Is there a difference between unshakable faith and unshakable arrogance? I was 15 years in the churches of God and had it all figured out in those first 5 years... so this young kid of 19 in Seminary had nothing to offer me as we talked religion. Jed would only be here for the summer so I had a small window of opportunity to "enlighten" him. He asked many great questions and did a lot of listening. Our lunch hours often went longer than the company would have appreciated.
At summer's end, it was time for Jed to move on in finishing his religious training so that he could start a ministry in the worst part of the city with his new bride. I heard later his apartment was broken into 3 times in the first 2 months he lived there. Oh well, I chalked it up as another dumb decision made in zealous youth. (I told him so!) And all that preaching at Jed was all for naught. Not only did he move his beautiful bride into the hood for "Jesus" but responded to all my pontificating with a set of books as a gift to me, written by an Anglican Priest. The nerve! Those 1500 pages of nonsense sat on my bookshelf for 10 years before I ever even cracked one of them.
But there I was at the Feast of Tabernacles last year getting more spiritual meat from one of those books than all the Feast sermons and sermonettes in the last 10 years!
Hitting "mid-life" is erroneously labeled a crisis. For most, it is actually a time of evaluating your first 20+ years as an adult. Then, after evaluating, we begin formulating the direction of our next 20+ years. If we are being honest with ourselves, we even evaluate our sacred cows and allow those to be challenged genuinely for the first time in years. (Maybe this is why this time of life is called a crisis)
For me, it was a humbling awakening. I was so busy working hard, providing for my wife and our growing family, that I didn't have time to question my "unshakable faith." That part of my life was on solid ground so I had no need to revisit it periodically, nor the time. That was settled in my early 20's when I knew everything.
The miracle of children is their ability to ask questions that cut deep through all the bullshit and force us as parents to carefully consider our answers. When it was Jed, it had no effect. I was unshakable. But now it was my own teenage flesh and blood. Dad was being forced to put his religion on the examination table also. The nagging questions about "church" that were suppressed for years were now being forced into the light of reason. Maybe I should thoroughly give this another look for the sake of not being labeled a hypocrite or a religious minion in the eyes of my own babies.
Mid-life showed me (and others may attest to this as well) that we spend much of our lives on "auto-pilot." Striving for the "American Dream" is a real thing and for the most part, a soul stealing endeavor. This time of life is bitter-sweet. We can be deeply saddened by coming into the realization that we really know very little about anything. We can anguish (but hopefully for only a little while) over bad decisions; forks in the road of our lives where we went left instead of right or ducked when we should have jumped.
But on the other end of this examination, we can choose to rejoice in a recovered zeal for the next 20 year journey. We can be excited about lessons learned and make the course corrections now. We can be content in not knowing everything and instead, move forward with our minds more open and teachable than ever before. I suppose this is the hidden lesson God had in store for us when he gave us our own children to raise. Yes, as parents, we owe it to our children to be critical thinkers but we really owe it to ourselves first.
Probably, the most depressing and disappointing article I have ever read in the churches of God to date is Gerald Weston's, "I Was Wrong." The title was nothing but misleading click-bait full of arrogant apologetics for the ministry. Many people in LCG were hopeful that after the death of RCM, the church would begin to listen and grow and change for the first time in 25 years. Instead, GEW has chosen to double down like Rehoboam, making his pinky thicker than the waist of our Golden Glove champion.
NEWSFLASH: You are not going to win the hearts and minds of our children when you dwell on legalized marijuana and our daughter's shorts as being the biggest problems in the churches of God today.
Older people spend a lot of time criticizing and putting down the younger generations that will inevitably replace them. The churches complain that kids today are less this and more that. One thing is sure: whatever the churches are doing to reach the next generation, it's failing. The death to birth rate in the churches of God is 4/1. The teenagers are not sticking around, once they leave home. New people are not flocking (not even trickling!) into the churches of God. Is it because the world and our children are more evil and less receptive to God and His way of life? Or could it be that the organizations are refusing to open themselves up to their own mid-life examinations, admit to bad decisions, make course corrections and save themselves from being what the children see: religious hypocrites and mindless minions betrothed to a gnostic theology developed by a narcissist of below average intelligence almost 100 years ago?
V
Hello, I know that this is an older post, but I just discovered your website today, and have been reading through some of your previous posts. It appears that your site is fairly new, but much of what you say resonates with my own experiences within the cog movement.
ReplyDeleteI grew up in World Wide in the seventies and eighties and left that organization in the mid-nineties to join Meredith's group. I left that group a few years ago and have been attending a very small independent splinter group, with visits to some of the other groups occasionally for social events and while traveling. I have two children in their late teens and early twenties, and while both of them still attend a cog group and continue to believe in God, both have researched some of the church's history and teachings and have posed questions privately to me and my husband about inconsistencies and outright errors with what they have seen and read. They as well as some of their friends are quick to pick up on the hypocrisy and arrogance of the leaders in the various groups as well, and this would apply to both the bigger and the smaller groups. It seems that every time a minister splits off because of doctrinal disagreement or other issues, he invariably ends up just creating a smaller version of what he just left. The only difference being that he is now "in charge". This I think is because the older ministers cannot seem to think outside the box and base what they are doing largely on the previous model.
My husband and I find ourselves in a strange position. My parents and most of their generation continue to view HWA largely with rose colored glasses, and bringing up or questioning his track record or teachings is largely met with denial, excuse making, justifying, and head in the sand type behavior. With my children's generation, at least the few who are still around and are paying attention, the gloves are coming off and they are looking into everything again with fresh eyes. They are not afraid to probe, question, or fact check the guy who is behind the pulpit or the literature that is published, whether it be old literature or new. With my own generation, I am seeing some of a mix of both, as well many people who just don't care and are there because of family or friends. I am frankly glad to see that more people are coming to question some of what we have all been conditioned for years to believe and are looking into it for themselves, but I agree with what you wrote in another post, that even if the baby is ugly, you still don't want to throw it out with the bath water.
I look forward to reading more of your posts, and hopefully as more people learn they can connect on the internet, even anonymously if they feel the need, we can all learn from each other and also understand that we are not alone, though it might feel like it sometimes.
Sincerely, a Concerned Sister
Thank you so much for sharing your story. I believe there are many of us in our peer group with teens and young adult children who want our children to have a solid foundation of God's way of life without the cult structure of the churches of God that put intelligent thinking adults in a weird place, navigating our existence in these churches without our children giving up altogether. I believe there are many of us who love our brethren including the ministers and would like to support change rather than leave. I think the first step is to stand up anonymously in places like this blog and find out we are not alone and we have like-minded parents and young brethren to talk to. As our voice and presence grows, the cult leaders will have to address it. I believe this will be the best way to get their attention. They have no one to disfellowship here, no one to silence. Their enemy is ideas and truth.
DeleteWe need to stop tithing. This will also force the cult leaders to address us. This will quickly teach them that they never worked for Jesus Christ but their own bellies. This also gives them opportunity to repent.
I was wondering if you were the one that left this comment on my post in Banned by HWA blog:
"It is interesting that men such as Rod Meredith and Herman Hoeh pictured "God's government" as a pyramid structure with HWA and themselves near the top just under God Himself, similar to the structure of the Catholic Church. This however is not the way Jesus Christ explained it. He described Himself as the "rock" or foundation upon which the rest of the building rests and is supported.(Matthew 16:18; Matthew 7:24; 1Corinthians 3:11; Ephesians 2:19-22) In other words He holds the rest of us up from underneath and we build the structure on top of Him. This makes for a stable structure and is the exact opposite of a pyramid with those in "power" looking down upon and expecting to be "supported" by those beneath them. Jesus Christ came to serve, not to be served,(Matthew 20:25-28) and until those who "exercise authority" come to understand this, we will continue to see the same problems."
I love the way you worded this and I thought your entire comment was worthy of posting as a post by itself.
TO EVERYONE:
Please join the SSS movement. I'm working on ideas to get the blog to more brethren. I believe as we come together, work and grow anonymously, the churches of God will realize we surround them and without us, they will disappear from history very soon.
Yes, that was my comment. I have been posting on banned as a "Concerned Sister" for a few months now. I remain anonymous both for reasons listed above, and because I have friends and relatives in multiple cog groups who would not necessarily share my opinion or perspective on some of these issues, and I don't wish to purposely alienate them right now. Instead I try to make a comment here or there when I think it might be helpful. Some in the cog are also uncomfortable with a female sharing her perspective on a religious topic in any public manner. It is easier to do this anonymously, but I also felt that people should know that there are thinking females out here who might have something worthwhile to lend to the conversation.
ReplyDeleteConcerning our young people, it is no longer enough to simply hand over a booklet or article reinforcing church doctrine and expect that to satisfy those in the younger generation. They have access to online Bible helps at the touch of a mouse or swipe of a finger that we would have had to spend hours in some library pouring through when we were their age, which most of us didn't do. Their approach is completely different and should be acknowledged, respected, and shared. They no longer see the ministry as the gateway to truth, and instead rely on what they can fact check and research themselves. This has made many of the older generation uncomfortable. They are not used to being questioned, and they are not used to having traditions and doctrine questioned. Many see it as a threat and reminder of what culminated in the split of World Wide. My perspective has come to be different though. If something is true it should hold up to questioning and honest discussion. If holes are found, than further investigation is needed.
Much of our own generation as well as those before us did not grow up in a church culture that encouraged open and honest discussion. Many of us don't even know what this type of thing should look like. While the church gave the appearance of encouraging these things by teaching new attendees to question and distrust the religious beliefs of outsiders, once someone was a convert, internal questions or disagreements were considered rebellion against "God's government". This would be true whether you were looking into a traditional teaching or a "new" teaching that everyone was supposed to just immediately accept without question because it came from the "top".
The result of this approach is tons of splinters and many people discouraged to the point that they no longer engage anywhere or on any level. It also doesn't help that many of our leaders promote an atmosphere of distrust and isolation between the groups. Most of us have heard that "Philadelphians" shouldn't mix with "Laodiceans". Thankfully some have come to see the foolishness of this line of reasoning and are seeking to begin building bridges where others have burned them, and tear down walls where others have built them. Internet access also helps with this, because we now have access to more than one side of a given issue.
My husband and I have made it a point to look at teachings, sermons, and literature from multiple groups. We also try and visit some of these groups when we travel. We have come to realize that we do not have to agree with someone else on every single point before we can count them as a sibling and friend. Growing in grace and knowledge is an ongoing process for all of us. How can we ever help each other in that process if we refuse to even learn to talk to each other? The ekklesia of Jesus Christ is supposed to be a spiritual organism and community, not a corporate organization. It is sites like yours that I hope will help us begin to function that way.
Concerned Sister
Email me anytime you are interested in submitting any posts to the blog. Based on your comments, I'm sure you are an outstanding writer. As far as being a woman, it is clear in the N.T. that women were always in the fore-front organizing, supporting and teaching in the early church and that should be true today.
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