Church Disappointment Is Multilayered
October 11, 2024
Interview by Harvest Prude
Like many in America I’ve reached my own pivot point in my
walk with Christ and membership with His body the Church. There are so many
layers to the glacial disappointments I’ve experienced in the church, outside
the church, and in myself so a serious in-depth examination is worth the time,
as apologist Lisa Fields demonstrates for us. Here goes:
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"Why are people leaving the church or their faith behind? Some
answers boil down to platitudes, like a supposed desire to pursue a sinful
lifestyle. But apologist Lisa Fields has found the reasons to be much more
complex.
Fields, founder of the Jude 3 Project, which equips Black
Christians to know what they believe and why, has sat across from many people
leaving the church. During these “exit interviews,” she’s discovered that
somewhere in nearly every story lurks the specter of personal disappointment
with God or Christianity. She addresses this thorny issue in a new book, When
Faith Disappoints: The Gap Between What We Believe and What We Experience.
CT national political correspondent Harvest Prude spoke with
Fields about walking with God in the midst of a broken world and our own
disappointments.
Something from your book that really struck me is
when you talk about unanswered prayers. How do we navigate times in our faith
when we’ve sought out God for something and we feel overlooked because he
doesn’t seem to answer?
For me, when God doesn’t answer my prayers, I have to have a
real conversation with him about what he has not answered. My relationship with
God is very open. There are times where I’m angry, and I have to get those
feelings out of my mouth and out of my heart—because when I don’t voice my
frustrations, I end up filled with bitterness and resentment.
There’s a quote from Tim Keller where he says—and
I’m paraphrasing—that if we knew what God knows, we would want our prayers
answered the way he answers them. I’ve had this experience in my own life. I
remember a time when I wanted to connect with a particular person, a major donor
who could help my ministry. But I didn’t have enough extra income to get to New
York City, where he was based. I remember being frustrated, feeling like there
were all these obstacles to networking and getting ahead. Only later did I
learn that this person had just gotten arrested for embezzlement.
Sometimes, in your disappointment, you realize that God is
letting you see things that you wouldn’t see otherwise or protecting you from
dangers that you didn’t know about. In the book, I talk about a man I had been
dating for almost four years. In the middle of our relationship, he got married
to a woman he had been involved with behind the scenes for most of the time.
This other woman had been married herself during most of the affair.
That whole time, I had been praying that God would make this
man my husband. But I didn’t realize that he was actually protecting me from
someone who had poor character, despite being a preacher. In the middle of my
disappointment, I voiced my frustration. Then I gave myself time to ask what
God might be trying to protect me from. What different direction was he trying
to push me in?
In the book you talk about doing exit interviews
with people who are leaving the church. As a reporter, I cover the intersection
of faith and politics. How do you think political conversations have impacted
people’s relationship with faith?
I think the political climate in America has really impacted
how people there think about faith. Christians often go to rhetorical and
ideological extremes in the name of faith. Recently, I noticed a group of faith
leaders on social media saying that
if you’re voting for Kamala Harris, you can’t be a Christian. Rhetoric like
that, I think, creates this confusion gap for many in our culture, where they
don’t understand what we’re talking about. Because the Bible doesn’t tell you
which political candidates to vote for. In fact, it doesn’t even speak about
voting in any conventional way, because the world of the biblical writers was a
world ruled by kings and emperors.
When there’s a gap between what the Bible says and what some
believers claim it says, for political reasons, it makes a lot of people want
nothing to do with the church, especially when political leaders hijack the
church for their own gain. And it makes believers look like hypocrites, which
creates a problem for those who want to be part of something genuine.
In your conversations, how often do you find that
people leaving the church are struggling with its failures and flaws? And how
often, by contrast, do they seem motivated more by a desire to live without
moral restrictions or guilt?
I think both answers can be correct, sometimes at the same
time. Church disappointment can have so many layers. Perhaps we’re disappointed
with God. Or we’re disappointed with God’s people, or people in general. And
then there are certain things we just desire and want to do in our flesh.
There’s always a multiplicity of factors. When I’ve done exit
interviews with people leaving the church, I’ve seen that it’s never just one
thing. It’s layers of things that rock them.
If you could design a toolkit of practices for
being a faithful witness to those who are struggling with the church or their
faith, what would you include?
The first thing I’d encourage is to live out what you believe
as best you can. And that doesn’t mean perfection, but it does mean
progression. If I hold to the Bible being the Word of God, then I obey the Word
to the best of my ability.
Because we all fall short, though, we have to be honest about
when this happens. If I portray myself as living a sinless life, I’m actually
undermining the authority of Scripture, because Scripture tells us we’re born
and shaped in iniquity. Living out our faith means acknowledging our sins and
committing to repent of them.
Another essential habit is loving people well. In The Message
Bible paraphrase, there’s a passage in Philippians that I post every
Valentine’s Day, where Paul is saying, don’t just “love much” but “[love] well”
(1:9–11). That really struck me when I read it years ago, because there’s a
difference between loving somebody much and loving somebody well. I want to be
someone who tries to love people well. That means listening attentively and
holding space for their doubts and frustrations.
Third, I think we need to practice being merciful. Like Jude
says, “Be merciful to those who doubt” (v. 22). Remember what it’s like to have
doubts of your own, and treat others who doubt accordingly.
And finally, remember to pray with people. With my own
friends, I’ve been enjoying a beautiful season of us praying together. I can’t
give any prescription on how to do it right. It’s not like we’re doing anything
grand. We simply share our frustrations; I pray, they pray, and healing has
taken place. And it’s not like my friends are well-known spiritual leaders. But
that’s just a reminder that you don’t need somebody to be a spiritual leader
for their prayers to make a difference in your life.
You write about the importance of forgiveness to
any process of healing from faith disappointment. How do we respond well when a
fellow believer has hurt us or broken our trust?
In my own life, I was having trouble trusting someone who had
sinned against me and claimed to have repented. My therapist said, “I’m not
asking you to trust them. I’m asking you to trust God.” And that has helped me
a lot.
I enter into relationships that have been broken, knowing that
the person, being human, could break that trust again. But I’m aware that I’ve
probably caused hurts myself and I could do it again. And because I want grace,
I know I need to give it as well.
That doesn’t mean it’s easy. I spoke earlier about the man who
cheated on me during our relationship. It took me years to get to this point,
but by now I’ve seen him many times since he got married. By the time he
apologized, I was able to accept his apology. I was able to trust that it was
sincere because I had done a work in my heart to forgive him.
Sometimes, you have to give yourself time. Years ago, I read a
book on forgiveness. It said there are occasions when we tell people we’ve
forgiven them too abruptly because we don’t know the full impact of their
actions. If we announce forgiveness too soon, we’re only forgiving the initial
impact when we don’t yet know all the layers. How will these actions affect me
a year from now? I might have to forgive again, but at least I’m choosing
forgiveness. I’m choosing not to treat you like you owe me because you hurt me.
When Christians face disappointment, you argue, a
sort of syncretism can creep in. They might seek out New Age practices, for
instance, if they feel that God has failed them. How should we approach
apologetics in a culture marked by intense interest in alternative modes of
spirituality?
Before criticizing the what in these
alternative approaches, try to find out the why. Perhaps you know
someone who uses crystals or consults horoscopes. Well, what’s behind that?
Figuring out the why will help you get to the root of the
issue.
Maybe this person was going through a difficult time and heard
from a friend about something that could help manage the stress. And so, okay,
so that’s how you got into that. Maybe this person had tried prayer and
Christian faith but, for whatever reason, didn’t find them adequate. You can
help someone walk through these deeper issues. For me, this is a far better
approach than simply saying, “Don’t use crystals—they’re demonic.”
Love is a better draw than fear. As a pastor’s kid, I used to
go to youth conferences around the country, and there was always an element of
fear in the way we were encouraged to give our lives to Christ. And so
everybody gave their life to Christ at every event—the same people every year.
I “became” a Christian probably a million times as a teenager because I was
scared.
But when life disappointed me, that fear wasn’t what was
holding me. It was God’s love. I believe" in a real hell, and I believe that
Jesus is the only way to eternal life, but we can communicate that with love,
rather than fear, as the motivator. Because the fear will always wear off. Fear
will never be your keeper.
Source: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2024/10/lisa-fields-when-faith-disappoints-church-hurt/