When Was the Last Time Your Old Church Found Some New Truth?
Saturday, May 21, 2011
I grew up in the Presbyterian Church and I don't believe I ever heard anyone use the words "the truth" when speaking of their beliefs. It was just beliefs. You know, the ones passed on from generation to generation and being Presbyterian, no one in the local church ever would think to question any of it. It didn't matter. Behind the scenes, one could believe what they wanted and it was all so generic and nice that I can honestly say I never remember one issue coming up that maybe needed to be looked at, or anyone uttering the words, "new truth." Old truth was just fine and who cared.When I discovered, as a teen, the really true Church of God, that seemed to me to be concerned with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, that's all we heard about. People were asking each new member "So how or when did you come into the truth?" It was a nice way to say ask how long they had been in the church and from what error had they arrived. The word "truth" was thrown around a lot by that church. Everything had to do with "the truth." We kept the true sabbath, the true holydays, understood the truth about being born again and the truth about unclean meats and how to have a happy marriage. There were the true seven ways to be happy or be a leader or study your bible. You could be called into the truth and you could be dismembered for falling away from the truth. There was the truth about tithing and the truth about not tithing. There was the truth about who God has chosen and who He had not chosen and who He now loved and who he was pissed off with. There was the truth about the end times, which of course, we were living in and Jesus second coming simply has to be in the very near future. In my lifetime in fact! We even knew the Plain Truth about everything from trade wars to crime and queer men. Never heard much about the truth of queer women though.
If you wanted to know the truth, just ask the Church, preferably on the local level by way of the minister, who knew all the truth there was. We knew the truth about evolution and the truth about the flood. Often we knew the "plain truth" which is the truth stripped down to the really core truth of the truth and was so simple to understand. However, simple as the truth might be to understand, God still had to open your mind to the truth, or you were never going to understand or know the truth. But it was simple after that. I later found out that "God has to open your mind," meant that one who came to the same conclusions as the Church and leadership had indeed had their mind opened by God. Those who disagreed or only saw some of it were still in the grip of Satan or at best had a bad attitude.
Gosh, we knew the truth about life and death. No one knew how consciousness or quantum physics worked, but all things God, just ask! We knew where you went and where you didn't went. We knew when you went to where you were going and how to get there and who wasn't going along with you because they had yet to discover the truth. We knew when they would discover the truth and, while not as good as when I discovered the truth, it was not bad at all. What's a thousand year difference compared to eternity? Nuttin! We knew who was in the right Church, which would be us, and who would be in the wrong Church, which would be all not us.
We knew the truth about the God of the Old Testament and why he was so freaking mean and loved killing both animals and humans. We knew the truth about the New Testament and how the Son of the Old Testament God was the nicer of the two and canceled all the stuff His Dad liked. We knew that the truth was that this bachelor son lived alone with His Father, after everyone that loved him the week before killed him. We knew they lived somewhere and the Father never had a wife or female to keep him company. But that was just the truth. God was a He and if you were a she, then you still had to be a "son of God" just the same, because that was the truth. Of course, I was uncomfy with me, a male, being the Bride of Christ, ewwww, but that was the truth too, so I had to rejoice in it.
Wow, we knew it all. Just ask! But once in a great while we discovered "New Truth." I can't tell you how amazing new truth is to discover. Now I may have been hoping that we would have discovered the new truth about the actual origins of man and the evolution of life over millions of years as opposed to the truth of everything being around 6000 years old, the story of Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel, but that was not up for discussion. I thought maybe there was some new truth on why so many of the stories in the Old and New Testament are either scientifically incredible or historically impossible and unprovable, but no luck there either. I thought maybe some new truth might have to do with how the Gospels aren't harmonious eyewitness accounts of Jesus life, nor written by the men whose names appear on the books. But no banana there either. I thought maybe we'd get some new truth about why Paul never mentions Jesus' life, teachings, miracles, life events, birth or stuff like that, including why he never quotes him, but no, wrong again.
What really would have been nice would have been some new truth on how the local minister was just a guy too and didn't know everything and that was ok, but nope, nothing like that either. And it really would have been nice if, as a minister, I could suspect there was such a thing as "new truth" out there that maybe those in charge had missed to, but whoa baby, don't even think about it! New truth had to come from the top down and only agreement came from the bottom up. That's the way all churches area really. Top down, not bottom up. Bottom uppers are an endangered species in any church.
Recently a friend of mine told me the guy at the top of her church made a really good point in her church. Seems the minister fired the music director of 25 years without permission from the people. He said he was the guy at the top and it was his call. One guy at the bottom asked to speak and was given permission to do so. He reminded the minister that that is now how things are done and that he was wrong to do this firing on his own. Then the really good part comes up. The son of the minister walks up the isle and decks the guy opposing his father's actions. Police are called and it's all good! The bottom uppers won because decking the good guy never pays. I love the truth!
Once in a great while New Truth did come to the Church of "all Truth all the Time." But alas, it was always something like, "The New Truth About Make-up" or "The New Truth About Divorce and Remarriage." I learned these truths came from God when leadership was being being given a hard time about make-up by God's leading wives or some of God's leading wives left their leading husbands and the leading husband wanted a new leading wife. We did have the New Truth about Healing as well as leaders aged, needed care that they didn't need when younger and rethought the idea of only trusting God for healing etc. I'm glad that was old truth to me but I managed to keep that to myself and members in my care who asked.
But over all, New Truth just doesn't make it's way into Churches very often. They don't love to tell the old old story for nothing! As Mark Smith says in "Damn the Truth."
"Christians, unlike scientists, hate any and all evidence that goes against their theories. Theologians have a very hostile and oft times irrational attitude towards any evidence that would even suggest their theories need to be changed to fit the facts. To a Christian, a faulty theory is like an old member of the family whose mind has seen better days- something to warmly embrace and shield from all criticism. Christians, rather than being disinterested seekers of truth as they oft times pretend to be, are thus shown instead to be preachers of established dogma, opinions firmly set in concrete, with their minds already made up for them two thousand years ago by a Jewish rabbi. To a fundy Christian, there is no "new truth" to seek out or be discovered. So rather than seeking out new truth, they instead only seek out new ways to defend their old "truths". This is the reason you'll never see a "Research and Development" department within a school of theology. It is also the reason why, in defense of Christianity, no argument is too circular, no appeal to emotion avoided, and no straw men are left unconstructed."
He goes on to ask if a genuine new Gospel of Jesus were ever found, would it be added to the current New Testament? The answer is, of course, "NO" because all the truth there is, is already in the Bible. Besides, they have already found really great new Gospel writings, but one says the Disciples got miffed at Jesus for kissing Mary too often on the lips. When they asked Jesus why he loved her more than them, he came back with, "why does she love me more than you?" Great answer!!! Lousy Gospel. You'll never hear it in church.
One of the other problems out there when it comes to "The Truth" is that it gets suppressed a lot when someone who knows finds it. After all, it did take the Catholic Church 450 years to apologize to Galileo for noting that the sun was the center of the solar system and the earth revolved around it, not it around the earth. I personally think that 450 years between learning the truth and applying the truth is too long and certainly too long between apologies. Now the Catholic Church is not so sure about unsaved babies going to Limbo and may, in fact, get to go to heaven like baptized babies. Cool huh? Like they know, but isn't that amazing how something that was so much "the truth" for millions in the past, is now probably not after all...oh well.? This is great news for babies, if retroactive which I suppose it is or at least we can hope. Now those who thought one thing can think something else more comforting. Gosh, I hope this new truth does not only apply after a certain date. Bummer! All kidding aside, that kind of truth is just opinion because of questions raised about the state of certain categories of humans that die in certain states of being according to the Church. Don't mistake any of that for truth. We must not forget that Church Father's of the past were not above adjusting the truth to fit a real need. As Gibbon noted,
"The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indirectly confesses that he has related whatever might redound to the glory, and that he has SUPPRESSED all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion...(he has thus) so openly VIOLATED one of the fundamental laws of history." (On Christianity, Edward Gibbon, Prometheus, Buffalo, New York, 1991 pp. 131, 132)
Even Paul made a big deal about being duplistic. He would be a Jew to a Jew, a Gentile to a Gentile etc. which always left me wondering just what and who Paul really was. He said so often in the New Testament that he wasn't lying, I wonder why he felt he had to say that so often? Sounds like lots of folk thought he was.
So ask yourself, when was the last time my church found out there were more truths to understand than the ones they have in all their booklets and tracts? And I don't mean the Plain Truth About Eating Out After Church! I bet you'll have to say never. Church's don't really deal in truth as much as tradition and control of how those traditions are defended and apologized for. Church apologetics really are that you know. They are apologies for the fact that there are those times when we can see that something about the Bible or a "truth" as explained by a Church just does not fit the facts as we know them in this day and age, and yet we will not examine them. Sorry, the old truth is THE truth and we simply are not admitting any new ones at this time. Churches don't do new truth, but are good at doing new ways to defend old truths, which might not really be true.
This attitude of all churches and religions really should be your first hint that something is very wrong with it all and perhaps it really is all about tradition, not making waves, money, control and keeping the old old, yet inaccurate story alive so we all feel better. Most are afraid they or others will be disillusioned if "New Truth" rears it's ugly head, but when it comes right down to it, do you wish to live your life based on illusions? Actually many do which is why they never question anything...
Dennis C. Diehl
23 comments:
Dennis, it appears that what is happening to me is happening to you as well: After learning that Armstrongism is a poisoned well of lies, I set about to verify that pretty much everything I thought I knew was lies -- I'm not a truth seeker, just someone who is verifying what he suspected was lies truly is lies.
The more I learn of factual and scientific data, the less I seem to know. My perspective is that today society and people at large simply have abandoned logic and scientific data for emotional fulfilment, just to feel good. I suspect that is as true of the Congress arguing about balancing the budget as it is Armstrongists and their silly infighting and splintering.
Your entry points out the follies of the supposed "new truth". It's like the "new and improved" (place product name here) of commerce advertising. Maybe the Blue Cheer is new and improved. Certainly, the latest technology seems to be much of the time.
But accepting that the "new truth" is nutty crazy psychosis?
Just what do the Armstrongists do when the encounter proof that their beloved beliefs are just plain wrong? What will they do when confronted with the fact that the entire foundation and superstructure of Armstrongism has been proved to be fatally flawed as a fraud?
The worst thing in this world is to make predictions these days. We have our suspicions, but to come right out and say something is going to be this or that or someone will do this or that under the circumstances has been proved to be as fatally flawed as the proposition of three tithes on gross wages (I've been reading "Silenced" today).
What is your suspicion?
Mine is that the Armstrongists will ignore the "new truth" that they believe a pack of lies until they -- like a smoker dying of lung cancer -- is finally and fatally forced to give it up.
The good news -- for me -- is I gave up on "new truth" and it's a lot more fun and satisfying to be able to be the proud possessor of proof that the "new truth" is lies, though it doesn't pay the bills, it at least keeps more than necessary popping up and life is more manageable.
Hi Douglas, "New and Improved" ususally means they have improved the box and not the product..Same old Blue Cheer ha.
What is my suspicion? Worldwise I expect the financial crash and demise of the dollar is on the way. America is cooked, at least as we knew it. I feel things will get nasty before they get nice and nice may not happen in my lifetime.
Religion will grind on and the worse the world gets the more they will say it proves the end is near, ever near so get in church and support us. All they will get is no second coming and a huge sanitation problem to clean up.
The path is more interesting than the destination whatever that may be.
I suspect
Pure truth on all things would probably scare us all to death in reality. Once humans became aware of being aware and conscious, I"m sure we had to come up with all sorts of ways to alleviate our fears of the future and awareness of our deaths.
The more I learn the less I know. But I love knowing and asking the hard questions that most do not ask, don't want to ask, don't know how to ask or don't even know there is a question to ask.
As I write this I am listening to a radio preacher tell us all exactly how it all is and will be. He has the facts of the Tribulation, Islam, 144,000, resurrections, Jesus return, what heaven is like for sure and who gets there. Like he knows. It is fascinating to hear how all knowing these guys are yet if you ask them about quantum physics, latest discoveries in science and evolution etc, they have no idea what you are talking about and don't understand it anyway. Of course they don't want to understand it either.
Enlightened, open, free and critical thinkers are so uncommon on this planet. If we are not careful, the Dark Ages may not be over.
Seemingly intelligent people, clearly narcissists in fact, want to run this country and yet appeal to the lowest beliefs to attract the majority of the voters who have them. It is annoying this current bunch of at least Republican wanna be's hear the voice of God in their heads telling them to be President. Freaky and discouraging really
Dennis, the Dark Ages are just beginning.
Over the past six decades I've been watching and mostly aware -- having come from a rather rural community and not one of those city slickers of the ilk of Herbert Armstrong -- I've seen the movement from logic, science and pragmatism to emotional based evaluations, decisions and relationships. This has led to the entitled liberal bias. The United States is about evenly divided between rabid conservatives and equally rabid liberals. I think the liberals will win until the crash.
There just doesn't seem to be much objectivity and truth has been an endangered species for a long time, what with people deciding that their opinions are truth and their truth is every bit as good as anyone else's because it makes them feel good to be able to express themselves.
The Universe rolls along, unconcerned about who has what opinion about what: You can talk other human beings into compromise, but the Universe has its own absolute laws and rules and doesn't care what people believe. If you want something from the Universe, you obey its rules without cheating and it will give you what you want, taking a tithe in entropy for good measure.
Yet people continue to play games because like rotten little spoiled children they can get away with it in the short term. Their demands are rewarded and they are reinforced into pursuing their agendas. The really horrible thing about this is that it ends up being akin to paying your credit cards with your other credit cards. The conservatives see this, are desperately overwrought about it and the liberals call them crazy and call them names, like chicken little -- the sky is falling, the sky is falling. It's all about the future, and, of course, nobody can prove the future objectively (we all should be really aware of THAT) and it's all about who can sway the majority of the people with distorted perceptions in a totally dysfunctional environment, made so by violating processes and practices which would bring the results we want, but would require discipline, and, you know, discipline is boring and hard, so the generation whine wants something easy and fun instead.
The way to win is to reduce entropy locally by taxing the resources from somewhere else. Eventually, this program reaches its limits, as it always does, inevitably, and the crash occurs. Promoting the "new and improved" as a grand vision distracts people long enough for the con to succeed. Just make sure you make off with the loot before the marks get wise.
The ACoGs have been playing this game to the hilt for decades now. Pretty soon it will be the hundred year war. It's not until the war ends and the ACoGs lose that we can all clean up the mess and get on with our lives.
Douglas said "I'm not a truth seeker" and "The more I learn of factual and scientific data, the less I seem to know."
I am in agreement with you on both points. At least in this aspect; I told someone recently, "Absolute truth can not be found in the bible. The vast majority of 'truth' obtained from the bible is based on supposition and conjecture of what is written." That could be the reason we have such a wide variety of doctrines, dogmas and opinions.
My quest at this point in my life is to obtain a "better understanding" about any subject. Would any new, or old truth for that matter, stand the test of examining that "truth" with the following questions that we all learned years ago.
Who is it about?
What happened (what's the story)?
Where did it take place?
When did it take place?
Why did it happen?
How did it happen?
Be to totally objective, one should investigate more that one source (several would be better) to obtain a better undertsanding of the answers to those questions.
If logic and reason is tossed aside anyone can claim to have the "truth", old or new.
Who is it about?
What happened (what's the story)?
Where did it take place?
When did it take place?
Why did it happen?
How did it happen?
Homer..you forgot "Did it even happen!? :)
I agree Douglas, good thoughts
Scientists seem to try to get an increasingly more accurate approximation of "the truth" as they go along and always allow room for revisions and refinements. Which is why (I think) Robert Kuhn calls his PBS show (One Step) Closer to the Truth.
Dennis, I tried Tolle again this past weekend at Barnes and Noble. This time I picked up one of his "thin" books that skips most of the philosophy and goes straight to the point (or as straight as Tolle can proceed). Had a better experience. Some of us babies need to start with milk, I suppose.
M. T. Painbody
I think the actual title of Kuhn's show is "Closer to Truth," not "...the Truth."
Glenn Parker
Truth is not a static collection or system of knowledge that we can pick up from a single source. The very idea of all that is how people establish control over you. Truth is something we do grow in, and, as with our constitutional form of government, various channels and resources provide necessary checks and balances. That is the part that cultic church groups make verboten, the very idea of obtaining a second opinion.
Most of the people I've encountered want a nice, easily digested and applied pattern, or formula. Some patterns, when applied, may work better than others, but they are still patterns. Walking with God is not something you do by using willpower to apply some physical formula. It's natural, guided response to what God introduces into your life.
In a lot of ways, I'm glad that I've always been somewhat of an anarchist. Though I wouldn't recommend this to everybody, a healthy dose of anarchy has helped me greatly as a seeker of the truth. This has led me through varying degrees of extremes. What a journey! In a way, I believe a Christian needs to have an anarchistic streak, at least as it regards man's parameters. Some noteworthy and very effective Christians have been very radical, forsaking personal security and comfort to accomplish great good.
BB
i have always been a thinker and questioner. I got thrown out of catechism class when I was a teen for asking too many questions..ha.
I played hockey with my friends but often passed on it to walk to the library and read books on dinosaurs and science.
My religious curiosity plus my scientific one got the best of me and ended me up in WCG since I thought the two went together. I now know they do not for the most part.
If I could do it again, I'd be a paleontologist.
Well, Dennis, you might say that I was thrown out of AC for disregarding both the questions and their approved answers. Everything there seemed contrived, but I worried that just maybe some people there were seeing some things which I could not, so stuck around to give it a chance so that there would be no regrets later on.
I knew by the time that I was in fifth grade that I wanted to work with mechanical devices, designing or repairing them. Had I not been influenced by Armstrongism, I may well have become a mechanical engineer.
BB
I hear you BB. I truly thought I was doing the right thing at the time. I truly believed I was called to be a minister and I knew the Bible very very well even before I came to AC. My upbringing was very Dutch Reformed and they didn't fool around with their kids bible knowledge. Well they skipped a lot of it too..ha.
My bottom line in life is that "all i want to know is the truth of what really is." I don't want anymore bullshit or myths literalized etc. I guess we all just filter and see life through our own eyes and how can we help that?
What is very telling is that nearly all the COGS claim nothing new whatsoever in the past 25 years since HWA. They are in '1986 mode,' as it called.
It is the Spirit which leads us in ALL TRUTH. That is one reason why they don't have any, the Spirit is not leading them.
Another reason is that new understandings tend to rattle the established infrastructure and status quo of COGs, which the leaders (like Pharisees) will protect at any cost.
Only a real 'lover of the truth,' will accept it and follow it despite the consequences.
Many who have 'come out of her [COGs], my people,' who strive to worship in spirit and in truth, do receive a consistent flow of new understandings from the Spirit as intended.
"But grow in grace and knowledge"
Yet another command the Armstrongists ignore.
Psalms 25:14 says, "The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant."
The Armstrongists haven't gotten the secret yet: They're absolutely daft.
Of course they haven't learned anything new over the past 25 years because what they "know" is rubbish, based on British Israelism which is proved a fraud. They can't learn anything new because they have to give up the very core foundation of what makes Armstrongism Armstrongism. Remove the center trunk of the two trees and there's nothing left but twigs and dried leaves: The whole superstructure of Armstrongism is built on British Israelism -- without it, the whole hyperbole of false prophecies generated by the dead false prophet disappear like the smile of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland. People like Roderick Meredith, David Pack, Ronald Weinland, Gerald Flurry, Wade Cox, John Rittenbaugh (and I'm so sorry if I missed one of you) have nothing to preach: The premise that the United States and British Commonwealth is going to fall because a retentive God with an itchy trigger finger is punishing them as the lost tribes of Israel no longer exists and, since the Armstrongists live on and breathe prophecy for their livelihood, it all crumbles and disappears like the destruction of the King Dome.
The question is, what would it be like to have to rebuild from the collapse of British Israelism? With the myth gone, would they become a sad copy of Grace Communion International -- a pathetic useless organization which barely exists -- or a weird powerless splinter of the Church of God Seventh Day with no real focus or reason for existence?
It would be fascinating to watch and much more exciting than to observe the gradual decay into the walking dead zombies they are becoming, with no real life at all, and for certain, no new "truth".
Dennis, your comment "Did it even happen!?" is
so-o-o right on.
I was talking to someone recently about the misleading translations and transliterations in the bible. An old tune came to mind and I sung the first line. "It ain't necessarily so." I couldn't remember the rest of the words or even the origin of the song. Later I looked it up. It is from Porgy and Bess by the Gershwin brothers. Following are the lyrics.
****************************
It ain't necessarily so
It ain't necessarily so
De things dat yo' liable to read in de Bible
It ain't necessarily so
Li'l David was small but oh my
Li'l David was small but oh my
He fought big Goliath who lay down and dieth
Li'l David was small but oh my
Oh Jonah he lived in de whale
Oh Jonah he lived in de whale
For he made his home in - dat fish's abdomen
Oh Jonah he lived in de whale
Li'l Moses was found in a stream
Li'l Moses was found in a stream
He floated on water 'til ole Pharaoh's daughter
She fished him she says from that stream
It ain't necessarily so
It ain't necessarily so
Dey tell all you chillun de debble's a villain
But 'taint necessarily so
To get into Hebben don' snap for a sebben
Live clean, don' have no fault
Oh I takes de gospel whenever it's pos'ble
But wid a grain of salt
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years
Methus'lah lived nine hundred years
But who calls dat livin' when no gal'll give in
To no man what's nine hundred years
I'm preachin' dis sermon to show
It ain't nessa, ain't nessa
Ain't nessa, ain't nessa
It ain't necessarily so
**************************
It seems that the Gershwin brothers may have had a better understanding than most would have realized.
Thaet song is right on. Love it!
Homer wrote: "It seems that the Gershwin brothers may have had a better understanding than most would have realized."
The Gershwin brothers wrote several 'sacred' pieces of music that are quite good. They obviously had a better understanding of scripture than Herb ever did!
But, jazz is also the devil's music according to Herb and crew. It was equated by Herb to the roaring 20's where he pictured everyone as lascivious, drunken, fornicators, shaking their bodies to sex laced upbeat tunes.
Speaking of new truths, one of the things I have difficulty getting used to seeing at church is ladies who are literally littered with tattoos! I don't mind seeing an occasional rose or butterfly on a pretty lady, but this goes way beyond that.
They are at worship services, which is a fairly good indicator that their hearts are right. Still, I find myself filled with the same compassion for them that I'd normally reserve for a badly defaced burn victim, and unfortunately some of them can probably read that compassion from my face! What would make an otherwise pretty lady do such a thing to herself? This is one of the 613 commandments of the Torah that I really have no problem with!
BB
I've never had a desire for a tattoo. My wife's son told his mother he wanted to get a tattoo. Instead of denouncing it, she advised him to go down to the local golf course and see how many of the successful men there sported tattoos.
He couldn't find a single one. He decided not to get tattooed.
Another thought on tattoos. They are just another way people seek to express themselves and get noticed.
I never got tattoos, but after leaving Worldwide, I was so desperate to finally be able to say what I thought that I manufactured my own bumper stickers and pasted them on the back of my vehicle. Basically, the same damn thing. I've changed tactics, but I'm still basically revelling in being able to say what I think and know that nobody can stop me.
Wow! I customized and manufactured bumper stickers, too!
I think my first one was in 1980, and it said "Honk if you hate Khomeini!" That one got a lot of response. The most surprising response was honks from police officers in their cruisers!
I also used to take about three of the very popular In-n-Out Burger stickers, and put them together, making a new one that read "In-n-Out Furburger." Now, people almost wrecked their automobiles after seeing that one! My Christian landlady had some "constructive" comments for me as well.
BB
My favorite bumpersticker is,
"Jesus loves you. Everyone else thinks you're an asshole."
gp
One of mine said "Shoot Khomeini." Some guy in the San Fernando valley (I'm sure an Iranian) bumped me in the rear over that but didn't do any damage. You and I seem to share a degree of orneriness. My paternal great grandmother was a McCoy -- from Virginia. Draw your own conclusions.
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