Reputation management vs. righteousness

Growing up RPCNA in a "core" family meant that we were immersed in the culture from a young age. We knew that good kids sat quietly in the pew and listened to the message. It was okay to have something to keep our hands busy, but silence was a must. At home, we critiqued various aspects of our church experience. It might be theological flaws in the sermon, or the discussion at presbytery that came to a decision without any logical rationale just based on emotion and a few persuasive pastors.

In a sense, we were not an "A-list" RP family, but we were well-known. It was good that I wasn't popular enough to be selected for the presbytery youth leaders or asked to speak or be a counselor at a presbytery youth camp.

Even then, my sense of my own relationship with God was heavily tied to what, in retrospect, was a inseparable blend of integrity, works righteousness, and reputation management. So, the most "assured" I felt was when I went to all the church events, tithed, read my Bible and prayed every day, and pretty much tried to "keep my nose clean" as my current pastor associates with lackluster Evangelicalism.

What I realize now is that in the authoritarian system. My authority - father, pastor, session - functionally replaced my need for relationship with my Father. So, keeping up on my spiritual disciplines and being a "nice Christian" got smiles from my church, and thus, I must be okay with God.

Much of my struggle since I left the RP church was in first recognizing that those authorities were not stand-ins for God. I needed to have a relationship with God, and as I pursued that relationship, I realized that those stand-ins for God were spiritually abusive, and, as a result, my view of God was also spiritually abusive. Not only did I have very little of a relationship with God, but as I discovered what I wanted in a relationship, it was completely uncharted territory. I was a Christian in the sense that I recognized my sin and prayed for Jesus to forgive it and lead me, but much of my experience was a poisoned view of who Jesus was, what he wanted from me, and especially who my Father and the Holy Spirit were.

One of the hardest things right now is picturing my Father with a smile on his face, and seeing how he will make me more "valuable" to the kingdom as my body loses it's strength, my mind loses it's edge and my emotions are worn by the constant battering of the evil in this world. What if I never get over the picture of God as the perfectionistic narcissist the RPCNA taught and exemplified?

I think of this picture when there was a Facebook discussion about children in worship. On one hand, "of course God wants children in worship", but then comments come out about how it's really not acceptable for those children to, well, be children. So, then we see just what Jesus was rejecting when he said, let the children come to me! The people who want only adults in the service. It's okay if they're six month old adults or three year old adults or even middle-school-aged adults, but they better act like adults because... well, I guess God is not pleased when children act like... children... in his presence.

One of the "this is the church where I can learn about God" moments happened pretty early on. My kids were, I guess, testing the boundaries of what was appropriate at my new church. They were drawing and giggling a bit, and couldn't keep still. I was completely frustrated because at any RP church, there would have been the intense pressure of the many furled brows wondering why I wasn't controlling my family. After the service a woman who was sitting behind us, and most likely the one who would have been the most offended by my children's behavior, made a point of telling us how wonderful it is that we bring our children with us into the service and how much she loves seeing children being children. It was completely the opposite of what I would have expected hearing in the RP church. RPs would be sure to remind me about the nursery, cry room, or "training" room as some churches have, where children don't have to be physically removed from the sanctuary to get swatted when they get the wiggles.

For you ex-RPs, I wonder, how has that journey been for you from thinking you're a top tier Christian as an RP to, I guess, the awakening that the so-called "God" you served all your life was a horrible caricature of the real God. In a sense, as much as I want to rid myself of the false idol and get to know the true creator and his love for me, it seems that everything is poisoned against that.

When the Regulative Principle of Worship becomes an idol...

I want to comment on the sadness of what this article, and especially its comments, represent:
1) The tendency to parse the scriptures for any practice that can be made into a command.
2) The tendency to then attempt to claim that practice has been a litmus test of orthodoxy throughout church history, and thus should be the same today.
3) The tendency to elevate such practice and reinterpet all other things (e.g. size of church) in light of the new-found command.
4) Complete and utter blindness when gently corrected (e.g. why is "table" commanded, but "reclined" not, when they are in the same verse?)

I'm am so thankful that I've matured enough in my understanding of who God is to understand that this level of "care" for his worship is really about straining gnats and swallowing camels. I remember, with sadness, the time in my life that I knew all the checkboxes, and many of the checkboxes within the checkboxes that set the truly elite on a separate tier reserved for the RPW purists.

That said, I do understand why this is such an important debate for RPs. I believe RP pastors want to have a large following. They have the best theology and of course the best spiritual gifting, so why don't they have lots of members? Well, things like "the table" can easily explain that away. A pastor cannot have more than about 50 people in his congregation before they have to step down from the pinnacle of "pure" communion. So "obviously" it is not that the RPCNA is a legalistic, cult-like church where most Christians would smell the aroma of brimstone and stay far away. It's not even that the RPCNA fills a niche within Christianity where those who desire a small, tight-knit congregation can find a good fit. No, of course, it's because the RPCNA is faithfully parsing the scriptures to find the precise model for the "pure" church, and that most pure expression of the Christian faith can only be done in a congregation that can fit around a table.