Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
20 years of my life and I want to know what happened. Was I deceived? Were my experiences genuine? Where was the Lord? Did I miss the Lord's speaking? Is the Lord speaking in this forum? These are my main interests.
|
Now there is a perspective that I understand. And at some level, we may all find somewhat different answers.
While I still have some questions, I think that the answer to some of your questions — at least for me — is that while it is nice to have always been perfectly clear about what really is true concerning scripture, those who have never actually had to think about it, but just had is spoon-fed to them (even through lots of seminary education) sometimes cannot separate the important from the unimportant. They are too prone to say that something is so because that is what they have always known and been taught.
So going through effectively four stations of Christianity has been an important influence on my current position.
- I was raised in the Assemblies of God. One of the original yet generally orthodox parts of the Pentecostal Revival of the early 1900s. I have since learned that it heavily sprang out of the Methodists, thus the source of the Arminian teaching on salvation. That was birth through about my 18th birthday.
- Then I was in the LRC. 14-1/2 years of roller-coaster. Definitely more view of scripture. But in hindsight, too much of it was through a very filtered lens. Allegorizing the literal and making the allegories literal. Waving a wand of some pet teaching and changing the plain meaning of words.
- Then almost 25 years in non-denominational Bible churches. Very grounded in sound theology. But too focused on a "point-in-time" salvation followed by a pining for the next life. (Not that unlike the AOG.)
If this is all there was, then I might argue that Bible churches are much better than the LRC because of the omission of the "we are it and you aren't" view of their group and a much clearer lens for reading scripture. (Note I said "much clearer," not "perfectly clear.")
The fourth station runs simultaneous with the Bible church for the past 5 years or so. That would be reading, and both finding fault and truth in, the postmodern/emerging views that are sweeping some places, creeping into others, and being fought like a serious heresy by others. And they are all right. There is much to fight there. And yet if you simply plug your ears to the questions and thoughts that are being fought, you miss some deep truth concerning the Christian life that evangelicalism has generally missed. That is the "here and now" aspect of salvation and sanctification. Right now, our Christian faith should be more about being those who go back into our normal lives as changed people. Those who give people a reason to ask so that Peter's admonition to have an answer is meaningful.
I have not been called to evangelize Africa, Asia, or the Middle East. I have been called to quit getting so irritated at other people on the road. Deal with my peers and subordinates righteously and justly. Be one who lives in the image of God, just as I/we are originally made.
I would not suggest the LRC as a willful place to learn much of anything if you have a choice. But from it I learned some positive things (such as the Bible is much more than three verses for some sermon), but also many negatives, like being convinced that God really wants us to forget about trying to be righteous and instead just take him in with the goal that one day it will happen. The result of that is a lot of unrighteousness while claiming some glorious intake of God's riches. I now doubt that there is hardly any such thing. It is probably little more than the good feeling of getting praise of your peers for speaking in a meeting or having done what you know they would approve of.