No shame, no blame, no pain.

September 28, 2007 by Pastor Dan.

In any conversation about fundamentalism, it is easy to argue about or make fun of their strict beliefs and manners: Biblical literalism, punitive rejection of sin and sinners (”hate the sin, beat up the sinner”), the dramatics of being born again and again, the political clout and cozy relationship with the Republican party, etc.

What is less often talked about openly is pain. Especially, the pain for those who have been raised in Christian sects or fundamentalist denominations who cannot stand the pain any longer. They suffer an enormous spiritual dissonance, often cannot make another Christian home, and go through a protracted period of depression, anger, etc. They have been abused as truthfully as Catholic children have been abused by predatory pedophiles in that church.

Only in the last few years have I really had to “face the music” with recovering fundamentalists. A number of gay men, especially, who have been curious enough about our ministry have trusted us enough to draw near. Some have stayed around; two in particular now refer to their former religion or former church in a tone of relief. Others cannot seem to snap out of the spell they have been put under, an after the initial curiosity has worn off, they disappear.

But where to? Back into the fundamentalist fold, the arms of a dysfunctional community that will eventually smother or strangle them spiritually?

David L. Rattigan runs a blog and a web site, www.leavingfundamentalism.org that has some very helpful material. Rattigan claims now to be a liberal Christian, and discloses his personal pilgrimage into and out of charismatic Christianity here. His pain included intellectual dishonesty, the lack of ability to spiritually perform what others expected or demanded (speaking in tongues, healings, prophesying), and the legalism and judgmentalism of fundamentalist Pentecostalism.

In one of his humorous writings, “I was wrong: God admits defeat and changes policy,” Rattigan parodies the supposed retreat of God from grace and forgiveness in Christ as a failed experiment over the last two thousand years, in the form of a news release about a fundamental change in Divine policy.

Excited seminary undergraduates in Louisville took to the streets yesterday afternoon to throw stones at passing sinners in celebration of the surprise decision. “This is a historic day,” a young sophomore told us proudly as he ducked to avoid a flying rock, apparently aimed at a transsexual standing a few yards away.

The greatest pain I have witnessed is in the lesbian/gay, bisexual and transgender community. Millions of us at some point in our early lives dug more deeply into our faith traditions, trying to (a) conform to other people’s expectations of goodness and uprightness; (b) find God’s promised love and limitless blessings; and (c) seek release from our feelings of inadequacy, shame, and sinful sexual inclinations.

But what we found was that we could never conform enough to other people’s views of holiness or perfection, that we were not released from our innate sexual orientation no matter how hard we tried/prayed/repented/abstained/hated ourselves, and that fundamentalist legalism always withheld or blocked God’s promised love and blessings. Others put conditions on God’s love that — if we only could hear the Gospel itself in all its clarity — God does not put on love, forgiveness and grace.

Maybe the only way in which the Gospel will ever be heard in this world is if Christians stop trying to booby-trap the compassion and love of God. (Rattigan now chuckles about fundamentalist warnings of “greasy grace” and “easy believism.”) The bottom line: Christ will come to any and all, out of his goodness and grace—if only we will get out of the way and stop trying to inflict pain on others in order to goad them to come to him.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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