Can you be a relaxed Christian?

[SeaGshore]

Just wondered what other people think...

Can someone be (for want of a better word) a 'relaxed' Christian? By relaxed I mean in terms of views etc.
For example: my church had a great family atmosphere and I like the family feel etc.
I believe in God etc but my church is very heavy on the 'women are submissive to the men, men are in charge and women cannot have any preaching/leadership roles in the church unless it's with children'.

This doesn't sit well with me, ice always been quite independent and 'in charge'.

They are also very strict on no sex before marriage, it is very frowned upon to date a non-Christian etc.
I have much more liberal views and do not like those views being transferred to heavily to my children during Sunday school and kids club etc.

I work full time and the bible study group can't understand why I can't spare them three hours one evening a week (between marking and running the house I simply don't have time).

I have many friends in the church as do my children but so feel some of it (by a few of the people) is conditional on your regular attendance and commitment to bible study and Sunday morning services etc.

I have a strong belief in God and my faith is very real but feel like I am pulling away from the church a bit.

I am awaiting the call anyday now to ask where we've been.

If we are going play Bible pick and mix

"So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."

biblehub.com/niv/galatians/3.htm

Surely that is a new testament verse that promotes equality if there isn't one.

Jesus wanted us to think critically. He was very critical of the pharisees who were strict about trival Jewish law but did not behave well.

www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23

I feel the OP should visit other churches and pray.

But even if I could find a church that didn't teach these things, my upbringing is so deeply ingrained that it is very hard to shake off - I've been taught all my life that there is no room for interpretation of God's word, that there is correct interpretation (ie what I'm being taught at a very 'strict' church) and that everything else is man/satan's interpretation, which is just satan's way of tempting you away from the right path

I don't usually comment in this section, but I feel so sad for you that I had to. If you were describing a relationship with a partner, people would tell you to set yourself free. You're being controlled in the most cruel, unloving way.

Just think about the Satan thing (and I know exactly where you're coming from - similar background) - how do you know these people (ie men) aren't the ones "Satan" is using? You are being brainwashed, and have been, all your life. I no longer believe in any of it but if you want to, pray. That isn't forbidden. Meditate on what you're being told and use the brain, compassion and love that you have to find your way through this. As long as you focus on the supposed evil within you, you'll achieve nothing.

Be true to yourself, not these people - remember false witnesses come in all guises. And yes, I realise I could be an obvious one but I think it's the ones cloaked in virtue you have to watch.

'Cloaked in virtue'. I like that expression.

Too many people play 'godliness one-upmanship' for my liking. I think that's why I feel uneasy by extreme/extravagant outward displays of piety (words, jewellery, clothing etc). I worry that they are judging the hell out of me whilst nor focussing on what's within their own being.

Maybe try meditation - a retreat if you can manage it - to get in touch with your own core beliefs/truths. I believe that its more what's in you/your sole whatever, and not blindly following the rules and regulations of one iterpritation of the 'truth' (obv some things are pretty much universally on the no-no list, like murder and theft...).

Jesus threw out the rule book and got into a whole heap of trouble. For example christians can eat what they like and don't have to circumise their children.

"The Greatest Commandment

34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37Jesus replied: “?‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’c 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’d 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”"

Mathew 22

This verse gives christians flexiblity to adapt to their time and and culture. The role of women in the 21st century is very different to ancient Rome.

I agree wiht the previous poster that you need to be careful of those who bear false witness. There is a difference between having a relationship with a loving God and following a rule book.

"Meditate on what you're being told and use the brain, compassion and love that you have to find your way through this."

Brilliant advice

"Problem is, there seem to be few local alternatives - all the churches nearby are either American-style conservative evangelical (whether middle-class or multi-ethnic 'Mega Churches') or traditional CofE with a dwindling congregation that's shored up by parents who are only attending to get their DC into the local CofE school. I really think there's a gap in the market for a modern church with a liberal, inclusive, non-judgemental ethos, which allows for a healthy level of debate, questioning and reflection and doesn't require its members to leave their brains at the door."

Actually you will find that even the Mega Churches don't all have the same attitude.
Several have women in leadership. For example Icthus.

On the other hand Cathedrals are one area where there is considerable growth see here. I don't know any Cathedral which does not have an inclusive attitude and at least some female clergy.

OP please find another church. The message of Jesus is Grace. That is the one thing that sets Christianity apart from other work based Faith. Your church is showing no Grace to others, and no Grace to you, putting demands on your time and questioning your commitment. It makes me sad and ragey all at once!

I completely agree with everything vdbfamily said about how wives submitting to their husbands is meant to go hand in hand with husbands loving their wives. Not that women are doormats to be walked all over...

Look around a bit and pray. I think you'll be excited by what you find!!

Thanks for that mummytime - I've considered the cathedral option, and it does appeal, even though for us it would mean a commute into central London or out into Hertfordshire/Essex (we're in deepest darkest suburbia). I like the idea of the inclusive ethos combined with a more traditional, reflective worship style (the guitar-led, arms in the air charismatic thing really isn't my style, but was very much the done thing at my old church). Perhaps a potential option for the OP too? I suspect that the Quakers might also suit me - again, I've looked into it, but I've yet to find a meeting where the average age is less than about 70!

I agree OP that it does look as if you need to seek out a church where you feel more comfortable - as others have said, it sounds as if currently you don't feel that you're being true to your own instincts and beliefs. My own experience of trying to persevere in a similar situation is that it risks doing lasting damage to your faith in the Church as a whole if you stick it out for too long.

I can also identify with the conditional friendship thing you mentioned; sadly I have come to realise that some of those I considered friends at university/church were only interested in me insofar as I was ripe fodder for their evangelistic efforts. Once it was clear that I was starting to question things the friendships seemed to cool, and when I left my last church they broke off all contact. DP and others who also left experienced the same thing from their 'friends' of many years' standing. These people have no non-Christian friends, often work for the church and exist in a sort of cosy Christian bubble - which is part of my problem with certain aspects of the evangelical movement. Fortunately it's a minority though - most Christians, thankfully, are nothing like this!

Just have to rush out to a meeting, but marking place for later :)

As a woman in church leadership, I have views

Succinctly: I believe there are core essentials to being a Christian, and varying amounts of flim flam round the edges that matter little. Core essentials are following Jesus, believing he is the son of God, died and was risen, and doing what he did ie loving God and loving neighbour.

Have to dash...

TempsPerdu I feel the same at a school prayer group I occasionally go to, I don't think those in the bubble have a clue how isolated they are from a lot of other Christians never mind non-Christians. I can fake it (went to very Evangelical, Charsmatic churches in my teens and twenties), but its not comfortable - even if I'm not a smells and bells person either.

I think if you investigate the music that can help. We left our last Church when we felt less at home, and I think disbanding the choir was probably a sign for us to leave (although we hung on for a couple of years). But then I do know some Happy Clappy places that are inclusive.

See, I quite like the smells and bells stuff mummytime! I like the mystical, reflective side of things (was a great fan of Rowan Williams, who was DEFINITELY not in favour at my old church) and am quite drawn to Celtic Christianity. Not a lot of Celtic Christianity about where I am though...

I actually used to sing in my church choir - did BVs during the evening service when I first started there, until they opted to have only one (male, obvs ) worship leader backed up by lots of noisy guitars and funky lighting! There also used to be a great Christmas 'community choir', which was one of the few ways the church interacted with the wider community - mixture of traditional carols and gospel music, took all comers, brilliant attendance at the concerts etc. They then did a big push on making the rehearsals more evangelical, having a lengthy 'Thought for the Week' (AKA sermon) plus testimonies from church members. It was very heavy handed and frightened most of the non-Christians off - in the end they disbanded the whole thing in favour of a guitar-led carol service, attended almost exclusively by existing church members. That's the point at which I gave up and left.

One odd thing is that I've travelled around a fair bit, and have found that the most genuinely welcoming, inclusive churches have tended to be those in more rural areas. For some reason, all the city churches I've been to have been outwardly trendy and right-on (lots of enthusiastic teens and twentysomethings; contemporary music etc), but at heart deeply conservative and illiberal. Thinking about it, the lovely female curate who had a difficult time of it at my North London church is now leading a thriving congregation in the Cotswolds, while the openly gay, highly intellectual curate who had a very hard time of it at the church attached to the CofE school I taught at is now doing brilliantly up in North Yorkshire. Not sure why this should be, but it's definitely something I've noticed.

Looking forward to reading madhairday's thoughts on the gender side of things...

Thank you for all the advice.

It really helps to read different peoples perspectives etc on the situation.

I think there are smells and bells Churches in most places, its just harder to find because they just sit there - rather than run things. But often they do run: soup kitchens, food banks etc.

I usually go to the Cathedral because DD sings there, they have cut down on the Incense - as the choir can struggle to sing and its bad for asthma. DD prefers the Cathedral to our old church, although there are more young people there. None of my children really like loud drums etc.

It can find a while to find the right place. I went to several of the "trendy" places in Cambridge for example before finding somewhere I felt more at home. And things change, so I still miss the first Vicar from the Church we used to go to here.

But then I have felt at home in a lot of different churches C of E, Church of Scotland, and several "free" Churches.

All the High Church C of E churches I have been to have been attended by open minded people.

Strangely the churches with guitars and a less formal atmosphere were full of rabid fundamentalists.

I'm currently a Methodist, which seems a reasonable compromise, (though we are a bit lax and enjoy a drink now and again).

Yes Tinkly - it does seem that the trendier the church, the more fundamentalist the congregation! Perhaps it's because so many large churches are now affiliated with wider American/Australian movements that are not exactly known for their liberal outlook?

Think I'm going to seek out somewhere terribly fusty and High Anglican next...

Our High Anglican Church had several gay members of the PCC, and our vicar was definitely in the closet. He was also extremely relaxed about pre marital sex.

I go to Catholic church and all the Catholics I know are pretty liberal, so their churches have to be too. If they got rid of all the divorced, sex before marriage and gay members there wouldn't be many left in the congregation.

We don't have to attend prayer or bible meetings and no one checks up on your mass attendance.

My lovely, lovely CofS had a female minister and assistant minister, as a congregation we support gay ministers aswell.

I belong to a large suburban CofE church with a mix of guitar/band led music and more traditional organ style music. There is a broad range of "in jeans and hands in the air" and "best suit on Sundays and hands firmly at their side". It's not what I would call liberal but it is very welcoming of all and largely "gender blind"- I say largely because in a large church you inevitably get a bit of a range of views.

If asked most of the congregation would eg say that no sex before marriage was the ideal but that doesn't stop us being just as welcoming to those in any kind of relationship and it's not something that generally gets preached about. I married a non Christian and whilst most would say (and I agree) that this isn't ideal, it has not affected my standing in the church at all and I have held several leadership roles.

Having said that, in the 20 years I have attended this church we have had three vicars and one of them was probably less liberal and quite "preachy" about certain subjects whereas our current vicar is much gentler.

Agree with most of the PP though - pray about it and try other churches until you find one that suits you.

Of course you can refuse to follow the bigots and haters in the church. It's a good thing that you don't want to be part of all that.
You don't have to believe something just because it's in the bible or part of Christianity. Just make up your own religion and follow that.

Of course that pretty much means accepting that religion is an empty shell. That it's just made up so people can get together in a group (and exclude others). If it really was god's church you couldn't just up and chose another one could you. It just wouldn't make sense.

I know people will say that they are all following god, but while they can certainly say it, it doesn't actually make any sense and has the added downside that it helps keep those churches in business.

Was going to namechange to FustyHighAnglican for this... that's me to a T!

I would definitely second the cathedral idea (fusty High Anglican will do if no cathedrals are available). IME you will find open minds and a welcome that is not dependent on your conforming to someone else's idea of 'acceptable' behaviour. You will also usually find good music. And you'll find women - lay and ordained - in leadership positions (and more or less openly gay people too). And you may also find a broader range of opportunities than you'd imagine. Yes, Sunday mornings might be quite 'trad' (smells, bells, organ, choir, etc.) but there may well be other things going on that appeal to you, perhaps at other times. We have, for example, more meditative (almost Quaker-style) prayer services, Celtic style worship, praise singing, and a whole range of stuff. So in the best case scenario you can come for the fustiness and stay for the fun!

Good luck!

BackOnlyBriefly, I'm really sorry, I don't mean this rudely at all, but I have heard similar arguments to yours before, and I don't really follow. Why is the fact that there are different ways to worship God proof that He doesn't exist? Why, logically, couldn't He exist and allow this?
Similarly with interpretations of Christianity - the fact that these can vary surely does not disprove the existence of a God who gave us the gift of free will and the ability to make up our own minds?
I'm not saying, obviously (I hope) that everyone has to believe in God, just that I don't see how the OP's dilemma disproves His existence. If I said something, and two people interpreted it in different ways, it wouldn't mean that I didn't exist, or even that what I'd said in the first place wasn't valid and true.

lovely is quite right and backonlybriefly isn't.

Human beings can certainly have moments of encounter with the divine and moments of insight into spiritual truth but, whichever set of scriptures you go with, humans are really bad at translating that spiritual insight into human language. We also have an insatiable desire for a nice big set of rules to follow which I'm pretty sure God isn't too fussed about - in plan A (old testament) God pandered to this desire and gave us a set of rules (which humans then built on and embellished when they didn't go detailed enough). In plan B (new t) Jesus explained that if we just ignore the rulebook and love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength love our neighbours as ourselves we would end up keeping the essence of the rest of God's laws anyway - basically automatically.

But whatever has been written about God is never the actual truth - it is the writer's best attempt to write down something that doesn't really fit into the human brain. So of course it can then be interpreted 16 different ways or more. That doesn't prove that the initial spiritual insight was false, just that it is complex.

Jesus said he came to fulfill the law not "ignore the rulebook". If a father came on here saying he'd met a younger woman and felt it was time to leave his wife and young children to fulfill himself and follow his heart MN would throw the MN rulebook at him. God also said no to adultery because God is always faithful and asks the same of us. There seems to be a desire to turn Christianity into a religion that has a God that just says "do whatever you want and I'll love you anyway" - God does love us but there are consequences for thoughts and actions as we all know. If any of us raised our children to do whatever they wanted noone would be surprised if they turned out to be people that had serious social problems. Does a loving God rubberstamp all behavior even if it is destructive to the people of God as a whole?

This thread is quite wide-ranging in topic and covering a number of issues. Misogyny is what women deal with everywhere. I am Catholic and our church does not believe or teach the idea that husbands are to dominate their wives or wives should be "subject" to their husbands. Spouses are equal partners to each other and the church teaches that women (or men) should leave and if necessary civilly divorce an abusive spouse.

Fish - the way you talk about scripture is not what most churches teach or believe so this is very much your own opinion.

When it comes to "rules" I think most of us do agree to a certain set of rules such as law (rape is a crime, incest is a crime, murder is a crime etc.) and morality. Christians believe that God cares about our lives and understands how hard it is to parent and carry the message of Christ from one generation to another in love. We can't ignore how we live - that is not Catholic teaching anyway.

Lookingforfocus a lot of the jewish traditions were adandoned by early christians and even Jesus himself. For example Jesus healed on the sabath.
Jesus prevented a woman being executed (by stoning) inspite of the fact that it is written in Leviticus.

Leviticus 20

Jesus also told the woman to sin no more, ie. he is against adultary, but he was also forgave her.

I think its fair to say that Jesus turned Jewish law upside down by mixing with the the unclean, healing on the sabath.

The eye for eye a tooth for a tooth verse

Leviticus 24

was overturned by Jesus as well.

"You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’h 39But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you."

Matthew 5

The fundemental rules like the ten commandments are still valid. They are encapulated by "love your neighbour as yourself". What Jesus changed was how society dealt with rule breakers.

I am sure that even the wisdom of mumsnet would not be in favour of a man who has run off with a younger woman being stoned to death or being burned in the fire.

*LookingForFocus" - I don't think most people would preach that God says "do whatever you want and I'll love you anyway".

Most Christians, and most decent people of all sorts, would say that we have a responsibility to treat others decently, to modify our behaviour so as not to deliberately harm them, or to incidentally harm them when we could reasonably predict it.

What is being argued against is the rule-based attitude of some churches, where the focus is more on obeying a set of rules set down by the leadership rather than examining your own conscience in the light of what Jesus taught. Where 'the Bible' (or one narrow interpretation of it) has replaced God as the centre of attention.

I'm with Fish on this one - and that really is what a lot of liberal churches teach. It doesn't mean "there are no rules". It means "If you focus on loving God and following Jesus you won't need a written set of rules". It's a focus on love and grace and relationship.