One Sunday morning, the minister in my non-denominational evangelical church interrupted his sermon to reprimand his teenage daughter for some behavior I wasn’t even aware of.  While it’s human nature for a father to occasionally embarrass his teenage daughter, usually, it’s unintentional.  I felt that publically shaming one’s daughter crossed the line from normal father-daughter behavior to abuse.  

I was enraged.  It took every drop of self control I had to stop myself from marching to the front of the church, shoving my minister away from his pulpit, and publicly reprimanding him as he’d just reprimanded his daughter.  

Instead, I thought, Thank God, he’s not my father.

You’d think I would have left my church after that.  Common sense says a man who mistreats his daughter could also mistreat his church members.  But we want to believe the best about people, and thus filter out behavior that doesn’t conform to that belief.  I put the incident out of my mind.

Another Sunday morning my minister preached a sermon in which he said Jesus broke the leg of any lamb that went astray and carried it around his neck.  My minister called this an example of “tough love.” 

Jesus carrying a lamb over his shoulders is a common image in Christianity.  Prior to this sermon, I’d assumed the lamb was the runt, unable to keep up with the rest of the flock.  I was troubled by this sermon.  What my minister called tough love sounded like sadism.

It was also nonsense, based on my limited experience herding sheep.  Sheep are followers by nature.  When they go astray, the whole flock goes astray, likely led by an adult ram who, at 100 - 350 pounds (according to Wikipedia), would be awkward for the shepherd to carry on his shoulders. A good shepherd uses sheep's natural conformity to his/her advantage, gently guiding the lead sheep back into the pasture, knowing the rest of the flock will follow.

Did I leave my church?  No.  I shrugged it off.  The evangelical church is media-driven.  When Rick Warren’s “The Purpose-Driven Life” became a bestseller, ministers offered a 40-day series based on the book.  Same with “The Passion of the Christ.”  Christian parenting books around that time, such as a book called “Parenting With Love and Logic,” promoted a tough love philosophy.  I was certain by the time the next Christian bestseller came out, Jesus would be reinvented as a kinder, gentler shepherd.

My minister was harder to reinvent.  One Saturday morning he showed up for an outreach ministry he’d promoted for weeks.  Instead of lending a hand, he stood around making rude comments about us not knowing what we were doing.  This explained why the outreach ministries in my church rarely lasted more than a few months.  I never volunteered for anything at that church again.  

Even so, I didn’t leave.

I still remember the Sunday morning I decided something was horribly wrong in my church.  My minister’s sermon that morning was incoherent.  He kept repeating the phrase, “We’ve got all kinds of programs in this church” in a way that made me wonder if he was having a nervous breakdown.

No one else was reacting to this.  Something about the experience felt otherworldly to me, as if I’d stepped into the Stepford Wives.  I had an overpowering sense that the Holy Spirit had left my church.

I left my church soon afterwards.