Posted on 06/05/2019 11:27:40 AM PDT by Gamecock
Dave Gass, a former pastor who most recently led Grace Family Fellowship in Pleasant Hill, Missouri, has renounced his Christian faith as a system rife with abuse that caused him “mental and emotional breaks.”
A representative from his former church, however, has accused him of being an unrepentant adulterer.
Gass reportedly first made his announcement in a series of now protected tweets but not before they were copied and shared across multiple social media platforms.
“After 40 years of being a devout follower, 20 of those being an evangelical pastor, I am walking away from faith. Even though this has been a massive bomb drop in my life, it has been decades in the making,” he began in the thread before moving on to compare Scripture to Greek mythology.
“When I was in 8th grade and I was reading Greek mythology, it dawned on me how much of the supernatural interactions between the deity of the bible and mankind sounded like ancient mythology. That seed of doubt never went away,” he said.
He explained how he was raised in a “hyper-fundamentalist” Christian home where Christianity “didn’t work. The promises were empty. The answers were lies.”
Even so, he grew up to be a devout Christian who rarely missed church or failed to study Scripture.
“I was fully devoted to studying the scriptures. I think I missed maybe 12 Sundays in 40 years. I had completely memorized 18 books of the bible and was reading through the bible for the 24th time when I walked away,” he wrote.
None of it, however, helped his marriage.
“As an adult my marriage was a sham and a constant source of pain for me. I did everything I was supposed to - marriage workshops, counseling, bible reading together, date nights every week, marriage books - but my marriage never became what I was promised it would be,” he said.
He went on to discuss how miserable his life eventually became as his expectations, including experiencing the supernatural failed to match up with the reality he was experiencing.
“An inescapable reality that I came to was that the people who benefited the most from organized religion were the fringe attenders who didn’t take it too seriously. The people who were devout were the most miserable, but just kept trying harder,” he said.
“… The entire system is rife with abuse. And not just from the top down, sure there are abusive church leaders, but church leaders are abused by their congregants as well. Church people are just sh*tty to each other,” he continued. “I spent my entire life serving, loving, and trying to help people in my congregations. And the lies, betrayal, and slander I have received at the hands of church people left wounds that may never heal.”
He said he struggled so much with his church experience it began to affect his mental and ultimately physical health.
“This massive cognitive dissonance - my beliefs not matching with reality - created a separation between my head and my heart. I was gas lighting myself to stay in the faith. Eventually I could not maintain the facade anymore, I started to have mental and emotional breaks. My internal stress started to show in physical symptoms. Being a pastor - a professional Christian - was killing me,” Gass revealed.
To save himself, he said, he chose to walk away from the church.
“Eventually I pulled the lever and dropped the bomb. Career, marriage, family, social standing, network, reputation, all gone in an instant. And honestly I didn’t intend to fully walk away, but the way the church turned on me forced me to leave permanently,” he said.
He apologized to his former followers and said he still loves those who choose to dismiss him as an “apostate.”
“For those of you who want to yell at me, that’s fine. I know that many will call me an apostate, say I was never really saved, that I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and that a hotter hell awaits me. And to you I say I love you. My heart is tender toward you,” he said.
“To those who have been in my congregations or under my teaching/preaching I sincerely apologize. I thought I was right. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I could fake it until I made it. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I love you,” he added.
Justin Thuttle, a deacon at Grace Family Fellowship Church, claimed on Twitter that Gass was not entirely forthcoming about his faith journey and branded him an unrepentant sinner.
“Yes, he was my pastor when he ‘walked away’. He actually just slept with a married women (sic) in the church and got caught. He never repented and they still live together,” he wrote in a tweet last Thursday.
“Last year all the information came to light. The affair happened for almost a year before it was uncovered. So the whole, ‘I did everything right in my marriage’ part was kinda funny until I saw how many people liked his story,” he said.
The Christian Post reached out to the church for further comment Tuesday and a representative who asked to speak anonymously said Thuttle's response is accurate.
"Justin’s input is accurate. I would only add that, to our knowledge, none of the churches where Gass was on staff were megachurches. And after he resigned, he cut off all communications with anyone from Grace Family Fellowship," the representative said.
We just got back from Maui. We went to a Calvary Chapel service on the beach in LaHaina. The pastor there is just amazing. He has an incredible and contagious enthusiasm for the Bible. This next week he will have finally finished preaching through the whole Bible after 26 years. Then he’s going to start over. Amazingly although people from all over the world go to his beach services every Sunday, his permanent flock is actually very small.
I get the feeling his congregation is not very big because he doesn’t hold back and try to sugar coat his sermons. On the Sunday service he was referencing the importance of repentance and he said, “Hell is real, people. You’ve got to take this seriously.” I’m sure he offended a lot of the cheap grace visitors.
If I lived on the island there is no doubt I would make this my home Church. I watch his sermons every week on Vimeo. His enthusiasm inspires me. Free mail me and I’ll send you a link.
A reasonable position.
The Word instructs assembling together; it includes just two or three as sufficing.
Denominations, and all that attend them, are not mandated, nor enormous gatherings in specific structures.
In fact, being dedicated followers of sects, e.g., of Cephus, is actually denounced.
I call that Churchianity.
Me...ahhh....me and Mrs. Jones....
We got a thing goin’ on...
We both know it’s wrong...
But the feelins’ much too strong....
Pray for him and her but he’s toast if he loses faith in Christ, cuz of a woman....
Of course...his sin...never seen in history....evah...NOT.
Give it up dude...repent...
Don’t go to hell cuz of a dopamine dump.
You don’t do salvation for years. You are or you are not saved. You have or you have not accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior.
but my marriage never became what I was promised it would be,”
Interestingly enough, his wife made the same comment.
</sarcasm>
but my marriage never became what I was promised it would be
——-
Promised by whom?
I disagree. Being a sinful human is VERY easy - it’s in our nature. ;o)
Most, if not all, community megachurch leaders are egoist/narcissist types...community organizers are not good preachers
Interesting...so are you saying no one can know what the Holy Spirit meant to teach? That no one can really know if Jesus said the things He was supposed to have said? Do you know Greek?
Amen! Well said.
Same here - ALL religions are man-made and the thousands of offshoots of Christianity show their fallibility. I opted for non-denominational of a size that I can know the folks who advise the pastor and handle the finances - and who actually spend the “excess” on Christ-oriented missionary and other such endeavors, instead of hoarding it or making the top cadre wealthy......and where every gathering is sure to contain something on Christ no matter the particular topic focus of the day.
He never truly accepted Christ as his Savior. It is right there in the article. You can easily glean it.
He is one of the empty suit “Christian”, trying to use the religion for his benefit, his gain. Again, pulled that right from his own words.
I see it as a state of being.
I think the belief in an actual hell has created far more mental and emotional illness than it has discouraged sin.
BTW, my comment about “I can’t believe in a God who would allow eternal torment of His creation” is the crux of the issue. It’s why many shun Christianity. And, as a Christian, one reason I can’t believe it is that it does not fit with the personality of the God of the Bible. Even the “mean God” of the OT simply wipes out his enemies. There is not a single place in the bible where enemies of God are “tortured” beyond what happens to them in this life before he terminates them.
i.e. I think the closest thing to hell is what non-believers experience here on earth. And to be clear, Paul, while in prison, experienced joy. And all that that implies.
> dude really ? being a sinful human ain’t easy ???
being a sinful human and wanting not to be sinful and trying not to be sinful is not easy. being a Christian is not easy.
i needed a few more words in my post. :)
and yes, as you point out, being sinful is of course very easy. :)
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