I, unfortunately, have decided that I’m going to have to leave my church due to their unrelenting BLM support and (of course) racism towards anyone who isn’t openly supporting it. When I joined this church in 2012 it was great, it was extremely spiritual and wasn’t extremist in any sort of way. They were very open and accepting of all beliefs, and I never felt ashamed to be there.
Now the entire church is only discussing how white people need to pray on our inherent evil towards minorities. One of our ministers is a black woman who was very accepting until BLM first came into existence. After that she set up a church protest to go protest the execution of a black man who had raped and murdered a woman and her child. I was NOT down with participating with that, and really considered leaving after that incident but ultimately decided to stay. From there she and another minister made it known she was not a Trump fan and now all of the leaders there are calling all white people racist. They also just recently said even other races were racist if they didn’t support BLM.
It wasnt super obvious until these past few months, but from then on things kept becoming more extremist and unaccepting. This is not a place where people can celebrate differences in thought or beliefs.
Have any of you guys had to leave a church or a community due to the rising racism of BLM / all the other shit going on? I honestly never thought I’d be hard pressed into leaving, but I don’t feel peace or love there anymore. I don’t even know how to go about finding another place to worship because I’m sure my church isn’t the only place where this is happening.
Do you happen to have some verses that reference these things on hand? I'd like to look into this more on my own.
I do! It's important to maintain the noteworthiness of Public Ministry while still keeping it in its role to serve God's people.
Regarding the idea that public service is different than the priesthood of all believers that every Christian is baptized, I will cite Ephesians 4:11-12 (though that whole section is great).
Regarding the specific qualifications of a pastor please see 1 Timothy 3:1-7 (there's another smaller reference in Titus 1:5-6).
As for the creation of man and woman the best place to check it out is certainly Genesis 2. God takes special care in forming Adam and Eve and they both have different but complementary callings before the fall into sin with Adam leading and Eve helping.
Note that her helping is not in any way less important. In fact the first problem in the world is that Adam was incomplete without her. This has profound impact on tons of teachings from marriage to ordination, and even to Christ as Head of the Church.
Anyway, back to Ephesians for God's expectations for men and women. Ephesians 5:22-33 is an incredible passage. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the Church, and gave himself up for her. In other words, there is nothing a husband is to hold back from their wife, no selfishness, no pride. There can be no more love in them that could possibly go to a side-chick because their love is for God first and wife second.
This extends to general conduct for men and women as well as seen in how it gets expressed in 1 Timothy 2. Like all of it.
If you need or want more, just let me know!
Thanks for putting this together! I've heard different opinions on the matter, but many people on both sides tend to get a little heated when talking about certain subjects like this. It can be a bit off-putting when you just want to become more informed. I appreciate your welcoming and positive approach to an often touchy subject. I'll probably have plenty to go through with studying these books for now, but I'll let you know if I'm looking for some more verses! Thanks again!
Happy to help! I minister to a lot of college students so their questions keep me sharp.
Also something I keep in mind from the late Ravi Zacharias is to always respect the seeker.
I wouldn’t want to be snide or flippant to someone who is searching for truth. Instead I try to encourage. Not always successfully, mind you, but I try nonetheless.
Gender in the church (https://youtu.be/7FFGyythc38)