I've been posting a lot at SGM Refuge lately. I attended a Sovereign Grace church for a few years in the nineties with troubling results. My walk of faith darkened as I was taught how truly sinful a person I was. My sweet love for Jesus my Savior, Shepherd, and friend disintegrated as I was taught he went to the cross obediently to satisfy the intense wrath of His father, God. Wrath which I deserved. Week after week, I endured these lectures on my sinfulness until one day something unusual happened. A revival broke out in Toronto at the Airport Vineyard Christian Fellowship and it spread southward to our church in Virginia. People began to worship with abandon, to weep tears of joy, to laugh uproariously at the goodness of God. The more people were freed from bondage to legalistic sin-seeking in both their own lives and the lives of others (through accountability groups and weekly confessional meetings), the more ferociously the pastors clung to their Reformed doctrine and rabid sin-seeking. It began to be quite puritanical.
SGM Refuge is a website where those who have been wounded, lost faith in God, lost their previous true, valid perception of God, were disfellowshipped, or otherwise harmed by a SG church can meet together, receive comfort and healing and provoke repentance on the part of those who injured them. It's tough to forgive people who harm you, but you know, a happier life awaits those who do. I almost think it has to be a divine work of God to forgive certain things -- child molestation or abuse, among others. But when these things happen within the church, it's a deeper work than forgiveness. You have to also warn others not to go to a place that will not only cause them harm but is labeled a place to find shelter. There's a certain obligation to the unknowing public on the part of those of us who have knowledge about the flaws within these churches. If we know, for example, that a 15-year-old boy has molested a preschooler and is still serving as an assistant in the three-year-old class at his church, there is an obligation to protect that I believe precludes that obligation not to talk about others (gossip). These are the sorts of things I've been sorting through at Refuge. I invite your insights and comments on the subject as I'm just now getting a real grasp on what it is that compels me to continue commenting over there. I have not attended one of these churches for ten years, yet I still feel earnestly compelled to warn people. Is this okay to do when I haven't heard for myself any of these pastors for a decade?
What do you think?
