40 Comments

I read your book and have been reading you for a few months now! While I understand the sentiment in a limited capacity as a man can who is married to woman, It's strange to me to see Internet personalities claiming the whole of earth's women are having an American experience with the whole of the church presented as an American institution. Both of these assumptions feel incomplete and the prescriptions of making Jesus the fragrance and wafting the incarnation over ones life to me at least falls short of the desires Christ has for his bride.

From what I have seen, it seems the church's failures are failures to champion and conquer with his sacraments. Jesus isn't a fragrance but the sustenance in the elements we consume in remembrance of him. The most loved I've ever felt in a church is when I could practice the sacred experience of penance and receive forgiveness, not only from a priest but especially the laity.

Where my family came from Mexico our women were and still are healers. They still believe in commission Jesus commanded of them that they would anoint the heads of others and lay hands on others and people would be healed. And I have seen these things outside of the American divisions that believe they are participants in the "global church", but one rarely hears of such things in these fifty states perhaps because men and women no longer believe.

Maybe the failure of men in America is we are not receptive the sermon in a song that came from Mary. Maybe the failure of women in America is that they have forgotten like men the sacraments. And if religion is no longer sacred, it ceases to be religion, and then it is not that women are leaving the church, but the outposts of American christianity have already abandoned the sacraments and are no longer living pieces of the body of the bride but bits of dead skin shed being abandoned as women and men continue their search for true religion.

All this said thank you Lore. I will continue to meditate on this post and am grateful for your continued work. Perhaps even one day we could discuss these things further. Blessings.

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You and your family’s devotion is beautiful, and, I notice it is sacrament-oriented and hierachy-oriented. You have one sacrament that your hierarchy states is essential in the way they say it is to be believed or a person is not part of the body of Christ. While I admire the frequency and regularity that other churches lack and need to return to, this condemnation of those who do not hold to your sacrament your interpreted way is more what Jesus criticized(as He has much to criticize) in His own day as a way of keeping all of mankind from Him rather than drawing mankind to Him. All believers are the Church. All believers are the Body of Christ—sacraments or no. Lots of churches have these types of barriers they place between a would-be believer or believer and Jesus. It is not just in the West, but a lot of it is. Many in the world-wide Body are devoted unto death to doing the Lord’s will. Where are we in all of that? Jesus states His will very clearly in the Gospels. We need to open our ears and eyes to that and do that.

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The church I'm in right now has a vibe of patriarchy and home schooling. I wouldn't say that their doctrine is orientated round that, but the church kind of smells like that. It's just a general assumption in the background - not something that people are delibrately pushing.

I find it difficult not to notice this going on, and difficult for it not to bother me - even though other people don't notice or say it's not overt. I find it difficult not to get hung up on this when the other things they do are good - the pastoral care is lovely and the doctrine otherwise is good.

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Yes! Same goes for all the angst I've seen about "how to attract men to church" that then offers a whole lot of things that have little to do with attracting them to the church with Jesus. One pastor/friend's philosophy is that you can only keep them, how you attracted them. So if you attracted them with something less than Jesus, you won't be able to keep them with Jesus.

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Thanks Lore. As a pastor in a complementarian church-body (that I agree with less and less), I’ve been trying desperately to bring our attention and love back to Jesus. For my denomination, purity of doctrine is the golden calf we are pretending is God made. And the power our leaders yield is harming so many people. Especially women. And I’m terrified to walk the road ahead that will undoubtedly lead to my own suffering and expulsion. But, to whom shall I go? Jesus has the words of eternal life.

Thanks again for your courage Lore.

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At the end of it all, give me Jesus.

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Oct 24Liked by Lore Wilbert

This is so good, Lore. I've not read Surprised by Hope but it's on my list now. Do you deal with anger about the treatment of women and unchristlike fundamentalism in the church? Are you able to tune out the darkness when you want to? I spent 14 years in Piper's world at Bethlehem Baptist. Left when I learned a friend and her husband had been spiritually abused. Watched many more friends get pummeled the following year. So.much.abuse. But even before all that, the fundamentalist, complementarian, doctrine-obsessed culture was becoming suffocating. My beliefs were changing. The writing had been on the wall for years. Currently there are ongoing connections to Wilson's dark empire growing here. I go between wanting to never think of all this again and fierce anger, yearning to burn it all down. It's painful.

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I'm so sorry. Am I able to tune it out? I don't know. There ares some things I can't tune out because of the ways it's affect my family or my body or mind, I have to live with it. But I do try to turn away from (not tune out, just recognize when I can't handle more) a lot of stories of people's mistreatment. I am really sensitive to being suffocated by people's beliefs or having those beliefs put on me or others. But I always have been.

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Oct 24Liked by Lore Wilbert

Revelation 22

“17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.“

Jesus the Christ puts out an invitation to those who thirst and hunger for God with a warning to all who place additions or subtractions to the invitation—pseudo-believers and non-believers. It is Jesus who will be the ultimate Judge of all. Our job is to give the invitation, let the Holy Spirit speak to that person, and to disciple them as we would want to be discipled with Jesus as the only example, Lore, like you have said here. And as a person over sixty, if I see someone lording themselves over someone else, I reserve the right to lovingly use my umbrella and my purse….

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=) Love all this =)

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Oct 24Liked by Lore Wilbert

Give me Jesus. Amen and amen.

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Oct 23Liked by Lore Wilbert

AMEN

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Oct 23Liked by Lore Wilbert

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! We've been searching for so long for a church where Jesus is the focus.

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This is true Lore, wish I could sit and chat with you about all these thoughts. Anyway, thanks for a lovely and thoughtful post. Yes, I want to see Jesus in the church.

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Oct 23·edited Oct 23Liked by Lore Wilbert

Always grateful for your words, Lore. My heart is still tender from what I’ve experienced in church. Sometimes the pain caused from it feels like too much—and maybe it is? But your words are a balm.

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As a reader for over a decade, I’ve read about many of the changes you reference. Which means that while I see some things differently, I’m a paid subscriber because I value your voice. So is it okay to say that I felt really gut-punched by the subtitle in this post. I get that the church is messy and gets so many things wrong…but isn’t she still the body of Christ? I love the church. It’s hard to hear a “blanket statement” about why she should be left.

And forgive me if I didn’t read this correctly. I know emotions can cloud perception - and maybe that’s happening to me.

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Oct 29·edited Oct 29

In Revelation 1, the seven churches are described as having seven lamp-stands. Then a praise or admonition is given to each with this conclusion:

“26 To the one who is victorious and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations— 27 that one ‘will rule them with an iron scepter and will dash them to pieces like pottery’[b]—just as I have received authority from my Father. 28 I will also give that one the morning star.”

God judges the churches as to whether or not they are doing His will. That is more the concern expressed here. Do you want to remain in a church that is not doing His will or find one that is. And so many are adapting scripture to the ways of one person through a book or program, not Jesus and His will. And we only can speak of churches we experience or who make themselves known in this way. But there are so many that it has become systemic. That is the danger. I have found a church that is not this way at all. Love the Church that is doing His will.

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Hmmm, I think the subtitle was just intended to say that if women aren’t finding Jesus in their church, they should leave that church. That’s all. Not the Church universal :)

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Oct 23Liked by Lore Wilbert

Yes and amen.

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Oct 23·edited Oct 23Liked by Lore Wilbert

"Want women to say in your church?" I think this was a typo, but possibly Freudian? Give women a say in your church and maybe they'll stay. (and yes, focus on Jesus)

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Ha! Good catch and also good slip ;)

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Oct 23Liked by Lore Wilbert

Really, really good, Lore. Thank you for sharing this.

“Make Jesus the fragrance and the center of your life, and then waft the incarnation and the person of Jesus toward everyone who enters.”

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