Ties and Tabernacle Furniture

Have you ever talked to someone who is religiously insane? Not the Jesus complex, send for the men in white coats, insane. But that religious insanity where somebody seems to have lost all ability to think, act, speak,  or formulate an argument or proposition with any sort of sensibility, rationality, or reason; let alone spirituality.

 A few years back I had probably the singularly most bizarre conversation I've ever had in my life. It began with a fairly simple question. Was I asking about the Trinity, Post or Pre-Tribulation Rapture, Predestination, God's sovereignty  vs Free Will,....well no, not really. I had been scheduled to give a bible talk to the congregation the next evening and I asked a "pastor" if it was ok  if I gave the talk without a tie on. At the time I didn't think I was launching a new reformation, or proposing a heresy that had the potential to rock the church to it's foundation. As my inquisitor's brow furrowed, face reddened and eyes took on a menacing glare, I realised my request was being treated on par with Martin Luther when he nailed his famous 95 thesis to the church door in Wittenberg. At this point I kind of wished I'd raised something a little more important. Nailing my tie to the church door and declaring - "Here I stand, I can do no more" seemed a little lame.




As the conversation progressed, this "pastor's" lament for steady decline of tie wearing in general society reached new insane heights. Apparently newsreaders, Prime Ministers, and Presidents all of whom were increasingly being seen in public without ties were all "signs" of what he called the - " the degradation of Israel" (a euphemism for the God's elect nation). It seems that Sunday morning TV images of an open collared John Howard or Barack Obama were "signs" of our country's steady decline into some sort of hellish Mad Max -Beyond The Thunderdome future scenario. At this point a couple of verses out of Proverbs popped into my mind- Proverbs 26: 4-5 TNIV  "Do not answer fools according to their folly or you yourself will be just like them"-  "Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes." Before I could decide which course to take on this particular occasion, the gravity of my request was made very clear to me. Apparently what I was proposing was akin to moving the furniture of the Old Testament tabernacle, into places where God had not commanded it should be placed. I was told in no uncertain terms that it wasn't my place to make such pattern altering decisions. Only the "apostle" could make such monumental changes to the church's "vision" or "pattern". I believe the direct quote was- "when the cloud moves, we'll all move"- referring to the cloud that lead the nation of Israel through the wilderness on their exodus from Egypt.



 Hang on a minute- The cloud is now a man?? A tie is comparable to the Tabernacle furniture??  A fashion accessory has become an integral part of the New Testament pattern?? This was getting weirder by the minute. Then when I thought I'd heard it all he pulled out an analogy that proved to me that this man was in deed certifiably religiously insane. He told me a pastor wearing a tie was akin to the governors of Israel riding on white asses.  Judges 5: 9-10 "My heart is toward the governors of Israel, that offered themselves willingly among the people. Bless ye the Lord. Speak, ye that ride on white asses, ye that sit in judgement, and that walk by the way" KJV. I think the analogy was supposed to suggest  wearing a time makes one more honourable. As I looked disbelievingly into this man's face, I had to admit the "white ass" part of the analogy did seem to fit rather well.

Religious Psyche Wards

Why am I writing about such an inane topic? What's the point? Well you see when someone through a mental illness becomes a serious and aggressive threat to either themselves or other members of the community, they can find themselves detained in a hospital psyche ward. In the institutional church world the opposite is often the case. Religiously insane "pastors" detain people in Religious Psyche Wards. It literally is - the lunatics in charge of the asylum. People become the prisoners of their "pastors" religiously insane ideas. Of course wearing or not wearing  a tie ultimately is a pretty benign and laughable matter. But what about issues that really impinge on a persons liberty in Christ?  What about issues that are insulting to the dignity and intelligence of every human being? Here's a brief list of some insanities that have many people I've known over the years locked away in their "pastors" religious psyche wards.
1. No more than 6 members of the church (including yourself) are allowed in your house at any given time.  2. You are never allowed to move from the city you originally became a member of the church in. 3. A member of the church in Australia is forbidden from marrying a member of the same church denomination if they are from Singapore, India or the Philippines. 4. If you have a friend in the church who is living in another city and you would like to attend their 21st birthday/wedding etc, you must ask your "pastor" first. They can refuse your request.  5.Unless you give 10% of your income directly to the church your life will be cursed and even the money you have you will lose.  6. An unmarried male and female member of the church are not permitted to be in the same house, tent, caravan, or car alone .Etc etc etc. 
 I'd like to revisit this list of absurdities along with many others in future posts and explore why so many of us submit to this degree of ridiculous spiritual enslavement?

Freedom of Choice?

Over the years I've seen so many people seemingly voluntarily give over their freedom and become captive to their "pastors" insanities. I say seemingly voluntarily, because it only looks voluntary to someone looking on from the outside. You see something is only truly voluntary, if there are in the mind of the person choosing, genuinely viable alternatives. But what about if your "choice" is put to you like this- "You CAN leave this city and move elsewhere, even to a place where one of our assemblies exist. But if you DO you will be thrown out of our church, lose your salvation and go to hell." In this type of circumstance, can it really be said that  they are able to exercise true freedom of choice? Particularly if they only really joined the church because of a fear of going to hell. Throw in a "thus saith the Lord" or an "it's in the Bible" and you've literally given someone an offer they cant refuse.

Recently, I''ve been reflecting on my own experiences in a strict legalistic Christian sect and on the lives of many people I have known over the years. Now we humans are incredibly complex beings, so there are probably many reasons why we are so prepared to give away our freedom. However in my experience there are two main ones. A deep need for SECURITY and a FEAR of the unknown. These two reasons alone can be used by some religious leaders to get people to sign up for, or sign away almost anything. Knowing this, I sometimes ponder whether some religious leaders are really religiously insane or perhaps narcissistic, power hungry manipulators. In my next post I hope to explore these issues a little more and write about the means God used to free me from a religious psyche ward I was in.

Born Again....again

What do you do when you find yourself being "born again"....again? What do you do with that experience, when it challenges almost all of the strongly held views of your church, apostle, (yeah that's what he called himself), pastors, brothers, sisters, family and friends? What do you do when some of your most firmly held beliefs just melt away in the radiance of God's love. What do you do when all of this is happening within the walls of an ultra conservative legalistic fundamentalist pentecostal sect? What do you do when you've spent two decades climbing your sects religious ladder, only to get to the top of the wall and realise that you were on the wrong wall the whole time?

To quote Shane Claiborne (a disciple of Jesus I really admire) - "The more I get to know Jesus the more trouble he seems to get me into" Anyone who has ever started on the journey of getting to know Jesus, knows exactly what Shane is talking about. A few years back, when I started to take seriously the words and the life of the man who said- "Follow Me"- my troubles really began. Troubles that in hindsight I wouldn't swap for anything. Although at the time they came with a lot of pain and inner turmoil.The last few years have been a time of embracing those troubles, making sense of the last 26 years, and living in God's love and enjoying the love of family and true friends.


The title of this post is Born Again....again. You might wonder why....again? Well that's a long story. A story I hope to add to in future posts. You see I felt I was already born again. I had testified to that fact, in a highly scripted manner literally hundreds of times over the years.      " I'd like to praise the Lord that I've been baptised by full immersion in water and have received the Holy Spirit with the bible evidence of speaking with other tongues"- was pretty much the standard way I expressed my "born again" experience. As with many members of fundamentalist groups, to live out my born again-ness, basically all that was expected of me was to follow the sects rules and guidelines, both written and unwritten. To be fair certain changes were also expected to take place in the way I lived, but more often than not these changes were little more than superficial religious window dressing. The thing about window dressing is that all you ever produce is well dressed dummies.

The Raising of Lazarus

 For me being born again....again was not an instantaneous experience. I didn't throw myself on some church altar with tears and snot streaming down my face and then testify to some miraculous instantaneous change. In reality it wasn't so much a matter of being born again...again, as it was an awakening and liberation, of something that had been created within me many years earlier. A resurrection from a religious tomb through the immeasurable love of God. To best describe it I'll quote from an essay about famous artist Vincent Van Gogh.    "In Vincent's copy of The Raising of Lazarus by Rembrandt, the image of the sun replaces the figure of Christ. He copied this painting essentially to console himself during a time of intense discouragement due to his painful seizures. In Vincent's version, the sun is shining upon Lazarus as he awakens in his tomb- and Lazarus' face has the unmistakable resemblance to Vincent himself. The sun symbolizing the source of all Being, has the power to heal and resurrect, to germinate new life. In that force called Love, God is present."    To put it simply, LOVE set me free and Love brought to life what was so full of potential, yet had been imprisoned within a religious box for so long.

Martin Luther said in his Lectures on Romans that true spiritual progress was "always to begin again" He said we must daily "embrace the love and kindness of God......and daily exercise our faith therein; entertaining no doubt of God's love and kindness"  I like the way Martin Luther puts it-"always to begin again" - in the sense of becoming alive moment by moment or day by day to the agape/love of God.  Is life outside the box of institutional religion easy or perfect every day? No, but it is one thing that it could never fully be before- REAL. Anyway as time permits I intend to post about those times of awakening, life outside the box and the BETTER NEWS that has become the centre of my life these days.