I Will Show You a Better Way

So I just got back from volunteering at a Bible camp. Usually, it is such an awesome experience – something that strengthens me and builds me up. It is always something I look forward to, and something I hope to be able to donate my time to keep it going for many years to come. And I certainly got so much out of helping the kids – out of working with them and spending time with them. I had such precious kids in my cabin – and all of the kids really were worth so much. I really enjoyed working with them.

But the sermons…. For the first time in my life I got less than nothing out of them.

So this is a Protestant camp. Sure, it is supposed to be ‘non-denominational’, but ‘non-denominational’, and ‘Catholic’ are….not exclusive. They’re not inclusive – usually they aren’t even in the same sphere of existence. So to be fair, I went into this camp knowing that I would disagree with a lot of the doctrine taught.

And this isn’t the first year I have attended as a Catholic – I was Catholic last year too. And while in 2016 I hadn’t actually made the decision yet, being at camp is actually what made me realise I couldn’t be Protestant anymore – that I didn’t agree with it. So it isn’t a surprise that I am very much against what they teach at times. However, usually, because the camp puts so much emphasis on being non-denominational, usually the sermons are more practical. There is less of personal interpretation, and more of practical application that can be used by anyone whereever they are in their walk with God regardless of their individual beliefs. Now, I have always been pretty good at getting things out of something regardless of the intent – so that has helped…. But nonetheless.

I am sorry. But praying in tongues is just…..problematic. To say the least.

It’s not something like salvation or baptism or even ‘private time’ (or devotions or whatever you want to call it). Those are all things that basically all Christians agree exist and are important to the Christian’s life. Speaking in Tongues, or the ‘private prayer language’ is just not. If we’re generous, we’d say that only half of the christians even believe it is really a thing. If we’re generous. So focusing almost every service on that phenomenom, and letting every service go on long past its scheduled time to the point of getting rid of every other activity is just wrong. Especially for this camp. We didn’t sign up to go to a Pentacostal camp, sorry.

And alright. Sure. I’m not being fair. It wasn’t every service. All of the ones that weren’t focused on it (it was almost literally evenly split) instead focused on how one should just pray victory over an problem, and just ‘yes and amen’ any verse you want to claim in the Bible because that’s what the Bible says to do!

I’m sorry. Just… No. Just no. Please.

Even setting aside the doctrinal rights or wrongs about this belief – let’s just look at this practically! Many if not most of the kids there are coming from broken or hurting homes. Few have happy and perfect (if even healthy) lives. So the idea that they can pray with faith and all of their problems will just go away because God doesn’t want them to hurt at all is dangerous. It is damaging. Because the catch for these prayers? Is that you have to have faith at least the size of a mustard seed. A tiny, tiny mustard seed. If you have faith even that small, you can heal anything and cast out anything and pray victory over the demons that are hurting you and your family.

So what happens when nothing happens? What message does that send?

It says you don’t have enough faith. That even though a miniscule amount was necessary, that you didn’t even have that much. Or maybe you have sin in your life! Or maybe you didn’t really want your parents or whomever to stop abusing you. Maybe you liked it. Maybe you just aren’t a good Christian. Maybe you aren’t saved.

Maybe you are going to hell.

Yes. That is what happened to me. No, I didn’t stop praying. I never really stopped praying. But I did become as hopeless or as cynical as Sansa is: I didn’t really know why I was praying. No matter what I did, no matter how I tried, no matter how much I believed…. Nothing happened. My prayers weren’t answered. I was abandoned, and according to the very logic of the teaching, I was barely even saved, let a lone a real Christian.

Now, it no longer bothers me (as much, and probably not truly. There is still a lot of training I am trying to overcome) and I am no longer plagued with that doubt, but these kids aren’t idiots and I would hate for them to be put through the same hell of fear that I was.

Setting aside the matter of healing because I am not knowledgeable enough to deal with that and frankly am just creeped out by the ‘yes and amen’ idea and disgusted by people that judge me when I don’t want to submit to them for personal reasons; let’s deal with the subject of praying away situations. Of ‘praying away the spirit controlling people’. Like, I don’t know, say, abuse? Drugs? Sex? Cheating? Just anger? Being busy? What other ‘spriits’ can come over people that need to get prayed away?

This was another thing the Catholic Church cleared up for me.

Free will. The most important and annoying aspect of humanity. God cannot force us, he can only woo us. We must freely choose him, and that in itself is a type of gift. Of course, Protestants believe that once you freely take the gift of Salvation, that your freedom to choose to not go to heaven is suddenly revoked, and that…contradiction never left me once I realised it. If we have free will, then we always have free will. If God wants us to freely choose to love him, then logically we must continue to freely choose to love him for all of our days.

And just as we must freely choose him, so must everyone else. We can pray for someone’s salvation, but the choice is only theirs in the end. Even by praying, we cannot force someone to get saved. And that same logic applies to praying for someone to stop being in sin. We can pray that someone stop abusing us, but they still have the free will to choose not to stop. And that is not on us! It is not our fault that they chose to tell God ‘no’ and to continue sinning. That is not our fault. We can only pray and live our own lives and accept our own grace, and it does not mean we are less of a Christian if our prayers are not all ‘victorious’ and whatever.

So. Yeah. Anyway.

I am sure the speakers were good people with good intentions but… When I didn’t want them to ‘lay hands on me’ for so much personal reasons, I got treated to a long (condescending) ‘reminder’ that the Bible wants us to pray for each other and that I should confess my sins and ask God’s forgiveness for not wanting to partake in the laying of hands and I’m sorry. I’m just sorry. This is a non-denominational camp and I am not attacking your beliefs. So please respect my boundaries and back off.

And I am also perfectly aware that speaking in tongues has Biblical grounds. I mean, it is one of the gifts of the spirit – yes, I am awares.

“Now there are different kinds of gifts, though it is the same Spirit which gives them; just as their are different kinds of service, though it is the same Lord we serve; and diffeent kinds of manifestations of power, though it is the same God who manifests power in all of us. The Revelation of the Spirit is imparted to each, to make the best of it. One learns to speak with Wisdom, by the power of the Spirit; another to speak with knowledge by the same Spirit for his rule; one, through the same Spirit, is given faith; another, through the same Spirit, powers of healing; one can perform miracles; one can prophesy; another can test the spirits of the prophets; one can speak in different tongues; another can interpret the tongues; but all this is the work of the same Spirit who distributes his gifts as he will to each severally.”

So there is First Corinthians chapter twelve verses four through eleven. I think it is the only major teaching on tongues, and it certainly the main one I have heard. The verse in support of a ‘prayer language’ is the verse in Romans 8:26 where the Spirit is said to pray for us in groanings.

So the Holy Spirit can give us the ability to speak in tongues – oh great. Does that mean everyone should do it? That every Christian can do it? That every Christian must do it?

After all, that was what was being taught – that if you are saved and have any faith, then you will be able to pray in tongues. That is was normal to pray in tongues. That if you didn’t pray in tongues, you just weren’t trying hard enough.

And once again, I’ve actually be on the other side of this. I’ve been the kid who couldn’t pray in tongues no matter how hard I tried or no matter how long other better people prayed over me. I’ve been the kid crying because everyone else got that special tongue but I wasn’t good enough for it. I’ve been the kid uncomfortable and feeling attacked because I shouldn’t be uncomfortable. So seeing other kids like that – many that thankfully had a better foundation than I did and thankfully weren’t as hurt – made me…well, it made me furious. These are children. WE are supposed to be helping these children. But instead we are hurting them and threatening a safe place where they have been free to seek you for you and not for any peer pressure or guilt. And then…..then we shove all this Charismatic stuff down their throats regardless of their comfort or beliefs.

And sure, sure. God must just be trying to tell me something because none of the speakers collaborate and this all comes from God…. Sorry. No. You had several speakers come back, and our morning speakers were the same people who stated multiple times that they never prepared anything before. So sorry. No. God did not just bring all of those messages together. I’ve seen when that has happened, and this was not it.

Paul goes on in verses twelve through twenty-seven about how the human body is made up of many parts and how the ear cannot say that because it isn’t an eye, that it isn’t part of the body; and he points out that if all of the body were an eye, then how would we hear? He then draws the correlation that the Church is also a body and is also made up of many members that are ordained for their positions in the body by God and that just as the eye cannot say to the hands ‘ I don’t need you’ just the same, someone with one type of Spiritual gift cannot say to someone with a different gift that they aren’t necessary or important.

“On the contrary, it is those parts of the body that seem most contemptible that are necessary to it…” — v. 22

Then Paul does this thing that honestly I love: he listed the gifts in order of importance. This list is in the twenty-eighth verse of the chapter. (yes, this is going to be a really long post because I’m not done yet. I might split this up if it goes on too much longer – I don’t know yet.)

1. Apostles (which I don’t think applies to the actual Apostles, but rather ‘apostle’ or ‘missionary’ to….peoples. So a missionary.)
2. Prophets (A prophet speaks the word of the Lord. So yes, this could be prophets in that we actually understand them, but it also means anyone who declares the Word. Just read the Bible.)
3. Teachers
4. Miraculous powers (The Stigmata and Eucharistic miracles are just so amazing, as are all of the stories of Saints and – oh, I love miracles!)
5. Gifts of healing
6. Works of mercy
7. Management of affairs (leadership)
8. Speaking with different tongues
9. Interpretation of tongues or prophecy.

“Are all of us apostles, all prophets, all teachers? Have all miraculous powers or gifts of healing? Can all speak with tongues, can all interpret? Prize the best gifts of heaven. Meanwhile, I can show you a way that is better than any other. I may speak with every tongue that men and angels use, but if I don’t love, I am no better than a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. I may have powers of prophecy, no secret hidden from me, no knowledge too deep for me; I may have complete faith so I can move mountains; but if I don’t have love, I am nothing. I may give all I have to the poor, I may give myself up to be burnt at the stake, but if I don’t love, I am nothing.”

Yes, that leads into the famous Love Chapter which is First Corinthians Thirteen. Paul takes every single gift and says that if he doesn’t have love, then it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you can pray and heal anything, or if you can speak and it stops raining. It doesn’t matter if you help orphan children or know everything in the Bible. If what you teach and how you act actively pushes people away from the Church and from Christ himself, then all is nothing. You are nothing. Better a millstone be tied around your neck and you be drowned.

And yes, I have very strong opinions on this that stem from some bitterness, but I have too many friends that have been chased away from Christianity by ‘Christians’. I saw the girls at this camp thinking about never coming back because of this. I have seen Christians blaming the victim becaus they weren’t ‘good’ enough.

And no. No. That is wrong. that is not Christian. Sure, it isn’t enumerated in Chapter Thirteen – but does it have to be?

We are supposed to be Christians – ‘little Christs’. We are supposed to be living as Christ in his absence. Isn’t that enumeration enough? Look at how he acted – at how he taught. He wouldn’t have ostracised someone for questioning – he never did. Look at who he hung out with. He spent time with the ‘sinners’. He gave them unquestioning grace. And the people responded to him. Not to the pharisees who demanded they correct their ways and not ask questions – no. They came to the man who answered their questions, who helped them with their struggles, who shared in their struggles and….

That is Love. That is who we are meant to be. That is amazing. Jesus didn’t die for Christians. He died for the homosexual. For the transgender. For the rapist. For the liar. For the cheater. He came to the world for the sick. Why….why is it so hard to remember that?

“There would be no want of unity if all of the different parts would make each other’s welfare their common goal.”  — 12:25 (paraphrased)