Never Trust a Hogwallop

There's this idea going around that those who have concerns about the CREC and are openly expressing those concerns just have either a reactionary dislike for Doug Wilson or just are reacting, perhaps in embarrassment over previous theological issues and have some inner motivation to.. to what... I don't even know really....I don't even know how that makes sense. If I was EMBARRASSED wouldn't it be more likely that I would bury the whole thing, unfriend everyone and move on with my life hoping nobody brings it up? Actually, that WAS my game plan. And on some levels, I am embarrassed. But I'm doing these in spite of it, not because of it. I have been away from RCC for over two years. Why on earth would I delve into it now if I was embarrassed? Anyway.... In the word of the great philosopher, Pete.......

I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR THE WALL OF TEXT NOW BEFORE YOUR EYES, 

I couldn't think of a tidy way to break it up. If you don't want to go through my own church history, go to the last three paragraphs for the main point. 

I have been in my adult life gone through four churches. A Foursquare, two community, and a CREC. I began my Christian life at Beaverton Foursquare which was pastored by Ron Mehl. I loved Ron Mehl. I still love Ron Mehl. (He has since passed on.) Beaverton Foursquare was an enormous church, he had a couple books out, a radio ministry but you never felt like he had any swag about him. If you met him in person he was the same as when you saw him on stage. I loved the other pastors there. The youth pastor, especially. He did our premarital counseling.  He was one of those few men that really make you feel like God is near when you talk to him, not because he is seeing all your sins and has caught you at something, just an exuding sweet love. I wish I had referred back to his example more when I evaluated future leaders.

Well, we lived way out on the other side of Portland and as I say, Beaverton Foursquare is huge. It's hard to get to know people in a huge church like that if you also live far away. So we started looking for something closer to home and a co-worker was going to a community church she really liked, so we started going there. Shayleen was a baby so I was about 23 and Forrest was born there so we were there for a few years. It was a good church. We met in the Gladstone high school and everyone had coffee out in the hall after service. There were a few homeschoolers there and I felt happy about that because I knew I wanted to home school. We had some fun times camping at Mount Hood Village.
But, like I said the church was small and eventually the church dissolved because of money and just not being able to keep things going. By then Forrest was a fat baby so we were there a couple years.

From there we went to a community church close to our home. We got involved with some other couples our age and it was a fun group. I remember beach trips and laughing so much it was painful. My kids had some friends and in many ways it was a good church. But as my kids got older we felt more and more pressure to put my kids in Children's Church. The pastor's wife would seek us out every week to tell me where the classes were. We tried to alleviate our discomfort with the Children's Church by becoming "Children's worship leaders" (for lack of a better word.) and we did a couple different age groups for over a year. I was, frankly, uncomfortable with the lack of supervision over the classes. My husband and I would have the children in a room all to ourselves, closed doors and no windows and nobody looking in. I felt isolated from the rest of the church because we never got to go to services. And then Forrest came to be about three or four and could move from the nursery to Children's Church and I couldn't teach both their classes, I didn't feel safe with the way things were set up, and I got tired of trying to withstand the Pastor's wife when I tried to take them into church with me.

I didn't announce my concerns, I didn't backbite the Pastor's wife. I kind of blamed myself because I felt like I should be able to find a workable solution. We really liked the friends we had there. But I just couldn't find a way to get comfortable with it. I probably should have gone to the leadership and told them I was concerned for the safety of the children in Children's Church, but I had gone to him with some theological questions and he gave me some pat answers... I don't know. I was still a young mother and I didn't feel the freedom to speak up. I'm not sure I could have articulated it like I can now. But that church did have an incident with the children a few years later and I'm very glad I listened to my gut.

Also, I longed for the preaching of Ron Mehl. We were in North Portland and that was, at least, slightly closer to Beaverton. We went back to Beaverton Foursquare. We stayed there, except trying to get involved in a little Baptist church while we were in Sellwood, (still wishing for something more local.) until we found Reformation Covenant Church when Noah was a baby (He's my 7th) and my oldest was 12. It was still hard to meet people. We had to go to the 8 am service because the church was so crowded it was the only time our whole family could sit together. At first one deacon hovered a bit, worried about the children being noisy but they saw I could keep them quiet and would leave with the baby if need be and then they left us alone about Children's church. It wasn't perfect, I spent a lot of time in the bathroom nursing, listening to the sermon on the loudspeaker. I had to be up by 5:00am to get all out and be there on time. But it worked.

I longed for other homeschooling moms. I was lonely. There were women on our block to talk to (by then we were in Sellwood. It's a nice, family friendly neighborhood of Portland.) but they couldn't understand parts of my life. The large family, home schooling. Also, I read a book by RC Sproul at this time that convinced me Calvinism must be true. I HATED it. I was really mad at God for about three months. I didn't have the theological tools to refute it. Finally, I figured, "Well, God has been good to us over all these years and I guess I will just have to trust Him." So, I did, from time to time look for churches in our area that would be a place where I could find other moms who were like me and I looked at Reformed churches because I figured, well, that's what Sproul was, so I must be too..

That's how we ended up at RCC. Ironically, it was Doug Wilson's name that brought us in. His name was mentioned on the first website I found referring to RCC. Minutes for some meeting. I hadn't read any of his books but I had seen them in home school book catalogs and so I thought "home schoolers!" I really didn't know much else about them. It only took me a couple books to realize I thought Doug Wilson was an arrogant blow hard, more in love with his own ability to turn a clever phrase than anything else. I guess he missed the memo on clarity being the basis of good writing. Of course, you just don't SAY things like that in a CREC church. I was like Emma. "When pressed, I just say he's elegant." But anyway. We were at RCC for 10 years.

So. Why do I go into all this?

Because I want to put forward the evidence of my own character, for one. I have not gone gadding about different churches, each step being in angst at the last. If anything, I have stayed in situations (especially the one with the Children's Church.) longer than I should have, trying to make it work. And with none of these churches, if I saw someone on the street from one of them, would I feel like I didn't want to talk to them or be uncomfortable about it at all. I still like them and remember our times together in good ways and my husband still works for them from time to time.

We aren't upset about the carpet color in the foyer, we aren't miffed because we didn't get to sing lead in the choir.

We are concerned about the way people are treated in the CREC. We are concerned about the way theology is used by some people in power to abuse those less powerful. We are concerned because the leadership has a tendency to side with the strong rather than the less powerful and as a result of bad theology and people in leadership who are surrounded by "yes men" this tendency has very few obstacles in place to defend people who are vulnerable. Especially women and children. We are concerned because when people try to start conversations about under pinning theology that justifies these in their abuse, the conversations are taken over by those in power, or they are squelched and those who want to have conversations about these things are labeled as rebellious. (Especially the excessive dependency on spanking in raising children, a lack of acknowledgement of some in the CREC that mental issues like autism are real, even the disrespecting of people who are dealing with food allergies. They may be well versed in Shakespeare and Bede, but science is not a priority! Also the effects of theologies revolving around patriarchy, the power structures this creates, the problems in marriages this creates and the problems it creates in the self esteem of both men and women. Well, they can't worry about self esteem at all, actually. It's not even a thing. It's just a pretty word for selfishness. So don't be having any!)

We are concerned because at least in some cases, leadership of the CREC has minimized the abuse of women and children, protected predators, not informed the congregations that there was cause for vigilance, and has erred on the side of mercy for "repentant" predators rather than erring on the side of protecting the innocent. Though not all the CREC churches are guilty of this-I do want to say clearly, I have no knowledge of any sex abuse cases at RCC-none of the church pastors have raised a clear voice requesting an inquest for any of this towards Doug Wilson and I'd bet you my last dollar if they did they'd be out of their position in a week!  Also, because leadership has an arrogant tendency to not recognize when they are in over their head in counseling situations and don't look for help from the outside ESPECIALLY not if that counseling would run in contrary to dearly held theological positions. This makes for a fishbowl culture that is quickly losing touch with society, diminishes it's usefulness to the world in offering hope, and is intellectually stagnant.

So, if you want to make pithy, off hand comments about those who have left or who are in the CREC and have been raising issues, I guess I can't stop you. But you are betraying your own thinking rather than the thinking of anyone else. I for one would suggest that it would be nice if you would at least have the intellectual integrity to answer these very serious issues rather than giving a big ol' "PFFT" in your facebook status.

That is all.