Quote:
Originally Posted by ExChurchKid
Hey Carol,
I appreciate the kind words to SerenityLives and myself, but I would request that you be careful with the religious rhetoric. Like you said, everyone's experience and level of spirituality is different. God is not my teacher or counselor, at least not at the moment. I feel no need to "work out my own salvation", and I sure don't feel like any all-powerful entity is smiling at me at the moment. I respect your beliefs, but personally, I'm a bit agnostic after everything I went through growing up. I hope you're right about God convincing the true believers that the LCs are crazy, but my journey of leaving the LCs had nothing to do with God. He did not set me free. In my experience, he was keeping me prisoner and I set myself free. Since not everyone's experience is the same, please don't lump us all into the same boat by saying God set all of us here free. At least, please don't lump me into that boat.
|
ExChurchKid, would you be willing to say more about your experience here? i.e. what is your view of God, how did you arrive at that conclusion, etc?
I'm asking because as a church kid who was saved in the local church, my salvation experience was this:
1. got saved
2. hated God for the next few decades
3. only recently found out that the local church preaches about a "god" that is not of the Bible, and am starting to see there is good evidence He 1) exists, and 2) is totally different from what the local church teaches.
I felt like God had me in a straightjacket for years and years as He gleefully watched me suffer in distress, but that was the local church tentacles choking me, while the real creator God was slowly getting me out of the local church so I could hear about Him in the very place I had been told He wasn't - in "evil Christianity".
Anyway, my purpose isn't to preach at you or evangelize, but just to hear some of your thoughts, experiences, conclusions, because I think a lot of church kids have some very intense feelings about God, understandably so, and I also think it's a good thing to be able to get those feelings/thoughts out, if you are comfortable to.
I would just ask any others reading on this thread not to try to "correct" anything ExChurchkid says in response, if she responds to my question, but just to listen and understand.