Respectable Christians

We are currently in the middle of a blizzard with a low of -51C forecast for tonight. That's with windchill. It's sort of like an ice cream brain except that in Canada we have ice cream brain freeze for 6 months out of the year. And they say God doesn't make mistakes. So if my post makes no sense, it's because my brain is frozen solid.

Anyway, no, this baby Christian was brought up in a traditional Mennonite home. Mennonites tend to have higher incomes than non-Mennonites because there is a strong work ethic. They never preached that you are blessed with material wealth based on your love of God but with a strong work ethic and Mennonites supporting each other through Mennonite agencies, Mennonites tend to be on the wealthy side of things.

I don't know where this person's particular financial standing was. There are poor Mennonites and Mennonites tend to look down on them because usually the poverty is the result of a poor work ethic. They help but they still look down on them without saying one word.

I never thought about the respectability that many think money buys but that seems to me to be a likely reason that she bought into the prosperity gospel. Churches reek of respectability. It's funny how congregations everywhere tend to divide up into certain churches or denominations that poorer and less well educated people attend and other churches that are the domain of the doctors and lawyers and businessmen, isn't it?

Generally, here, the evangelicals tend to be new money and the Mennonites who turn to those churches tend to be the ones who had generational poverty as a result of a poor work ethic. The old money Mennonites who were wealthy in Russia as well stay in traditional Mennonite churches. Odd, isn't it?

It seems to me that then there comes a division that shouldn't exist in the church of God, where the respectable Mennonites judge the others just by the church they attend. And I think that the poorer Mennonites, who are usually under-educated, in their effort to become respectable, fall prey to false doctrines. I think both groups lose out.

So I take your point about buying respectability and that's probably dead on. I wasn't associating faith with respectability though, when I couldn't grasp the connection between the prosperity gospel and shame. I tend to mentally separate the cultural aspects of religion and make a distinction between that and faith.

I guess what I am saying is that if she is drawn to the prosperity gospel because she feels money buys respectability and she feels that her pregnancy made her unrespectable, then it isn't about God at all but about still about her.

When a person is completely broken down and humbled before God, then it isn't about respectability any more. It is only about "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

I sometimes miss what seems perfectly obvious to me, now that you've pointed it out because respectability has never been part of my mind set. I think somehow my head just was never there. It was always faith only that interested me. I guess maybe that is why I have such an aversion to churches. There' s just something that strikes me as wrong whenever I am in a church. I think that the 'wrong' thing is probably the quest for respectability.

Layla