The Wizard Behind the Curtain

[ILG]

The injustice I felt went deep. I had a young bitterness about the world and how it was run. I resented the people who looked down on the less fortunate as somehow lesser people.

When I was 19, I got into the church. The experience with God was wonderful and marvelous. It was like nothing I ever felt. "Come with us" , the people said "We have a different system, a different way of life where we care about people. God is no respector of persons. He loves all people. We also believe we should not be respectors of persons".

I loved this message. A God who loved all men equally and did not put one above the other. A system that was like God. I was in heaven.

Many, many promises were made to me through preaching and teaching about God and his church and how things were so mush better, so much different here. My family was concerned about me. They felt I was falling for a line. Some of them called me brainwashed. I blew them all off. What did they know? They did not have the experience I had and I knew how they lived. I had a new life and I was whole hog, hook, line and sinker.

I began to see little things that bothered me, but the message was too good. The experience was too good. The promises were too good. We forged ahead my husband and I, convinced our calling was to take this message to the world. We worked very, very hard, starting a church, advertising, passing out tracts, teaching bible studies, paying for it all and getting no respect and very little help.

Meanwhile, we saw pastors sons given pastorates and silver spoons placed in their mouths. We decided they didn't know what we knew and we knew our message was too important to not pass it on. People are worthwhile no matter who they are and God loves them all. We forged ahead while pastors canvassed in our area and took people from us with promises of big choirs and lots of people. We forged ahead while we were warned not to steal any people from anyone. We forged ahead while we were told to contribute to every program so they could know we were cooperating with them. We forged ahead while they missed sending us Home Missions checks and refused to let us sell baked goods in their churches at Home Missions rallies. We forged ahead while I went to ladies retreats alone, believing the message. We forged ahead and paid the bills mostly alone.

We forged ahead while they told us our families were going to hell and while they made excuses for their own. We forged ahead while we believed the messages and they watered it down.

Finally, we believed we needed to move to a larger church because we were burned out. When we moved to the larger church, we found there were no income records and money spent on the previous pastors personal things. When we took this to the church, many did not believe us. Still, we forged ahead, believing the message. The district board shoved it all under the rug. Still we forged ahead, believing the message. But, the veil was being lifted.

In time, after a shocking personal revelation.....I stopped believing the message. It was about standards at first. I could not believe I had been lied to and duped for 16 years. Pants were not men's apparel. The Bible didn't say women couldn't cut their hair, etc.

But the core message to me stayed the same. God loves all people the same. Injustice should be fought against. We continued to fight, believing this message.

But, when I said standards were not biblical and mentioned all the injustices, I was told we are all human and that this is a human problem, not a UPC one. What? After all the promises I was made about us being the church? What? After all the times I was told that God is no respector of persons? What? After believing standards lies for years, I now find out I believed another one? That the church is just as guilty as everyone else regarding these things?

And indeed, I found out that the church is just as guilty. For as much as it postures itself as being God's people and as much as it says it is better than others and has "the truth", that it is a better way to live, that it is the right way, the only way, the only way not to burn in hell, I find out that it isn't true.

Yes, the problems are human problems. The veil has been lifted. The Wizard of Oz is actually behind the curtain just making things look powerful, incredible and amazing, when the God that they claim exclusive rights to, is actually everywhere and a real promoter of justice and truly, no respector of persons. He is the One I have been serving all along.

I don't go to church anymore. Not often anyway. I keep seeing Wizards behind curtains. I don't know if that will ever change. But, the God I believe in, the God that saved me, I believe that He still believes in justice, in love, in not being a respector of persons and that someday, He will make all this right. He is the God I love and the One I follow. I believe He is not a Wizard behind a curtain.