(ARTICLE): 5 phrases Christians shouldn’t say

Sometimes I curse.  I don’t pepper my language liberally with curse words like people might pepper a house salad, but sometimes I curse.

It surprises people to hear that pastors sometimes curse.  But really, that’s all I can do sometimes.  When you see terrible tragedy where you have absolutely no response other than sadness and despair, cursing happens…because you can do nothing else.

Likewise, sometimes when I see utter beauty a word will slip through my lips, brought from the very depths of my emotional being where words live only to be used in situations where no word seems appropriate.  Usually that’s a curse, too.

Pastors sometimes curse.  Christians sometimes curse.

And, really, I hear things slip from Christian mouths with reckless abandon that I believe are far worse than curse words.  Here are just 5 (there are undoubtedly more):

5) “That’s not Christian…”

I’ve heard this a lot.  I once told a person that I meditated.  They responded, “Well, that’s not Christian you know…”

Sigh.

See, the problem with that line of thinking is that it narrows what can be identified with living a life in Christ.  Rob Bell does a great job in his book Velvet Elvis on dissecting the danger in turning the word “Christian” from a noun (as it’s used in the Bible) into an adjective. In the noun form, a Christian is a follower of Christ.  In the adjective form, it describes an action…presumably an action that a follower of Christ should/shouldn’t do, and therefore sets up categories that have definite barriers. And in doing so, it implies some judgment that is unwarranted at best and untrue at worst.  Consider these phrases that I’ve actually heard:

“It’s not Christian to fire that person.” (Implication: A Christian can’t do some things because they’re seen as “mean”)

“It’s not Christian to think those sexual thoughts.” (Implication: A Christian isn’t sexual, or if they are, they don’t think about it because God hates sex and real Christians can control such things)

“You can’t do yoga!  It’s not a Christian practice…” (Implication: A Christian can’t borrow from other faith traditions…or, apparently, stretch with intentional breathing on rubber mats)

“You can’t get a tattoo; it’s unchristian to defile the temple of God.” (Implication: God has an opinion about the tribal band around your ankle)

People say it all the time, and while a generous interpretation of their words might be to assume they are calling a specific action/thought into question, the reality is that they just end up calling the person doing that thought/action “unchristian”…to hurtful consequences.  For those questioning or skeptical of faith, it erects another barrier, and further narrowly defines who is in or out of a relationship with God.

What if someone were to say, “It’s unchristian to make that amount of money”? Or, “It’s unchristian to have a house that large because you really don’t need that much space”?

We should ban “Christian” in the adjective form.  We can’t use it with any consistency.

4) “I love the sinner but I hate the sin..”

Great.

See, the problem that I have with this phrase is that it assumes that “sin” is a specific action that is done/can be undone.  If that’s the case, name the specific action that you hate.

“I love you, Tommy, but I don’t like it when you break my glasses.”  “I love you, Sarah, but I don’t like it when you kick my shins.”

But really, I haven’t heard this phrase used in those ways.  I’ve only heard it used when people are talking about identity.

“I love gay people, I just hate that they act on their homosexual orientation…”

There we go.  There’s an honest statement.

And an unhelpful one.

It’s unhelpful because, you can’t love me apart from my sexuality.  I really don’t think you can.  It’s part of what makes me who I am, even if it’s not the whole of my definition.  So, if you were to say to me, “I love you, but I hate that you’re heterosexual…” I would probably stop listening right then and there because, well, I wouldn’t believe you.

You can’t love me and yet hate an essential part of me.  This phrase is disingenuous.

3) “You need to surround yourself with some good Christian people…“

I once had a well-meaning friend tell me this when I was trying to sort out a problem.  I think they were suggesting that I seek faith-based advice.  I understand that sentiment.

But one of the problems with this sort of thinking is that, well, when you live in a bubble all you breathe is soapy air, and you may begin to think that is all there is.

As a pastor, people want me to have office hours at church.  But in all seriousness, I can’t all the time.  If I don’t go to the coffee house a couple times a week, I suffocate in my bubble.  I need diversity because it is only in diversity where my thoughts, beliefs,  and ideas are challenged.

And really, if I only see Christians all the time, I’m a pretty crappy pastor.

It is narrow to believe that somehow surrounding yourself with only one worldview will help you see the world better.

And besides, sometimes Christians surrounded people and then burned them on stakes…

2) “You just have to do God’s will…”

I am utterly suspicious of people who claim to know the specific will of God.

I’m even more suspicious of people who claim that God’s greatest wish is to have us be in a relationship with God.  I think this is where much “praise and worship” music get it’s singular focus.

In the abstract, I get what they’re saying.  I think God does desire for humanity to live in shalom with it’s creator.  But to claim that this will takes precedence over God’s desire to have humanity live in shalomwith one another, and with the environment, and with other creation is, I think, short-sighted.  Theology runs into a similar problem when it focuses so much on “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus” and fails to mention the other persons of the Trinity.

We run into real problems when we begin to think that with regard to specific situations (like, say, my future husband/wife) that God has one will.

I cannot see how that can be true.  I love my wife.  But do I think she’s the only person in the world I could have married?  Do I think that I’m the only person in the world she could have married?  No.  I don’t.  She’s bright, beautiful, and funny.  There are lots of people who would have asked her to marry them (and still might…she’ll just have to say “no”).  Likewise I’m beautiful and funny (jury is out on the “bright”), and could have found another partner.

I just found her and we decided to do this. (It was actually much more complicated than that…and a bit more romantic…)

I hope this gives some freedom to those in the world who believe that there is only one right job, one right spouse, one right school, one right anything that they must find or else they’re missing out on God’s will for their life.

And this leads me to the number one…

1) “It’s all in God’s plan…”

That you lost your baby.  That your sister was murdered.  That you got cancer.  That your life is in shambles.

I really can’t think of a worse thing to say to someone, especially when they’re in pain.

We cannot use God to fill in the gaps between events and the people they effect.  We want to give solace, to promise that there is a purpose behind madness, but if there is one thing that the cross shows us definitively, it’s that God takes the pain in the world and makes resurrection.

But we should not think that this means that God makes the world’s pain, or the specific pain in a person’s life.  It’s an important distinction.

One of the reasons I left faith for a while was because I had heard too many times that God was flipping switches on people: causing children to die, cancer to spread, poverty to happen, etc.

Not only do I think that saying this to someone is adding hurt to hurt, I think it breaks the second commandment.  When we say such things, we use God’s name in vain; we use it “uselessly” as the word is better translated.

So when you’re confronted with the news of your friend’s tragedy or a relative’s pain, stand in solidarity with them and scream, “Dammit!” I’m a reluctant Christian at times because I think that those who call themselves Christian don’t think enough about their words.

Frankly, I wish they’d just curse more.

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Read full article at Reluctant Xtian

(WOW): Woman Delivered Of 25 Months Pregnancy

If you describe Mrs Oluwakemi Adeoye as the Biblical Deborah, you won’t be mistaken. She told TAIWO OLANREWAJU how she got a revelation and the names of her baby three days after marriage but did not see the manifestation until 14 years after.

Oluwakemi was born into a Baptist family and is very conversant with the word of God. Maybe her greatest assets are that she truly believes in God.

Fortunately also, her husband, Gbenga, belongs to the same Baptist denomination. She and her spouse are from Abeokuta, Ogun State. Their positions in their various families, however, before coming together in holy matrimony on Saturday, April 3rd 1999, seemed to add to the pressure of the need to have children soon after marriage.

Mrs Adeoye is the third of five children, but the first daughter while her husband, Mr Olugbenga Adeoye, is the first of six children and the only son. His five sisters are happily married and blessed with children.

Being a child that was brought up strictly with Christian doctrines, Mrs Adeoye, a graduate of the University of Jos, knew that she would have a baby, more so as God, according to her, had revealed to her in a vision that she would have a baby and gave her the names of the baby on April 6th, 1999, three days after her wedding.

Having met when Oluwakemi was in Form Four, and Gbenga in the polytechnic and had courted for 15 years, both understood each other and did not take the issue of not having a baby immediately after marriage too seriously.

It was not until the fifth year that they considered it a challenge and decided to seek medical and spiritual assistance. They were invited to churches for prayers. Their parents, especially Pa and Ma Adeoye, invited them to meet with pastors who ministered in their church, especially during special programmes. For a while, Mrs Adeoye attended deliverance programme of a church at Aremo area of Ibadan and was also invited by a colleague at work to attend God’s Voice Ministry programmes at Alakia area of Ibadan.

Her words: “I went to God’s Voice Ministry in September 2010 and I had menstruated that month. So, the woman in charge said I should wait till I see my menstruation in October to enable her to know my ovulation period. Alas! My menstruation refused to come that October.

“I visited big hospitals, mission hospitals and privately owned hospitals in Ibadan and they all said I was not pregnant. I had urine and blood tests including scan tests but they all turned out negative,” she revealed.

In December, however, Madam Evangelist Oluwasola, asked her to have a special test in her laboratory wherein the red blood cells were separated from the white blood cells, and that was it – the result revealed that she was pregnant. But by January 15th, 2011, she started bleeding and when she prayed, God told her that nobody could query Him and that the issue was long concluded, she would have a child.

By May 2011, she had bought all her baby things although she did not know the sex of the baby because God did not show her, so she bought unisex materials. She was becoming fatter but her tummy was not too big. By July 2011, she had contractions, felt the baby’s movement but the hospitals declared that there was no baby in her tummy. In fact, a particular doctor told her that her fatness was obesity cum menopausal sign.
She sought spiritual assistance when she wrote Pastor Enoch Adeboye in September 2011 and he replied her through a SMS that she would soon share her testimony.

Mrs Adeoye became an object of ridicule when the baby refused to come in spite of the change in her physique but she was not bothered. By January 2012, she contemplated having a surgery to bring the baby out. She prayed and God gave her the go-ahead, warning her, however, that the doctors would be reluctant to carry out the surgery as there was no scan or test result to back the surgery. And so it was.

But as from March 2012, she had her menstruation regularly. Friends invited him and his wife to visit America, get some medication from India, consider remarrying or adopting a baby, but in it all, he was not led to take to any of the options because he believed they had not exploited all options.

His parents were constantly falling sick and he knew it was because of the issue. So, he advised them to put all their hope in God to behold the miracle as he was certain that God would bless them with children.

Mrs Adeoye menstruated till January 2013 and vomited everyday in January till she had the baby on January 15th in the night at the mission house.
“The delivery, though painful, was simple. I was not in labour for too long before I had the baby, may be three to five minutes and the baby came, a girl. And we christened her Emmanuela, Opelope-Jesu, Ite-Oluwa-kii-si Adeoye,” the new mother stated.

Mrs Adeoye, who noted that there was no rancour between her and her husband or her in-laws throughout their challenging period, urged all Christians to put their hope in God, adding “Whether you win or whether you lose, God is God. No matter how good or bad your situation, it will not change the fact that God is God. You cannot push God and He has no second in command.