WHY SOME OF OUR CHILDREN ARE LEAVING RELIGION

Based on a true story: 

There once was a young girl named Amy who grew up in a Christian home. She had a much older cousin, nicknamed "Peppers" who was a professional photographer.

At family gatherings a few times a year, Peppers always brought his camera and would take lots of pictures for the family. One by one, he would take families and single members of the family and find just the perfect background and take fantastic pictures. Peppers became well-known and many of his photos were published in international magazines. He became quite the family celebrity.

Amy was always a favorite of his because she was so photogenic. Peppers would often take her picture with the promise that he would make her famous as a model. But he also took out other children from the family too.  And indeed a few of his family photos were placed in his studio and garnered much attention.

Amy loved when her mother would dress her up in pretty clothes and do her hair up with curls and ribbons. When she was about seven, Peppers took her out into a field of wildflowers for a shoot. It was within sight of all the people at the family party. After a few shots of her sitting in the field, he asked her to have some fun with him. If she was going to be a famous model some day she needed to begin mimicking the older ladies—be a bit sexy. Then he showed her a magazine so she would understand what he was talking about.

This continued for the next two years—the promises of fame—and getting legitimate pictures of Amy followed up by "fun" pictures. And once, Peppers convinced her mother to allow him to take Amy to his studio.

The rest of this story is inappropriate for general audiences.

When she reached about the age of sixteen, Amy resisted any more photoshoots. She finally had the words in her vocabulary to explain what Peppers had been doing to her.

Her parents were unable to process the girl's words.  They believed she had misunderstood what Peppers had done. Maybe he had gone too far… but surely she was mistaken that he…as a Christian.. would have done such an unbelievable thing. 

They spoke to Peppers and he admitted that perhaps he had shown her some magazines with seductive poses in them, but for the rest… Amy had probably flipped through the magazine and saw other more explicit pictures and simply got the pictures mixed up with reality. She had been so young, after all. 

Tears of regret were copiously shed by Peppers. Amy was brought in and the cousin pleaded her forgiveness for being inappropriate. Amy's parents felt all had been reconciled and she was told to forgive Peppers.

Yet it didn't feel "over" to Amy.  Amy wanted her parents to warn everyone in the family about Peppers so that no other child would have to endure what she had. 

Her father told Amy that she should be careful about administering what she thought was justice. She should not be a part of slander. That wouldn't be Christian. Peppers was a Christian and God was working on him. He bent down and looked into Amy's eyes and whispered, "Have faith in Jesus."

For years Amy's parents avoided seeing the side of the family with the photographer. Later, when Amy was an adult she attended a family reunion where Peppers show up, camera in tow, taking pictures. When he asked to take a picture of Amy and her husband, she walked away. When Peppers attempted to take one of her cousin's sons out for a special picture, Amy went ballistic and started interfering telling the boy to not go with Peppers.

Everyone just passed it off as Amy's emotionalism. She had that reputation. Her brother told her to go see a pastor for some counseling. Her parents were worried about Amy. They told her that God wanted her to forgive her cousin for what he had done to her. Show mercy to Peppers. Do not judge. Allow God's punishment, if there needs to be any, to come upon him.

Amy didn't understand this. But she did everything she could to forgive Peppers and prayed he had indeed changed.

Everyone spoke to her about God's infinite mercy upon sinners. Everyone deserved mercy. She should be the vessel God used to shower His grace upon Peppers. And of course, pray for him.

So wanting to be a good Christian Amy became extremely good at mercy.

A few years later her nephew London, who had been quite a troublemakers and rebellious teenager came to live with Amy and her husband in order to go to the local college. Everyone was so thrilled that London had turned his life around. Amy was more than happy to help.

London had always had a special place in his heart for his Aunt Amy. He knew she was considered a family mess too, like him. He felt he connected with her. She was the only real Christian he had ever met, so he told the family. Which really irritated everyone because Amy was always causing the family some trouble over something.

One evening London confided in Amy that he had been physically abused as a child. Aunt Amy rose in her chair with fury, she began to shake. London saw her reaction and began pouring out his childhood terror. 

Finally someone who believed him and they bonded. Amy confided in London that she had been sexually abused by Peppers when a child. She understood his story. She wanted to know just who this person was,  for she was going on an instant crusade against the person who would do this! She would stand and defend her precious nephew.

London said it was his dad—Amy's sister's husband, George.

She knew her brother-in-law all his life. That was hard to believe. George was very active in church, put together mission trips, was a Eucharistic minister as well as other things. She sat there astounded as London began to tell more horror stories about his father. 

According to London, his father George was the world's worst manipulator and fake Christian. In fact, London hated Christians because his father was such a hypocrite and liar.

Amy's head began to swim. All of a sudden, clues of London's abuse emerged from her memory. Yes, George had been cool and even harsh with the boy at times. Amy had even said something to her sister when London was small. But she thought the problem had all worked out. George's family seemed fine.

So, Amy confronted her sister and brother-in-law. They both told her that London wouldn't let the past go of the past and forgive his father. George said that he had pleaded for his son's forgiveness when he had been a bit harsh, but the boy showed no signs of forgiveness nor mercy on the father. They said they prayed for London to give his heart to Jesus every day. They had to simply wait and have faith.

Amy was confused. She did not go and see  her sister and brother-in-law for months. 

Then George and her sister moved to her town so that London could stay at home while he finished college.  So, Amy, her husband, her sister and George saw each other a lot. 

London lived with his parents but he became morose and irritable. He warned Amy that she should not be deceived by his dad's appearance. George was still a manipulative jerk according to his son. 

Amy's sister assured her that George really had reformed and that London would eventually learn to forgive his dad. Amy and her husband wondered if it wasn't a true God-thing that her sister and George moved close by so they could help George and hold him accountable. Amy thought that she could be the bridge between George and London.

Amy noticed the London was being civil to his parents, but was growing more and more resentful, even hostile towards her. Amy confronted him and London lashed out at her. Couldn't she see George was a hypocrite? He warned her that she and her husband would wake up one day and see who George really was. He wasn't just a fake Christian, he was a devil.

Amy, her husband, her sister and George prayed for London. He needed to forgive. Amy was so sure God had sent her to be the healer in this situation.

One day, George ran off with his secretary, but not before sending his wife to the emergency room from being battered.

Everyone at his church was shocked.

From that moment forward, London despised Amy. 

He despised her Christian mercy.
He despised her unjust God who demanded forgiveness from the weak and victimized but  mercy for the tyrant. 

He blamed her for what happened to his mother. If good, sweet Aunt Amy had only believed him when London said his father George was a fake.

If only someone had the courage to exposed George's hypocrisy.

A few years later, Amy found out that her uncle Peppers was being sent to prison for child pornography.  He had raped more than a half a dozen young girls.

In this Jubilee of Mercy called on by Pope Francis, let us be wise enough to know who needs our mercy. Let us be merciful enough to protect the innocent. Let us be courageous enough to call out sin. For that is the most merciful thing we can do. 

FAITH + WORKS = FAITH

Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore, seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.

― St. Augustine of Hippo [my emphasis]

Walking in Faith

St. Augustine is saying that first, God gives us a command--a law or a ritual--an action or a command to refrain from acting. For example: "Believe in me" or "Do not steal" or "Be baptized."

Sometimes God explains why He gives us a command or a ritual to perform and sometimes he doesn't. There may or may not come the second part of understanding the command.

Some of His commands seem reasonable such as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Most religions and even atheists can see the logic in that.

But what about His law not to engage in sex before marriage or divorce once married and at the very least never remarry if you do leave your spouse? Many have tried to logically argue that God was wrong about those commands. After all, we are in the 21st century and things are different now. Surely He doesn't mean that today we are supposed to refrain from having sex before marriage and obviously He doesn't expect people who have divorced from abusive spouses stay single the rest of their lives? Right?

Most Christians assume that God doesn't expect us to behave like automatons. He is not a totalitarian who expects us to blindly follow Him. He gives us free will. God is reasonable. He convinced us with the Holy Spirit and with the Bible.

Christians will pick up the scriptures and show that it clearly spells out in black and white what is sin. And most of that is fairly reasonable. But when it comes to actually living by it, most Christians hesitate. Most insist that even if they are the very words of Christ, they must be judged to be compatible with the culture. The spiritual must be tested, the miraculous, verified. It need to make sense to us before we obey, right?

Isn't that what the great Reformer Luther stated? "Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain

reason….. I cannot and I will not recant anything….. for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe…. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise."

Luther's "I must understand before I will believe" is the exact opposite of St. Augustine's "believe that you may understand."

Granted we do begin our grasp of the gospel with understanding.

As we come and reason together, the Holy Spirit draws us with enough evidence that we accept Christianity. Jesus asks us to believe in Him as Savior. We trust Him enough to dedicate our lives to Him. The evidence of the Cross and His atonement is compelling, though we do not yet understand the Trinity doctrine or many other things written in scripture. 

As we grow in faith, we will begin to understand through little steps, lots and lots of little steps. Through the journey of obedience, we begin

understand. Similar to the trust you place in a person you end up later marrying, there is enough evidence at first to capture your interest. But you walk with your beloved, your trust grows. That is similar to what happens in our relationship with Christ.

That's how the obedience of faith works. While we are spiritual children, sometimes we just obey because our Father tells us to. Of course we can question, God expects our questions and He certainly has answers. But sometimes He does not give us the answers. He wants us exercise our faith by not understanding. He asks us to trust Him. 

And if you have been walking with Christ long enough, there will be a time when He asks you to walk on water. And this will not make sense. He is teaching us to trust Him.

Faith and Works

Now to build upon this and bring it into the understanding of faith and works. This is a much misunderstood doctrine of Christ. While Jesus speaks of faith as saving us, He also speaks of judging people by their works.

Protestants are adamant about separating works and faith. As if doing deeds of charity or going to church is somehow against the gospel of Christ if it has any connection to salvation. Well, I think if they saw things with a little different perspective they might not feel quite so adamant.

Now keep in mind that I am not arguing a works-salvation. I repeat WE CANNOT SAVE OURSELVES by our good works. We are saved by grace through faith. But, I will show you how the obedience of faith ties together faith and works in a wonderful way.

To begin, we must understand why we are on this earth. Why didn't everything wrap up at the Cross and everyone go straight to heaven? Why all this madness and chaos post-Cross? Why are we here?

We have been given this time on earth to accept the gospel and grow to love and trust God. That is the entire point of each covenant with God. We must learn to truth Him. Totally.

Think of it like this. After this life, we will be living an eternal adventure with God. It will

require complete and perfect trust. Sin keeps us from trusting God, so sin has to be eradicated. Jesus did that on the Cross for the world, and we now each must take that gift and run with it, in faith.

And to teach us love and trust, God had a plan. He didn't just stop at the Cross and slap His hands together and walk away with "I'm done here, y'all have fun." He gave us a plan in order to help all those who accept the gospel to "finish the race."

There is a great mystery that most Christians don't ever understand. Being good, keeping the law doesn't help us to love and trust God. But faith alone doesn't either.

You see sin must be eradicated, for sin blocks us from trusting and loving God. But just keeping the Mosaic law couldn't do it. The Pharisees found that out. But keeping the New Covenant law can't do it either. Perfection, as our Father in heaven is perfect, must be through learning to trust God. And we can learn to love and trust Him through keeping His commandments.

Don't get too far ahead of me. First consider this:

God tells us to love our neighbor as ourself by feeding our neighbor if he is hungry. That's rational. We can do that without any faith or trust in God. We can handle that. So we give a homeless man some money or bring him some food. We have obeyed God's command. Right. We did well.

This is the first part of the journey. God gives us simple, clear rules we can understand. And this begins to teach us love and trust.

Then all of a sudden our spouse cheats on us. We do not believe this relationship can mend. It to us is not just toxic, it is dead. Our logic tells us to divorce. Our emotions tell us that we have no option but to hate our spouse.

Now God tells us we must forgive them. We have come to a place where we can't forgive on our own. The hurt is too keen, the wound too deep.

Forgiveness is impossible. And we have to submit to Christ's command, rather than go with what we think is best, or what a marriage counselor might prescribe, or what even logic says is best. We have to prostrate ourselves and beg to God's grace to forgive. We walk in obedience to faith. It is a leap of faith that will eventually bring us to supernatural trust in Christ.

The whole purpose of God's law is not to make us good enough to save. God doesn't want simply perfect behavior, but perfect trust. (Which is also perfect love.) Every single act of obedience, every single command, every single rite and ritual we are given by God is to help us along this path of trust. It is not just to make us grovel like obedient slaves, but to make us strong with confidence. He is able. God is able.

God's plan with the sacraments and rites and rituals are to give us grace and nourish us as we learn this supernatural trust in Him. It is not enough to follow God when we can see the end of the road or understand where He is taking us. It is important for us to take the baby steps of confession and penance and going to mass and taking the Eucharist often, these steps we can see and somewhat understand so that when the road is dark and lonely, we will still keep walking in faith.

We start out walking in faith, so that we will someday be able to fly in faith. But we can only fly if we throw ourselves off a cliff! (I mean this spiritually, of course.)

When you can't understand something that God has asked us to do, like refrain from taking contraception or divorcing or believe marriage is for a male and female, or give alms, it is all about learning not to trust in our own reasoning or money. Always remember, He is the Alpha and the Omega. He already sees the end and knows that this is best in the long run. He sees things you cannot see nor even understand. Trust Him, he whispers to each of us and we learn to fly.

Believe in Christ and obey first, the understanding will come during the journey. In this way, faith and the works cannot be separated, each act of faith strengthens our faith and trust. It is the journey of obedience, the journey of action that perfects our faith. We cannot have one without the other.

It can be hard, very hard, but this is for eternity. Eternity will be about love and love comes from trusting God.