My spiritual journey: Separation of God and Church

From almost the beginning I have separated church from God.  They never were the same to me.  Photo from free pictures by Pixbay.com

I was a restless kid watching Billy Graham on a black and white television. His North Carolina accent appealed to me, the way certain words sounded was different even as someone living in Tennessee. There was authority in his voice, but a gentleness at the same time.

There was a feeling that burned in my body, a desire or yearning. He had something that I wanted, and he was telling me how to get it. I guess it was his charisma, but I always felt like he was talking to me specifically.

I knew about God but didn't know what that really meant or what to do with that knowledge.

The Gospel message is very simple, but at the same time, it is very radical.

God offers to pay the price for our sins so that we can be forgiven and have a relationship with him. Period. End of sentence, end of everything. That is all there is to the basic gospel message.

That was the message of Billy Graham and it resonated with me. It just felt good listening to him. One of my few early role models there on the black and white TV.

He said if we would say a certain prayer, we would have that forgiveness. Great, I thought. I did that a lot of times, and it would feel good, but it seemed to wear off after awhile. I looked forward to watching him because I would get to say that prayer and feel good for a little while.

The same thing happened in the church. That was not as inspiring but it still had the same effect. Only at church, there was the fearful thing of having to walk up to the pastor in front of everyone and pray with him. The pastor would rant and rave, and try to get you to come up front. There was even this thing of “renewing” the salvation or recommitting.

Now go tell others, they said. But I was still in the dark and confused. Tell others what?

The more I tried to believe the more questions I had. There was a desperation that developed over time. Frustration grew. I kept “getting saved” over and over again. I did believe in God, I did want to trust Jesus as my savior. Somehow that was not enough. It wasn't enough for them and it wasn't enough for me either. Still, it seemed no one could tell me what it was I was missing.

The only information I could get from people was that I should not sin. There were bad things you could do that would make God mad and you would go to hell. What was a sin? Smoking, drinking, sex were the biggies. Just about every adult I knew was doing all three of those things and most of them were in church with me.

The deacons would stand out front of the church and have one last cigarette before they came inside for the service. The irony of that always hit me. I had also witnessed one or two of them doing even more than that which most would have said was sin. Yet, there they were, the pillars I was supposed to look up to as Christians.

A lot of people dump the church and religion at this point. I really wanted to, but there was something, an inner voice that kept me coming back. I couldn't forget the way Billy Graham talked on the TV. That wasn't what I got at church. I believed the black and white TV more than I believed what I heard at church.

Somehow I got my hands on a Living Bible. Controversial in those times, and that it was controversial appealed to my youthful rebellious nature. It wasn't that controversial though. About the only comment I ever got was when older people would say the King James was better. So it wasn't much of a radical move, but it was something and encouraged me to want to read it.

When I did read it, it was liking watching color TV, or a big-screen movie in living color as opposed to the black and white TV that church and religion had become. There was a one-dimensional – black and white – thing about Christianity as it was presented to me. The Living Bible was so much more vivid.

It brought back the memories of the rainbow river I had seen before I even knew words to think of.

While religion told me to get saved over and over again, and that if I sinned God would get mad at me and I might not be saved anymore, the Living Bible had so much more to say.

The stories were fascinating. The words of Jesus were amazing. He talked about loving people. He talked about being authentic, or real. He said don't do your good things for others to see or to not be concerned about getting praise or condemnation from others.

He also talked about hypocrisy. Appearing good on the surface but doing bad things in private. I thought of the deacons smoking in the churchyard, and even what else I had seen some of them do. There was no reason to look up to them.

It was enough to make me reject church and religion, but I had this secret knowledge from the bible. Did people in the church not know about this? There was just so much more to see than the very basic thing of salvation and avoiding sin. There was also a lot about faking religion and doing bad things behind closed doors.

Soon I had a real separation between religion and God. They really were different things.

I kept going to church but I don't know why. The God I believed in was not the mean hypocrites that they were. The dichotomy would only grow from there.