Bruce Gerencser slices and dices an IFB preacher who feels he doesn’t receive the deference he is entitled to expect.
He is the “man of God” and is to be respected at all times. If God and his man are as tight as Domelle alleges, I’d be fearful too. When you believe the preacher has a direct line to God, it makes sense to keep your mouth shut and obey his edicts. Either that or run as fast as you can out the back door of the church never to return. If you are heaven-bent on going to church, there are kinder, gentler expressions of faith than those found in IFB churches. Don’t waste another moment being psychologically traumatized by a man who confuses his place in life with God’s.
Some thoughts, in no particular order.
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When Pastor Bubba is discovered to be helping himself to the Children’s Choir, congregations all but invariably rally to the Holy Man and drive-off his victims; this is a well-known and –documented fact (including by me). That fact says much about who is sitting in most churches — and pastors get far too much deference.
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Every flavor of Christianity hangs upon a single, indispensable metaphysical claim: Y’all are no damn good, y’all were born no damn good, and y’all can never be any damn good; the only way to avoid the eternal punishment you deserve is to join our club. Boiled-down, that’s the Christian message. You can point to the tens of thousands of books, and millions or billions of sermons with their elaborate circumlocutions and obfuscations, but that’s Christianity’s bottom line.
No happy, satisfied adult is going to accept such nonsense; they’re going to laugh in the Holy Man’s face. The people who accept it are the troubled.
Your happiness is against the preacher’s interest.
Now, to be clear, I am sure that the majority of preachers mean no harm, that the majority of preachers never think to themselves, “The food on my dining room table depends on the unhappiness of my congregants.” But it does, and the cultish scripts they learn in seminary and mindlessly repeat cause unhappiness, e.g., “Always serve Jesus first and give your family the leftovers.”
Again, the smartest thing you can do is stay out of church and take your family to the park Sunday morning. If an Invisible Friend wants to get in touch with you, He can find you there, too.