Of course that was silly, because there are actually different views on anything. There are thousands of different views about the Bible and it is interpreted in as many different ways, as there are people who have opinions about it. Friday night Bible study ministers of the Worldwide Church of God, were not God, but they gave the impression that they were infallible and inerrant and spoke for God, every time they opened their mouth. Sheep are always fleeced and their wool used by the shearers. In the case of the WCG, the ministers were the shearers, who fleeced the flock and the bah bah sheep were clueless.
No pastor of a church wants sheep-like church members to THINK for themselves, because they are all bottle fed. Any church member who does think for himself, will eventually exit the doors where he has been captive and never return, because living in the confined quarters of a box, called "church", is a prison of the mind. The prison guard is the pastor, who is also the gatekeeper to what you are allowed to think. Every minister is limited in his thinking by his denominational indoctrination and his mind travels in an endless circle to nowhere.
All WCG splinter group leaders travel down the same road of thinking they have God-like status over their sheep-like members. They are all extremely self-deceived. If the only input into your thinking over a long period of time, is that of the "pastor" of your church, then you are a clone. Clones cannot reason or think, they only imitate or react on how they have been cloned. Even the ministers of the WCG splinter groups themselves are clones and they parrot how they have been schooled to think. It is a road that travels in an endless circle of stunted mental growth and never coming to the knowledge of truth.
The whole organized church system, which is the pastor-dominated control church world, is a world of anti-intellectual, anti-thinking, anti-reasoning world of pastor worship. For pastors of churches it is always "my way or no way." I guess preachers never read Matthew 23 and even if they do, they always apply it to everyone but themselves.
If you are a sheep-like church member, then your thinking is a product of the man or woman who stands in the pulpit and writes upon your brain what he or she says "truth" is, even when they are often very wrong. The bah bah chorus of church sheep is deafening.
Van Robison
7 comments:
It's an issue of trust.
A long time ago (for many Armstrongists), Herbert Armstrong said something they agreed with and so assumed that absolutely EVERYTHING he said was the truth, without checking out the rest of the material to not just see if it was something they could agree with, but that the body of the work was rational.
I had this experience with a certain cult leader who taught many things with which, at the time, I agreed. It went on to other things that he brought forth that I had not heard of or thought of which had the semblance of truth.
It only took eight months (during which I had prayed that it would be revealed what was wrong with him). I had discovered former church officers and began a dialog. I indeed learned what was wrong with him in ways that transcend believeability.
After it was done, I went back and did some additional research. I found on his web site what I had missed: That he was really preaching a form of Islam and not doctrines of the Worldwide Church of God (either before or after Herbert Armstrong, take you pick). He even had the gaul to say that the Koran was equal to the epistles of the Apostles.
So it was absolutely nuts: Complete cult (which initially looked benign, but was not).
And so, dear friends, beware: Consider my experience as a warning.
It doesn't pay to be careless when your life depends on it.
Here's the basic problem: Education. We humans tend to consult with those whom we feel have more knowledge, or more reliable knowledge than what we have ourselves.
Here is the paradox. The mind works like a parachute, a device which only works when it's open! This is why you can never check your mind at the door, you can never assume that your source has a totality of knowledge or answers, and you must continue to subject every bit of incoming information to rigorous testing.
Some teachers, the better ones, in my opinion, allow for this, rather than indulging in efforts of control and enforcement. And, that kicks in a parallel principle, which is that meaningful, deeply convicting decisions can only be arrived at in the absence of human manipulation and duress.
This is why so many people fail to grasp something so deep as a truly spiritual experience. If you focus on the minutiae of the physical, on legalism, you miss the simplicity and complexity of the law behind the law. In order to experience a personal relationship with God, you must have the freedom in which to pursue it, and the freeing process that it brings. A legalistic authoritarian "guide" misses the most important point, and will always grieve and suppress the Holy Spirit.
BB
One small independent group I joined with has sermons given by various members after which the whole congregation can ask questions and give answers, and even agree or disagree with the points raised in the sermon. It's far better as it's like an extended Bible study and encourages respect and tolerance for different opinions rather than the disrespect, intolerance and division that all the ACOGs have been renowned for.
I remember a bible study night in which I turned in a question about how tithing is never mentioned in the New Testament as a practice of the early "church". My wife also turned in a question about why a man always has to be in charge, even at a children's function of softball. Neither question was even addressed from the high and lofty table set up on the stage. The "minister" just sent a local "elder" to talk to us privately. The "answer" to the tithing question was that the "church" never had a problem with the tithing issue, so nothing was ever addressed about it in the New Testament. The "answer" to the other question was basically that women weren't smart enough and that it would create confusion. Nothing more was ever said about either question, and we were warned to not discuss these matters again because it would cause problems for us if we did. Needless to say, we were blackballed from that day forward.
I like this quote from Galileo Galilei
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
It has been said that there are three
great forces that rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed. Being
stupid at times is to be human. But fear and greed, these are the tools
that destroy individual emotional responses. We call this the “herd
mentality” or “herd behavior.” Learn more here.
I've been in trouble a few times over the years for making use of the gray matter between my ears.
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