Atheist becomes a member of a church
An interesting move by a presbyterian church to allow an atheist to become a member of their church.
The Austin Chronicle: News: Church Fight:
“Rigby and Jensen first became acquainted over lunch a few years ago, not long after Jensen’s 9/11 hubbub. Rigby invited him to visit the church. As Jensen became more active in political and spiritual discussions with members, Rigby said he noticed a growing exchange of ideas among parishioners. “I witnessed a vibrancy within the community,” he said. “It was never an issue of converting him, but an appreciation of what the communities could do together.” While St. Andrew’s opens its doors to free thinkers, atheists, and the GLBT community, other Presbyterian churches seek to turn the institution into a gated community, Rigby observed. “To me, faith is in the questions, not the answers.”
This is a controversial example of something that I was talking about yesterday when presenting at the virtual church conference. It is one Church’s attempts to break down the walls - I am not comfortable myself with an atheist becoming a member of a Church as I think it means that you end up not standing for anything.
At Northern we would definitely welcome an atheists involvement in the mission of the Church. In fact we do - with some of our people involved in foodbank, emergency food, opportunity shop and the gardening and maintenance side being people who are not believers. For us it is about creating spaces for belonging before belief.
People of this type are very much seen as a part of our church. However, for membership (which means voting rights on assets and leadership) we would hold that belief is important.
What do you think?
June 30th, 2006 at 11:16 am
I guess it depends what membership entitles you to. If membership just means you can write letters to the church hierachy asking for things to change, then its not a big deal. If it means you can vote on everything then more care needs to be taken.
June 30th, 2006 at 11:29 am
I will need more space to think this through …
Sound good, but are they really “Members” in the sense that they belong to the Body of Christ … or are they really ‘prospective members’.
The answer will be in how we define “Membership” to the Church.
Perhaps there are different categories of Membership.
June 30th, 2006 at 11:36 am
What do I think? If we’re using the conventional model of what membership means and entitles a member to, then I think you’re right.
I’m glad that this church are open to at least receiving atheists… makes a pleasant change from the alternative… but I like your own stance at Northern, and I think it’s one we echo down in our little corner of paradise.
LF - good point, and also one that deserves further discussion, probably away from an actual example as illustrated. It might need to be discussed at a proper ‘concept’ level 1st, so as not to create polarisation for the sake of it.
Love your work!
June 30th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Obviously it isn’t a church.
We must evangelise to atheists or more accurately agnostics however even a cursory red of the N/T would find that the church is exclusively for Christians.
June 30th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
Oh, obviously.
June 30th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
thats the way BBEP@LP circle the wagons and don’t let them in… those non-christians are all going to burn in hell
be more specific - ive read the new testament many times… where does it say the church is for christians?
the church IS christians and under that guise well yes you cant become a member of the Christian family unless you are a Christian, but that is not how you read as you say the church is FOR Christians as though it is a separate entity…
anyone is free to join our ‘church’ organisation… as for the body of Christ - we don’t make that decision.. Christ does
July 1st, 2006 at 11:50 am
All Christians, inside the institutional church or out of it, are part of the body of Christ. “The Church” is also an institution / organisation in the modern context with particular systems of governance… which is the issue under discussion here.
When that system involves voting rights, I suppose in extreme cases a small church could be overrun by athiests or satanists or some kind of mischeivous group if that church had no “spiritual” criteria for membership… this group could even vote for church closure. Or the undermining of the direction of the church could be more subtle.
Of course, those who make orthodox professions of faith may have a mischeivous agenda also… there have been plenty of schisms in churches as a result of toxic “Christians”.
July 1st, 2006 at 12:24 pm
abtruth,
perhaps another read of Romans 11, branches, grating, holy and all that sort of thing,
perhaps cogitate on how one could encourage,edify another brother or sister when they aren’t, perhaps think about why warnings of false teachers is a recurring topic in the N/T perhaps give a thought why both Israel and Judah were allowed to be conquered.
July 1st, 2006 at 2:47 pm
“I take the Lord’s name in vain rather a lot. Both as a cursive, in general conversation, and attacking extreme right wing fuckholes that have distorted the message of Christ - like Pat Robertson or the Hillsong folk. Ditto those in Islam that claim the Koran gives you the moral go ahead to kill innocents. And ditto the Catholic Church that thinks somehow God will be angry if you didn’t give HIV to someone because you wore a rubber.
However that being said I have immense respect for anyone that holds a faith dear to their heart. Be they Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, or even Athiest. If you take the time and effort to understand, practice, and revere your faith in a loving, caring manner then you are a far worthier person than me.
I got a tad worried I could have potentially offended some kewl friends that read this blog on occasion so sent them an email about it. Their response?
You know what I (we) value greatly? What I love about you in particular? Honesty. What you see is what you get. Well thought through, wity, low or high brow… all real. 100% grade A quality meat with no artificial flavours or preservatives… I am not(and am yet to be) offended. I would only be offended if you censored yourself in front of me. I am however flattered to be called true believer’s… it is (He is) the love and passion of my life.
What a kewl response. And that’s exactly what faith should be. Don’t be offended by what people say about what you believe when it comes to faith - because how should that impact on what you believe? If you hold your faith true in your heart then dickheads like me making crucifixion or suicide bomber jokes should not phase you. Besides, that says far more about me than it does about the target of said religious humour.
I am a lapsed Christian. I was raised in the church and for the most part had a reasonable experience with it. But I identified being a Christian with enforced religion at a private school and unpleasant memories from being a fatty socially retarded geek in a Christian youth group made of popular pretty types (”my precious”). And I found sermons to be boring - and offensive on occasion because I felt the criticized me unfairly.
Yep, I am pretty egotistical huh? It’s all about me.
But I miss that glow you had when you believed. When you knew that no matter what happens in this life, if you believe and your heart is true, then a better life was for you in the hereafter. I miss that greatly especially since I have a morbid fear of death.
Maybe I will go back someday? I’m not ruling it out. I know one thing though. Friends who truly turn the other cheek when it comes to stuff like this make it far more likely that I would.”
From http://harrangueman.blogspot.com/2006/06/cause-i-gotta-have-faith-faith-faith.html
July 1st, 2006 at 10:42 pm
Wow Lance that’s a mind blower.
What do atheists actually think/do when they participate in a church. Why do they participate at all?? If it is from a heartfelt desire to do something for those who are worse off, perhaps it is God speaking to them without them really knowing it.
Can there really be a place, in a gathering of people who believe in God and Jesus, of those who outwardly profess that “there is no God”.
Whatever good deeds they may do, doesn’t mean they are acceptable to Goc.
Hard to digest for some I guess, but the truth is, that a person’s works are like ‘dirty rags” and don’t really account to anything. It is by faith (and God’s grace} that we are saved.
Some church’s bottom line seems to be the almighty dollar, others do a token gesture to the poor/sick/disadvantaged, in order to maintain a Christian façade.
If a person shows compassion and a kind heart, I guess it doesn’t really matter what they call themselves, but having shown such fruits of the spirit, it would certainly benefit them to know where these feelings come from.
July 2nd, 2006 at 7:14 am
Do you really think Atheists are going to take over the church. Come on. This is typical American thinking, next it will be the communists
July 2nd, 2006 at 12:00 pm
No, it’s extremely unlikely… I was musing in type… but perhaps churches that are governed by vote should have some kind of membership criteria?
July 2nd, 2006 at 11:39 pm
BBEP@LP “perhaps think about why warnings of false teachers is a recurring topic in the N/T…………..?
i think about this a lot … here let me name a few
Brian Houstan (you need more money… i was at hillsong when he was ‘healing people of diseases that they hadn’t contracted yet!)
Bobbie Houstan (there is so much need in our city.. you know, if you have nothing, you can actually do nothing about it. ((just like the ultra resourced John the Baptist, Jesus and those rich apostles))“We need to be good at sex ourselves so that if the world happens to come knocking we can tell the story of God in our lives,” )
Pat Mesiti (heard him encouraging young guys struggling with porn when he was paying for prostitutes)
Phil Pringle (”The stuff of God can actually live in your clothes. It can get in the carpet, it can get in your hair. The stuff of God, the anointing. This stuff can get into your body and heal it. This stuff can get into your bank account. Praise God, now we’re talking amen. I need some of that in my bank account. It’s imparted through the laying on of hands. It’s inside your body, when you lay hands on people it travels.”)
Joyce Meyer (where do we start?)
Reinhard Bonke (wow raised a guy from the dead!! pity it was one of his assoc and the death certificate was faked)
Rodney Howard Brown (toronto cursing)
Benny Hinn (Gods about 5′10″ - adam could fly - has really bad hair)
Kathryn Kuhlman (now she was freaky)
Steve Penny (God wants you to be rich)
Ed Traut (Christian fortune teller)
‘bishop’ (lol) TD Jakes (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3891)
K and G Copeland (see Joyce Meyer)
K Hagin (Grandaddy heretic)
Oral Roberts (went broke after ripping people off after a ‘vision’ of a 900 foot jesus, ‘God’s gonna take me home if i don’t get $8m)
Robert Schuller (”I don’t think anything has been done in the name of Christ and under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to human personality and, hence, counterproductive to the evangelism enterprise than the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition.” Time, March 18, 1985)
Bruce Wilkerson (prayer of Jabez - man o man)
Gene Edwards (wrote “the day i died by Jesus the Christ” self proclaimed apostle
David Yongi Cho (’God cannot do anything unless man cooperates with Him.’ Thus, he seriously undermines God’s sovereign will, power, and position.)
Peter Popoff (faith healer with a listening device)
Alan Meyer (doesn’t know the difference between exegesis an eisegesis,)
Phil Baker (http://www.christian-witness.org/pdf/penteMay05.pdf)
Charles Capps (Need something? Capps tells you how to acquire it. In an Occult spell casting style, he says, “For Material Needs Confess These Three Times a Day Until They’re Manifest,” (God’s Creative Power, p. 17).
*****and not an athiest amongst them yet some of the most dangerous men/women ever to breath down a microphone….
these wolves in sheeps clothing show just what a storm in a teacup the above article was….
July 3rd, 2006 at 10:20 am
I think that in churches that are hierachical (egs. Catholics, Anglicans) or where authority rests in “God’s anointed leader” (Pentecostal, some independent churches) the main challenge is to keep charlatans and morons out of leadership… I don’t think the criteria for membership matters as much there as it might in small churches with some kind of democratic governance (Baptists, Churches of Christ)… in such situations a relatively small group can make fundamental decisions about the church direction, leadership or property.
But you’re right Abtruth… nutty, influential leaders create a much bigger problem than an imagined rush of athiests into churches!
July 3rd, 2006 at 4:34 pm
it is very easy.
If you are in a ‘church’ which is ‘led’ by a false teacher you attempt to evict the false teacher, if unsuccessful you go to a church that is faithful to God!
July 3rd, 2006 at 9:59 pm
Its easy stay away from churches for a while and you realise just how wrong most of them are. You can spot them from a mile away. Do your homework always first. If they spend all their money on buildings it is about themselves not the needy is just one way to spot a church which has gone astray
July 4th, 2006 at 10:07 am
i agree John… once you have been hurt or had the hypocrisy exposed to you and you realise that the church leadership (read illsong and all its clones) are wearing the emporers new clothes - staying away and regrouping is a valuable thing … but i think only for a time…
i am now in a small congregation where i go, not for me but for them, to be some sort of navigator or watchman to help point people back to orthodoxy and expose the traps that can take people down the garden path… i expect fruitloops and bad teaching occasionally but have a good pastor who knows what i am upto and supports me.
July 5th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
BBEP@LP
you said
it is very easy.
If you are in a ‘church’ which is ‘led’ by a false teacher you attempt to evict the false teacher, if unsuccessful you go to a church that is faithful to God!
false teaching as in ‘you need more money’ teaching or ‘ill have what she’s having’ teaching…?
false teaching like what the honoured guests of hillsong conference are renown for? like Bonke’s faked raising someone from the dead?
how are you attempting to evict these false teachers?
July 6th, 2006 at 7:13 am
I guess with money and the church, the old adage “a good Church is a poor Church” has some creedence, so long as they are poor from spending their money on the needy in their own congregation and the community at large rather than the personal benefit of the Church elders/pastor.
I once asked the “pastor” of a foursquare gospel “church” (my in-laws were attending) what happened to the weekly contribution, as they were brow beaten into giving 10% of their pension for fear of “cheating God”.
He wouldn’t/couldn’t answer me, nor could he explain his family’s lifestyle while some of his congregation were struggling from week to week.
Much to the dismay of my in laws, I attended his church some weeks later wearing a T Shirt with the logo “tithe free zone”, I was asked to leave.
For “churches” that tolerate or are happy to go along with the Houstons and Pringles of the world, I suppose it is a case of the blind leading the blind.
As a kid, my next door neighbour had a novel way of expelling Jehovah’s Witnesses from his house-he turned on the sprinklers.
July 6th, 2006 at 9:48 am
in this case if you cannot get access to decent financial accounts then attempt to create them if one cannot get that going go somewhere where it is transparent where the money is going.
July 6th, 2006 at 10:45 am
QR….
Good Call. Iasked for financial statements from riverview Church and got no response (especially as I asked for thos of its realted charity ‘Inside Out Ministries’).
If you don’t get full fincial - given to you, you don’t know how much the pastor and his family make from all activities associated with being a minister - and they do’t freely answer questions then stay away.
Could these chraismatic teachers be a wolves in sheeps clothing? Test their teaching, ask for financials for all accounts and draw your own
conclusion.
July 6th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
BBEP@LP
you said
it is very easy.
If you are in a ‘church’ which is ‘led’ by a false teacher you attempt to evict the false teacher, if unsuccessful you go to a church that is faithful to God!
false teaching as in ‘you need more money’ teaching or ‘ill have what she’s having’ teaching…?
false teaching like what the honoured guests of hillsong conference are renown for? like Bonke’s faked raising someone from the dead?
how are you attempting to evict these false teachers?
July 6th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
I would have thought false teachers teach things that contradict the bible.
This is why we are told to search the scriptures.
July 6th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
do you believe that benny hinns preaching doesn’t contradict the bible?
do you believe houstons prosperity gospel doesnt go against the narrative in general and specific scriptures in particular?
if reinhardt bonnke is not a false teacher - but pretends to heal someone at a rally…… what words would you use to describe him?
July 6th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
“…Oh yes - he’s the great pre-tender! (Wooh-Wooh)”
July 6th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
we have a few people who used to go to Hillsong and they do not preach the gospel there.
As for Benny Hinn he is a fraud
July 6th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
do you believe houstons prosperity gospel doesnt go against the narrative in general and specific scriptures in particular?
if reinhardt bonnke is not a false teacher - but pretends to heal someone at a rally…… what words would you use to describe him?
July 6th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
while we are at it
if benny hinn is a fraud - then what is your reaction to Phil Pringles church bringing him out and endorsing him??
July 6th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
abtruth,
I believe when I say someone is a fraud that speaks for itself.
I have already spoken against hillsong and I don’t know about bonnke at all.
The church is about its members not its minister afterall he is their servant
July 6th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
for some reason i thought you were a supporter of Brian houston and Phil Pringle et al …