The following is a letter I received from a woman whom I will call Jo (obviously not her real name). I publish here (with her permission) both the original letter and my reply. I do so because the issues that ‘Jo’ raises are not insignificant. She is by no means the only person who has faced these things – whether within the Free Church or in another. Sadly her story is all too common. Her letter is not comfortable reading but we need to face up to the issues she raises. What follows is my attempt to try and address some of the matters involved.

Dear Mr Robertson,

I looked up the Free Church on the internet out of curiosity and came across your column. I read some of your articles with great interest. I was brought up in the Free Church and as soon as I could possibly leave home and leave that church, I did and at the same time I vowed that I would never darken it's doorways again! I found that my upbringing did me a great deal of psychological damage (not just the Free Church but that was part of it) and I constantly felt judged and condemned. I was pleasantly surprised at your articles and how honest and non-judgemental you are in approaching a variety of subjects. It certainly goes against what my experiences of the Free Church have been and I was pleased to see that you seem to rise above the "petty" and really quite insignificant things that I found mattered so much to people when I was growing up (e.g. wearing a hat to church) and are focussing on the issues that really matter.

I must say that I have a great deal of bitterness and resentment towards the Free Church and do not really understand the reasoning behind all the "rules". I know that some of the rules I grew up with were made by my own family but a lot were also to do with the church. Like "you have to wear a hat" "you have to sing psalms and do a psalmody test whether you want to or not" "only sing psalms" "no musical instruments".

I don't know if everyone in the Free Church believe the same thing but I know that I was only allowed to read religious books on a Sunday and not even allowed to hum a tune or whistle without "Is that a hymn?" being barked at me. My parents used to try to catch me out by creeping up the stairs on a Sunday to check that I wasn't reading any "inappropriate" books and if I was I was told what a disappointment I was to them and what a disappointment I was to God, and what a failure I was and "You should know by now that nothing is wrong in your eyes".

It all seemed to be emotional guilt and blackmail to "keep me in line" and affected me a lot. I do still believe in God and really do want a personal relationship with God but I never feel good enough. Although I know the Christian message, I have trouble believing in a loving God or believing any of it in my heart. I was brought up for a while in the Free Presbyterian Church and all I remember were hell, fire and brimstone sermons and I see God as something of a tyrant just waiting to get me and punish me. I sometimes live in fear all the time, worried about God making awful things happen to me. Surely this isn't the way that God would want children to be brought up. I used to feel like I was suffocating in the pew sitting in the Free Church and grew to hate the church with a passion. How can this way of worship be relevant to people today? I just found it so so restrictive. I don't understand the Free Church or why it is this way.

Sorry for going on about this - I just meant to write a quick e-mail to say how different and refreshing I found your articles. I hope you don't mind me saying all this, you just seem approachable and non-judgemental and I wondered if you could maybe explain to me why the Free Church is like this. I have met you a couple of times and you don't seem like any other Free Church minister that I have met, maybe that's why I'm writing this to you!

Dear Jo,

Please forgive me for using you first name but you wrote such a personal email! Feel free to call me David – everyone apart from the council and the taxman does.

I was very moved by your e-mail. Moved and angry. Angry not at you, but at the church for allowing you to have such an impression of God and the gospel (the GOOD news!). I thought your post was measured, well expressed and true – at least to your own experience. I think I understand the measure of bitterness and frustration that you have experienced. My own experience of the Free Church has been much more positive but I have also witnessed and been at the receiving end of some of the legalism and unbiblical behaviour. I am not seeking to justify it but let me assure you that any church faces continually the danger of becoming unbalanced. We have to steer between the twin dangers of liberalism (taking away from the Bible) and legalism (adding to the Bible), and sometimes we are get off balance. In this regard perhaps you would allow me to offer a couple of words of advice.

Firstly, although your experience is very important, you must not judge the whole church by that. That would be as illogical as someone saying that because their experience of the church had been good then everything within it was good.

Secondly I do accept what you say about the pettiness and the judgementalism that you experienced. It does not sound however as though the majority of this was something that you experienced in church, but rather at home. I do not know your parents but they sound very much like some adherents of the church I have met. These people are often not Christians, in the sense that they themselves have a living and saving relationship with Jesus. But they are religious. And as such they seek their goodness in the various rituals and what they perceive to be rules of the Church. Whilst one is hesitant to criticise the behaviour of people one does not know I am afraid that the negative and censorious attitude you describe in your post is profoundly unbiblical. To be constantly told you are a disappointment both to your parents and to God, that you are a failure and that you have no sense of right or wrong because of what you were reading on a Sunday, is at the very best, bad parenting and at the very worst a clear cause of the psychological damage you suffered.

I am not saying this to clear the Church. In fact I want to apologise. You see for too long we have acquiesced in such views. We know that we have adherents, and even professing Christians who exhibit and espouse such views. They think that to be Free Church means such things as being Sabbatarian, anti-music and subscribing to a certain dress code. Just a couple of weeks ago I met a fine young man who had attended a Free Church in the not too distant past. Sitting in the pew he was spoken to by one of the elders and asked if he was a stranger. When he replied that he was but that he had just moved into the area – he was told that he was in the Lords house and he should dress appropriately. What was he wearing? A jacket, trousers and tie. The only trouble was that his jacket was green! Unless the elder was allowing his football allegiances to get the better of him it was an appalling way to behave. Little wonder that the young man never returned to that church.

The truth is that sometimes in the Free Church we forget the Gospel. We are more concerned about our ‘distinctives’, (what makes us different from other churches), rather than the central and core issues of the Gospel. If anyone comes who is ‘not one of us’ and from outside our ‘comfort zone’ we are too often caught trying to make them ‘one of us’ rather than trusting the Spirit to work in their life’s. Sometimes we are scared of diversity. We want things to be the way they always were – or the way that we are comfortable with. As a result we sometimes place too much emphasis on secondary matters and cultural interpretations, rather than the core issues of the Gospel.

Even those who are not like that (in my view, the majority) sometimes give into the notion that such legalism is itself a necessary part of the church. As one man put it – they help keep the balance. To me this is a bit like arguing that we should tolerate and encourage those who would deny the resurrection of Christ because they help bring balance! Legalism and liberalism are two sides of the same coin – both detract from the word of God.

I too have experienced the kind of attitudes you are talking about – amazingly mostly from people who are not professing believers but who would profess to be ‘Free Church’. I remember one couple, who were very critical of things like hymns, sitting to prayer, women praying etc who were deeply offended when I challenged them about their commitment to Jesus Christ. They thought that I had no right to challenge them on that – on the other hand they, as adherents of the church, obviously had a right to dictate what we should and should not do. Some people do not like the idea that religious Free Church people without Christ will go to hell the same as any other sinner!

Having said all that you will notice that I have been using the words ‘some’ and ‘sometimes’. There are many within the Free Church who do not hold to that narrow legalistic view. Indeed such a view is not the official position or doctrine of the Free Church. We believe in the glorious liberty of the children of God. Which brings me on to the most important part of your letter – the heartfelt plea “I do still believe in God and really do want a personal relationship with God but I never feel good enough. Although I know the Christian message, I have trouble believing in a loving God or believing any of it in my heart.” What can one say to such a plea?

Firstly the wonderful news is that what you want – God wants! Of course you are not good enough. None of us is. A crucial part of the Good News is that all of us are far worse than we think we are. But the next part is vital. We don’t have to be good enough. The great message of the Christian Gospel is grace. To put it simply – God sent his Son to die in our place, to suffer our punishment and to carry our guilt. As we come to see, understand and appropriate that we are then set free. We are not good enough – but Jesus is and he takes the place of his people. News could not get much better than that. It amazes me that some people who delight in boasting that they are ‘faithful to the Bible’ so often distort this message of grace.

The first thing then is that you need to get your relationship with God right. That will not be done by religion – which will, as you so eloquently put it, only end up suffocating you. The key question is what do you believe? Or perhaps better ‘who do you believe?’ Hebrews ch. 1 v. 3 tells us that if we want to see God then we need only look at Jesus – “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.” That has to be your first step. Finding and following Jesus.

You mention a couple of other issues which I would also like to address.

Firstly the ‘hellfire and brimstone’ sermons. I understand where you are coming from. Hell is a real place and the Bible does give quite clear teaching about hell. However it does seem as though many preachers would prefer to try and frighten people into believing. That is not a biblical method. Sadly in our church culture it seems to be something that is accepted. I remember one church I went to where the minister told me that the people would love it if I preached a real ‘hellfire’ sermon – the scarier the better. The vast majority of the people in this instance not being professing Christians. Why would they like to hear a hellfire sermon? I suspect that is bizarrely what they were comfortable with – because it is part of their tradition and what they would expect. I also suspect that there is a similar attitude that people have to watching horror movies. People do not watch horror movies because they believe in them but rather because they scare them, get the adrenalin going, but they know it is not real.

On this issue I believe that the devil has performed one of his favourite tricks. If he cannot get people to disbelieve in something, he goes to the other extreme and gets them to become obsessed with it. The best thing here is to ask what the Bible teaches about hell. I do not want to scare you but the teaching is very clear. There is such a place. It is a place that is prepared for the devil and his angels and those who choose to go there. Why would anyone choose to go to hell? If you choose to be without God then you are choosing to go to hell. Take God out of this world and it would be hell. In this life we are only preparing for the next one. What would you rather do? Where would you rather be? For me it is a no brainer! Jesus came to save us from the consequences of our own wrong choices and sinful hearts. He came to be the Way for us to go to heaven.

Then you mention several times the way of worship. It sounds as though it was not a pleasant experience for you. And again, I can identify with that. I have no doubt that our style of worship (and perhaps more often the way that it is done) is a major reason why the Free Church is not far bigger than we are. I have been in Free churches where the singing is terrible – to be frank, an embarrassment. Tuneless, dull, laboured and dead. I have also been in churches which use hymns and musical instruments which have been equally embarrassing. However I have been in many churches (including Free Churches) where the singing and worship is wonderful – real praise to God. I agree that our form of worship can be restrictive – but the primary restriction is that which is caused by our own sinfulness. Sometimes I go to worship and I feel so far from God. Worship is not primarily about what I want or what others around will feel comfortable with - it is about what God wants. Jesus tells us that God is looking for those who will worship him ‘in Spirit and in truth’. That should be what we aim for. The important issue for you is not the form of worship, but rather who you worship. You cannot worship a God you do not know. I would suggest that questions of worship style be left until you can ask God yourself. Having said that, the more I go on the more I appreciate singing Gods word. The psalms especially are so emotional – they even express all the emotions you express in your letter to me. Anger, frustration, hurt, longing, doubt. It is great to be able to sing these things knowing that they come from God.

So where do you go from here? Please don’t give up on your desire to have a personal relationship with God. Be open to it. Be open to Him. I love the promise in the Bible that if we seek God we shall find him. How will you find him? Can I suggest that you do read your bible – (Try Ecclesiastes and the Gospel of Mark for starters)? Can I also suggest that you start going to a church where the word of God is both preached and practiced – even a Free Church?! I know that you have a lot of hurt to get over but there is healing. The Free Church at its best is a wonderful place – at its worst it would put anyone off. By the way you will find that every church has its problems and difficulties – your words about your impressions of me were very kind but don’t be fooled. I am as tempted to legalism and sin as the next man and I would only let you down as well. But I know a man who never will – and you know who that is.

It was good to meet you and I hope to see you for a coffee again soon. Meanwhile the door is always open. Perhaps we will even see you in St Peters in the not too distant future! We promise not to suffocate you!

Yours in the service of Jesus Christ

David

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