The Only Thing to Fear Is...Everything

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Recently on the ex-Church of Christ support group forum, one of the members commented that the culture of the COC is one of fear, not love. For example, the COC uses fear to keep people in line. The fear of being disfellowshipped hangs over everyone who fails to adhere strictly to the party line, and if your whole family and social life are associated with the church, that can be a powerful inducement to keeping your mouth shut, because you know that you'll lose everyone you love if you're disfellowshipped and shunned by the church.

Fear is also the primary emotion expressed by members of the church. Everyone I knew in the COC is constantly living in fear--fear of accidentally sinning and going to hell, fear of causing someone else to sin and going to hell, fear of not raising their kids right and going to hell, ad nauseum. In fact, I would say that most COC-ers are afraid of life itself. They're afraid of anything that's messy, that's not black-and-white, that's uncertain--and life itself is messy, uncertain, and lived mostly in the gray areas. It's no way to live.

I constantly was afraid when I was involved with the COC, even when I was a child. We lived near a railroad, and every time a train whistle blew in the middle of the night, I would wake up in a cold sweat, fearing that it was the Last Trumpet and that Judgment Day was at hand. I was terrified that I was going to hell for some minor infraction or forgotten sin, because the COC taught us that God would have no mercy on us if we weren't absolutely perfect at every single moment of every single day. Leaving the COC and getting past that constant fear of judgment is one of the healthiest things I've ever done for myself. Now that I've let go of the fear, I'm free to love other people truly, and without judgment.

Fear distorts every word, every interaction within the COC. Even the Bible is interpreted in the most fearful, negative way possible, with none of the love and comfort that other churches allow you to glean from the scriptures. The COC is notorious for being proud of knowing the Bible but they don't really understand it. If people in the COC would read the Bible with an open heart and not just use it for proof-texting, I think they'd see that fear is not the appropriate response to God and is counterproductive to being a Christian:

"God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love."
I John 4: 16-18

Comments

Search4Truth said…
Like John says, Perfect love casts out all fear. But doesn't the Bible also say that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but fools despise wisdom. I guess the COC has chosen to fear man and what he says about them instead of God who has done so much for them.
January 10, 2010
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