"And as I look back we were just two kids trying so hard to get it right. And we did things the right way. No drinking, no sex, no kissing until we were married. We had this transactional view of God." -- Lisa Gungor
Wow, if that does not describe the god of the mega church nothing does. He is definitely transactional. That is the god they market beloved. If you tithe, god will throw open the windows of heaven and pour you out more blessing than you can contain. If you serve in ministry god will reward you with purpose. If you just behave a certain way, vote a certain way, and live a certain way then God will give you everything pressed down and running over. This teaching works great as long as things are ok in your life. Every little positive thing and happenstance is immediately attributed to God. Promoted at work? Hey that tithe thing really works! New ministry opportunity? God rewards those who diligently serve Him! You found a great parking spot? Parking under the anointing! You may chuckle but this is how most Christians think every single day. God is not your Lord and Savior as much as He is you blessing dealer and that works fine until things go wrong.
"We couldn't get pregnant and people we knew were just like, "just pray and believe" and just say it and it will come to pass." - Lisa Gungor
Sounds like the people I saw on Joel Osteen's Facebook page that day. I can't blame them anymore than I can blame Lisa here. This is how they had been taught. That God is always transactional so when things do not go your way, you must not have paid enough. Except you hadn't changed anything. You were still giving when things were great so now why are they suddenly not? Why is the house being padlocked? Why can't we conceive a child? Let me offer the real Gospel for a second. The transaction God conducted was on Calvary. He redeemed you from Satan and sin by offering His only Son as a sacrifice in your place. He required nothing from you in return except faith in Him. That's the deal. That's the transaction that guarantees us eternal life. Instead of driving home this eternal transaction the church wastes every Sunday selling you temporal blessings. God always wants you rich, healthy, and successful. You're a lender not a borrower! You're the head and not the tail! Until that day when you are the tail. When life happens, as it must to all of us. Instead of reflecting to our eternal promise we check our temporal blessing account and wonder why it is not filled to overflow. Then we ask our fellow transactional brethren sitting in the same apostate church that we do and wonder why we do not get biblical answers. Instead we get just pray and believe or speak it into existence. At this point beloved, because we never truly had faith in our Lord and Savior and because we probably were never saved, we either blame ourselves or blame God.
"The more we toured the world and heard other people's stories the more we doubted what we had been given. We took a trip through Europe and visited the concentration camps. We toured the crematoriums and it was real hard to come back to America and pray for something. When you have these images in your head your opinion of what a good God is can change pretty dramatically. I would try and pray and all I could think about was the concentration camps and how my faith had been transactional. If I am good enough or pray enough then I get blessings, or a baby, or a good life." -- Lisa Gungor
I remember visiting the Holocaust Museum in DC and it was life altering in terms of putting things in perspective. Because I had a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ I was able to find rest in Him, not fault. I am sure that touring the camps must have been 100 times more emotional but it only drives home for me the depravity of man. This is yet another damage wrought from being taught by the purpose driven apostate church. It constantly reinforces that YOU are special instead of Jesus. That God has a special super-duper purpose for you and you alone. That He is intimately involved in every nook and cranny of your life. From having a child to finding that parking space -- God is pulling the strings. Then you tour a concentration camp and cannot fathom where He was. The truth is that God rarely gets directly involved in our lives. He did not create robots. We have choices to make and consequences to bear. That does not even take into consideration what involvement He did have in ending the Holocaust or for sparing individuals. We simply want God to remove all pain and suffering and while that sounds good on the surface -- why would anyone need God then?
So follow this story now of the Gungors. They are raised into churchianity. They are fully immersed into purpose driven teachings. They do the part that is demanded of them. They raise their hands when appropriate and say hallelujah when ordered. Their story reads like a mega church fairy tale. Meet in Bible College. Honor God throughout their dating. Marry without having even kissed. God rewards them with a healthy marriage, huge jobs within the church itself and an international career in the praise music industry. Wow. That is the stuff of Christian movies. But they wanted more. They wanted a child. For whatever reasons, they were unable to conceive and this was taken as a spiritual affront. A denied blessing from a God who had always come through for them. They start to doubt and question but the church has no idea how to biblically support them because they have not been raised biblically either. Instead they throw platitudes at them which the Gungors finally see are empty cliche's instead of actual realities. When their questions persist the church has none of it and essentially ex-communicates them. They move to Denver and start a home church and start exploring beyond the confines of church and the bible. Within a matter of time Michael declares himself an atheist. Perhaps it is because his second child has been born with Down Syndrome. Perhaps it is because he always was an atheist playing a role he was raised to play but never really believed. Either way, when they perceived that their blessing bank had gone dry they left the god they had created.
Many had criticized Michael Gungor at the time because he was tweeting nonsense about the story of creation not being literal. The church that viewed itself as being his benefactor for so many years fought back. Heresy charges were left at his feet which only served to drive him and his wife further away. I do not blame Michael and Lisa Gungor. They are victims beloved. They are victims of the purpose driven industrial complex. They were sold a false god through a false gospel and in the end believed in vain. I watch the linked video from Lisa Gungor and I weep for her lack of knowledge. I weep because she is so right about what happened without understanding why or how it happened. Who knows why she could not initially conceive? Maybe God was trying to reach them in the midst of their own apostasy. Jesus once said to the rich young ruler -- go sell everything and then you can follow me. What lifelong desire do we need to let go of to truly follow God? Will you still serve Him if you do not become successful? If you do not get that promotion? If your life remains ordinary? Will you still serve Him if your child runs away, or has Down Syndrome, or you cannot even conceive?
