It's Not Just Disagreeing When Someone Is Lying

As I said in my last post, I didn’t have to surrender my faith when I moved away from the pitfalls of a dangerous denomination; I only had to move away from the wolves in sheep’s clothing and false prophets the Bible warns us about. Due to this, I understand there are many good Christians in the world, and I’m grateful for the ones who are as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves like Jesus told us to be. Many believe the Bible tells us not to judge, but this isn’t correct. Even in Matthew 7, Jesus tells us to take the plank out of our own eye, so we can see clearly to help someone else take the speck out of their eye. That scripture is about hypocrisy – judging others without admitting our own faults. If it wasn’t about hypocrisy, I believe the scriptures immediately following it about not throwing our pearls to swine would be contradictory. I was once a Christian Nationalist, and I worked hard to take that plank out of my eye. I’m writing about my plank removing journey, in the hope that my clearer vision will allow me to help others take the speck out of their eyes. In addition, 1 Corinthians 5:12 tells us not to judge the world or we’d have to leave the world, but only to judge sin in the church. I hope writing about my plank removing journey will encourage churches who judge the world, while ignoring the sins within their walls - such as resorting to lies when the world control they're trying to gain slips from their grasp - to remove the planks from their eyes and leave the world alone like this scripture instructs us to do. My plank removing journey began when I recognized the negative impact being involved in politics was having on religion. This recognition was solidified when I was told it was acceptable to Lie for the Lord if that’s what was required to meet our political agendas. I immediately understood that God is NOT the one who is considered the Father of Lies in my faith, so if we’re lying, can it be God’s agenda we’re pushing? This recognition began in childhood when a few Christian writers, who mostly reached audiences who shared their confirmation bias, and word of mouth was how the lies were spread. Therefore, the majority of the harm was done to those who were brainwashed into feeling the impact of shame, guilt, ostracism, scapegoating, etc. when they didn’t meet the denomination’s expectations. Those lies didn’t have the impact the internet and social media have given them. Following are three of many possible examples of lies we were told during that pre-internet time. I’m sharing them to emphasize the mindsets that might support a book like “Christian Manifesto,” as well as to share the epiphanies and steps that allowed me to recover from those mindsets. I hope sharing that part of my journey will help others who are experiencing doubt. 1 - We were told that rock and roll music was an instrument of Satan, and if we didn’t believe that, playing records backwards would allow us to hear his hidden messages. Someone I shared this belief with had figured out how to play records backwards. They flipped the needle cartridge on a record player upside down, placed the middle of the record on an ashtray on the turntable, and played the record from the bottom side. He used this knowledge to play a record backwards for me, and it didn’t have any more of a Satanic message than the drunk driver I’d watched recite the alphabet backwards on a television show the previous evening. I lacked sufficient indoctrination to allow me to ignore the obvious. I questioned why the leaders in our denomination thought God needed smoke and mirrors to get his message across. 2 - We were told that left-handed people were Satanic. When I shared this with someone with more Biblical knowledge, they asked me why God had sent left-handed Ehud to help the Israelites in Judges Chapter 3. Ehud was left handed, so he stored his sword on an unexpected side of his body, which allowed him to bring it into the temple, slay King Ehron and begin a process that allowed the Israelites to live in peace for 80 years. Once again, I lacked sufficient indoctrination to allow me to ignore the obvious. Continued research allowed me to understand that the Bible doesn’t condemn left-handed people. I questioned why the leaders in our denomination felt we had to change or exclude people who were different instead of seeking to understand them. 3 - We were told that we should only date and marry within our own race. The pastor quoted 2 Corinthians 6:14 as the basis for this belief. When I read that scripture, I saw it said not to be yoked with unbelievers. When I questioned this, I was told that only white people were believers, because we were God’s chosen race. I lacked sufficient indoctrination to allow me to ignore the obvious when I met non-white Christians and when I learned that Jesus, being born in the Middle East, wasn’t white. I questioned why the leaders distorted scriptures to create a false white superiority. In addition to these lies that emphasized our denomination’s and sister denomination’s doctrines, I remember the first conspiracy theory I heard. It also emphasizes the mindsets that might support a book like “Christian Manifesto” or the conspiracy theories that have spread like wildfire on social media. Pastors told us it was a sin for mother’s to use disposable diapers. They said large corporations and the government were chemically treating them to sterilize male Christian babies in an attempt to annihilate Christianity. Facing my doubts in the previous three examples made me less prone to believe this. Enough time has passed that I’ve witnessed young men who wore disposable diapers in infancy growing up and siring babies. This makes me question why our denomination’s leaders created false persecution conspiracy theories. I’m more likely to see persecution coming from that denomination in the three examples I gave. Could it be that those who are able to persecute see themselves in others? It wasn’t easy to question these and other Lies for the Lord. I was shamed, ostracized, scapegoated and punished for questioning the obvious. My husband helped me understand that many people hold to cognitive dissonance as a way to avoid uncomfortable mental conflicts that arise when their worldviews are threatened by new information. Here is a link to an article that explains cognitive dissonance: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-cognitive-dissonance-2795012#:~:text=The%20term%20cognitive%20dissonance%20is,feelings%20of%20unease%20or%20discomfort. Apparently, I was a person who took the rare path of accepting the new information to relieve my mental discomfort. I want to assure anyone reading this that accepting new information is an option; you don’t have to cling to cognitive dissonance. If your experience is anything like mine, accepting new information can improve your life over time. I lost people I love, but I gained people who love me unconditionally - I no longer have to worry about being shamed or ostracized for having my own thoughts. I escaped a denomination that placed heavy burdens on people’s backs without doing anything to relieve them, like Jesus chastised the Pharisees for doing in Matthew 23:4, and found a denomination that is much more successful at emulating Christ. I chose short-term difficulties while I faced my cognitive dissonance, and that saved me from living an entire life of difficulties. Since we were told Lying for the Lord was okay, I’m going to freely use the word lie. The Bible tells us to watch out for false prophets and wolves in sheep’s clothing. This is stated in several places, but I’ll use Matthew 7:15-23 as an example, because those verses tell us that we'll know these dangerous types by their fruits. Is lying a good fruit? I chose examples from my pre-internet childhood for this post, because I hope older examples that have lost their grasp on current culture will increase logical thought around the ones that still retain that grasp. In my next blog post, I’ll talk about current examples that have a much broader reach in our internet and social media society.