The New Believer Syndrome

This is a term I came up with. Basically it is when a person who has been without religion or been away from religion for a long time suddenly “sees the light” and becomes a new Christian. Suddenly they are very excited about everything to do with God, the Bible, Church, etc. I doubt this happens with Islam because most people who are Muslim are born in countries where pretty much everyone practices the religion from the day they are born to the day they die. But with the Christians, I’ve seen these people become very excited and they start trying to get involved in as many activities as they can at church. Instead of just going on Sunday morning, pretty soon they are going on Sunday evening, then Wednesday evening, and every extra-curricular activity they can find. Before long they get to where they don’t talk about anything besides God or Church, and they start to alienate the people they work with and their family. After all, not everybody is interested in talking about God and Church all the time. And in doing so, they actually wind up alienating other people from their religion which is the exact opposite thing that God commands them to do. But just like any new-found infatuation, it will eventually reach a climax and then usually a big crash. Give them a year or two and they’ll be burned out and you won’t see them in a church again for years. Obviously, all new believers go through a certain period of infatuation, since everything is new. But only a small percentage will fall into this category.

Manipulators

There’s nothing I hate more than a person who uses scriptures in the bible to manipulate people. These people tend to be well-versed in the scriptures and they prey on people who want to be good Christians (or Jews, or Muslims) but they aren’t as firmly set in their beliefs and knowledge of the scripture. And since the bible, the Qu’ran, Book of Mormon, etc, are very large books you can find scriptures to support nearly any belief you wish to impose on somebody. Often the scriptures are taken out of context, but in many cases they are just more examples of contradictions in these books. Sometimes these manipulators are just individuals in group settings who try to control people just to get their way. Other times they are people in an authority position in a church, or more often some kind of cult, who influence dozens or hundreds of people to believe as they do.

Churches

Churches are run pretty much like a business corporation. The leadership is like the board of directors and the members and visitors who show up are like the consumers. Long-term members who donate large amounts are like large corporate contracts that no business wants to loose, and the visitors are like potential new customers. The main goal of a church, when it comes down to it, is to keep its members happy and try to attract new ones. Which means walking very fine lines on ideology. If they say or do something that people disagree with, they might loose members. And loosing members means loosing money. In many ways this is good for the people attending because the church provides what its members want just like a business provides what its customers want, and therefor the system works. The problem is, it is impossible for a church to challenge common theological beliefs, even if there are good grounds for doing so, because it will upset the system. Many theological or scientific issues which are hotly debated are ignored completely for fear of offending one side or the other. The hope being, by ignoring the issue, they will keep both sets of customers happy. Then there is the issue that some people go to church out of guilt. They thing God has some holy calendar where he places check marks for every time you went to church and it will be part of your final judgement when you die. Other people go just to socialize and make friends. That’s fine with me but I realized long ago that the friends I make at church are just like the friends I made in school, work, and all the other churches I’ve been to. Once one of you moves on to a different church, you’ll likely never see them again. So what’s the point?