Churches Are Dangerous Places for Christians!

This is an utter shame within the Christian church.  There are many ministers and manse families that are being persecuted by the church members and elders and fellow ministers.  The absence of empathy shown to them by their colleagues and other church members is appalling. They are hounded, stalked, hated, set-up to fall, entrapped, wrong-footed, etc, all in an attempt to bring the servant of the Lord down.

What is more hurtful is that when these people, when they fail to get at the minister, re-focus their attention and attacks on his wife.  She is most vulnerable, is the homemaker, and feels for her husband when he is being attacked and hurt.  She carries burdens as wife and mother and homemaker that no one else knows anything about.  On top of all, she does not always know everything about what's is going on, and that exasperates her anxiety.  When her husband is attacked, she is attacked; and so are her/their children.  And all this happens within the church of Jesus Christ, the caring profession par excellence.  If that is care for each other, then dear help the church members.  From another perspective, church members often receive more care than does the minister's wife.  But that's for another day/post.

Often, the enemies of the Gospel, whether they are Christians or not, will turn their depraved attention to the manse children and use them to get at their father.  Oh how utterly inexcusable such a policy is.  And this happens.  not only did I find myself the focus and target of Gospel enemies within the church, so also did my wife and our children. I now of other manse families where exactly the same had been done.  And it's very hurtful.

It is evident that where loyalty to the firm supercedes loyalty to Christ and the Gospel, those whose orientation is the opposite of that are deemed to be expendable.  These 'firm's men' see that manse family as being expendable, unwelcome, surplus to requirements.

This reminds me of the experiences of the Bosnian people at the hands of their enemies, where they became an unwanted population in their own land.  The terrifying message: "You do not belong in our society.  You should be isolated, humiliated and extinguished" is not unknown to both communities in Northern Ireland, and in church life in Northern Ireland.  We have had the "Brits out" call from nationalist republicans for many years, and despite their attempts to limit this mantra to the British Army and British institutions, they have not convinced the pro-British community that they are exempted from this call.  Church-based opposers of the Gospel are making precisely the same call concerning those who stand for the Gospel.  They want these Gospel people out at all costs.  The "ethnic cleansing" and genocide that was enacted against the pro-British community along the border region is proof of that nationalist republican policy.  In many church denominations in Ulster, there is the ecclesiastical form of ethnic cleansing and genocide, but few are able to recognise it as such.  People from this grouping have been excluded from their local towns for shopping purposes, excluded from many of the normal social activities of any normal society, and ministers and their families are likewise being made to feel most unwelcome in many places. 


What happened in national Bosnia between 1993 and 1996, has been happening under the cover of "church" for many years in Northern Ireland.  Faithful evangelicals are no more welcome within these denominations today than the Bosniacs were in Bosnia-Herzegovina.  The message they too are hearing is, "You are not welcome in our church.  We are not used to that kind of preaching.  We are not heathens, so go and take your 'born again' message to those outside the church and who lives on the streets.  We are respectable people who want to live comfortable lives, lives of ease, so don't bring that message to our church!  We hope the church will isolate you and remove you from our church altogether."  


The lessons from Bosnia are clear, and most disturbing.  The only ones who recognise them are those who are being targeted for 'the treatment.'  The perpetrators of 'the treatment' believe they are doing God a service, just as Paul did in his pre-conversion days!