Did you ever tell your church leader they were off base?

[goddess40]

Poll question: Did you ever tell your church leader they were off base?

Listening (and reading) all the uproar about Obama's preacher is making my head spin. I don't know many people that have confronted or even discussed with their church leader a statement that is not in keeping with their churches teachings.

When I called the pastor after my father's funeral to tell him that I didn't appreciate being addressed as "his other children" he seems stunned that anyone would question him.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I do now and then. Even though it is a conservative church, he at least lets

me say my piece. I haven't changed anything, but at least I can make my own feelings known.

[Wickerman]

2. We have an adult forum at our church

We discuss many issues and have had many heated, respectful disagreements.

[TCJ70]

16. That sounds pretty cool.

We're pretty open at the church I go to. It's cool that you have a discussion place for it though.

[BOSSHOG]

3. Unlike Obama I left the church I was attending

because I got sick and fucking tired of being told which group of American Citizens I was supposed to hate. I don't need to make a speech defending the Priest in question, I voted with my feet a long time ago.

[YOY]

4. No I just left the whole concept of religion all together

You don't change the Catholic Church. You leave it for something else or for nothing as I did.

[goddess40]

15. I should have had leaving as a choice

Nothing says it louder than taking your money and leaving

I was still in my edit time window so I added it. thanks

[jasmine621]

5. Yes, We have left two churches because of statements and behavior of

the pastors. The first church was a baptist church where the pastor was carrying on at least two extramarital affairs and drinking heavily. The second was an evangelical church where the pastor was smearing left-wing political candidates, blaming gays for 9/11, and really not trying to help the needy in the church.

[peace frog]

6. The Episcopal Church

is in the midst of a schism at present. The wingnuts are busily scrubbing from their ranks everyone who isn't straight, white and extremely conservative, whilst the moderate members and those rejected by the former group are left to join together in memory of what was once a church united in the holy spirit. No more - and I let my scathing opinion of the wingnutters be known to the powers that be.

[noamnety]

7. left the church based on pastorfreepishness

didn't give them an explanation.

[TahitiNut]

8. As a resident of Shrine Parish (Father Coughlin's stomping grounds) ...

... I have to laugh at ANYONE who regards Pastor Jeremiah Wright as "extreme" or "offensive." The insanely naive and ignorant reactivity I've read on DU is beyond discussion. (Lord Acton nailed it again.)

[TCJ70]

9. Yeah, plenty of times...

...he said in one of the sermons that he thought the anti-christ would be homosexual. Both me and a friend of mine were having dinner at his house that night and we told him we thought he shouldn't say stuff like that...especially with no foundation in scripture. We had a discussion about it and moved on. He wasn't advocating violence or anything, that's just what he thought through his own reading and studies. Whatever.

[SoCalDem]

10. I was slapped across the face by a priest when I was about 9 or 10

does that count:rofl:

[niyad]

11. I clicked occasionally, but only because I got excommunicated for expressing

my disapproval of the rcc's stand on birth control. not that it mattered, I was on my way out anyhow. still, it amused me that they felt it necessary to take such action.

[Warpy]

12. Back when I was getting dragged to an Irish Catholic church

no one would ever, ever think of disagreeing with a priest over anything. It just wasn't done.

The angriest I ever saw my mother was when a stuffed shirt of a priest gave a sermon about how the only proper place for a woman in the church was cleaning it. She didn't challenge him, she didn't even walk out. I was so terribly disappointed.

She eventually left and even owned her disbelief at the end. My dad also died an unbeliever, although it took him a bit longer. I stopped buying anything that bunch had to say while I was still in grammar school.

[Jed Dilligan]

13. Never been a church member,

so I have no idea how I would react to disagreeing with the leader of a church I belonged to.

[supernova]

14. Yes, and I was raised Presbyterian

"discussing" kinda comes with the territory. :P :rofl:

There is a way tell someone, regardless of their position, that you disagree with them. You just have to be professional and succinct, and honest. If you can manage to do it without the drama (depending on the subject, of course) the more effective your words will be.

Oddly, I go so good at it that I'm now in between churches. Can't make up my mind between UU and Quaker.

[hunter]

17. I happily argue with authority figures.

As a kid I learned from my mom that the worse they can do is kick you out.

Most of the major religions don't put rattlesnakes in your mailbox or anything like that if you raise a fuss.

In a few hundred years the Catholic Church will come around to my point of view. Until then they'll just have to put up with me.

[Missy Vixen]

18. I left my church when they railed against Planned Parenthood from the pulpit

I'd been on my way out the door for awhile, but that was it for me.

I haven't gone back, and my life is much happier as a result.

Julie

[Quantess]

19. Luckily, I never had that problem.

I don't go to church.

[Toasterlad]

20. I Selected the Last One.

While I would have left anyway because of their position on homosexuality, I initially left the Catholic church because I didn't believe in God. I'd imagine that would have been an "issue" with the priests, but I never bothered to discuss it with them. :P

[goddess40]

21. Now if only the rest of the country was like the DUers

we'd get all the organizations we associate with straightened out ;)