Travis Seitler: Web Designer

If you don’t immediately see a problem with this, then you might be in a cult.

Chuck Baldwin spoke about this a few weeks ago. His take?

Remember that every apostle of Christ (except John) was killed by hostile civil authorities opposed to their endeavors. Christians throughout church history were imprisoned, tortured, or killed by civil authorities of all stripes for refusing to submit to their various laws and prohibitions. Did all of these Christian martyrs violate God’s principle of submission to authority?

[I]n America the “higher powers” are not the men who occupy elected office, they are the tenets and principles set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Under our laws and form of government, it is the duty of every citizen, including our elected officials, to obey the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, this is how Romans Chapter 13 reads to Americans:

Let every soul be subject unto the [U.S. Constitution.]….

And I completely agree with Mr. Baldwin.

Ask your pastor what he would do in a situation such as that presented in this video clip. If he would comply with the government in such a case, leave that church now. You are being led by a wolf, and he has no concern for your well-being. Only harm can come from remaining under such a man.

Nicole and I have left Chesapeake Community Church, and some of our friends have asked why. Considering the circumstances surrounding our leaving (and the confusion some friends have expressed regarding it) I’ve decided to address the matter here.

You see, I’ve been in discussions with the pastors (regarding tithing) since our pre-membership interview with Jason Reyes (soon to be the new senior pastor of Covenant of Grace Church in Akron, OH). Sadly, they didn’t bother to even try to answer my questions until they found out that I had posted my thoughts on the tithe here at my blog. Even then, I was met with a general unwillingness to discuss my questions and concerns; rather, the conversation was continually focused on challenging my lack of trust in and respect for them. They couldn’t understand how my trust was largely dependent on their actions and approaches to my questions. You see, I did trust them when I joined Chesapeake in November of 2005. It was only after months of evading and ignoring my questions that I began to get exasperated with them. In the meantime, other things appeared on the radar that only added to my unease and distrust:

• The pastors paid themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2006 (according to their own financial statement), while giving roughly $18,000 as “benevolence.” When asked about this, their response was that the issued Statement was not an accurate reflection of their financial activity.
• The pastors refused to support from the general fund–or even to collect a “special offering” for–a family in the congregation with known serious financial needs. Meanwhile, they collected a special offering to cover moving expenses for two pastors.
• Jim Cannon (the senior pastor) personally told me in front of Jason Reyes and a Care Group leader that his preference was for my membership status to be reevaluated should I choose not to tithe to him. Later, to illustrate his rationale for this, he drew parallels with a wife not trusting her husband to handle their money. But when I pointed out that I wouldn’t/shouldn’t/couldn’t Biblically divorce my wife over such a matter, his response was that a church membership wasn’t like a marriage.
• Jim also told me that in his study of the tithe, he had considered no extra-biblical writings on the subject of tithing penned before the Protestant Reformation. Thus, all early “Church Fathers” epistles, the Didache, Josephus’ writings, and any other works which could have shed first-hand light on how the early church viewed tithing… were ignored.
• Jim’s response was to call me a “freeloader” and claim that I had “integrity issues” when I told the pastors that not giving to Chesapeake was a matter of conscience: they had collected over $850,000 last year with, as I said before, only $18,000 (2.5%) going to those in need. (I took the money I would have given them, and instead gave it to organizations like Compassion International and Blood:Water Mission.)

And in the midst of all this, the pastors tried to shut down an evangelistic effort from a Godly man in the congregation—to spend time with some other Christian men in a pub, where they could interact with people on “neutral territory” and begin to develop relationships with them. The pastors also forbade this man to pass out copies of a Mark Driscoll book to his Christian friends until Jim had approved it, and they almost banned the men in our Care Group from going on a camping trip they were organizing. Why? Because they wouldn’t get back in time for the Sunday morning service.

From what I’ve seen, Sovereign Grace Church in Joppa, MD (their new name, as of September 12th) isn’t a local church. It really bears far more resemblance to a cult:

• The leaders are domineering and in some areas tyrannical;
• they have tried in numerous ways to psychologically manipulate the congregation;
• they demand trust rather than desiring to show themselves worthy of it;
• they are frightened of “their” people being exposed to “non-approved” books and ideas.

So that’s why I left. I tried to reason with them for nearly two years, but it has proven fruitless. The pastors are content to continue as they have, and it’s just become too heavy a burden. It’s kind of depressing, because I love the people I know at Chesapeake, but with the mindset that many people seem to have (that “we must attend the same church or else we can’t be friends”) it seems it’ll be extremely difficult to maintain our relationships.

So where is the Seitler family headed? I don’t know, but I’m definitely scarred from (and scared of) this overbearing leadership, and so we’re probably looking more toward a house church than toward any other “model.” In the meantime, we’ve actually enjoyed greater fellowship with other believers in the past few weeks than we had when we were in “the club”–and it was mostly due to opportunities that wouldn’t have been available to us if we were attending Sunday morning meetings and Wednesday night meetings and…

UPDATE #2: The post I linked “moving expenses” to (on a blog written by Jason Reyes’ wife Laurie) has been removed since my post appeared here this morning. Just to show you there really *was* a post there (and to let you still read it), here’s a screenshot of Laurie’s Delete Post from within Google Reader. It was the only place with a copy still available.

And here’s larger versions of the six pictures from that post (including the last one, which Jason’s actually in): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

I guess this is just another example of their tendency to cover things up instead of dealing with them.

UPDATE #2: Laurie now has a video on YouTube showing the house.

UPDATE #3: What do I mean by “cult”? Find out here.

From You Can’t Love Jesus and Hate His Wife (Catalyst):

But then, he starts verbally ripping on my wife like she’s not even standing there. She’s right there! He thinks my wife, who has been the love of my life and a partner in ministry for 25 years, is a drain on my ability to influence others. He says she’s obsolete and that the “old girl is a little faded.”

I’m in shock.

Suddenly, the cheesy Christian motto of the 1990s flashes through my mind: What would Jesus do? Turn the other cheek? Pray for His enemy? Hand this guy His cloak?

I’m about to go Jack Bauer on him.

…but Stetzer wouldn’t “go Jack Bauer on” his own wife if she were the one doing the ripping, right?
…so he’s not angry about Christians ripping on the Church, right?
…because it’s not just pastors who make up the Bride, right?

Nope. According to Stetzer, verbal criticism of what’s being done wrong in the Church is “abus[ing Jesus'] wife.” As in, “abusing another person.” As in, “this [organization that I and others administer] is his wife, and you’re other.”

Sounds like just another repackaging of the ol’ knee-slapper, “touch not the LORD’s anointed!” Because this article isn’t about Christians en masse (the Biblical definition of “the Bride of Christ”) being criticized; it’s about criticizing structures and organizations–or more to the point, the pastors behind them.

See, in many pastors’ minds, they are the church. You just attend and give them money (and occasionally trouble).

Alarmingly there is a significant group of men and women leaving the church but holding to a form of Christian devotion. Wrong answer!

We’re not leaving the Church, Mr. Stetzer. We’re leaving the artificial power structure that men like you have dedicated your lives to propping up. We’re leaving the State-sponsored clubs that you and other “pastors” insist we join. We’re leaving modern Pharisaism. But we’re not leaving the Church.

If anything, the Church abandons us because few Christians care about “fellowship” outside of structured meetings (and this includes small groups). We stop showing up at the clubhouse on Sunday morning, and strangely we stop getting invited to people’s houses, too (if we were ever invited in the first place). We stop attending a “Care Group” and all of a sudden the other people there get the impression that they aren’t under any obligation to care for us anymore.

And why is that? Because what you call “the church” isn’t the Bride of Christ–not in any meaningful sense. No, what you call “the church” is just a man-made system that the forces of Hades certainly could stand against–if they had any such inclination.

None of this is to say we shouldn’t test what we’ve been taught, talk it out, use the community as the context for “field testing” theology, work at iron sharpening iron, hold our teachers accountable, etc. It is only to say that the worship gathering is not the right forum for the discussion. — Jared Wilson, Further Thoughts on Sermon-centric Worship

“When you come together… Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. [...] If there is anything [the women] desire to learn, let them ask their [men] at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.” — The Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 14:26,29,35 (ESV)

I wish Jared would go the whole way and require the non-preaching men of his church to wear dresses!

Alan Knox has an article about the “local/universal church” up on his blog today:

It seems to me that the “local church” and “universal church” distinctions adds very little to our biblical understanding of God or of the church. Instead, it seems to divide the church into little groups that feel that they are maintaining unity in the body of Christ as long as they are united withing their “local church”. Meanwhile, it also allows believers to ignore the “one-anothers” of Scripture if the “one-another” does not “belong” to their “local church”.

This is one of the big reasons behind a project I have in the works. I don’t know when it’ll be announced, because I just finished a client’s redesign and I have some family obligations to attend to. But one of these days, I’ll let you know what’s under the hood…