pastor.  His ideas about Christianity were kind of different from what we were used to.  The first thing established was that the women of the church were not to wear pants, tight clothes, low cut blouses, skirts with splits above the knee or sleeveless dresses.  Oh, you could wear those things, but you couldn't sing in the choir or teach Sunday School or have any other office in the church if you did.  If you were a man, you had to have the "Whitewall" haircut.  That was it.  The only rule for men was that they couldn't have long hair.

But the list of restrictions went on:  No going to the movies, no drinking alcohol, no dancing, no listening to secular music, no swimming with people of the opposite sex (even in a public place like the beach) if you did so, you were "mixed bathing" which was very, very evil...in other words, no having fun, unless you consider playing Bible Trivial Pursuit for 2 hours a day "fun".

As the years have gone on, things have only gotten more strict.  I remember when they banned Contemporary Christian Music.  They added a rule about bra straps showing or something like that, and one about tithing.  Over time, the older members started to die off, and younger members just weren't showing up anymore.  If they did, they didn't stay long and the church wasn't doing anything to help their situation.  They embarrassed one lady and her family into never coming back by chastising her for wearing a skirt with a slit that came above the knee.  Another family over the fact that their teenage daughter wore jeans and listened to country music.  The list goes on an on, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

My point is, I spent my formative years of learning about Jesus hearing nothing about what I should do.  I was basically taught that if I wanted to be a good Christian, if I wanted God to use my life for a purpose, I had to abstain from everything "normal".  I actually came to believe that I was worthless unless I abstained from the laundry list of "sins" my church gave me.  Never once did I sit through a sermon on what I should DO for Jesus, other than browbeat others who were not of my denomination or who weren't believers at all.

I was taught: "Know what you believe so when your beliefs are challenged you can prove you are right and they are wrong."  According to my church, my denomination, we were the ONLY ones who had it right.  We knew that being a Christian was all about not doing anything on that list.

But here's the kicker:  There were several sexual predators who sat in our congregation and held offices in our church.  Some of them are still there, on the pew every Sunday, depositing offerings in the bank on Monday.  The pastor knows these men are sexual offenders.  In one case, he couldn't find anyone else to replace the accused man, so he let him continue his office.  In another case, well, several cases, he turned a blind eye and just let those men slide right back into their pews, their licenses to preach, their positions with youth.

I know this is all true, because I was almost a victim of one of these men.  Maybe I even was a victim, since he did manage to fondle my breasts when I was 12 and since another one violated my ex-husbands little sister.  One man in the congregation actually made comments to my ex-husband and father of our two daughters about how his step-daughter (who was also his niece) was really "developing".  My youth minister made comments like that to me when I was going through puberty.  It was highly inappropriate, but I all I knew back then was that it made me uncomfortable and embarrassed.  A few years later, he was accused of sexually assaulting a member of the youth group and he left the church.  He went to another church where he probably still has access to young girls.  There were men who sang in front of the congregation who had molested children and sexually harassed women who weren't their wives.  They had to have all known that the consequences wouldn't be that bad even if anyone found out.  No one ever made a police report.  The pastor never reported these crimes.  The families weren't going to report them without the pastor's approval.  In essence, the church was a sort of playground for predators by the time I was an adult.

Put yourself in my shoes then, as a twenty-something wife and mother, youth group leader, assistant pianist at church who read her Bible and prayed daily, but still felt so spiritually unfulfilled because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't obtain perfection.  I heard the same sermons over and over again about how God hates queers and I'm not in "God's will" if I'm not reading my Bible every single day.  I went to church three times a week to be told what a worthless  pile of crap I was.  Very rarely did we hear about the love of God, or the acceptance He offers us.  All I knew was, I would never be good enough for God...according to my pastor.  Meanwhile, he and my former pastor had people sitting in their congregations who were only there to prey on others and the pastors said nothing against them.  The message I was getting was only men could be good enough for God, because even though they committed horrible sins, they were forgiven, and their sins forgotten by the church.  These weren't sins like telling a lie or stealing a pen.  These were sins that actually harmed other people, warped the minds and killed the spirits of small children.  Sins, crimes these men would go on to repeat over and over again with an endless bounty of acceptance and forgiveness from the IFB church.

Once I left the "bubble" that Independent Baptists tend to live in, where the pastor's word is as good as God's, I began to view the world and my relationship with God in a much healthier way.  I slowly started to recognize my worth, I started to realize that being close to God is about the things we DO in life, not the things we abstain from doing.  I don't look down on people who are different from me.  I don't think God hates gay people, and I don't hate myself for not being perfect enough. I go to the movies, I swim at the beach, I listen to whatever music I'm in the mood for.  I drink once in a while, and I wear jeans.  I also wear dresses with spaghetti straps.  They don't seem to make skirts with splits in them anymore, but if they did, I'd wear one.  And you know what?  God wouldn't love me any less for it.

In my life I have learned that the joy of being a believer comes from giving to and being present for others.  You can't really be present if you live in a bubble that consists only of other people, who like you, look to a man to tell you the rules to follow.  Jesus gave two commandments in the new testament:

Matthew 22:35-40

"...Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

And those are the two commandments I try to follow as best I can.  I don't always love God as I should.  I don't always love others enough.  I often love myself too much.  I know what I believe though, and I choose to believe the words of Christ over the words of some venom spewing pastor who gets his kicks out of pointing fingers at everyone else's imperfections in order to make himself feel more holy.  One thing that I have learned that maybe they haven't, is that my worthiness of Gods blessings isn't based on what anyone else thinks of me.  He is the only judge, and only to Him will I answer.

Now, I think I'm going to go put my favorite jeans on and go to a movie.   Because of my Sunday School teacher, I know that Jesus loves me, and my jeans or entertainment choices will never change that.





If you are or know someone who is a victim of a sexual predator in your church, please report the crime to the authorities!  People who face no consequences for their behavior are GOING to repeat that behavior over and over again until someone stops the cycle.

Here is a website where you can get more information about sexual abuse in the church:

Stop Baptist Predators.org