Harvest Chapel and 'holier than thou' judges

It was interesting to see Harvest Bible Chapel back in the news recently. It's understandable how erratic leadership and financial moves would leave congregants disillusioned and confused.

There's a bumper sticker: "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven." My Dad, when discussing "holier-than-thou" types, would muse over people with their my-way-or-the-highway Bible interpretations.

Many, including me, wrap themselves in varying layers of church-ness, and should remember two things: Christians are still human and Christians generally come from the same pool of people as everyone else.

Take the workplace for example. Your church is just a more spiritual version of your office. Both have introverts and extroverts, weak- and strong-willed people, egos, and every other workplace dynamic you can think of. More plainly - let's be honest - church is your job without the swear words.

Most Christians I know are sincere, devoted people, but like every other group, one can embarrass a whole denomination - or more. We've seen this for decades with Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, pedophile priests and more.

These are extreme examples, but they give ammunition to those that Christian leaders are trying to win over. I wonder how many other suburban and rural church members heard about Harvest receiving "only" $2.6 million in tithes and offerings this year. In fairness, Harvest is a large organization with more overhead than most churches, but it's still a bad look.

We're told that God doesn't make things happen, he lets them happen. To me this means that some problems require more than just prayer. Harvest Bible Church may be one.

A lesson for the rest of us might be to pray like crazy, then get back to working on the problem. We may be forgiven but we're not helpless.

James H. Newton

Itasca