"Toxic Faith, Healthy Faith" (Part 1)
“Religion and Church: Do They Hurt Or Heal?”

(Opening DVD clip of law suits against two television evangelists and healers)

Not long ago there was this news story in the Lancaster New Era. The headline read: "Mom murders 'demonic' child”.

"ATLANTA (AP) - A woman accused of helping her husband kill their
8-year-old daughter because they believed she was demonic pleaded guilty to
murder Tuesday.

Valerie Carey, 29, was sentenced to life in prison for the Jan. 19, 2004,
stabbing and strangling of Quimani Carey at a downtown Atlanta motel.

Carey and her husband, Christopher, were found walking down a busy
street naked in freezing temperatures with their two other children, then 6
and 2, on their shoulders.

Police discovered (the body of the girl) on the floor of their motel room.
Pages ripped from the Bible were thrown on and around her body, and her
arms were broken. Investigators said Christopher Carey had stabbed her with a
knife until it broke.

As part of a plea agreement, Valerie Carey agreed to testify against her
31 year-old husband. He remains jailed without bond and faces a possible
death penalty unless he agrees to plead guilty."

Devout Muslims board a plane, kill the pilot and copilot, and fly that jetliner into the World Trade Center buildings, praying to their god Allah as they destroy themselves and the others aboard that aircraft.

The Roman Catholic Church is scandalized by the cover up of pedophile priests who, trusted with children, violate that trust by sexually molesting those children.

These are extreme examples of religion gone wrong. Religion and faith are meant to enrich life, to help and heal human beings and the world. But, sometimes the opposite is true. Faith and religion can be poisonous, and actually destroy people and turn them away from God.

This is the first of four messages entitled: "Toxic Faith, Healthy Faith". We will look at how we can tell the difference between churches, belief systems and religious groups and leaders who are healthy, as opposed to those that are sick.

This series of messages has brewing inside of me for years, ever since I came across a book called Toxic Faith. In the preface to the book, Steve Arterburn, a Christian counselor and host of a daily radio program, tells how his publisher approached him about writing a book "to help men and women stuck in sick churches, to throw out a lifeline to hurting believers who had been used and abused and robbed of their relationship with God",
people for whom "their group's rules, regulations, and religious rituals become the main
forces in their lives, displacing a powerful and personal God."

The publisher had approached several other authors who turned him down because of the proposed book's negative topic (assuming negative themes don't produce bestsellers).
Remembering some of his own negative experience with manipulative church leaders and practices, Arterburn took up the challenge. He co-authored the book, and the response was overwhelming. Letters came pouring in, he says, relating stories of how pastors, leaders, and family members had twisted Scripture in order to grab or maintain control over other peoples' lives. Hundreds said that the book literally saved their lives. The authors made the round of popular TV talk shows. Since then, the book has come out in several different editions, including a paperback edition under the title Faith That Hurts, Faith That Heals

In the opening DVD and my illustrations, we see extremes of sick religion. However, there are many less dramatic examples of faith that is toxic and harmful. I’m sure some of you have had experiences with churches, or religious leaders, that have hurt you, and even perhaps have caused you to question God.

This does not mean that every time someone gets hurt or offended in a church that it's sick or abusive. Churches are made up of imperfect, sinful people! Sometimes there are disagreements and hard feelings develop. Sometimes we hurt people's feelings, even if we don't mean to do that. Sometimes a pastor or church leader may not fulfill everyone's expectations. And sometimes we ourselves are at least partly responsible for the problem.
But on the other hand, there are instances where people get hurt by a person or religious system that is abusive or controlling.

Perhaps a good place to start is to talk about the Bible, and the part the Bible plays in both toxic faith and healthy faith. We might think that one way to distinguish hurtful faith from healthy faith would be that people promoting healthy faith believe in the Bible and base their faith on Scripture. But actually, people involved in sick religion may use the Bible to back up their poisonous beliefs.

I once had a lady tell me about an issue she had with people in the church. This was a private matter between the two parties that had to do with a secular business matter. It had nothing to do with the church. She wanted me to settle this in front of the congregation.

Why? She quoted Matthew 18:15-17: "If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector."

Seems straightforward, doesn't it? But imagine what would happen if we tried to settle people's business in front of the whole congregation, or even meeting with the Church Council. We would open up a hornet's nest! Law suits could result. So, I said no.
She said I didn't follow the Scriptures. Soon afterwards, she left the church.

See, toxic faith tends to take a Scripture and say, “This is what it means. Period.
My view is the whole truth on this Scripture.” And there's no room for discussion.

Folks, when we use the Bible, the issue isn’t, “What does the Scripture say?” The issue is: “How do we interpret what Scripture says?” Do we allow for different interpretations? Have we delved into the historical background of that Scripture verse or passage? How do various Bible scholars interpret the passage? How has the church understood that Scripture over the centuries? Have we compared that Scripture text with the rest of the Word of God?

For example, let’s look at Matthew 18. Verse 15 says, “If another member of the church (the Greek says “a brother”) sins against you…”. I have a little footnote in my Bible that says some of the ancient Greek manuscripts don’t include the words “against you”. So some of English translations omit “against you”. Which text do you use? Omitting the words "against you", it just says, “If a brother or sister sins…”. Does this mean that whenever we see someone sin, we must confront that person? If that person doesn't listen, get one or two people to go with you the next time, and if he or she still doesn't listen, bring the person before the church? But where do we draw the line on “sin”? Should we all be picking up on every sin somebody commits so that we can follow this procedure outlined in Matthew 18?

What did Jesus mean by “the church” in verse 17? Was there even a “church” at that time? Someone might argue that the church only got started after Jesus had returned to the Father, at Pentecost, when believers first met in homes!

Also, this Scripture advocates a kind of shunning (verse 17). Is that what we want? Some time ago there was an article in one of the Lancaster newspapers about a very conservative church in Lancaster County that shunned a certain family. It told of the heartache and disruption this act was causing to the family and the congregation.

How should those words from Matthew 18 be applied to the 21st century? The questions I have raised are all points we need to consider if a fair and responsible interpretation of the text is to be given. But this lady insisted on her rather simplistic, literalistic understanding of the verses. I doubt that she ever had examined what Bible scholars had to say about the verses, or checked into the historical background of the text. She knew what the Bible said! What I had to say didn’t count! So, I was a pastor who didn’t believe the Bible, and she left.

As I recall, I asked her how come it was all right for her to talk in church, since at one point the Apostle Paul says women are to be silent in church! You can almost state this as an axiom: Toxic faith people and groups misuse the Bible.

The problem of twisting Scriptures to further one's own agenda isn’t something new to our time! Turn to 2 Peter 3:14-16: "Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures."

Peter here is speaking of Paul’s letters (some of which make up part of our New Testament). He says there are some things in them hard to understand (we know that, don't we, if we've ever tried to study some of Paul's letters!). Then he refers to some people who were twisting them, as they were twisting the other Scriptures!

Let's read 2 Timothy 2:15-18. "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth. Avoid profane chatter, for it will lead people into more and more impiety, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth by claiming that the resurrection has already taken place. They are upsetting the faith of some." Paul is writing to the young Christian pastor Timothy and saying he is to explain the word of truth in a right manner. Then he refers to two people who have swerved from the truth, and are upsetting the faith of some (verse 18). This can happen when the Bible is misused!

Another time the Apostle Paul says how he has refused to twist God’s Word and truth: “We do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God” (2 Timothy 4:2).

You can prove just about anything if you take a Scripture passage out of context, and isolate it from the rest of the Bible!

But, there is another way that we can twist Scripture so that it hurts people and can actually take them further from God. It is when we water down the truth of the Word, or disregard what it says.

Recently someone drew my attention to several books written by a man named Neil D. Walsh. They have been on the New York Times bestseller list for a number of weeks. One is Conversations With God, and the other is Conversations With God For Teens.

The author answers questions, claiming to be the “voice of God”. For example, in the book for teens, a girl poses the question: “I am living with my boyfriend. My parents say that I should marry him because I am living in sin. Should I marry him?” His reply ("the voice of God") is: “Who are you sinning against? Not me, because you have done nothing
wrong.” Another teen asks about God’s forgiveness of sin. His reply: “I do not forgive anyone because there is nothing to forgive. There is no such thing as right or wrong and that is what I have been trying to tell everyone, do not judge people. People have chosen to judge one another and this is wrong, because the rule is ‘judge not lest ye be judged’”.
What’s additionally disturbing is that this book is being sold to school children through The Scholastic Book Club.

This kind of twisting Scriptures to reflect some kind of innocuous, easy- going, watered-
down religion can be just as toxic to people as beliefs that are far too narrow and restrictive.

One more slant to how misuse of the Bible can create poisonous belief and practice is this:
If it's not in the Bible, it isn't relevant. This is one of the toxic beliefs listed in the book Toxic Faith. This line of thought goes like this: If there’s no Scripture to back the idea, it must be harmful. There are a lot of things that are important in our life today that the Bible doesn’t mention. It doesn't specifically mention when to take a person off life support, or how to treat depression, or whether it’s ok to explore space or to smoke a cigarette. Yes, there are principles within Scripture that can be helpful, but no direct instructions are given regarding these and many other important issues.

A lot of times this toxic belief shows up in the ongoing battle between religion and psychiatry. For instance, I still run into people who diminish the value of psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, and prescription drugs because these not mentioned in the Bible.

In the book Toxic Faith, Steve Arterburn tells about a woman who came into one of their New Life Clinics diagnosed with a bipolar (manic-depressive) condition. Without medication, she had never been able to maintain a stable life. However, with medication, her life improved dramatically, and for the first time in years she was happy and able to function in a job and in her family. Then she went to a church that frowned on anything but the Bible to help persons cope with life. This church ran a “counseling” ministry that told people to fast, pray and read Scripture to handle any problem. When members of the church discovered that this lady was on medication, they told her she lacked faith – that she should trust God to meet her needs. She trusted the minister, who also took this approach, and as a result she stopped taking her medication. She hung on for couple of weeks, but then sunk into such a depression that she slit her wrists, called the people in the church office to tell them what she had done, then hung up. Someone called an ambulance as some of the men on the church staff rushed over to help. When they got there, they found her lying unconscious in a pool of blood. Fortunately, paramedics got there in time to save her. But the incident was a wake up call to the staff of that church. They changed their view and realized that medication can be a gift of God, and in some cases it can allow people to continue to develop a healthy relationship with God

In future messages, I plan to cover such topics as: “Can you be addicted to religion?" “Does the Bible promise the prosperity that a lot of TV preachers promise we can have?”
“What do healthy churches look like?” And, “How much does God love me if I don’t behave?”

Harry L. Kaufhold, Jr.
Preached at Lititz United Methodist Church, January 8, 2006

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