‘Hey, how nice to see you again!’ It was somewhere in 1999, Gerco and I were on a holiday in the Netherlands and visiting the church we used to go to before we moved abroad. The guy asked the 3 polite questions: ‘How are you? Good, how nice. Where do you live again? Warsaw? Aren’t the winters cold there?’ to continue talking about an uncle or next-door neighbour who had been there one time and then smoothly move on to what would be the main subject: Talk about himself and in this case about all the miracles God had done in the church in the past year that we weren’t there. You see, special things had happened; people had been healed, fallen in the Spirit and on and on. His cup was full and he got a refill every Sunday, you know with the sinful world sucking it empty during the week and all…
I was starting to feel a bit uneasy and his last remark really dealt the blow: ‘What a pity that you weren’t here, you have totally missed God working and the Toronto blessing!’
Let’s go back a few years earlier. I’m attending a wedding of a good friend and am sitting at a round table with next to me his 20-year old, don’t-need-to-do-bible school-because-God-tells-me-directly-what-to-do pastor and a very young, newly wed couple who are discussing what decisions they should make career wise. Should they continue studying or start working? I had always been asking these questions myself and was very curious about the advice the pastor would give, who knows if it would help me. Well, this is what it said:
‘Hmm, have I already spoken some prophecies about it?’
Now fast forward to last Sunday. I went to an international church in Rotterdam. I like going there now and then, it reminds me of the church I used to go to in Skopje. What a surprise to meet somebody I knew from my home church years back. We said hi, again the 3 polite questions and soon continued talking about my parents.
Ten years ago, together with a lot of other people worldwide they stepped into a financial scheme, set up by former YWAM workers that would provide as a pension facilitator for missionaries. Well, as you can read in this post, it turned out to be a millions-of-euros sucking wormhole. To cut a long story short, my parents discovered it and brought it in the open and are still fighting to protect others from making the same mistake and bring the truth to light.
What makes everything much more complicated is that one of the inventors of this pyramid, with a construction the ancient Egyptians would be envious of, is closely connected to my former home church. And quite a lot of people there are upset with my parents for bringing the whole issue in the open, even though a number of them have lost a considerable amount of money as well! But back to the conversation: I never enjoy talking about this issue and was getting slightly annoyed, but what really made me furious was the following question about my parents:
Has God spoken to you whether what they are doing is right?
Three different times and three different remarks that mark a certain tendency in religion that is utmost dangerous. I say religion, because I don’t think it is typically Christian.
The thought that God is only manifesting Himself with one specific group of people, or in one specific place, isolates a believer. It’s a double edged sword. Not only is it entrapping, it also shuts off from all the God-given wonderful people, things and thoughts outside and most of all, the needs of others, responsibility within society and care for the planet itself.
Furthermore, it puts God in a box. If we start to view God as a Being who only acts in one specific way, or only answers if we pray at a certain time and place, in a specific order or with some magic words, we condemn Him to not be involved in the lives of the millions of people who did not grow up with the same religious practices. The ones who lack the trust when times are too rough, the ones who are too sick to have faith, or too lonely to feel a Presence.
The tendency stimulates to trust a person to speak on behalf of God and make all the life decisions that each one is given to make themself. It is so easy to let somebody else be responsible for our lives. Even more so if that somebody tells you in detail how to do it, adding promises of fortune, riches and fame.
The majority of these ‘prophecies’ lack moral and ethic standards and are used to meet the needs of a very selected group of people. How different from the type of prophecies good old Elijah, Haggai, Micah or Jeremiah spoke out in their times. They called for a turn from religious practices to a life of love towards God and the needy. They suffered for justice, often under very weird circumstances by the way, and cried for all the pain that was inflicted on their people.
And last but not least, the tendency gives ample of opportunities to manipulate and abuse. And I could give you enough examples of when that has happened. I’ve seen people end up in psychiatrical hospitals, others being octracised from communities they had been part of their entire lives. The twenty-year-old pastor now lives the life of a king in Kenya while his ‘servants’ are paying off their financial and emotional debts.
‘Absolutely ridiculous’ a non-believer would say. Thinking about the way I have come to know God through the Bible, in my life, the life of others, the Polish people in 1999 included, I can only say:
It’s blasphemous.