Van Robison: Charades In The Pulpit

Charades in the Pulpits

Most people know beyond doubt that politicians are charade masters.  Their promises while campaigning for election, almost always are meaningless once elected.  Many pastors in the pulpits of churches also play games with church goers.    The endless charade in the pulpit is that the "senior pastor" is "God approved" and has a stamp of authenticity.    The pastor may have a bachelors degree, a masters degree or even a doctorate degree in theology and supposedly that "education" makes that individual person of great Biblical knowledge and understanding, and therefore an "authority" on truth.

Odd indeed is that Jesus Christ never promoted Bible schools or colleges as reflected in the four Gospels.  In fact Jesus Christ bypassed the elite religious senior pastors and selected uneducated fishermen as disciples.
We also read in the New Testament that the things of God are ONLY understood by the Spirit of God, and the correlation between man-made Biblical education and the Spirit of God are worlds apart.  We read that out of the mouths of babes and sucklings comes wisdom, which is a slam to the "highly educated" who think they have all the answers.  We can learn a great deal from children and their inquiring minds that often astound adults.

The hard core fact is that Bible schools and colleges are rubber stamp mills and they turn out clones, not thinkers.  The pastors who stand in pulpits are parrots of their mentors and teachers.  There are groups that parrot Herbert W. Armstrong, as if HWA is the source of light and truth.  Wrong!  In fact no preacher, pastor, senior pastor, bishop or religious leader is the source of the Way, the Truth and the Life, which is exclusive to Jesus Christ. For as long as people think "truth" is owned by preachers, religions or pastors and priests, humans will always be slaves to those who pretend to be God in the pulpits.

The charades in the pulpits have been going on for centuries of time and dates back even thousands of years.  Seemingly people are easily hoodwinked, lack discernment and are fooled by the self-deceived, self-appointed pulpit masters.  One of the greatest charade players in the church world, was a man called the "apostle" Paul.  Millions think he was God in the flesh and that he was infallible and inerrant, and that every word he ever spoke was God breathed, even though he contradicted Jesus Christ.  Some today place the deceased Herbert W. Armstrong in the same category as the fake "apostle" Paul and they live and die by it.

Those who love power, control and the never ending flow of free $money always seem to gravitate to controlling the minds and thinking of church goers and it hinges upon causing church goers to live in lifelong FEAR.


Van Robison

Dennis On: "So...What Have I learned From All This Drama?"

So...What Have I learned From All This Drama?

While I know this site is not given to rehabilitation from past religious and theological stress, behaviors, beliefs or experiences, it is a major waste of life energy to merely rage against the machine.  

There are several ways humans react to disappointment, feeling betrayed and disillusionment.  We can rage on and on only changing from topic to topic but never growing past the repetative nature of our rage.  We can rage for a time and feel that asking, eventually, "and how does this serve me?"  is probably a question in our lives worth answering.  We can be in denial and cover up those things too painful for us to bring forward into the light of day.  We can feel blame the great Satan who we know has us in his crosshairs and only finding the right , true and final real Church of God will save us.  We can live and burn.  

I can't speak for what others have learned from this all.  I just know in my soul and without the need for any other human being on this planet to agree with me, I was sincere in the search , compassionate in the administration and believing in the message for as long as I could be and then wasn't.  I have made mistakes both small and large.  I have stomped my feel in ways that helped and ways that didn't. I have said things I wish I had never uttered and uttered things I wish I had not said.  I sat down when I should have stood up and I stood up on the inside when I was appearing to sit down on the outside.  I have lost things that I cannot get back.  I accept responsibility for all of it.  My choices were my own even if in a fog of hurt, pain and disappointment along with a healthy dose of fear and passive aggressive anger that I was taught growing up was not appropriate to express.  When you don't express it properly we end up treating ourselves for depression and anxiety.  Don't worry, neither you nor I invented this reaction to life stress. 

But why reinvent the wheel?  Why said poorly perhaps what has already been said brilliantly on this topic of learning and living with our pasts.  We all have and I suppose you only get  a past loaded with experience if you are lucky.  I know we only get older if we are lucky having buried way to many children along the way. 

When it's all said and done, the following observations by others who also had life experiences are worth noting.  Everyone has a story.  With one decision different here or there along the way, all our stories that did happen would have been merely stories that could have happened but didn't. We would have had a different story. Their stories may have been different too, but the choice to learn from it is universally the same.  

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

“You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor

“It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.”
― George Harrison

 

“People are all over the world telling their one dramatic story and how their life has turned into getting over this one event. Now their lives are more about the past than their future.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“Sooner or later we've all got to let go of our past.”
― Dan Brown

“Your past is always your past. Even if you forget it, it remembers you.”
― Sarah Dessen

“When you understand," Brandy says, "that what you're telling is just a story. It isn't happening anymore. When you realize the story you're telling is just words, when you can just crumble up and throw your past in the trashcan," Brandy says, "then we'll figure out who you're going to be.”
― Chuck Palahniuk

“No man is rich enough to buy back his past.”
― Oscar Wilde

“My past is everything I failed to be.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“How many people long for that "past, simpler, and better world," I wonder, without ever recognizing the truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them?”
― R.A. Salvatore

“You go on. You set one foot in front of the other, and if a thin voice cries out, somewhere behind you, you pretend not to hear, and keep going.”
― Geraldine Brooks

“You couldn't erase the past. You couldn't even change it. But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right.”
― Ann Brashares

“My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me; it has only strengthened me.”
― Steve Maraboli

 

“The past can teach us, nurture us, but it cannot sustain us. The essence of life is change, and we must move ever forward or the soul will wither and die.”
― Susanna Kearsley,

“I’ll tell you another secret, this one for your own good. 

You may think the past has something to tell you. You may think that you should listen, 

should strain to make out its whispers, should bend over backward, 

stoop down low to hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead places. 

You may think there’s something in it for you, something to understand or make sense of.
But I know the truth: I know from the nights of Coldness. I know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It’s hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone.
Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do—the only thing—is run.”
― Lauren Oliver

“These things...they are who you are. They brought you here. To this day. You didn't give me a chance to understand that ever the unattractive parts of you, the messy parts, were something I could accept.”
― Laura Dave

Life is what it is and does what it does.  While we have the appearance of control at times, we control nothing.  We make our choices and only learn as time unfolds the nature, wisdom and outcome of those choices.  We can long for the past all we want but only have the present moment in reality.  The past is merely a present moment gone by and the future one that has yet to arrive at which time it will simply be another present moment. 

Earth School is a hoot.  Sometimes in life there is nothing left to do but have a good laugh....

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

Apostle Malm: I Am Hated For the Work I Do

The apostle one step closer to being  martyr for the truth.  All of his writings and work has led to him being mocked, ridiculed and hated.  I doubt anyone here hates the guy.  In fact, I have  feeling that most here feel sorry for the guy.  He has so deluded himself with his grandiose writings that he no longer sees the beauty in the world or in grace.  The apostle is  a perfect example of what happens when one puts the law above everything else.  It is more important to have rules than freedom.

I can say most sincerely that this work that I do, I do out of love that all God’s children might be saved.  I know that I am hated and despised for what I do now; as a rebellious child hates his parents for correcting them; yet I have faith that in the end all things will work together for the good and the saving of the saints. And we shall all rejoice together before the Father’s throne!