On the Rise

It isn't that I don't believe in God or have a problem with Jesus, I have a problem with the church. If the church really is the hands and feet of Christ, then the crucifixion wounds are still there and the church is bleed Christ dry. My cynicism rises every time I read a newspaper article about a church not allowing the funeral of a homosexual or of prosperity gospel preachers preaching that God just wants you to have wealth and feel good. The cynic in me comes out when I see the faith reduced to stupid slogans on t-shirts that are parodies of starbucks and 7-up.
I was recently walking around town and began a conversation with a woman in the post office. I eventually invited her to church and she said "oh no, I'm never going to church again, I can't go through that kind of hurt again." you see, another church in town, a baptist of course, starting kicking out members. The minister started a witch hunt of all those who disagreed with his politics and theology and the congregation began voting people out one by one. This woman's elderly mother who had been a member for 45 years and given to the church faithfully was kicked out. And you wonder why I'm cynical.
I work with the committee on ministry working with all the congregations in our areas and after every meeting I grow more and more cynical. I hear stories of infighting in churches, embezzlement, lying, gossip and more. For every one positive story I have to deal with 9 or 10 problems.
In my own church I have people not wanting to come because they don't want to have to deal with the conflict. I have asked around town and people have left our church before I got there because of all the gossip, talking behind people's backs, and how the church generally treats people. We've had our mission committee decide to quit doing fundraisers because the women's association yells at them everytime they try to use the kitchen. Is this the church Christ called into being? I spend more time dealing with petty squabbles and listening to complaints then preaching the gospel and helping to bind up the broken heart and free the oppressed.
There are so many horrible injustices everywhere but the church often seems focused on just gay marriage and abortion because people like James Dobson don't want to lose relevance and power. The church remains silent in the wake of genocides, war, poverty, and slavery, but makes a huge uproar if two grown men in love want to get married. I'm sure the starving children of the world are glad James Dobson spends his $20 million dollars raised a year on important work like lobbying the government to ban same sex marriage, abortions, and gays in the military. Yea, I'm cynical so sing a long with me as my cynicism rises, by clicking on the video below.

Backsliding

I don't know about you, but when I was preparing to go off to college all my "christian" mentors and friends warned me about the dangers of college. Someone even got me a book called "A Christian's Guide to Surviving College" or something like that. "What out for those liberal professors," everyone would say, or "make sure you find good christian friends, it's easier to be pulled down than it is to pull someone up."
My youth leaders, ministers, nosey people just seemed very concerned that college did nothing but corrupt kids' souls. I think though they were scared that in college young people may actually learn to think and to question and learn to look behind the curtain, and then they'd see that the God they had been shown all their lives was nothing more than Pastor Steve playing behind a curtain. It is a control thing really. They didn't want me going off to college where they couldn't filter the message so they tried to scare me. "Don't backslide you've come so far" they would say. "Find a good church, keep reading your Max Lucado, and don't trust everything your professors say, they are godless teaching machines."
Well I did go to college and I stayed brainwashed for awhile until I finally broke out of their controlling grasps. I wrote this song about the experience of going to college and "backsliding" despite my church's desperate attempts to keep me on what they would consider the "highroad"