I’ve never heard an invocation as inclusive as this one:

But to touch on the content… MAYBE IF I SCREAM MY HEAD OFF EVERYTHING I SAY WILL SOUND BETTER AND YOU WILL ACTUALLY LISTEN TO ME. BECAUSE THE BEST WAY TO TALK ABOUT LOVE IS BY SCREAMING AT YOU.

Basically he says there’s nothing wrong at all with facial hair, but we don’t allow it because I have the power to control what people do.

Also… forty thousand people attend this church on a regular basis? I find that very hard to believe. It is a “megachurch” – I don’t dispute that. But I don’t see how forty thousand people fit in this auditorium.

And why does a pastor need marble counter tops in his office?

This is a clip of his sermon the following Sunday.

I find myself conflicted as I write this post. On the one hand, I despise a lot of things about IFB churches. I was born and raised in this sort of community (though, for full disclosure, we did not attend church for 10 of my formative years). When I left that church, my senior year in college, I referred to it as a cult. I disagreed with 90% of the words that came out of the pastor’s mouth. I felt the church was neither loving nor compassionate. It was full of hatred, bigotry, and arrogance.

But on the other hand, I do still think back on those years somewhat fondly. It was the first time I ever felt the spirit of community. The general population among the congregation is good hearted and trying to please God in the ways that they have been taught. I don’t want to be too disparaging because these people were the biggest part of my life for a very long time. My earliest memories are of church.

As I write this, I’m realizing just how deep-seated the brainwashing really was. Yes, I removed myself from it. But I find myself wanting to defend their actions and justify church positions despite knowing how unforgiving and detrimental these churches can be.

This episode of 20/20 focuses on three women and the abuse they faced in church, primarily sexual abuse. Tina Anderson (I wrote about this story last summer), the primary focus of the piece, was a 15 year old girl who was raped by a male member of the church. When she became pregnant and came forward to her pastor, she was accused of adultery and made to apologize in front of the entire congregation for her sin. She was sent away until the baby was born, and afterwards, while allowed to return to church, she was not allowed to re-enroll in the church school she had formerly attended.

The abuse and the church’s response to the abuse is disgusting and reprehensible.

However, 20/20 takes the actions of one church (or 3, since there are 3 women interviewed) and presents every IFB church as the same. Sexual abuse was not a part of the churches I was involved with – these churches, these women, are the exception, not the rule. Not all IFB churches are the same; sweeping generalizations like this don’t do anyone any good (let’s think about how the whole world is fairly quick to realize that Fred Phelps and the WBC are not indicators of all Christian behavior).

Let me be clear: I’m not saying IFB churches are not bad churches. They absolutely are. But I find that I have a problem with the implication that all IFB churches are pastored by monsters and sexual predators.

These pastors are elitist, racist, prejudiced, homophobic… yes. They embrace a strict, literalist interpretation of the Bible… yes. They treat women as second-class citizens in their patriarchal worldviews. But none of that makes them sexual predators. And presenting this as a dangerous-to-the-children (physically) religious movement is dishonest. I know several male members of an IFB church who would string a child rapist up in the closest tree.

This episode also presented the idea that these churches advocate physical child abuse because they believe in spanking children.  The idea is that you spank your child or the child won’t grow up right. And yes, the church believes this but not in an abusive way. My church taught that there is a difference between beating and spanking. A position I still hold today. The pastor in the segment who said you must leave bruises is wrong and is not a spokesman for every IFB pastor.

I remember receiving corporal punishment when I was in the first grade at a church school, but my parents had to give permission before the punishment was given. My parents spanked me when I lied or stole or was directly disobedient. It taught me that there are consequences to my actions and taught me to really think about it before I chose to disobey. Spanking is not beating.

The show set up the new pastor of Trinity Baptist Church as the “good” pastor because he is an IFB pastor who is publicly denouncing the actions of the former pastor. However, he is flat out lying when he says that the IFB system is not a network. There are IFB circuits that pastors travel in. There are always guest preachers, shared conferences, and connections that cross many state lines. All the “Independent” part of IFB means is that each church is autonomous and has no structural organization dictating policy.

The new pastor of Tina’s church also says that if he had been pastor when the transgression occurred, the offender would not have remained a member of the church. He would not have stood in front of the congregation; he would have been removed. Yet, there are currently two registered sex offenders who are members of the church. The pastor is aware of it and when asked if he makes sure the church knows, he says that the information is readily available on the New Hampshire sex offender registry. Then it is revealed that one of the two is Tina’s step-father.

Obviously his former statement about Tina’s rape was made to save face, as this new information makes it clear that he will allow these offenders to remain in his church. Which is, honestly, what I would expect. IFB churches teach that God loves you just the way you are, but He loves you too much to leave you that way. And by going to church 3+ times a week, you are surrendering your life to God and being given an opportunity to let God change your life.

The point I intended to make, and that got lost somewhere along the way, is that the IFB church is reprehensible. But not for the reasons posited by the 20/20 episode. The IFB church is not a cult of sexual predators and child abusers. The IFB church is a cult of misogynistic, patriarchal, egotistical, and elitist people who believe that the vast majority of the world is going to hell.

One of the comments on YouTube pretty much hits the nail on the head:

An UMBRELLA will reduce the risk of some rain dropping on you, does it do anything to protect you emotionally, socially, intellectually or morally? Substitute the word “umbrella” in this statement with a helmet, protective gloves, mask, heavy duty boots, eye-wear or a CONDOM and it will sound just as ridiculous. yurity

No wonder Christian children grow up with hangups about sex. I’m nearly 30, and I definitely still have some hangups when it comes to the subject. I still struggle with shame, even though I rationally know I have done nothing wrong.

These kids are not learning how to be responsible. Instead, they’re learning that their urges and impulses are wrong and shameful. They’re not learning how to be responsible when they choose to engage in natural behavior.

And it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

Luckily, there are patient and eloquent people out there who can say nice things and make the point without resorting to the immature name-calling I am likely to do.

From NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s speech earlier this week: (Emphasis mine)

“Of all our precious freedoms, the most important may be the freedom to worship as we wish. And it is a freedom that, even here in a City that is rooted in Dutch tolerance, was hard-won over many years. In the mid-1650s, the small Jewish community living in Lower Manhattan petitioned Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant for the right to build a synagogue – and they were turned down.

“In 1657, when Stuyvesant also prohibited Quakers from holding meetings, a group of non-Quakers in Queens signed the Flushing Remonstrance, a petition in defense of the right of Quakers and others to freely practice their religion. It was perhaps the first formal, political petition for religious freedom in the American colonies – and the organizer was thrown in jail and then banished from New Amsterdam.

“In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion – and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780’s – St. Peter’s on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center.

“This morning, the City’s Landmark Preservation Commission unanimously voted not to extend landmark status to the building on Park Place where the mosque and community center are planned. The decision was based solely on the fact that there was little architectural significance to the building. But with or without landmark designation, there is nothing in the law that would prevent the owners from opening a mosque within the existing building. The simple fact is this building is private property, and the owners have a right to use the building as a house of worship.

“The government has no right whatsoever to deny that right – and if it were tried, the courts would almost certainly strike it down as a violation of the U.S. Constitution. Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question – should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property based on their particular religion? That may happen in other countries, but we should never allow it to happen here. This nation was founded on the principle that the government must never choose between religions, or favor one over another.

“The World Trade Center Site will forever hold a special place in our City, in our hearts. But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves – and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans – if we said ‘no’ to a mosque in Lower Manhattan.

“Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans. We would betray our values – and play into our enemies’ hands – if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists – and we should not stand for that.

“For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetime – as important a test – and it is critically important that we get it right.

(via)