Friday, May 22, 2009

Churches Mocking God? Part 2

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Galatians 6:7-8 KJV

In part 1, the focus was on how some churches are mocking God by trying to make husbands and wives reap what they did not sow. Abused wives are encouraged to reap the evil and corruption their husbands have sown, and abusive husbands are protected so that they will reap the harvest of blessing their wives are told to sow. God is not fooled by this.

But what about those church leaders and their supporting congregations? How does the law of sowing and reaping affect them?

First, what are they sowing? Oppression, injustice, heartlessness, lack of mercy and compassion, reversing the truth, holding the innocent accountable for another’s guilt.

So if they reap what they have sown, we would expect them to reap oppression, injustice, being held accountable for another’s guilt, harsh treatment.

But first, lets see if we are taking the verses of sowing and reaping out of context. Are there other scriptures that say the same or similar things?

Isaiah 5:20, 24 & 25 says “Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!...Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. Therefore is the anger of the LORD kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them…”

And Isaiah 58 indicates God won’t even hear the prayer or see the fasting of those who abuse others. He says in 58:6-7, “Is not this the fast I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?”

There are plenty of scriptures that indicate God expects His people to evaluate and discern rightly, to set the oppressed free. Yet, by refusing to hold the abuser accountable, by blaming the wronged person, and by refusing to allow the wronged person to be freed from her oppression and to support her in that freedom, the church leaders and congregations are actively opposing God’s principles, blessing the evil-doer, and in the process mocking God’s law of sowing and reaping.

Are they reaping what they sowed? I suggest they are beginning to. These churches have high numbers in the anti-abortion, anti-same-sex marriage, and taxed enough already crowd, and the current president and those in his administration have referred to them as extremists and has alerted those in law enforcement to consider them as possible terrorists, while the real terrorists are referred to as poor souls who simply need to be listened to and understood.

Sound familiar? Aren’t some churches referring to abusers as poor souls, while they reproach those who are bullied and terrorized by their husbands?

In response to President Barack Obama’s speech to the Europeans, saying that the U.S. has been "arrogant, derisive and divisive,” (basically referring to the actions of the Bush administration which these churches largely supported) Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson says, “It's troubling that the President is uttering these lies about a nation he has sworn to lead and protect.” And haven’t husbands vowed to love and cherish their wives? And don't pastors vow to lead their congregations? What a parallel job description for those who either swear or vow! And both abusers, pastors, and president have not only failed to uphold their commitments, they put the blame for their own sin on others.

Again, those who adhere to the laws of God when it comes to abortion and marriage, are being blamed for being “arrogant, derisive and divisive.” These terms are very similar to the terms that both abusive husband and his church use against abused women—they are said to try to rule the roost, to not submit to their husbands, to be like Jezebel and rebel against God.

Beware! God is not mocked. Consider Matthew 7:17-20 “Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”

Jesus is using fruit trees as a metaphor for a person’s spiritual condition. The corruption that abusers and their churches that bless them are committing, suggests that they are capable of bringing forth evil fruit. That means they are in danger of being “hewn down and cast into the fire.” I take that to mean Hell fire.

“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel" Please visit www.wanetadawn.com

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Churches Mocking God? Part 1

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.” Galatians 6:7-8 KJV

These verses jumped out at me when I read them. According to these verses abusive husbands are sowing to their flesh and reaping corruption, but many churches today are mocking God. How? By trying to make a person reap what he or she did not sow.

When an abused wife goes to her pastor for help and he tells her to go home and submit more, pray more, but does nothing to hold the man who sowed to his flesh accountable, he (or she) is mocking God. And usually the pastor has the support of the whole church group. Because of the pastor’s emphasis on wife submission and disregard for the directive to husbands to love their wives self-sacrificially like Christ loved the church, the pastor and his congregation helps the person who has sown to his flesh to reap kindness and life for the corruption he has sown. But the wife, who has sown kindness, good faith, and forgiveness, reaps the evil that her husband has sown. Their children often reap the corruption the abuser has sown, too. This corruption, this toxic poison that corrupts a person often shows up as illness, as inability to do well in school, an inability to accomplish much in life.

God is not fooled by the pastors trying to put the wrong harvest on the wrong person. The abuser will still reap corruption, in spite of the church holding the wrong person accountable. And the life the wife reaps is often an early death. Isn’t it ironic that some churches fight the killing of unborn babies, but support the drawn-out destruction that leads to the eventual killing of wives and children? First of their spirits, and then of their bodies.

What corruption does the abuser reap? His wife and children cannot trust him, and often don't believe him. They have to deceive him at times just to escape his irrational rage. He ends up with more doctor bills as his wife and children develop more sicknesses and chronic diseases or syndromes. A side-effect he is totally unaware of is that his wife and children are more accident-prone. They are more likely to accidentally break things because part of their attention always has to be on the lookout for the monster in their lives, and that, too, costs him more money. And as he goes deeper and deeper into sin, he may eventually reap trouble from the law of the land.

So how does the law of sowing and reaping affect pastors and their churches who try to make sure the abuser reaps good from his evil? I’ll discuss that in the next post.


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel" Please visit www.wanetadawn.com

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Book Signing Day, Part 2

After the signing, I shopped at a small Mom and Pop establishment, and thought I’d offer the proprietor my novel, "Behind the Hedge," as a gift because she had been so good to me over the years, and because I had heard from several sources that there was un-dealt-with domestic violence in her denomination, too. The store owner said she had read about my novel in the newspaper and was not interested. She wanted to live by the Bible. She wasn’t interested in the teaching of people, and the way she said it, I gathered that she meant something along the lines of “the teaching of rebellious women.” I replied that I, too, thought living by the Bible was important, and that I thought with her work putting her in contact with many people, she would be in a key position to know about domestic abuse, so that she could help those who needed help.

She repeated that all anyone had to do was read and obey the Bible, and Jesus said divorce is not acceptable. I pointed out that the problem is that people seem to think the Bible focus is on ‘wives submit’ and they usually do not put nearly as much emphasis on ‘husbands love self-sacrificially’ (my paraphrase for loving as Christ loved the church). She said she hears both sides in sermons at their church.

I agreed that we hear both sides, but that the ‘woman submit’ side is emphasized, and that most of the time marital problems are blamed on the woman. She did not think this was so and replied that God had commanded Eve that her husband was to rule over her. I said, that was not a command, it was a prophecy because of sin; we would not want to promote sin.

She still thought if the woman submits, her husband would not abuse her, and that if a woman submits out of love her behavior would bring her husband to Christ. I told her that abused women are more submissive than most women, and that it is very rare for abusive men to come to Christ because of the submission of their wives. Usually the abusive man becomes even more abusive in response to his wife’s submission. Even with non-physical abuse, the woman is on super alert trying to make sure all is as her husband wants, so that he has no reason to get angry, (I acted out a woman looking this way and that, trying so desperately to make sure all danger was alleviated) and then he pounces from a completely different direction. She ends up getting panic attacks because of his threatening, fear-generating behavior and her constant effort to be so perfect.

I pointed out that the church gets the cart before the horse and tells women that their submission will bring forth love from their husbands, but that the Bible says the husband’s loving self-sacrifice comes first. We don’t love Christ first, and then He dies to sacrifice for us. It’s the other way around, ‘We love Him because He first loved us.”

She simply did not want to be persuaded and kept bringing up reason after reason as to why a man’s abusive behavior was his wife’s fault. She said if a woman makes sure a man loves the Lord and has her parents blessing in her choice before she marries him, he would not abuse her. I answered that abuse does happen, because the man goes out of his way to deceive her and her family into thinking he is a nice man and a wonderful Christian before they marry.

I went on to say that even if a woman made a mistake and her life was a mess because she married a non-Christian and didn’t have her parent’s blessing, that did not mean she had to stay in a marriage where she would either end up dead or insane, and where the children were in danger, too.

At some point in the conversation I pointed out that contrary to her statement that wives were not always the ones blamed, her arguments were always blaming the wife. I tried to end the conversation as peacefully as I could, saying how difficult it is for me to trust men because of this tendency to deceive, and asking if she had a loving considerate husband. She did, and I commented that she is so blessed. I don’t know why I added that it bothered me that even husbands that appear to be nice often make decisions that are at their wife’s expense.

On the way home I felt like I was in shock. How could an offer to give a gift end up with such a blame-the-abused-wife conversation? As I recalled the details, I wished I had remembered to tell her that the man my parents and siblings wanted me to date became a Christian when he was in jail. They told me he had such a wonderful testimony. I wanted nothing to do with him, since I had dated a man like that once and did not want to deal with that again. The man I dated ended up beating his wife, and the man my family wanted me to date ended up becoming an alcoholic and abusing his wife. Last I heard, the first couple is divorced and the second is separated. So contrary to the woman’s belief, marrying a man who loved the Lord and who had my parents blessing, had no guarantee of marital bliss, nor of the absence of abuse.

But this conversation, plus the ones referred to in part one, gave me a very good glimpse into the huge amount of work that is yet to be done. Indeed, blaming the wife for her husband’s abusive behavior—even if one has to blame her for marrying him—is alive and well. Even churches who claim to oppose domestic violence, often secretly blame the victims of abuse and isolate them by refusing to be close and supportive friends, and by avoiding the topic of domestic violence as much as possible.


Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge, A novel" Please visit www.wanetadawn.com