The Great "Falling Away"

OK, here's a religious-related post for the lot of you, before you think I'm never going to say anything spiritual again (I know, it's been a while, but that's what sometimes happens when you're simply resting. You just end up with not much to say in the religious line).

I've been doing a lot of un-learning lately. Rethinking what I grew up believing, comparing it to what I know now, and aligning my considerably-fewer beliefs into a compacted little row. There is much I could write about with regard to what exactly I've unlearnt, and perhaps sometime I will.

But allow me to talk about just one.

When I was little, we learnt that there would be a "great falling away" before Jesus' second coming. That church pews would empty out as people rejected God and polarized into the "saved" and the "unsaved". The entire picture was based on bums in seats, not taking into consideration personal (yet outside church walls) spirituality.

Repercussions from that one have left me wondering if I've "fallen away" - if that belief is right or if there's actually a whole other meaning to it. And I think it's the latter.

I think it's more about living/believing than saying/attending. And an incident yesterday just augmented this for me.

I stopped by my mechanic's place to book the car in for brake pad replacement, and got chatting to his wife. Their family have had a few run-in's with the local church recently. First, they were lambasted for attempting to gather those who had left/been pushed out of the congregation, to start a new group of like-minded folk who wanted to worship together but couldn't go back to this particular group. You'd think the church would be glad that someone was looking after the needs of these lost-feeling people! Right? Wrong. The administrative head came down on them like a ton of bricks. More recently, they've questioned some long-held beliefs during cell group. They've pointed out that these beliefs may not, in fact, be Biblical. Next week, who should turn up but the pastor, his (pastor) sons and the administrative head - to check up on what they're doing. They were basically asked to recant or leave (sound a bit like poor old Martin Luther at all?). And then the pastor put the final nail in the coffin. He preached a sermon full of ridicule against other denominations, certain authors (throwing one of their books on the ground and stamping on it) and all those who didn't see things the way he did. It shocked a whole lot of people, and I was horrified when I heard it. Some folk say they're only going to go back to church when the pastor starts hearing from God again....

Which is why I'm rethinking the whole "falling away" story.

Could it be that we've been looking at the wrong type of falling away? Could it be that God is calling bums out of pews to a richer life with Him? Or that it's more a cementing of true belief and living that out, than turning your back on an institutional church and no longer attending? Could the persecution for our faith come from within the church instead of outside it - a "damning" by the authorities for daring to question or see things differently?

I'm sure (I know!) there are sincere saints still in the pews, who will fight tooth and nail for their belief and their God. I'm equally sure there are sincere saints OUTSIDE the church-as-insitution. And I'm starting to believe that more will "fall away" and yet still stay in the pews than will physically leave. We may not see an emptying of churches, but we might see an emptying of lives - a polarization of those who merely talk the talk vs those who walk the walk.

If I've learnt anything in the past few years, it's that sometimes we get the wrong end of the stick, and that there are certain things that deserve a re-looking at. There are also some aspects of faith that don't need to be nit-picked - and perhaps none of us have the answers to. We can agree to disagree on much that is currently argued over, in favour of rather living out our faith and embracing those around us. Perhaps I'm becoming too tolerant of those who see things differently to me - a "universalist"? Maybe. But I would rather find God in them than, in my mortal capacity, attempt to damn them to hell (literal or figurative).

I have fallen away from mere pew-warming, yes. But I continue to find myself falling further toward God in spite of this - and not away from Him.