As stated previously, I have concocted a summary list of my reformative demands for the American church. Note that the use of the word "church" which follows herein contains two distinct meanings. In the case where I capitalize it, I refer to the body of believers. In the case where it is lowercase, it refers to the institutions of organized religion. 

1. A church is not a business. The goal of a church's leadership structure is to provide insightful exegesis and develop the faith and doctrinal understanding of its parishioners, never to grow simply for the sake of numerical growth. 

2. Building projects are the product of churches who develop large business models and maintain tremendous overhead costs. Therefore, any church who embarks on one is inherently suspect.

3. A Church is a body of believers; it is not an organization, it is not comprised of paid staff members, and it is not a brand name controlled by its founding pastor.

4. Legalism about any supposed "no-no" in the bible will not be tolerated from any church member, whether paid staff or congregation member.

5. The Church shall not support any political party or candidate. The eternal message of Jesus Christ shall not be cheapened or affixed with any political label of temporal, human invention.

6. "Christian dating" is stupid. The idea that the Church has any right to implicate themselves in the lives of two grown adults, with the possible exception of cases where bonafide and documented abuse has occurred, is laughable.

7. Any church staff member or congregation member who implicates themselves in the personal lives of adult members of the congregation without invitation will be subject to the labels of "self-righteous" and "meddlesome," and their subsequent exegesis will be labeled as suspect.

8. Anyone who acts irrationally happy at all times and attempts to convince me that the "joy of Jesus" is their constant companion will be ignored. If they continue to maintain their irrational happiness, they will be branded mentally insane.

9. Slaps will be handed out liberally to anyone who tries to convince me that the church, and not the Bible, is the ultimate authority in my life.

10. Third-world churches shall at all times be the paradigm by which first-world churches are judged. A third-world church pastor seeks nothing in life other than the well-being of his congregation. If a first-world pastor places anything ahead of the flock's well-being, s/he shall be canned.

11. A house church is the ideal form of corporate worship and gathering. Not only is it thoroughly biblical, it also has the advantage of preventing large, clique-y congregations, and generally negates the possibility of a large leadership structure with a huge operational budget.

12. Simplicity was always the model of the early Church. Although times and circumstances have changed, the early Church was the closest model of biblical Christianity which has ever existed, and therefore is to be emulated as much as humanly possible.

13. Matthew 24:9-13 explicitly states that the Church will suffer global, physical persecution before any form of rapture will ever occur. Any church that is not actively preparing its believers to encounter hardship and plan accordingly shall be branded as a self-help group which promotes feel-good nonsense.

14. Matthew 24 is a chapter of the bible which needs to be interpreted literally. Jesus was addressing his disciples, whom he promised he would not speak to in riddles. Because this is the case, and based on some cursory correlation with 2 Thessalonians and Daniel, the rapture will most likely not occur until at least the middle of the Great Tribulation.

15. Because we as a Church will likely have to endure some part of the tribulation, it is recommended that all churches devote themselves as much as possible to the concepts of recognizing false prophets and persevering through hardship.

16. With the inevitable decline of worldwide tolerance for Christianity, we can safely assume that churches in the U.S. will eventually lose their 501(c)(3) tax exemption and any legal protections it provides. Therefore, conventional church models should be abandoned in favor of small, mobile cells.

17. 2 Thessalonians also refers to a "great falling away" which will take place before the rapture. In order to prevent people from abandoning their faith in the face of persecution, great pains must be taken to ensure believers everywhere understand the real and actual cost of following Jesus Christ.

18. A bible is a luxury some people in other countries cannot legally have. Read it. Memorize it. Prepare for the possibility that you too may one day face the same problem.

19. Buy a gun. If that sounds a little too violent and paranoid to you, then don't. Don't call me when they come for you though.

20. Don't go looking for trouble.

21. Don't be afraid.

22. It's all part of the plan.

23. It may be important how we live, but it matters far more how we die.

24. Jesus is still the way the truth and the life, and nobody comes to the Father except through him.

25. I'm officially announcing the foundation of The Council. It is a small, tight-knit community of believers who meet regularly in homes and restaurants to discuss the deeper doctrines of the faith. Our goal is to resemble the early Church as much as possible, and leave behind the traditional model of doing church. If this is something that interests you, please get in touch.

One thing I've been reluctant to speak publicly about is the resultant cynicism that has permeated my entire thought process and life outlook since things blew apart back in February. The church, if I may be completely frank, bungled their intervention in our affairs (I would also like to point out that they never should have been involved in the first place), and essentially sided with my ex. They surrounded her with a team of three pastors and several church friends, and assured her that everything was going to be ok, and that that monster of a man would never be around to bother her ever again. They either ignored the fact that the histrionic and spectacular way with which the relationship self-destructed was largely of her making, or maybe they simply didn't get the full story. In either case, this do-gooder team of three pastors decided to dispatch a fourth pastor to "counsel" me during this time of grief, although without his knowledge they also laid plans to take out a restraining order against me in the event that I made any attempt to contact my ex. I think that he genuinely believed he was sent to help me, although clearly in light of later events, he was merely a pawn in the hands of the other three who sought nothing short of my absolute ruin.

I should state for the record that I did never, at any time, threaten or harm my ex in any way. The relationship collapsed because she had what I will call an emotional breakdown, which led her to make an unfortunate decision that quickly grabbed the churches' attention. While it could easily be argued that I was the cause of said breakdown, the decision she made was entirely her own, and she alone bears the responsibility for its consequences. In any case, the church leapt into action, ostensibly to protect one of their poor, helpless members of the flock by demonizing and ostracizing her "abuser" while still appearing to remain as compassionate as possible.

With that pretension of compassion in mind, they sent me a nice person to talk to from the church staff, who may have indeed been trying to reassure me and offer me counsel during a time of tremendous emotional upheaval, but who was in fact feeding intelligence to three very sinister people who had pronounced judgment upon me long before they picked up the phone to call the fourth pastor.

I eventually learned of the threat to destroy my career and livelihood because my ex reached out to me in secret. Although we were both still reeling from the sudden split, there were some lingering positive feelings on both sides, and this led her to offer me the discreet warning about the gun pointed at my head. For that, I will be eternally grateful. I took this information back to my "counselor," who seemed genuinely surprised. His unmistakable shock was very reassuring, since I could now rest confident that he wasn't knowingly playing a part in the scheme to undo me. Nevertheless, I did have to take a firm line with him, saying that if such a discussion was taking place, it was totally uncalled for. In no uncertain terms, I made it clear that I was going to handle this situation like an adult, and that threats and ultimatums were absolutely not the right way to ensure my cooperation.

Our sermon at church this past week touched on 1 Samuel 21, and the story of David fleeing from Saul. Our pastor made an excellent point about how David, seeing in the temple the sword of Goliath, was reminded of the time in his past when God helped him overcome a giant. The pastor asked us, "what have you experienced in your past that you need to be reminded of today?" While it was certainly a very inspirational message, I have to admit that when I look at that particular passage, I read it very differently. I hope you will too by the time we're through here.

That particular passage was so influential that Jesus himself even referenced it in Matthew 12, and used it as an example to rebuke the Pharisees for their spirit of religious legalism. When they demanded to know why Jesus was healing people and allowing his disciples to pick heads of grain on the Sabbath, he simply said, "look, one of the great heroes of our faith lied and stole sacred bread in order to save his own skin."

The fact is, many heroes of our faith, from Abraham all the way to Peter, said and did things which were a bit immoral. Sometimes it was motivated by necessity, such as in David's case. Other times, as with Peter hacking off the ear of the High Priest's servant, it was motivated by a genuine desire to protect his Lord. Other times, however, as with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the deceit which they habitually practiced was motivated more by some skewed sense of ambition (as in the case of Jacob impersonating Esau and stealing his blessing), or some perceived wrong (as in the case of Jacob defrauding Laban to increase his own sheep flocks), or maybe simply out of habit (Abraham repeatedly introduced Sarah as his sister, ostensibly because he feared for his safety, and Isaac later followed suit).

While it can be argued that everyone sins, and that's why we need grace, I think it's important to consider that these people all lived before the birth of Jesus, and long before the doctrine of "grace through faith" had ever been written down. Nevertheless, they were revered by scripture and called faithful men by God, so we can safely assume that their wanderings in the moral gray areas were either overlooked or else tacitly accepted. In particular with the case of Jacob, let's remember that God had in fact promised his mother Rebekah that the older of her sons would serve the younger, so it could hypothetically be argued that her duplicitous scheme to assist Jacob in supplanting Esau as the heir was part of God's plan.

I would never presume to say that any and all means are lawful for those of us who live under God's favor, in fact Romans 3:5-8 says quite the opposite. However, it is certainly worth noting that many so-called heroes of the faith were in fact prone to bouts of ruthless pragmatism. I think we sometimes get so caught up with our internal struggle to be a "good Christian" that we forget it's ok to be practical, and I daresay even a bit pragmatic in our approach to getting what we want.

Getting back to the passage cited at the top, I think it's funny how non-Christians will sometimes try to trap us with a test by saying, for example, "what if you and your family were starving, and you had no way to get food except to steal it. Would you violate your Biblical principles in order to save them?" To me, this is a false dilemma, because based on Jesus's example of commending David for his dishonest acquisition of sacred bread, the answer to the question "steal or starve?" is, quite simply, to steal.

If that reeks a bit too much of moral relativism, I understand your concern. I would simply point out that, according to the wisdom of Solomon, we shouldn't try to be overly wicked, but neither should we try to be overly-righteous. Since my recent epiphany regarding the impracticality of fatalistic beliefs, my propensity to trust "fate" to deliver me to my best possible future has been replaced with a more coldly logical assessment of how best to get from A to B ("A" being desire and "B" being result), which is by your own two feet.  I assure you that I still believe God is in control, and whatever he opposes will simply not come to pass. That being said, you have no reason not to try your own hand at things when it is in your power to influence a given situation.

I'm sure some of you will find this message a bit too subversive, and that's ok. There are essentially two kinds of people in any given church body: those who believe in strict adherence to the letter of the law, and those who believe that as long as you trust Jesus, and do your best to do what you know is right, God will reward your faith. I clearly lean more toward the latter category.