So...How Did You Come Into the
TRUTH?
...and is it possible you may have
missed some?
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 evern 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 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
26 comments:
Dennis asked, “So...How Did You Come Into the TRUTH?
...and is it possible you may have missed some?"
MY COMMENT – I came into “THE TRUTH” through my grandfather and my mother. My grandfather was an early listener to Mr. Herbert Armstrong and was a Plain Truth subscriber in the early 1950s. My mother picked up the Radio Church of God teachings from my grandfather.
My mother studied the Bible correspondence course for 5 years before being invited to the Church by Ken Westby. I did not want to attend, but my mother bribed me by taking me to a Washington Senators-New York Yankees baseball game if I would attend. In hindsight, my mother must have thought it was really important for me to attend WCG because she took a certain amount of risk taking me to a night baseball game in a stadium located in a not so good part of D.C. (Note: I got to see Mickey Mantle in his final year of baseball).
I stopped attending the WCG in 1976, although my mother and other family members stayed. The affects of the WCG stayed with me my entire life to this very day.
And to your second point, is it possible I may have missed some truth? Absolutely yes! The WCG had all the answers to everything. Today, I am skeptical of anyone or any organization that claims to have all “THE TRUTH” and being “the one and only true church”. In reality, truth can be found everywhere, and there is much we do not know. In recent years, I have on occasion attended a local Baptist Church, and I hear what I think is truth from their pulpit. In fact, there have been times I have come out of their services thinking this could have been a WCG sermon but for it is Sunday not Saturday.
As you have pointed out, the Bible was written by human beings subject to all the imperfections and biases of the authors, and subject to language translations and word meanings over the centuries. So yes, it is possible we have missed some TRUTH along the way.
Richard
Lake of Fire Church of God said...
"So yes, it is possible we have missed some TRUTH along the way."
MY COMMENT: Not only is it possible, but most assuredly, and, lies have been told to us and passed off as TRUTH.
My observation is that most mentally ill people are obsessed with "The Truth".
"My observation is that most mentally ill people are obsessed with "The Truth".'
That can be true but all those seeking truth are not necessarily mentally ill. It is in our nature to ask "why," or "how." We seem to all have a gene for religion or at least to hope in something more than just being hairless apes.
But, we is what we is in the final analysis no matter what we wish to be. I may want many things to be true but that will not make it so.d
There is a rather amazing phenomenon that I have both seen in myself and certainly in others when it comes to listening to others , ministers or whoever, speak.
One would think we all could follow this simple formula:
I hear it--I ask if it seems true--I agree or disagree
But in my WCG experience whether weekly sermons or festival ones it was:
I hear it.............I must agree
All the critical functions in between were shut off. It is as if the voice of the other was sufficient to convince me it must be true. I remember many times having that niggly feeling "how does he know this?" or "That's just an opinion," or even, "It doesn't really say that." Yet I over road it.
I listen to the sermons of a Dave Pack and can now easily dismiss the logic, perspective or emotion of it. I have now allowed myself to know that the man does not know what he is talking about and is a mere Bible reader which is different from one trained in the background, function and origins of scripture.
I am amazed at how people can sit thru any sermon given by Ron Weinland. Truly, the man is one of the most boring, repetitive, generalist speakers I have ever heard. Yet, they keep coming back. Have they suspended all their thinking processes? If so, why? Ron has the habit of saying, "We know..." which seems to program the listener with , "well I guess I do if he does." It is maddening. Nice to be able to say, "You think you know and i have my doubts." Ron is in for a big fall and the apologetics that he will use to keep himself in power will be amazing. We'll be shocked at how many things he "never said." and.....they will come back in 2013 for more.
Crazy stuff. Maybe those congregations have a true remnant of a bicameral mind and consciousness and hear the voice of the King and Priest in their head which commands them without critical thinking.
PS sitting multiple times depending on how many churches i had at the time was torture for me from practically the beginning of my time in the ministry and youth.
I sat there the whole time thinking, "and you KNOW this?" or "what are you going to do when HWA dies?" I never bought into his church visits and always found myself fighting just to sit there and listen to it. And sure enough, when it was all said and done, I'd get approached by many who just thought it was amazing what God was doing and who and what HWA,GTA and the Place of Safety was all about. Gag....all I could do is smile and sometimes remind them it is all speculation but learned never to say that too loudly to a groupie.
Brain fart....I meant the last comment in the context of having to endure Gerald Waterhouse's speculations and dogmatic comedy.
I believe all religious people consider pride a sin. Now, I can see that all this "in the truth" garbage was just self-congratulatory pride.
You find it in all cults and too a less extreme extent, in all churches. The little time I investigated Scientology, just out of curiosity, I found the same prideful statements and attitudes among them.
Dennis, if you count the Folly of Two (Folie à deux), which expands what we think of as "Mental Illness", then we can indeed include a broad vast majority of those who were obsessed with "The Truth". That's a fine distinction, but one which a professional competent psychiatrist could make. Unfortunately, it is one of those mental disorders which should disappear and get better once you get away from the crazy person. Some of us believe that Armstrongism is its own Mental Disorder because it just doesn't go away when you get away from it. We're still working on treatment options, but the book, "Take Back Your Life" seems to be an important work to assist with recovery from the Guards.
"how does he know this?"
And Dennis, that IS the QUESTION. Each time an Armstrongist minister says anything, that question should be considered.
I am reminded of a recent sermon by Art Braidic of the Eternal Church of God where he said, "You don't have to worry about getting to the Place of Safety because an angel will come and pick you up and take you there." The immediate thought was how would he know that followed by the thought, that's just plain nuts!
"As you have pointed out, the Bible was written by human beings subject to all the imperfections and biases of the authors, and subject to language translations and word meanings over the centuries."
Along this line of thinking, there is another really odd thing to me. It is odd that there seems no argument enmasse over what Plato wrote in Greek.
I mean there are some arguments in some of his works such as, "Dialogues of Plato" over whether Plato told the story regarding Socrates correctly, but there are no neverending arguments of how this or that Greek word should rightly be translated.
It just seems too odd that as we have progressed in time nearly 500 years since Plato wrote in Greek up to 3rd century AD when New Testament writers wrote also in Greek, that somehow we no longer have the ability to decipher the Greek.
Depending on which dogma or ism one is promoting, the Greek is now difficult to translate and words take on all kinds of different shades of meaning - all due to the age of the text?. I don't buy it.
Reality, it is usually considered a matter of pure contingency if one language in use can be translated into another language in use. Your assuming all cultures have the same exact corresponding concepts.
Sort of a dangerous idea, claiming some peoploe have a religous gene and others don't. Shoud we breed it in or breed it out? Or, are you simply saying genetics doesn't determine beliefs; if so, wouldn't it undercut materialistic assumptions for our beliefs?
No, I didn't mean to speak to genetics.
I mean that is seems odd that there is only a language problem when it comes to translating and interpreting The Bible, while there seems no problem understanding other Greek writings of even a much earlier time.
It is just odd to me that this idea that a Greek word in the Bible can have all kinds of meanings, but no such problem exists with other Greek books.
So it appears that it is mighty convenient for churches and for religion when the Bible text can be worked around to say so many different things - depending on what that church wishes to claim is truth.
"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."
This is filthy stuff.
Coming into WCG taught me to SEARCH for TRUTH and I have never stopped this healthy habit.
Regardless of the reasons behind WCGs assorted purposes, a very good thing came out it and my life was changed dramatically for the good.
ALL THINGS HAPPEN FOR GOOD FOR THOSE WHO LOVE YAH AND WHO ARE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE.
"...and you KNOW this?"
For the newer convert, that question is stronger, but as time goes on, it gets pushed to the back of the mind and becomes a quiet whisper that may or may not become more conscious at some point in the future.
It's really creepy how things proceed for a new convert: The preachers, teachers, and established members all conspire to keep the convert from accessing that voice of reason, and many subtle methods are employed to achieve their goal, from their well-worn bag of tricks.
Norm noted:
The preachers, teachers, and established members all conspire to keep the convert from accessing that voice of reason, and many subtle methods are employed to achieve their goal, from their well-worn bag of tricks.
Norm, I think it is an unconscious response by those in the church longer and even pastor types for the most part. After we are in, we naturally want others to come along to validate our own decisions. If others come along, WE must have also made the right decision and thus perhaps crush our own critical thinking. Misery and misguided joy also loves company.
Come out felt:
This is filthy stuff.
I understand being offended by this realistic observation at the high theology level. However, it is true. It is the story line difference between the Old Testament and The New Testament.
OT Father God is portrayed as jealous, demanding and killer of 2,130,000 hapless souls, men women and children who get in the his way or the way of his people. These are the actual numbers listed in the text and don't include the flood or exodus myths.
NT Jesus is pure love and hardly the offspring in teaching of his father
Even in the NT we have three Jesus figures none of which are the same. The Teacher of Love and turning the other cheek in the Gospels. The Cosmic Jesus of Paul who is doing all sorts of complicated theology with his death. And the Jesus of Revelation who simply wreaks havoc and loves very selectively. It is not an opinion. It's in the book.
I am not endeavoring to be offensive and I KNOW what you think and have been taught about the consistency of Genesis to Revelation, but it just is not so.
I am not here to offend but to enlighten perhaps and we only see what we see differently when all the right life experiences and factors come together and we wake up a bit more. Most never even start that journey.
In all of this discussion, on all sides, something is stunningly missing. It's missing in most COG fellowship about "the truth" as well.
It's the simple statement of Jesus: "I am the way, the truth and the life" - John 14:6
When Jesus is overlooked, a lot can go wrong.
Anonymous,
I have been trying to understand what you were even asking.
I want to know if somehow there is some other side I am missing and should be looking at if genetics has anything to do with what I said.
How is what I said dangerous? I don't see that I was claiming some people have religous genes.
It just seems to be a convenient problem - not a natural one at all.
Reality, thank you for reminding us of the tragedy of leaving Allah out of our lives.
ALLAHU AKBAR!
ALLAHU AKBAR!
ALLAHU AKBAR!
Seems like I'm coming into this discussion a bit late, but it's only obvious that someone who carefully crafted the insider language of the Armstrong movement was a fan of Orwell's 1984.
This phrase, "the Truth", as applied to Armstrongism, is double-speak at its best. It projects arrogance, and elitism, and attempts to place the cultic quirks and weak pet theories above both question and accountability.
And, they don't stop there, virtually all of the splinter groups in their member letters refer to their own splinter as "God's Church". I suspect there are literally hundreds of similar "steering" phrases, but we're also used to this in the secular media, as one man's "guerilla" is another's "freedom fighter", and one person's "illegal alien" is another's "undocumented worker", just to cite two examples to which everyone can relate.
When used by church leaders, such phrases do not reveal or clarify truth, they just obfuscate. If you really need them, how strong was your original point in the first place?
BB
Anonymous,
I am not so familiar with the use of the phrase you wrote. I looked it up and find that it is commonly used:
(1) in prayer
(2) in times of distress
(3) in Islamic extremism
In which way might you be using the term?
Also how did I remind you of the tragedy of leaving Allah out of your life?
Reality, my first comment about "language in use" was directed to you, the comment about genes was directed towards Dennis's mention of it - why he didn't use 'meme' I don't know. The 1:30 PM comment from anon addressed to you you was not from me.
Thank you, Anonymous, for clarifying the only post which you had directed to me.
In speaking of "language in use" the translation and interpretation is from Greek into English from both the Biblical (Koine) and the Ancient (Classical) Greek.
English originated from the Anglo Saxons who settled in Britain in the 5th Century - well after both types of Greek had been established. So how could "language in use" have any bearing on the translation of either the Ancient or the Koine Greek into the newer English language?
From information located at the free encyclopedia (Wikipedia), I found that there would not have been a drastic difference in the Koine ( from 330 BC - 330 AD) or Ancient Greek (800 BC - 330 AD). Copy below.
"Historical unity
Historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Although Greek has undergone morphological and phonological changes comparable to those seen in other languages, there has been no time in its history since classical antiquity where its cultural, literary, and orthographic tradition was interrupted to such an extent that one can easily speak of a new language emerging. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language.[7] It is also often estimated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, "Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than twelfth-century Middle English is to modern spoken English."[8] Ancient Greek texts, especially from Biblical Koine onwards, are thus relatively easy to understand for educated modern speakers. The perception of historical unity is also strengthened by the fact that Greek has not split up into a group of separate, regional daughter languages, as happened with Latin."
The problems with the Bible are not so much over translation/interpretation issues so much as with what it actually does say.
As mentioned in the article, a major problem with religion has more to do with us - never questioning what is said by The Clergy.
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