You don’t have to look very far to find people who feel the church is making them uncomfortable in ways they definitely think it shouldn’t. I have raised some of these things myself. Sometimes we put barriers in the way of people coming into the church that ought not to be there. Sometimes the church is inhospitable to particular people when it should not be.

But sometimes people are unhappy about ways the church operates because it makes them uncomfortable, but the church is adamant that this is what the Bible demands of them. It isn’t that the church is trying to make them feel unwelcome. It is just that the Bible does say particular things and the church is seeking to be faithful as it understands the scriptures. But for many, not being entirely affirmed in all that they are by nature is unacceptable. Which is something of a problem when we look into the recesses of our natural hearts and realise they are not always terrific and laudable. Sinners will, inevitably, do stuff we don’t want to affirm and some of us will build entire identities upon such things.

There are those who come regularly to our church who are well aware that we aren’t going to affirm everything that they are, including some pretty core identity stuff. That always cuts both ways at any rate. My Muslim friends – who know full well I am not going to affirm their Islamic identity and deeply held beliefs – still feel welcome. We know, whether we are meeting at our church or in their mosque, they are similarly not going to affirm my Christian identity and beliefs either. We also both know those things necessarily mean we ain’t going to be doing certain things in each other’s spaces. I am not going to be permitted to conduct a communion service in the mosque, which is fair enough. They aren’t going to ask me to preach the gospel at Friday prayers. There is necessarily a ceiling on me, they actively don’t affirm me, and I think they are perfectly reasonable and within their rights to do so. The feeling, as we all know, is mutual. We are, therefore, friends on that understanding that neither of us entirely affirms everything about the other’s beliefs and identity. We cannot lest we be hypocrites.

The same is going to be true if I – once described lovingly and hilariously as a “jihadi baptist” – go and attend a presbyterian church. I can rail as much as I like about the “glass ceiling” put on me despite being a Christian brother. I can insist they have misunderstood the scriptures as much as I want. I can stamp my feet and whinge all I want. But if I go to a presbyterian church (for whatever reason), I have to accept that my refusal to sprinkle my kids as babies and my unwillingness to stand up and teach that is what all believers should do necessarily means I cannot possibly be an elder in that church. I might be qualified in every way otherwise, but it is evident that we are going to be at odds on that issue. If it were a matter that bothered me at all, I would have to accept there is necessarily a glass ceiling on me because of what I am. Here I stand, and all that. But so do they, which necessarily has consequences for everyone. They aren’t being unreasonable insisting on their biblical understanding in their own church.

When I speak about the issues of class or race in the church, naturally, I am saying these things should not be. There will inevitably be some things we do in the church that cut against people’s culture. The gospel will necessarily rub up against every culture at some point. But there will also be things we do that affirm our culture at points too. What we are generally saying when we raise these things is that some of the things the church are doing are cultural and not biblical. They are making life unnecessarily uncomfortable for people – and adding barriers to them coming into the church and growing therein – because they are insisting on other cultural matters that are not demanded in the scriptures. But that doesn’t discount that sometimes those cultures coming into the church will feel uncomfortable because their own culture is rubbing up against the gospel and is being challenged by what is scriptural. We shouldn’t assume the majority culture always has it wrong, but we equally shouldn’t assume they always have it right.

But often underlying these conversations is a sense in which the church ought to be making people feel comfortable. People’s cultures should be embraced. People’s identities ought to be affirmed. But the gospel simply won’t let us do that. Sometimes we are making people feel uncomfortable when the bible doesn’t demand that of us; but sometimes we make people feel uncomfortable when the bible does demand that of us. It neither fully affirms nor fully rejects, it sometimes places ceilings on us and sometimes it doesn’t. The big question in all these things is not whether people feel comfortable or not, it is whether we are being biblical or not.

In the end, some people will not like the fact that they can never be made elders. But if they don’t meet the biblical criteria for eldership then, despite their discomfort over the matter, that is how it is. Other times, people will never be made elders and their unhappiness at the fact is justified because the biblical criteria simply don’t demand the things that church leaders are looking for. The question isn’t how happy anyone is about that, it is whether the position is biblical or not.

I think, as in some of the examples above, we also have to accept that if we join certain churches, with particular convictions, we will have to wear their understanding of what is biblical too. You can’t very well join a charismatic church and then get upset that they keep speaking in tongues, which makes you uncomfortable. If you join such a church, though the question is whether they are functioning biblically, you know that this is a practice they believe to be biblical and camp out on it. You can’t complain if that is what you chose to join. Of course there will implications for you insofar as your comfort and what you are able to go along with are concerned. But you have no business joining a church that doesn’t think what they are doing is biblical and, assuming you have joined one that does, have to wear the fact that they will consider various things you might not to be biblical. If you consider the issue serious enough, you have to think about whether you can go there at all. What you can’t do is go and then rail against biblical convictions you knew they held as if it is a surprise to you.

Which comes back to the point at hand. The question is not whether you like it, or whether you are comfortable, but is it un/biblical? Much has been said about complementarianism of late. I have written about some of it here. There are certainly things that some complementarians do that are not, in my view, biblical. If I am right that they are not biblical, they should stop doing them. But complementarianism a a doctrine – understood and applied rightly – I believe is biblical. If I am right about that, it isn’t much good to have egalitarian women talk about their hurt and discomfort if what is going on is strictly biblical. If it isn’t (as I highlight here) calls to change and the hurt that is caused are absolutely right and proper. But if what is going on is biblical, our issue is really with the scriptures themselves. The same is true on all the class and race issues I have previously raised on this blog too.

Now, if you think the church is mistaken in its biblical understanding, you have to decide whether it is a matter you do not consider particularly important – in which case talk of hurt and discomfort are misplaced because you don’t think it matters all that much – or you think the issue is pretty important, in which case you probably shouldn’t go there at all. What you can’t do (or, at least, shouldn’t do) is go to a church that you know is doing one thing you consider unbiblical and very important and then rail against them when they do exactly what they said they believe. It would be as foolish for me to go to a liberal church – and then complain that they treat me badly by not letting me do loads of stuff with my conservative evangelical theology – as it is for someone who rejects my theology to go to a conservative evangelical church and then complain there are limits on what they can do as a liberal.

The only ground on which these things might be legitimate is if the church itself is clear that it only holds its views – not because it believes it to be biblical – but because they admit they just hate a particular group of people. If that ever happened, you’d be having a very different conversation. A conversation about whether it is biblical to hate any given group of people and setup your church to essentially upset them (which, of course, it isn’t!) But, I’ll go out on a limb, no church is ever going to say that. Regardless of the stripe, they are all going to insist they are doing what is right and acting in line with things that they really believe to be true. You might think they’re wrong, which is your prerogative, but if they are genuinely seeking to act in line with what they believe to be right and biblical, you can’t legitimately go and join that church and then rail against them. You knew what they were when you joined, you knew they insisted what they’re doing is right and/or biblical, your option is to join and get on board or to find somewhere where you can comfortably worship in line with whatever convictions you think are a dividing matter.

In the end, the big question is whether it is biblical. Is this church operating biblically? At a minimum, does it genuinely think what it is doing is biblical? If it does, taking them in good faith, you have to decide whether the issues you perceive are important enough to stop you going there. Railing against them doing exactly what they said from the front door they would be it seems to me to be utterly untenable.