In the Truth But of the World

This article is part of a series of posts about my experience coming to, being in and leaving the Christadelphian Church and how my faith has grown, developed and evolved since. Whilst I no longer consider myself Christadelphian or aligned to a Christadelphian worldview, it is important to note that these articles are an expression of my personal journey and experience and not from a place of animosity or ill-will to any Christadelphian or the community at large. I have high respect for the commitment Christadelphians have to their faith and am very grateful to those in the community who have had a positive impact on my life and to the many Christadelphians who have been, are and always will be my friends.

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Have you ever been called fresh blood? Yep, I have and it was at my first Christadelphian Conference. In all fairness, it was a joke, well 60% joke and 40% truth, or perhaps it was 40% joke and 60% truth. I’m still not sure. I was an anomaly because I wasn’t born into the Christadelphian community. I never expected it to be such a big deal until I found out converts were few and far between.

The Christadelphian community is small. There’s only 50,000 (ish) Christadelphians in the world and 10,093 of them are in Australia. Once that’s broken down into progressive and conservative camps, it’s smaller still. Also, Christadelphians marry Christadelphians – almost always. In the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith, the 34th doctrine to be rejected was ‘that marriage with an unbeliever is lawful.’ Not only are your friends Christadelphian, but your parents, your grandparents, uncles and aunts and next thing you know, you’re at conference talking to someone and discover you’re actually 3rd cousins. This never happened to me of course. I was a convert – fresh meat – but I saw this happen all the time.

At the same conference, I went on a hike in the Adelaide Hills for the mid-week activity. My fellow hiker (we’ll call him ‘Paul’, and I were having a great chat as we ascended Mt. Lofty. As we neared the peak, we started a conversation I was about to get very accustomed to. Paul asked, ‘What was your last name again?’
‘Linton’, I said.
‘Linton, hmmm… I don’t know any Lintons. What’s your mother’s maiden name?’
I told him her maiden name.
‘I haven’t heard of them either! Which Ecclesia do they go to?’
‘They’re not Christadelphian,’ I said. ‘I only started coming along a few months ago’. His reply is one I’ll never forget.
‘Oh, so you weren’t born in the truth!’

The ‘TRUTH’?!?!?! I’d never heard anyone say something like that in my life. All I could think was how hierarchical, elitest and demeaning it sounded for him to so confidently proclaim he believed he had ‘the truth’. As if anyone could genuinely believe they were without fault in doctrine or practice when it came to God and faith? It didn’t take me long to work out Paul wasn’t actually big-headed or trying to be rude, even if it did come across that way. It was so common to hear Christadelphians refer to the community and their beliefs as ‘the truth’ and everyone else as ‘in the world’ or ‘worldly’.

I came to learn that ‘the truth’ and ‘the world’ weren’t just synonyms for ‘Christadelphian’ and ‘non-Christadelphian’. They carried a significant amount of theological and historical baggage that had a more sinister undertone. These words were used to differentiate and exclude and for many, being in ‘the truth’ or ‘of the world’ were interchangeable with ‘saved’ and ‘unsaved’, ‘righteous’ and ‘unrighteous’, ‘for God’ and ‘against God’. In all fairness, many Christadelphians were more nuanced than this and not everyone felt non-Christadelphians were inherently bad. What it did always mean however was whether you were in the club or not.

For many who grew up Christadelphian, the community seemed huge. Everyone was connected either by friendships or family and because church was such a large part of life, you were always surrounded by Christadelphians. There was a large comfort in this. Everyone knew each other and there was a deep trust and commitment to community. No matter where you were, someone always knew someone you knew and it was really easy to find common ground. It was one of the best part of being connected with the Christadelphian community.

About 2 years after my conversation with ‘Paul’, I was at a youth camp. In study group, we were reading 2 Corinthians 6 when we came across this infamous passage:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

2 Corinthians 6:14

After we’d read the chapter and came to the discussion, a young lady from Perth said that in light of this verse, if anyone had friends outside of ‘the truth’, they really had to consider whether this was the right thing and if this was really serving God. Some of my friends in the group, who were admittedly much more progressive, looked at me straight away knowing it would have hurt me. And it had. After 2 years of hearing people denigrating non-Christadelphians and inadvertently judging my family and friends for not being ‘born in the truth’, I was sick of it and I spoke up, politely and with restraint – like always. I said that my family wasn’t Christadelphian, that they were good people and that it’s easy for those who have never had to seriously engage with non-Christadelphians to make such definitive statements without thinking of the consequences.

This verse has been taken wildly out of context and used to tear apart families and friends and bar some people from opportunities such as going to university, travelling and even playing the drums out of fear it will lead a believer away from ‘the truth’ and ‘yoke’ them to ‘the world’. I just want to say that I realise these statements seem quite outlandish, even extreme to more progressive Christadelphians that have had less contact with the conservative side, I’ve spoken to people and others in the community who have experienced all of these first hand.

Almost Heretical, one of my favourite podcasts, discussed what this verse meant for the Christians in the first century and what it means for Christians now in Episode 92 – Unequally Yoked. If you’re interested, I highly recommend you check it out.

In my post Chapter and Verse I discussed the danger of taking verses out of context to justify theological points. So many Christadelphians would use this verse to justify the communities’ ‘separateness from the world’ and reinforce their special status of holding ‘the truth’. The community didn’t see ‘the truth’ as a secret message like the gnostics did, they genuinely wanted people to hear and believe ‘the truth’. However aside from ‘bible talks’ and ‘public lectures’, which were a legacy carried on from the communities 19th century preaching practices, there was little effort made to share ‘the truth’ with ‘the world’.

No matter what I did, I never felt part of ‘the truth’. Being Christadelphian is as much about the culture as it is about the religion. It’s hard to know where one stops and the other begins. I had never grown up going to kids camp or been knitted a bag by, we’ll call her ‘Aunty Jayne’, in the junior Sunday School class. No adult could ever share the stories of childhood adventures with my parents at camps and conferences because they weren’t Christadelphian. I was never offered to house sit for any Christadelphian families because I hadn’t known many of the adults for a long time and I didn’t have family in every capital city to lean on for transport to and from the airport on the way to and from conferences. I didn’t understand it was taboo not to wear a shirt and tie to ‘Revelation Class’ and that going on holiday with female friends would be a cause for concern for the Ecclesia’s Arraning Brother (Elders). By not growing up in ‘the truth’, I didn’t have the verse recall of everyone else, I didn’t have family to ask questions to and I quite frankly could never be comfortable with the overt judgement and elitism that made many feel more special and important than everyone else because they were born into this really, really, really small community literally no one else had ever heard of.

The most extreme and appauling example of the truth/world dichotomy was when I went to a weeknight class on the Book of Revelation. To take this class, an older man had flown over from Adelaide for the specific task of teaching about biblical prophecy from Revelation. To set the scene, it was a Wednesday night at someone’s house, all the women were wearing skirts to their ankles and had their head coverings on. The males were wearing shirts, ties and slacks and they were all reading from the same King James Bible so they would all turn the page at exactly the same time. Me and my friends came in shorts, a T-shirt and I had my NIV translation and I’m pretty sure I forget my pencil to take notes. I wasn’t trying to make a statement, I just didn’t realise how seriously people were taking a Wednesday night bible study. There was one moment when the older man got quite excited. He was telling us that at the time of judgement, God was going to destroy all Catholics for their worldliness and rebellion against Christ. I kid you not, his mouth was literally frothing. I was absolutely disgusted. Not just at the fact that his version of God wasn’t the God of love I’d come to know but because he could say and believe such a thing with such excitement and no restraint. Everyone nodded and continued taking notes. A few weeks later, someone I knew who had been at the class and was aware that my family were ‘notional Catholics’ asked how I was going after it. I said I was pretty shocked by the whole situation and their response was ‘I know how confronting it must have been to find out what will happen to your family.’ I was disgusted all over again – these Christadelphians lived in a completely different reality to my own. What makes me sad is that this kind of teaching is commonly delivered in conservative Christadelphian circles all around the world.

When I started coming along, I was studying law at University and for many people, this was a big deal. In the ‘Doctrines to be Rejected‘ the last 2 statements are:
35. We reject the doctrine – that we are at liberty to serve in the Army, Navy, Police Force, or any service whatsoever requiring the Oath of Allegiance or use of force.
36. We reject the doctrine – that we are at liberty to take part in politics, or recover debts by legal coercion.
There was a split in the early Christadelphian community that arose from these 2 doctrines to be rejected. These doctrines emphasised the Christadelphian’s ‘seperateness’ from the world and an easy point of distinction. Whilst studying law wasn’t explicity mentioned in these doctrines, Christadelphians claim a conscientious objection to jury duty and do not vote in government elections. Some won’t even sign a petition. Many people saw me studying law as a slippery slope or as a carry over of my ‘worldliness’. Many thought the more ‘Christadelphian’ I became, the more I would see that law wasn’t for me. Others would be polite and not say much to me directly but tell others their concern. Some more progressive Christadelphians were were either supportive or didn’t really care.

On top of this, I voted and I didn’t hide it. To put this in context, in Australia voting is compulsory – it’s the law. Christadelphians, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, are granted an exemption from voting due to their religious beliefs. What exactly this belief was based on changed with the person you asked. Some would say Christadelphians didn’t vote because ‘we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, not of the Kingdom of Men’. To this I would ask why they accepted a government issued passport with ‘Australia’ on it and why they sent their kids to free public schools run by the government if they didn’t recognise their ‘worldly’ citizenship. Some would say that voting isn’t inherently wrong however because God puts rulers in place, if a Christadelphian were to vote for the party or person that didn’t get in, they be going against God’s will. I would ask why they still voted in Ecclesial elections and what would happen if they voted for someone that didn’t get in at the Ecclesial level. The reasons I got were inconsistent at best and it seems to have less to do with a strong theological backing but a stronger desire to be ‘seperate from the world’. I will also admit that at my Ecclestia, there was a small, but substantial number of people who did vote. The number, I would estimate, was around 20%, much higher than many would have thought, however most of them stayed very quiet about it for rear of repercussions.

At one point, I received an e-mail from someone asking whether I’d considered getting baptised. It took me a long time to get my thoughts together but my response was telling. A redacted version of my response is below:

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I come from an unusual spot in comparison to most of my friends.  Whilst there is not necessarily overt pressure on them to get baptised, it is almost like an expectation in Christadelphia and a huge moment for any Christadelphian parent/family when their child makes a commitment to living in God’s word.  It would be equally devastating when their child decides to not get baptised.  I have none of that.  By coming along… in a way was similar to the process which a lot of Christadelphians go through to become baptised.  I heard the teachings, I read the Bible, I asked lots of questions, I was convinced so I came along.  For most people, the endpoint to that is baptism – or from what I’ve gathered.  Baptism will happen.  There are a few things in the way first.

Firstly, none of my family is Christadelphian and none of my family are friends with Christadelphians.  This automatically puts you on the periphery of the group.  I was speaking to another girl at J Weekend, another convert, and she said to me she doesn’t know if she’ll ever feel fully included into the community because it’s such an exclusive group.  Whilst I accept the idea of separation from the world, large pockets of Christadelphia have turned this idea of separateness into social isolation and as a result view anything non-Christadelphian as corrupt.  For me, this has really hit hard and I can’t understate how much it has hurt me.  At conference, when talking to another guy, he said ‘oh, so you weren’t born into the truth.’ I was really struck.  It was as if everyone else in the world was in a lie.  This made me angry.  As a person, I haven’t changed, I’ve always had faith and believed in God.  It was as if because I have become associated with Christadelphians, I was no longer dead.  I have heard some pretty horrific things from Christadelphians which have really hurt me and it just isn’t stopping nor do I believe it will anytime soon.  Hearing about the content of [a] recent exhort on ‘separateness’… made me really upset and makes me further pushed to the side.  There was a moment at J Weekend in a bible study group, a lady from Perth stated that if we have friendships not based on the truth, then we should really review where our priorities lie.  I didn’t get angry, I was just hurt again and disappointed.  For her it’s a hypothetical.  For me, that is my family and it’s insulting.  My family isn’t the most accepting of me becoming a Christadelphian, nor is Christadelphia necessarily accepting of where I come from.  I find myself constantly between a rock and a hard place and it is really, really hard.  There is a real culture of superiority in Christadelphia, particularly the conservative strain which unfortunately is a majority in [Melbourne].  Having heard a brother at CYC [Christadelphian Youth Circle – the statewide Christadelphian youth group in Victoria, Australia] state that they would disfellowship a lawyer cut at me again.  I live a really uneasy tension.  I feel judgement from my parents and judgement from other Christadelphians.  People at J Weekend looked at you funny because you didn’t wear a suit to the meeting.  J Weekend was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life.  I constantly thought ‘I’m joining this?’ I asked my friends, why are you all so normal compared to [other Christadelphians].  Their answer was ‘we engage in critical thinking’ and sadly, a very large element of that is true.  Another aspect is that at my baptismal interview, if I am asked, do you agree that marriage should only be between 2 Christadelphians, I’m going to have to say no and I’m not giving any guarantee that I’m going to marry a Christadelphian either and I’ve heard of the horrible letters everyone’s ‘fellow brothers and sisters in Christ’ send to the Christadelphian when this is the case.  If asked do I believe I shouldn’t vote, I will have to say no.  If asked would you sit on a jury, I’d have to say yes.  I know that throughout my time in Christadelphia I’m going to offend people by merely being me.  It has actually got to the point where I have considered whether or not it is worth continuing to attend when I receive this constant judgement.  At the same time, the judgement from my family would go away.  I’ve decided to be the bigger person and that decision was not an easy one.  I want to be a part of a faith where I feel comfortable, not having to always censor which uni degree I’m doing because I am fearful of judgement or be looked down upon because I don’t wear a tie.  Debates about hymn books, drums, women speaking and head coverings are ridiculous when there are so many young people leaving.  Whilst the adults fight about trivial matters, it slowly becomes more and more irrelevant to the young people in the meeting.

When you are baptised, you not only begin a new relationship with God, you become a member of an ecclesia, a part of Christadelphia and with that comes expectations.  I love God, I try to live like Jesus every day (and fail but keep trying), I read the Bible and I want the Kingdom to come right now.  I cannot commit to a church which at times, makes me feel hurt, uncomfortable and on the edge.  I don’t want to degrade the many positive things I’ve gained. I’m mighty grateful, I truly am.  I’m thankful for the Adelaide Conference, Sunday school, the time with friends, the sense of community and the attempt to get straight to God’s word.  Christadelphia I know is hard enough for born and bred Christadelphians at times but as a 19 year old who thinks really deeply, it is just too much at times.

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You see I was ‘in the truth’ – so to say but I was still ‘of the world’. These lines for me were always blurred and the constant tip-toing around it all was exhausing. It’s true, the world is a crazy place full of greed, selfishness and immorality but on the flip-side it’s also full of so much goodness, hope and joy. This is the side Christadelphians often ignored. Many of my atheist/agnostic friends dedicated more of their lives to helping the poor and fighting for justice than most Christadelphians I knew. In so many ways, my atheist friends acted more like Jesus than many of my Christian friends.

Lynn Moresi is a Pentecostal minister and one of my favourite contemporary communicators and teachers of practical theology and she said something which I think encapsulates this perfectly. When delivering a message at her church on Baptism in the Holy Spirit she said at 9.40-10.19:

‘I work alongside Baptists and Reformed and Anglicans and Catholics and I work among Christians that don’t believe what we as Pentecostals believe. They’ve never been baptised in the Holy Spirit or speak in tongues but the love of God that’s in their lives – the way they step outside the four walls of the church and touch people that desperately need the love of God and they’re marked by a beautiful presence of God in their life – but they may not believe this. And and then I’ve met Pentecostals, who speak in tongues and they’re just nasty people, and they look like they’ve been sucking on lemons their whole life’.

In all fairness, it was a joke, well 60% joke and 40% truth, or perhaps it was 40% joke and 60% truth – I’m still not sure. But what I do know is that Jesus hung out with the least holy, the least righteous and most condemned people of his time to remind them of God’s love for everyone.

The gospels record Jesus speaking with a despised tax collector (Matthew 9:9), an insane hermit (Mark 5:1-15), the Roman Governor (Mark 15:1-15), a young boy (Mark 9:17-27), a prominent religious leader (John 3:1-21), a homemaker (Luke10:38-42), an expert in the law (Matthew 22:35), a criminal (Luke 23:40-43), a synagogue ruler (Mark 5:22), fishermen (Matthew 4:18-20), a king (Luke 23:7-11), a poor widow (Luke 7:11-17; 21:1-4), a roman centurion (Luke 7:1-10), a group of children (Mark 10:13-16), a prophet (Mathew 3), a women caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), The jewish high council (Luke 22:66-71), a sick woman (Mark 5:25034), a rich man (Mark 10:17-23), a blind beggar (Mark 10:46), political leaders (Mark 12:13), a group of women (Luke 8:2, 3) the high priest (Matthew 26:62-68), an outcast with leprosy (Luke 17:11-19), a royal official (John 4:46-53), a young girl (Mark 5:41-42), a traitor (John 13:1-3, 27), a helpless and paralyzed man (Mark 2:1-12), an angry mob of soldiers (John 18:3-9), a woman from a foreign land (Mark 7:25-30), a doubting follower (John 20:24-29), an enemy who hated him (Acts 9:1-9) and a Samaritan woman (John 4:1-26).

By the standards of his day, Jesus was the worldliest of them all and that my friends, is the truth.

See Also

• Chapter and Verse – Also part of my series on The Christadelphians
• How I Came Out and Left My Church – Also part of my series of post on The Christadelphians
• Decentralised Power and Biblical Leadership: Lessons From Exodus 18

Further Resources

Note: To help cover the costs of running this website, links marked with an (*) contain affiliate links. That means if you choose to make a purchase after clicking the link, I will receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for your understanding and support – Nathan 🙂

• Almost Heretical – Podcast by Nate and Shelby Hanson & Tim Ritter
• The Deconstructionists Podcast – Podcast by Adam Narloch & John Williamson
• The Bible for Normal People – Podcast by Pete Enns & Jared Byas
• * The Very Good Gospel – Lisa Sharon Harper