First of all, I want to thank you for engaging with me. You have definitely given more thought to your position than your initial replies. I dismissed you as someone not willing to actually engage based on those short responses, but this last reply had depth and effort. I truly appreciate and respect the effort.
You’ve made your position very clear: submission, sacraments, and Church are non-negotiables in your view of faith. I understand that, and I even understand where it comes from. The tradition you’re drawing from is ancient, rigorous, and unapologetically structured.
But what’s missing here, and what is truly heartbreaking, is any sign of compassion for another person’s spiritual wounds.
I didn’t come here to tear down faith. I came because I loved the Church. I gave it years of my life, my energy, and my care. I spent six years in formal religious study. I learned Greek and Hebrew so I could seek truth and teach it faithfully. I led weekly studies for fifteen years, speaking to literally thousands of people who longed to know Christ. I watched marriages fall apart. I watched people suffer in silence. I watched young hearts burn out trying to earn a love they were told was unconditional.
And I served right in the middle of all of it. My entire life’s work has been Christ.
So when I speak of grief, I speak from the inside. This isn’t theory to me. It’s memory. It’s life.
Your response hasn’t engaged with any of that. You haven’t asked a single question. You haven’t tried to understand. You’ve quoted doctrine and offered correction without even pausing to wonder who you’re speaking to. You assume I left because I didn’t want to submit, when in truth, I stayed far longer than was good for me because I wanted to be faithful.
The Church you speak of, and the God you seem to represent, appear interested only in obedience and conformity. But the Jesus I encountered in Scripture? He wept with the broken. He dined with the outcast. He challenged the religious elite. He called people not to power, but to love.
So here’s my sincere question for you:
If someone came to you and shared that the Church had wounded them, not once, but persistently and they did so with humility and pain in their voice, how would Jesus respond?
Would He accuse them?
Would He quote doctrine?
Would He tell them their experience doesn’t matter?
Or would He listen?
Because that’s really what this comes down to. Not whether I agree with every line of theology. Not whether I tick every box of orthodoxy. But whether those who bear the name of Christ actually reflect His posture when someone is bleeding spiritually.
I have no expectations here, but I’ll leave you with one final question for you to ask yourself and sit with:
You’ve made your position very clear: submission, sacraments, and Church are non-negotiables in your view of faith.
It’s THE view of the early church fathers ergo it’s real Christianity. Adherence to the structure of the church isn’t blind submission it is a union of the body in trust and love. The sacraments given to the Church by Christ are key to spiritual healing and union with God. (Which is what you’re on about by the way)
But what’s missing here, and what is truly heartbreaking, is any sign of compassion for another person’s spiritual wounds.
Clarity is a form of compassion. I don’t mince words especially on Lemmy where Christianity is all but spat upon. My comments are clear, concise and uncomfortably direct on purpose. No matter what you have gone through you will never heal heal on your own. Period. When you go to church you will find people that will relate to your struggles and a confessor who will hear your sins and offer spiritual guidance. You will not and should not expect to find this on Lemmy. There is no substitute for the Church.
Your response hasn’t engaged with any of that. You haven’t asked a single question. You haven’t tried to understand. You’ve quoted doctrine and offered correction without even pausing to wonder who you’re speaking to.
That’s not what Lemmy is for. I didn’t offer you that courtesy because you shouldn’t bear your soul online to strangers. You should do that with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Preferably far away from electronics during coffee hour or something. You DO need a group of people that have a sound theology and doctrinal awareness so that you can trust their advice and earnestness. You could even befriend them and know that the new person in your life is well-intentioned and seeks Christ as you should.
The Church you speak of, and the God you seem to represent, appear interested only in obedience and conformity.
Orthodoxy sees obedience as union, not conformity. It’s about becoming one with Christ, not passing a test. Christ did dine with the outcast, but He also told them, “Go and sin no more.” He loved without condition—but He also called to repentance. Both truths walk together. One without the other isn’t love—it’s sentimentality or legalism.
But the Jesus I encountered in Scripture? He wept with the broken. He dined with the outcast. He challenged the religious elite. He called people not to power, but to love.
He also chastised them, challenged them and told them to pick up their cross and follow him.
If someone came to you and shared that the Church had wounded them, not once, but persistently and they did so with humility and pain in their voice, how would Jesus respond?
Would He accuse them?
Would He quote doctrine?
Would He tell them their experience doesn’t matter?
Or would He listen?
I can’t speak for Christ but I assume he would listen, for a time. He has the advantage of truly knowing your heart. He would ultimately call you to repent and follow him though. Your suffering and heartbreak, your “story” is only important insofar as it leads you to Christ.
Because that’s really what this comes down to. Not whether I agree with every line of theology. Not whether I tick every box of orthodoxy. But whether those who bear the name of Christ actually reflect His posture when someone is bleeding spiritually
Without knowing you better than what I’ve read so far my inclination is not to engage with your call to bear witness. I do not think it would be helpful. This is the wrong place. By now you know where you should go to resolve such things. Christ is not monochromatic and the truth is the truth. You are excommunicating yourself from the body of Christ and are putting yourself in spiritual peril. Do with that what you will. I care far more about you going to church to find spiritual healing than I do about piety signalling with some phony affectation.
Am I Christlike?
I have no idea of the content of your heart. This is a question only God can answer.
If I were to assess myself I’d say ‘No’. I’m a selfish and indulgent sinner who daily disobeys God and pursues my own passions.
Alright, I want to say this first: I appreciate that you’ve stayed in this conversation. I really do. I can tell you care, that you take your tradition seriously, and that you’re trying to offer what you believe is truth. That matters to me. I’m going to speak just as plainly as you do, because I think you can handle it.
You keep pointing to your sin like it’s some badge of spiritual maturity. But Christ didn’t die so you could stay tethered to your brokenness. He died so you could actually change. He didn’t offer you a mirror just to say, “Yep, still filthy,” but to cleanse you and fill you with His Spirit so that His love becomes what people experience when they encounter you.
You speak of repentance as if it’s the destination. It’s not. It’s the doorway.
You talk about church as the only hospital, but then point to sacraments and tradition as the required price of admission. You keep reducing the gospel to obedience, when the whole point of transformation was not through your obedience, but His. You are like Christ because of Christ.
And if Christ in you and through you is the goal, then look at how He loved. He confronted religious pride. He broke bread with doubters. He listened before correcting. He touched wounds before calling people to sin no more.
Right now, your version of Christianity seems to say, “You’re disgusting. Come to church.”
But the gospel contradicts that directly with, “You are deeply loved. You have been made whole.”
Your sin isn’t the problem. If the work of the Cross is actually finished, your sin is not your problem. It was Christ’s.
What I see in you is a refusal to believe you can actually live differently. That Christ can actually live through you. That His Spirit doesn’t just forgive, it transforms.
You want me to come back to church? Then show me what church people look like when they truly believe they’ve been made new.
You say Christianity isn’t about me. But Jesus didn’t die to protect institutions. He died for people. For their hearts. For their healing. For their wholeness. That is the good news.
So I’ll keep talking to strangers here, or anywhere else I can connect with people. I’ll keep telling my story. I will bring the Church to them. Because someone out there needs to hear that there is nothing to be ashamed of anymore. Love defeated shame.Love defeated doctrine-as-a-weapon.Love is the good news we share through our words and our actions.
And since you speak often of repentance and obedience, I’ll offer this to you in your own language:
If the Church is a hospital, as you say, then what do you do when the wounded are afraid to walk through the doors, not because they reject healing, but because the people inside keep reopening their wounds?
Is it not a kind of spiritual malpractice to demand repentance from the hurting without first washing their feet?
You’re right, Christ calls us to die to ourselves. But if that death doesn’t make us more gentle, more approachable, more like a refuge for the broken, what exactly is dying in us? And what’s still holding on?
And one more thing. You seem to have misread my last question. It wasn’t for me.
It was for you.
Are you Christlike?
Not in your theology. Not in your discipline. Not in your sacraments or church attendance. When people think of you, do they think of love? Love in your tone. Love in your compassion. Love in how you treat even a stranger—not just on some internet platform, but everywhere.
Because as Jesus said, that is how they will know you are His disciple.
First of all, I want to thank you for engaging with me. You have definitely given more thought to your position than your initial replies. I dismissed you as someone not willing to actually engage based on those short responses, but this last reply had depth and effort. I truly appreciate and respect the effort.
You’ve made your position very clear: submission, sacraments, and Church are non-negotiables in your view of faith. I understand that, and I even understand where it comes from. The tradition you’re drawing from is ancient, rigorous, and unapologetically structured.
But what’s missing here, and what is truly heartbreaking, is any sign of compassion for another person’s spiritual wounds.
I didn’t come here to tear down faith. I came because I loved the Church. I gave it years of my life, my energy, and my care. I spent six years in formal religious study. I learned Greek and Hebrew so I could seek truth and teach it faithfully. I led weekly studies for fifteen years, speaking to literally thousands of people who longed to know Christ. I watched marriages fall apart. I watched people suffer in silence. I watched young hearts burn out trying to earn a love they were told was unconditional.
And I served right in the middle of all of it. My entire life’s work has been Christ.
So when I speak of grief, I speak from the inside. This isn’t theory to me. It’s memory. It’s life.
Your response hasn’t engaged with any of that. You haven’t asked a single question. You haven’t tried to understand. You’ve quoted doctrine and offered correction without even pausing to wonder who you’re speaking to. You assume I left because I didn’t want to submit, when in truth, I stayed far longer than was good for me because I wanted to be faithful.
The Church you speak of, and the God you seem to represent, appear interested only in obedience and conformity. But the Jesus I encountered in Scripture? He wept with the broken. He dined with the outcast. He challenged the religious elite. He called people not to power, but to love.
So here’s my sincere question for you:
If someone came to you and shared that the Church had wounded them, not once, but persistently and they did so with humility and pain in their voice, how would Jesus respond?
Would He accuse them?
Would He quote doctrine?
Would He tell them their experience doesn’t matter?
Or would He listen?
Because that’s really what this comes down to. Not whether I agree with every line of theology. Not whether I tick every box of orthodoxy. But whether those who bear the name of Christ actually reflect His posture when someone is bleeding spiritually.
I have no expectations here, but I’ll leave you with one final question for you to ask yourself and sit with:
Am I Christlike?
It’s THE view of the early church fathers ergo it’s real Christianity. Adherence to the structure of the church isn’t blind submission it is a union of the body in trust and love. The sacraments given to the Church by Christ are key to spiritual healing and union with God. (Which is what you’re on about by the way)
Clarity is a form of compassion. I don’t mince words especially on Lemmy where Christianity is all but spat upon. My comments are clear, concise and uncomfortably direct on purpose. No matter what you have gone through you will never heal heal on your own. Period. When you go to church you will find people that will relate to your struggles and a confessor who will hear your sins and offer spiritual guidance. You will not and should not expect to find this on Lemmy. There is no substitute for the Church.
That’s not what Lemmy is for. I didn’t offer you that courtesy because you shouldn’t bear your soul online to strangers. You should do that with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Preferably far away from electronics during coffee hour or something. You DO need a group of people that have a sound theology and doctrinal awareness so that you can trust their advice and earnestness. You could even befriend them and know that the new person in your life is well-intentioned and seeks Christ as you should.
Orthodoxy sees obedience as union, not conformity. It’s about becoming one with Christ, not passing a test. Christ did dine with the outcast, but He also told them, “Go and sin no more.” He loved without condition—but He also called to repentance. Both truths walk together. One without the other isn’t love—it’s sentimentality or legalism.
He also chastised them, challenged them and told them to pick up their cross and follow him.
I can’t speak for Christ but I assume he would listen, for a time. He has the advantage of truly knowing your heart. He would ultimately call you to repent and follow him though. Your suffering and heartbreak, your “story” is only important insofar as it leads you to Christ.
Without knowing you better than what I’ve read so far my inclination is not to engage with your call to bear witness. I do not think it would be helpful. This is the wrong place. By now you know where you should go to resolve such things. Christ is not monochromatic and the truth is the truth. You are excommunicating yourself from the body of Christ and are putting yourself in spiritual peril. Do with that what you will. I care far more about you going to church to find spiritual healing than I do about piety signalling with some phony affectation.
I have no idea of the content of your heart. This is a question only God can answer.
If I were to assess myself I’d say ‘No’. I’m a selfish and indulgent sinner who daily disobeys God and pursues my own passions.
I will add you to my prayers.
Alright, I want to say this first: I appreciate that you’ve stayed in this conversation. I really do. I can tell you care, that you take your tradition seriously, and that you’re trying to offer what you believe is truth. That matters to me. I’m going to speak just as plainly as you do, because I think you can handle it.
You keep pointing to your sin like it’s some badge of spiritual maturity. But Christ didn’t die so you could stay tethered to your brokenness. He died so you could actually change. He didn’t offer you a mirror just to say, “Yep, still filthy,” but to cleanse you and fill you with His Spirit so that His love becomes what people experience when they encounter you.
You speak of repentance as if it’s the destination. It’s not. It’s the doorway.
You talk about church as the only hospital, but then point to sacraments and tradition as the required price of admission. You keep reducing the gospel to obedience, when the whole point of transformation was not through your obedience, but His. You are like Christ because of Christ.
And if Christ in you and through you is the goal, then look at how He loved. He confronted religious pride. He broke bread with doubters. He listened before correcting. He touched wounds before calling people to sin no more.
Right now, your version of Christianity seems to say, “You’re disgusting. Come to church.”
But the gospel contradicts that directly with, “You are deeply loved. You have been made whole.”
Your sin isn’t the problem. If the work of the Cross is actually finished, your sin is not your problem. It was Christ’s.
What I see in you is a refusal to believe you can actually live differently. That Christ can actually live through you. That His Spirit doesn’t just forgive, it transforms.
You want me to come back to church? Then show me what church people look like when they truly believe they’ve been made new.
You say Christianity isn’t about me. But Jesus didn’t die to protect institutions. He died for people. For their hearts. For their healing. For their wholeness. That is the good news.
So I’ll keep talking to strangers here, or anywhere else I can connect with people. I’ll keep telling my story. I will bring the Church to them. Because someone out there needs to hear that there is nothing to be ashamed of anymore. Love defeated shame. Love defeated doctrine-as-a-weapon. Love is the good news we share through our words and our actions.
And since you speak often of repentance and obedience, I’ll offer this to you in your own language:
If the Church is a hospital, as you say, then what do you do when the wounded are afraid to walk through the doors, not because they reject healing, but because the people inside keep reopening their wounds?
Is it not a kind of spiritual malpractice to demand repentance from the hurting without first washing their feet?
You’re right, Christ calls us to die to ourselves. But if that death doesn’t make us more gentle, more approachable, more like a refuge for the broken, what exactly is dying in us? And what’s still holding on?
And one more thing. You seem to have misread my last question. It wasn’t for me.
It was for you.
Are you Christlike?
Not in your theology. Not in your discipline. Not in your sacraments or church attendance.
When people think of you, do they think of love?
Love in your tone. Love in your compassion.
Love in how you treat even a stranger—not just on some internet platform, but everywhere.
Because as Jesus said, that is how they will know you are His disciple.