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nerdygaymormon · 3 years ago

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I'm a bit curious about something. What is it that makes "same sex attraction" a problematic /offensive term? Is it the context where it's typically used, or something else?

Being lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) is much more than sexual attraction, it includes emotions, it is how I give and receive love and how I relate to the world and everyone in it, it influences my social standing and interactions. The word gay (or bi or lesbian) is a way of saying this is part of my makeup, part of who I am. This is what is meant by "orientation," which is more than just the actual attractions.

For example, part of being gay or bisexual is we often feel different or stigmatized from others around us who are mostly heterosexual. As they describe life milestones, we recognize that we experience those differently. This is part of the social dimension of being LGB, seeing ourselves as different from straight people

Same sex attraction (SSA) reduces it down to an attraction. Same-sex attraction is spoken of as a flaw, something which is an impairment, a disorder, and can be overcome because these attractions are limiting you.

Gay and lesbian people, however, do not experience their sexual identities as something irregular, but as something natural to themselves. The real struggle is how to express this orientation inside of a religious community which prohibits, fears or denies such orientations.

The term same-sex attraction (SSA) was popularized by the Christian ex-gay movement and that led it to become the preferred term in the Catholic church, Evangelical churches and eventually in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

SSA is primarily used within a faith context, and typically by people who view these attractions as a problem. Consequently, there's a strong association of repression & shame that comes with the term same sex attraction.

The terms gay, lesbian and bi typically means a person has a persistent attraction to people of their own gender as part of their overall constitution. It doesn't indicate whether they've had sexual experiences, or if they interact with & identify with the LGBTQ community, it doesn't indicate their political philosophy or spiritual belief.

Whereas a problem with the use of the term “same-sex attraction" is it implies a lot about the person beyond the attraction of the person who uses it, and if they stop matching those other categories they’ll likely stop using SSA. Plus a term like “same sex attraction” really puts the focus onto the sexual attraction when the goal was to minimize its perceived importance.

Despite everything I've written about SSA, people get to choose the words they want to be identified by. If someone says they experience same sex attraction, then mirror them. Often they're indicating they are loyal to the church, or perhaps they are indicating these attractions are unwanted and they wish they didn't have them.

Someone may "struggle with SSA" in their mind, until they become comfortable with the idea of being gay. I don’t struggle with it anymore. I DID, but I don’t now, and I associate "SSA" with a struggle I no longer identify with.

I have found that once someone is at peace with their own feelings they usually stop referring to themselves as having SSA and simply say they’re gay. I like the label "gay" because we’re happier after we come out and accept this is part of how we experience life.

Trans people often don't like the phrase "same sex attraction" because they feel it excludes or erases them. The word "sex" is used to refer to biological parts. Same-sex attraction indicates an attraction to people with certain parts, and suggests they can't be attracted to masc trans people or fem trans people.

Oh, one more thing, SSA is simply ASS spelled backwards!

————————————————————

Prior to the 1950's, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would use the phrase "the sin that dare not speak its name," or occasionally "sodomy." This language emphasized sexuality as a behavior, and indicated it was a choice instead of an expression of orientation.

There was growing concern that these behaviors or "practices" were beginning to infiltrate BYU and the Church, so President McKay assigned Elder Kimball and Elder Peterson to study the topic. As the topic was spoken of more frequently in the Church, the clinical term "homosexuality" was adopted and used from the 1960's to the late 1980's.

Elder Oaks was appointed to the Quorum of the 12 Apostles in the mid-1980's and wrote a memo on how the Church should combat homosexual rights, and part of this was to separate the attractions from the behavior. The 1990's brought the Church into the same sex marriage battles. Same gender attraction and same sex attraction became the preferred terms.

For a time, our church wanted SSA to mean people who “don’t act on” their attractions, and this was used as short hand to mean someone who isn’t sexually active. That meant gay, bi or lesbian was for people who were sexually active. How perverse is that?!! Can you imagine if straight people had to indicate their sexual activity status to everyone when they introduce themselves? Queer people mostly ignored this, and a lot of straight members argued over what people meant by calling themselves a lesbian.

Around the mid-2010's the church said it's okay to identify as lesbian, bi or gay and still be considered a member in good standing, but it still clearly preferred SSA.

President Nelson spoke at BYU in 2019 and one of the notable things about his remarks is using the language of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender while addressing the student body.

It's taken many decades, but it seems our Church is finally reaching the point that the more common terms of the queer community can start be used without stigma and perhaps we'll see the use of SSA fall to obscurity.

#LDS LGBT history #cw reparative therapy #cw homopobia #long post

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arcticdementor · 3 years ago

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The devout and observant Christian is undoubtedly aware of the precarious state of the faith in our modern world and is becoming increasingly open to out-of-the-box solutions. One such possible solution is to take a cue from our bearded Amish neighbors and form rule-based religious communities—but maybe without the horse and buggy.

A brief peak at the current state of American Christianity should disabuse anybody of the notion that this is unnecessarily drastic.

America’s traditional Mainline Protestant denominations are bleeding out so quickly they will likely be gone within 20 years. That is not my prediction, but their own. The ELCA (the main Lutheran branch) projects they’ll only have 16,000 worshippers by 2041; the PCUSA (the main Presbyterian branch) lost almost 40% of their members in the last decade, causing one analyst to note, “At its current rate of shrinkage the PC(USA) will not exist in about 20 years;” and data for the Episcopal Church shows the same 20-year timeline until the denomination runs out of people in the pews.

More conservative denominations used to chuckle at these headlines and say, “If only they preached the Gospel instead of liberal activism, they’d be growing like us.” But they don’t say that anymore. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest of the Evangelical churches, has lost 14% of their members since 2006; the Methodists are losing members while in the middle of a brutal split; and for Catholics, according to Bishop Robert Barron while speaking at the 2019 bishops’ annual conference, “Half the kids that we baptized and confirmed in the last 30 years are now ex-Catholics or unaffiliated.”

There is one major exception, though: the Amish—a mustard seed that is growing into a large tree in front of our eyes. The Amish arrived in the United States shortly after their founder, Jakob Ammann, split with the Mennonites in 1693 for being too lax on enforcing their communal rules, as laid out in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith. For the next 200 years, the Amish were just a few eccentric families in Pennsylvania that spoke an archaic Swiss German. By 1920, these few families had grown to 5,000 people and since then have doubled about every 15 to 20 years, including between 2000 and 2020 when they doubled to 351,000.

Unless something changes drastically within their culture, this doubling is projected to continue. One demographer, Lyman Stone, showed that at their current rate of growth, they will easily make up a majority of the United States in 200 years. This means the current moment may mark the halfway point between them arriving as a small band of friends and their inheriting the most powerful nation on the planet. They may seem like a backwards remnant of the past, but in reality, they will almost certainly play a major role in the future. This will become more evident after they soon dwarf more well-known churches like the Episcopalians and Lutherans.

…

So, when virtually all other Christian groups are seeing plummeting, or at best stagnant, numbers, why are the Amish seeing growth like this? The answers people typically give are that they have a very high birth rate and an over 90% retention rate. But that’s like saying someone is wealthy because they made a lot of money and then saved most of it. It begs the question—how? How do they have such large families—with 6 or 7 children per woman—while the country at large has a below-replacement rate of 1.6 children? And how are they able to keep all those children within their communities?

I believe it all comes down to one thing—the Code—or as the Amish call it, the Ordnung.

The Amish Ordnung is different in each community, but if it strays too far, other communities will no longer associate with that community; so there are limits. While outside observers will just see strict rules about hats and beards and technology use, the Amish see the glue that holds them together as a people.

It’s very important to realize that each rule is chosen as a group and with the goal of strengthening individual virtue (especially humility), family and community ties, and their faith.

As an example, most Amish communities don’t allow phones in their homes, but it’s not because they think phones are inherently evil and ban them completely. They often have shared phone booths at the end of the street to use when necessary and at their places of work. They just don’t have phones in the home because they believe it will take away from the purposes of a home—things like family bonding, chores, and recreation. Nobody who has sat in a room of family and friends all silently swiping at their phones can tell me their concern isn’t warranted.

…

The success of this model was discussed by Eric Kaufmann, a political-demography scholar at the University of London, in his provocative 2010 book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-first Century. Kaufmann noted the growth of groups like the Amish and the Haredi Jews (often called the Ultra-Orthodox) and attributed it to their birth rates and strong communities. Haredi Jews, for example, who also live by strict community codes, were only a few percentage points of the Israeli schools in 1960 but are now about a third of students, and he predicts they will very soon eclipse secular Jews. Haredi growth in Brooklyn, New York, is seeing similar growth, with high birth rates and retention.

…

Laurence R. Iannaccone’s 1994 study “Why Strict Churches Are Strong,” which has been frequently cited and confirmed since, gives more detail on the success of certain community codes.

Iannaconne found that groups can be strict on items as long as they provide a “close substitute.” Think, for example, of banning social media but then providing a lot of new in-person social opportunities to make up for that sacrifice.

“Strictness works,” he says, but the rules can’t be so strict they make people miserable and drive them away, or as Iannaconne says, “Arbitrary strictness will fail just as surely as excessive strictness.” The rules do have to be strong enough, though, to keep “free-riders” from claiming the benefits of the community without participating. He called these rules “costly signals,” like the sacrifices the Amish make by limiting their clothing styles and technology use. A person would be very unlikely to go through all of those costly steps for community benefits they could get more easily elsewhere. By eliminating free-riders—whose “mere presence dilutes a group’s resources, reducing the average level of participation, enthusiasm, energy, and the like”—they see the reverse, very high levels of participation, enthusiasm, and energy.

It’s not just Amish and Haredi Jews that have seen success with following a community code beyond the laws of the state—think of the monastics who survived in far-flung places relying on The Rule of St. Benedict; knights that followed the Codes of Chivalry; bands of cowboys on the American frontier who stuck close to the Code of the West, which gave detailed guidance on passing strangers on the trail, when to tip your hat, and with which hand you should hold your whiskey; and the tribes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border who have followed the Pashtunwali code since pre-Islamic times.

…

Modern Christians interested in starting a rule-based community would need to create some real benefits that are harder to come by in society at large. I’d suggest the basic benefits of a traditional community (help with childcare and schooling, coherent customs on dating and marriage, providing purpose and companionship to the elderly, cultural celebrations and gatherings, friendship, and assistance during hardship) would be plenty.

Then, they could agree together on some basic rules that are costly enough to separate the serious from the free-riders while not being arbitrary or unnecessarily strict. Targeting the rules toward areas that are particular downfalls for modern Americans (promiscuity, pornography, social media, screen-addiction, substance abuse) would be a good start. Agreeing to forego these in this time and culture would almost certainly be a costly enough signal.

Also, many of the rules should take into account issues like abuse of power, cults of personality, convenient personal revelations from God, sexual abuse, and a host of other issues inherent to tight-knit communities (and larger ones for that matter). The ability for a trusted leader to turn out to be an evil psychopath should never be underestimated, so rules should take that likelihood as a given and guard against it. The Amish, for example, draw straws to choose their leaders to avoid jockeying for power.

One last consideration is to what extent “walling yourself off from the modern world,” as Kaufmann said, is appropriate. Kaufmann said that was the best strategy for growth, but growth is not the only thing to weigh. There are also things like loving your neighbors, having an influence on the greater culture, and not stifling curiosity and creativity. Some walls are necessary, like between a teen boy and pornographic websites or between a child and an activist teacher, but a balance between walls and open spaces should be carefully pursued as a group. For example, language is used as a wall for the Amish (who speak Pennsylvania Dutch) and the Haredi Jews (who largely speak Yiddish), but that would likely be a step too far for most communities, as would their highly-detailed clothing restrictions.

…

Out-of-the-box? Sure. But with the exponential growth of the Amish and similar rule-based communities (and our own failure to find a workable model for modern Christian life) it may be a paradigm to consider. Even without our participation, it will certainly be how a fair amount of future Christians will live.

#david larson #crisis magazine #amish #maybe the amish are right #haredim

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sunday-school-lessons · 3 years ago

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The Church is United in the Essentials

(Note to readers: “If” you would rather watch a video of this lesson, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/jB7BcEjS2mQ ).

Today we're going to begin a new series of lessons under the general heading of:

Don't Forget.

We will be drawing Scriptures from the 15th chapter of the Book of Acts.

We're going to be discussing the nature of salvation with a focus on the subject of "justification."

Now, even though we have discussed this subject of justification before, I think it would be a good idea to revisit the theological definition of the word again.

In Christian theology,

justification is God's righteous act of removing the condemnation,

the guilt,

and the penalty of sin,

by grace, while, at the same time,

declaring the ungodly to be righteous,

through faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice.

Lots of words get thrown around by the "religious" crowd.

Sometimes, when we get all in to it and use words like justification, sanctification, glorification, and others, and without realizing it, we’re talking over the heads of lots of people.

But before we get into the lesson, I'd like to talk briefly about something that often happens among groups of people who are "trying" to get something..... spiritual to happen.

We’ve all heard the word, "ritual"

casually used in conversation.

And, all of us perform rituals without giving them a second thought.

When you habitually do the same things every morning preparing for your day, it's said to be a ritual; you’re “routine.”

Yet, there are lots of rituals people perform in an effort to experience something......supernatural.

If you're watching this video, more than likely, you do believe in the supernatural.

And it's a good thing to believe in the supernatural.

In 1st Corinthians chapter 1 and verse 18 Paul writes:

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

But it's not "just" the message of the cross that the church is projecting to the rest of the world.

Thanks to modern technology, people from every culture can watch as Christians perform a variety of rituals throughout the year.

Rituals, defined, are solemn ceremonies that incorporate a series of actions that are performed according to a prescribed order.

It's kind of like following a recipe to end up with a dish you want.

I mean, you don't use tuna to make a strawberry cake.

It wouldn't be fair to single out any particular group here.

However, to the world at large, religious folks do some pretty strange things at times.

Here's a few of them.

This video that’s playing in the background here shows the holy fire ceremony of Easter in Jerusalem, …. Jewish people at the wailing wall, also in Jerusalem,… and a baptismal ceremony in the Jordan River.

I'm not condemning any celebration that lifts up our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

But at the same time, there's a big difference between commemorating a holy day and trying to perform something........ well..... magical.

There are tons of people in this world that know full well that magic, real magic, exists.

Magic is where you apply beliefs, rituals, or certain actions so that you can control and manipulate natural or supernatural beings or forces.

Magic's something that's not really science or religion.

But, the most important thing to remember about magic is that God hates it!

In Deuteronomy 18:10-12, Moses is inspired by God to write:

"Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens,

engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD;

because of these same detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you."

(people really did offer their babies to Baal...through the fire; and they really did, and still do practice all of the things I just read to you...... and God hates it!)

On the surface, it would appear that God detests these sorts of things because they lure people away from Him.

And, I’m sure that’s part of it. But it goes much deeper than that.

Where do you think the power behind magical abilities comes from?

Right!

It comes from the ultimate liar!

It comes from Lucifer himself.

And, just in case you didn't already know it; Lucifer hates you!

On the other hand, God created man to ultimately be His companions far beyond time itself.

Lucifer is not invited to that party!

He had already been thrown out of heaven long before God created man.

And it's because of Satin's work to sully the purity that Adam and Eve lived in, that sin, ….. that rebellion entered the world of humans.

Now, God has made the way for individuals to make their way back to Him.

He has made a way to justify us.

So, once again,

justification is God's righteous act of removing the condemnation,

the guilt,

and the penalty of sin,

by grace, while, at the same time,

declaring the ungodly to be righteous,

through faith in Christ's atoning sacrifice.

Section 1:

The Church Debates the Nature of Salvation

Acts 15:1-5;

Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers,

"Unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses,

you cannot be saved."

After Paul and Barnabas had engaged them in serious argument and debate,

Paul and Barnabas and some others were appointed to go up to the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about this issue.

When they had been sent on their way by the church,

they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria,

describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles,

and they brought great joy to all the brothers and sisters.

When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church,

the apostles, and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.

But some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said,

"It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses."

From the very beginning, different people had different understandings about salvation. It’s important that we be constantly vigilant of the things we accept as truth. We just can’t afford to allow things like legalism to creep into the church. So, what’s legalism look like? The 1st verse I just read to you: Some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers,

"Unless you are circumcised according to the custom prescribed by Moses,

you cannot be saved."

At the very heart of legalism, is the idea that ’unless you add so-and-so to your faith, you cannot be saved. The Bible teaches us that we are graciously accepted by God as righteous by faith alone in Christ alone; nothing else. I have attended churches over the years who preached and believed that unless you…… well, they were hanging

customs, rituals, and “procedures” onto this simple salvation that the Lord offers us. So, always remember, salvation comes ”by faith alone in Christ alone.” Nothing else. Seriously, adding any other means of seeking God’s acceptance is misguided, wrong, and, quiet frankly, it’s downright dangerous. That group of Jewish Christians that spoke up were insisting that the Gentile converts had to become Jews through the rite of circumcision in order to become Christians. These Jews who resisted the idea that Gentiles were converting to Christianity without becoming Jewish believed that salvation was something that had been offered to the Jews alone. These very same people believed Jesus was the Messiah, and that salvation was in Jesus alone. Yet, they were trying to add ritual or custom to salvation in demanding the converts become Jewish as well. We just studied the subject of “unity.” Legalism is a device of the devil. When people among the congregation go down that road of legalism, their words and actions rob the members of their joy and unity. In adding their demands to the gospel of grace, these legalists begin to pass judgment on everyone who does not meet the new demands. Then, the legalists criticize the leadership for not imposing their standard on the rest of the body. Then, division begins as the legalist tries to gain support for their position. Now you have two sides. The demands and judgments of the legalists continue to tear the church apart. Never let your guard down. It’s so easy to be drawn in, and the truth is still as simple as I’ve already stated. Salvation is in faith alone, in Christ alone.

Legalism distorts our Biblical view of God. The root of legalism is our own distorted view of God. When we have a wrong view of God, we WILL have a wrong view of salvation. A wrong view of God is why sinners are still sinners. The world does not see our God as we do. This is why it is so very important that we live our lives in a way that others can Jesus in us.

Section 2:

The Church Affirms Justification by Faith Alone

Acts 15:11, 14-18;

The apostles and the elders gathered to consider this matter.

After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them,

"Brothers, you are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you,

that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the gospel message and believe.

And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit,

just as he also did to us.

He made no distinction between us and them,

cleansing their hearts by faith.

Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples' necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?

On the contrary, we believe that we are saved thorough the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are."

..................................

Simeon has reported how God first intervened to take from the Gentiles a people for his name.

And the words of the prophets agree with this, as it is written:

After these things I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent.

I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again,

so that the rest of humanity may seek the Lord..... even all the Gentiles who are called by my name.....

declares the Lord who makes these things

known from long ago.

What’s being described in these verses was the 1st church council; the Council of Jerusalem. The Apostles and the church elders convened together for the purpose of making an important decision concerning a matter of salvation through justification. In all, there have been 22 councils held. By the year 325, the year the Council of Nicaea was called by the Roman Emperor Constantine, the church was already calling itself “Catholic” (a word that means all-encompassing, universal, or all-embracing). The Council of Nicaea, and the following 20 councils were convened primarily because of, you guessed it, legalism that had entered the church. There was great division within the body of Christ on a variety of subjects that the church “fathers” felt they had to over and over again to settle the matters. By 1517 the German monk, Martin Luther, nailed his proclamations onto the church doors and started the Protestant movement. Today, there are those who claim that as many as 38,000 different denominations of the church exist. Churches have split over things as simple as whether to use the word, “is” or “as.”

One that I’ve toyed around with for years, is often quoted from the pulpit. It’s: 2 CORINTHIANS 5:8 KJV "We are confident, [I say], and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

Preachers will misquote the Scripture and say something along the lines of: ”To be absent from the body IS to be present with the Lord.” The words “is” and “and” are not equal and they do not mean the same thing. But I’m not telling y’all this to divide us; it’s just an example. An example that illustrates how easily you can be drawn in to a “legalistic” argument. But, before moving on, I would like to point out that the example I just used has absolutely nothing at all to do with salvation. The important thing to always remember is that salvation comes by grace alone, in faith alone, in Christ….ALONE! This is not double-speak; it follows a very logical progression of thought.

This message of salvation is for everyone; whether Jew or Gentile.

Section 3:

The Church Advocates Freedom in Love

Acts 15:19-21;

Therefore, in my judgment, we should not cause difficulties for those among the Gentiles, who turn to God,

but instead we should write to them to abstain from things polluted by idols,

from sexual immorality,

from eating anything that has been strangled, and from blood.

For since ancient times, Moses has had those who proclaim him in every city, and every Sabbath day

he is read aloud in the synagogues."

If memory serves me right, Moses issued a total of 613 laws.

There was a reason God gave these to Moses. It was to show the children of Israel that no matter how hard they tried, they could not save themselves, because they could not keep the law in its entirety. So why did the Jerusalem Council tack on four of the Mosaic laws? (abstaining from things offered to idols, from sexual immorality, from eating things that have been strangled, and from blood?) For one thing, these four things were tied to the pagan temple practices of their day. This was certainly the case for the people of Corinth at that time. It was there that some in the church believed that since they were saved by faith, it freed them to actually continue to sin. And, there are folks out there today who believe that justification by faith frees them to continue to sin. The Apostles mentioned these things because they understood that the gospel still has expectations for holiness and for love in the lives of believers. There’s a section of Scripture in the 1st chapter of 1st Peter entitled:

Living Before God Our Father.

In it, Peter quotes from the Law of Moses by saying, As Christians, we’re to seek, to strive to live our lives in love and holiness; not because we’re attempting to gain God’s favor, but because He has clearly told us to be holy because He is. Paragraph from lesson: …………………………………………… The apostles and the elders, with the help of the Holy Spirit, maintained the unity of the church by not adding anything to the gospel of grace. But with their four commands, for the sake of the Jews, they did ask the Gentiles to obey the “law of Christ”, or ”the royal law”…… ”Love your neighbor as yourself.” Our obedience to God and His Son, Jesus, is out of love. If we love God, we will obey Him.

If we love Jesus, we will keep His commandments. The doctrine of justification by faith does not free us to sin; it empowers us to love….. to love God and to love others. ……………………………………….

The thing is, the Jews had been dispersed throughout the known world of their time. These people, God’s chosen people, though scattered, continued to take part in their traditions and their law-keeping in their synagogues. So, to maintain a faithful witness to the Jews and to maintain loving fellowship with their Jewish-Christian brothers, the apostles asked the Gentiles to abstain from those things that most offended the Jews. So, out of love, Gentiles were

To pursue holiness and leave off their old pagan ways. The gospel of grace frees us to love one another. We are no longer under the Old Testament and it’s myriad of laws. However, the Mosaic Law still has implications for believers because it’s God’s Word. The 10 Commandments were given under the law. Just because Christ came and fulfilled the law, does that mean it would be okay to murder, to steal, or to lie on your neighbors? Of course not! The Scriptures are an infallible guide to salvation. The Bible does use round numbers here and there, and varying perspectives of different events, but it is still completely truthful. As for Christianity, until Christ returns, there will always be disagreement over issues; both small and great. We really do have the freedom to disagree with one another over some things in our faith and understanding. But I like to think these are things that, in no way, affect our salvation. Our understanding of God and of the gospel of Jesus Christ just can’t be a point of divisiveness. Eternity lies in the balance. We should all be determined to contend vigorously for the foundational doctrines, like justification by faith alone. From Jesus to the apostles to us, the Holy Spirit has safeguarded the Christian faith over many, many generations. That’s how the Spirit keeps us united in faith and united for our mission to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. Let’s pray….

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youknow-i-loveit · 4 years ago

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Why I Still Feel Like I Need To Ask Permission Before I Do Anything Ever

Randomly hit with the realization that my parents are still holding me back because they never taught me how to act with autonomy.

They never taught me how to be assertive or how to tell people things.

(They also wrecked my self-esteem, which was pretty horrible to begin with.)

My parents were very “do this because I told you to” authoritarian types who didn’t like to answer questions, and especially hated it when you questioned them. Questioning other authority figures was okay sometimes, depending on who the authority figure was, but my parents wanted to reign over their children with absolute power.

They generally had issues with needing to feel in-control. They didn’t have great role models for what it means to be an authority figure- my mom was the youngest, doted upon and spoiled for being the only girly-girl in the family, and by the time her parents had her (the eighth child), they were exhausted and distant, permissive, laissez-faire parents- and my dad grew up under an abusive military man who routinely beat his children, who used his voice as a weapon, and when he was at work, his wife ruled through manipulation, primarily guilt-tripping. Since my dad was the second of his six brothers, he was considered to have a better idea about how to deal with children, so my mom generally deferred to him, partly because of that, and partly because if my dad didn’t feel like he was in charge, he would make sure everybody felt miserable.

And as they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. My dad very much took after his father. He thought he was being toned-down and “gentle,” and bragged all the time about how he had it worse, making it sound like he was going easy on us. He often threatened to act more like his dad. But while I feel bad for him and his brothers and the abuse they endured, that gave him no excuse to abuse us the ways he did.

I could go on and on, but the point is, my parents didn’t know how to be in charge, but they felt that it was their god-given right to be in charge-- literally, they kept throwing “Honor Your Mother And Father” at us from the Ten Commandments.

My parents never admitted to being wrong. In fact, my dad hammered it in that being wrong was shameful and something that none of us should ever, ever do- ignorance was considered shameful, and if we ever dared utter the sentence “I didn’t know,” he would mock us, roar at us, and quite often, make references to that moment for the rest of the day, if not the rest of the week. It took me years to be okay with admitting that I don’t know things. To teach myself that learning should be fun and exciting, and that teaching others new information should be seen as an opportunity, not as a burden.

So my parents are proudly ignorant control freaks with an abusive streak, who want to rule with absolute authority; so far so great right?

My parents were strict Catholics who wanted us to follow their faith. They took us to church every Sunday. They enrolled all of us in Catholic school until they couldn’t afford the tuition anymore. They insulted anyone non-Catholic- even other Christians- calling them stupid and sinners and sometimes even “evil,” and considered anyone who attended Catholic church but didn’t adhere to their beliefs “not true Catholics,” so they were lumped in with the rest of the riffraff who were apparently going to hell.

We were allowed to question authority figures that didn’t adhere to their strict beliefs, and even encouraged to make fun of them, but if we ever dared to question someone who did, my parents informed us with cold, cutting certainty that we were making the wrong choice and were in danger of going to hell ourselves.

We grew up pretty sheltered. Our parents wouldn’t let us participate in most of the fads that swept up everyone else in our peer groups. It didn’t even matter when those peers were all Catholic kids attending our same Catholic school- my parents still thought their parents were making the wrong decisions, and we were effectively isolated from socializing with our peers. For a window into this, consider that I was forbidden from watching or playing Pokemon during the late 1990s. At recess, literally everyone else in my class would “play Pokemon,” whether that meant they were actually playing the trading-card game or whether they were pretending to be characters from the show. Since I wasn’t allowed to participate, I was left alone on the swings, accompanied only by one of the lunch moms who took pity on me. (Her name was Mrs. Stevenson. She was funny. I liked her. For Halloween, she wore an ugly holiday sweater with Froot Loops glued all over it and said she was a ‘cereal killer.’)

We weren’t allowed to watch Sailor Moon, or Rugrats, or Dragon Ball Z. We weren’t allowed to play with Furbies. We were allowed to accept Beanie Babies as gifts, but our parents were too poor to buy us any, so I think the most I had was about six.

We were also (wrongly) informed that people different from us were all stupid. I questioned this from a young age, asking why people were different, but instead of actually answering me, my mom would go “Exactly!” as though that settled that.

So when I asked why African Americans spoke differently or dressed differently or said things like “black pride,” I was told it was because they were entitled and because they thought they were special, but that they were foolish and wrong. It was only later, on my own, that I learned they don’t do these things to set themselves apart from the rest of society out of some weird petty desire to be special and different, but because we stole their culture from them, and they need to reclaim an identity that they can be proud of. The system is stacked against them, so every act of embracing their blackness is an act of rebellion against the system that tries to crush them every day. They speak differently because of where they live, because of history and culture that have shaped their words that way, and if their grammar is improper, that’s most likely due to underfunded school districts, but it could also be code-switching so they fit in with their peers.

And when I asked why anyone would be anything other than Christian if the Bible really was the word of God, and God was real, I was told it was because they’re too stupid or jaded to see the truth. So when my uncle came out as Muslim when I was a teenager, our family ostracized him, berated him, and made fun of him relentlessly behind his back, because we all thought he was stupid. It was years later that I became an atheist and I realized the questioning process he must have gone through, the philosophy he must have studied, the books upon books he must have read, the agonizing introspection he must have endured, all while living under his parents’ roof...

We were told that we were smart. That we were important and special.

But we were also taught that we were constantly on the razor’s edge of being undeserving of love or redemption.

Naturally, this caused me to form strong attachments to characters like Loki, Bucky, and the Beast from Beauty and the Beast- characters who others saw as monstrous, but who seemed worthy of redemption, who didn’t seem to deserve everything that was done to them, even as much as they blamed themselves or got down on themselves sometimes.

The constant messages of “you need to be perfect or else” and “you are a disappointment,” accompanied by my dad’s ridiculously high standards, made me desperate for approval.

I sought favor with my parents nearly every day, but was so often disappointed- especially by my dad. Even when I’d done something I was really proud of, he’d find ways to poke holes in it, talk down to me, call me stupid, and ask something to the effect of why I’d made such a horrible decision.

So I started looking elsewhere.

Friends. Partners. Teachers. Professors. Therapists. Co-workers. Bosses. Other people’s moms. Members of groups I joined. Anywhere I could get it, I was (and still am) constantly thirsty for validation, praise, and approval.

My parents probably weren’t trying to do this, but they taught me to constantly second-guess myself. They taught me that I needed to ask for permission to exist.

One of the things that was brought up over and over again whenever one of us would upset Mom was that “she gave birth to you.” On one memorable occasion, my dad went into graphic detail about how exactly the birthing process worked. He made it sound like some sort of accomplishment, or personal favor, that I should be forever grateful and reverent towards. But I never asked for this. Giving birth was something she couldn’t avoid. I should have never been guilt tripped into feeling like I owed her something for it.

Whenever my dad was a certain flavor of upset, he’d bark “Get out of my sight!” We would flee to some far corner of the house, behind some closed door, and cry where no one could see. In that moment, he had ceased to give permission to exist in his presence.

So when I first came out as trans, I struggled a lot, because I felt like I constantly had to ask everyone around me for permission to be myself.

It’s tragic that, in retrospect, everyone would have respected me a lot more if instead of asking, I had simply told them who I am and then been myself. I should never have felt so timid, so cowed. I should never have felt like I owed anyone an apology for asking them to use my name and my pronouns.

I should have been free to be me.

But when I lived under my parents’ roof, I wasn’t free. I was forced to hide, to pretend. I was forced to let them deadname and misgender me. I was still forced to attend church until I moved out-- I got out of attending weekly mass by pleading that it was detrimental to my mental health, after being forced to attend masses as an atheist for over a year. But in order to keep a roof over my head, I was still forced to attend Christmas and Easter mass every year, and badgered to attend more masses at nearly every opportunity.

I had to lie about who I was dating too. I had to hide all the ups and downs- the euphoria of new crushes and new relationships, the agony and heartbreak of breakups or bumps in the road. I couldn’t ask my parents for advice navigating this extremely important part of my life. Instead I had to figure it all out on my own, and lie, and pretend they were my “friends.”

My parents made me feel as though I couldn’t do anything on my own.

So to this day, I still often feel like I have to ask for help or for moral support in order to get things done. Not everything, but anything that my partner could feasibly be involved in or have any opinion on whatsoever. Filling out forms, looking things up, buying food, scheduling our week.

And anything that I’m not 1000% sure my friends would invite me to, or anything I’m not 1000% sure they want me to do, I’ll hang back on or stay silent. Any sort of physical affection that I’m not 1000% sure is welcome, I’ll hold back on or I won’t even offer, because I’m so scared of rejection or retaliation. Any complaints that I have, I’ll run by someone else first, and sit on for often weeks or months before I bring it up, if I ever bring it up, because I’m so worried that someone’s temper will flare, or that they will grow cold and distant and cut me off from their affection/ attention/ presence.

My parents never taught me how to ask for things.

They never taught me how to tell people things, simple things, like “I’m going to the store,” or “I’m a guy actually,” or say “Oh, you’re going to meet up with a bunch of people I know? Can I come?”

I’m self-taught in a lot of things, but socializing is one of them.

And as I’m sitting here typing this, I’m waiting for my partner, because we have to get through a lot of paperwork and beaurocratic nonsense this week, and even though not all of it strictly needs to involve her, I still feel like I can’t do it on my own.

It’s okay to ask for help. That’s something I’ve had to get used to too.

But sometimes I worry if I ask for too much help. >_<

#personal #abusive parents #hi i'm trans #and bi #and my parents do not like that

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anastpaul · 5 years ago

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Saint of the Day – 13 October – Blessed Alexandrina/of Balazar Maria da Costa (1904-1955) Laywoman, Victim Soul, Mystic, Salesian Co-operator – best known as Blessed Alexandrina of Balazar was a Portuguese mystic and victim soul, member of the Association of Salesian Cooperators, who was born and died in Balazar (a rural parish of Póvoa de Varzim). Alexandrina left many written works, which have been studied mainly in Italy by Father Umberto Pasquale. On 25 April 2004 she was declared Blessed by St Pope John Paul II who stated that “her secret to holiness was love for Christ”.

Alexandrina Maria da Costa was born on 30 March 1904 in Balasar, Portugal. She received a solid Christian education from her mother and her sister, Deolinda and her lively, well-mannered nature made her likeable to everyone.

Her unusual physical strength and stamina also enabled her to do long hours of heavy farm work in the fields, thus helping the family income.

When she was 12, Alexandrina became sick with an infection and nearly died, the consequences of this infection would remain with her as she grew up and would become the “first sign” of what God was asking of her – to suffer as a “victim soul”.

The consequences of sin: When Alexandrina was 14, something happened that left a permanent imprint on her, both physically and spiritually – it gave her a face-to-face look at the horror and consequences of sin.

On Holy Saturday of 1918, while Alexandrina, Deolinda and a young apprentice were busily sewing, three men violently entered their home and attempted to sexually violate them. To preserve her purity, Alexandrina jumped from a window, falling four metres to the ground.

Her injuries were many and the doctors diagnosed her condition as “irreversible” – it was predicted the paralysis she suffered would only get worse.

Until age 19, Alexandrina was still able to “drag herself” to church where, hunched over, she would remain in prayer, to the great amazement of the parishioners. With her paralysis and pain worsening, however, she was forced to remain immobile and from 14 April 1925 until her death – approximately 30 years – she would remain bedridden, completely paralysed.

Alexandrina continued to ask the Blessed Mother for the grace of a miraculous healing, promising to become a missionary if she were healed.

Little by little, however, God helped her to see that suffering was her vocation and that she had a special call to be the Lord’s “victim”. The more Alexandrina “understood” that this was her mission, the more willingly she embraced it.

She said: “Our Lady has given me an even greater grace, first, abandonment, then, complete conformity to God’s will, finally, the thirst for suffering”.

Mission to suffer with Christ: The desire to suffer continued to grow in her the more her vocation became clear, she understood that she was called to open the eyes of others to the effects of sin, inviting them to conversion and to offer a living witness of Christ’s passion, contributing to the redemption of humanity.

And so it was that from 3 October 1938 until 24 March 1942, Alexandrina lived the three-hour “passion” of Jesus every Friday, having received the mystical grace to live in body and soul Christ’s suffering in his final hours. During these three hours, her paralysis was “overcome” and she would relive the Stations of the Cross, her movements and gestures accompanied by excruciating physical and spiritual pain. She was also diabolically assaulted and tormented with temptations against the faith and with injuries inflicted on her body.

Human misunderstanding and incredulity were also a great cross for her, especially when those she most expected would “assist” her – members and leaders of the Church – were adding to her crucifixion.

An investigation conducted by the Curia of Braga resulted in a circular letter written by the Archbishop which contained a series of “prohibitions” regarding Alexandrina’s case. It was the result of a negative verdict made by a commission of priests.

In addition and by way of spiritual comfort, after her spiritual director, a Jesuit priest who had helped her from 1934 to 1941, stopped assisting her, a Salesian priest, Fr Umberto Pasquale, came to her aid in 1944.

Nourished only by the Eucharist: On 27 March 1942, a new phase began for Alexandrina which would continue for 13 years and seven months until her death. She received no nourishment of any kind except the Holy Eucharist, at one point weighing as few as 33 kilos (approximately 73 pounds).

Medical doctors remained baffled by this phenomenon and began to conduct various tests on Alexandrina, acting in a very cold and hostile way towards her. This increased her suffering and humiliation but she remembered the words that Jesus himself spoke to her one day: “You will very rarely receive consolation… I want that while your heart is filled with suffering, on your lips there is a smile”.

As a result, those who visited or came into contact with Alexandrina always found a woman who, although in apparent physical discomfort, was always outwardly joyful and smiling, transmitting to all a profound peace. Few understood what she was deeply suffering and how real was her interior desolation.

Fr Pasquale, who stayed close to Alexandrina throughout these years, ordered Alexandrina’s sister to keep a diary of her words and her mystical experiences.

In 1944, Alexandrina became a member of the “Union of Salesian Cooperators” and offered her suffering for the salvation of souls and for the sanctification of youth. She kept a lively interest in the poor as well as in the spiritual health of those who sought out her counsel.

“Do not offend Jesus anymore!’: As a “testimony” to the mission to which God had called her, Alexandrina desired the following words written on her tombstone: “Sinners, if the dust of my body can be of help to save you, come close, walk over it, kick it around until it disappears. But never sin again, do not offend Jesus anymore! Sinners, how much I want to tell you…. Do not risk losing Jesus for all eternity, for He is so good. Enough with sin. Love Jesus, love Him!”. Below is her Tomb, the Church where it resides in Balaza and her room for 30 years.

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Alexandrina died on 13 October 1955. Her last words: “I am happy, because I am going to Heaven”. … Vatican.va

In Ireland there is an Alexandrina Society that spreads knowledge of her life and teachings. The aims of the Society are 1) To spread devotion to Alexandrina and make her known, 2) To pray for the conversion of sinners, 3) To pray for Priests and acknowledge any favours received, 4) To pray for members’ intentions. Amen.

Saint of the Day – 13 October – Blessed Alexandrina Maria da Costa (1904-1955) Saint of the Day - 13 October - Blessed Alexandrina/of Balazar Maria da Costa (1904-1955) Laywoman, Victim Soul, Mystic, Salesian Co-operator - best known as…

#blalexandrinaofbalazar

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wisdomfish · 5 years ago

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AS AN ATHEIST, I TRULY BELIEVE AFRICA NEEDS GOD

by Matthew Parris (The Times - 27/12/08)

"Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

But this doesn't fit the facts. Faith does more than support the missionary; it is also transferred to his flock. This is the effect that matters so immensely, and which I cannot help observing.

First, then, the observation. We had friends who were missionaries, and as a child I stayed often with them; I also stayed, alone with my little brother, in a traditional rural African village. In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.

At 24, travelling by land across the continent reinforced this impression. From Algiers to Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and the Central African Republic, then right through the Congo to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, four student friends and I drove our old Land Rover to Nairobi.

We slept under the stars, so it was important as we reached the more populated and lawless parts of the sub-Sahara that every day we find somewhere safe by nightfall. Often near a mission.

Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open.

This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. âPrivatelyâ because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.

It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man's place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.

There's long been a fashion among Western academic sociologists for placing tribal value systems within a ring fence, beyond critiques founded in our own culture: âtheirsâ and therefore best for âthemâ; authentic and of intrinsically equal worth to ours.

I don't follow this. I observe that tribal belief is no more peaceable than ours; and that it suppresses individuality. People think collectively; first in terms of the community, extended family and tribe. This rural-traditional mindset feeds into the âbig manâ and gangster politics of the African city: the exaggerated respect for a swaggering leader, and the (literal) inability to understand the whole idea of loyal opposition.

Anxiety - fear of evil spirits, of ancestors, of nature and the wild, of a tribal hierarchy, of quite everyday things - strikes deep into the whole structure of rural African thought. Every man has his place and, call it fear or respect, a great weight grinds down the individual spirit, stunting curiosity. People won't take the initiative, won't take things into their own hands or on their own shoulders.

How can I, as someone with a foot in both camps, explain? When the philosophical tourist moves from one world view to another he finds - at the very moment of passing into the new - that he loses the language to describe the landscape to the old. But let me try an example: the answer given by Sir Edmund Hillary to the question: Why climb the mountain? âBecause it's there,â he said.

To the rural African mind, this is an explanation of why one would not climb the mountain. It's... well, there. Just there. Why interfere? Nothing to be done about it, or with it. Hillary's further explanation - that nobody else had climbed it - would stand as a second reason for passivity.

Christianity, post-Reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective, and unsubordinate to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosphical/spiritual framework I've just described. It offers something to hold on to to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.

Those who want Africa to walk tall amid 21st-century global competition must not kid themselves that providing the material means or even the knowhow that accompanies what we call development will make the change. A whole belief system must first be supplanted.

And I'm afraid it has to be supplanted by another. Removing Christian evangelism from the African equation may leave the continent at the mercy of a malign fusion of Nike, the witch doctor, the mobile phone and the machete."

#africa #christianity #aid for africa #tribalism #atheism

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fcb4 · 5 years ago

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My eulogy to an old friend.

“I grieve for you...my brother. You were such a friend to me. Your love for me was more wonderful than the love of women. How the mighty have fallen and the weapons of war have perished!” -2 Samuel 1:26-27

I don’t know how many heterosexual men can say this about one of their male friends, but I can confess this about a handful of men over the years of my life and Ken Masterson was the first.

I had become a Christian in high-school during a pretty significant decent into my own personal darkness resulting from a poltergeist of common cultural devils. Through a series of events, conversations and an eventual reading of a gospel tract, I responded one afternoon with a prayerful, private confession, surrender and invitation to the Lord to take over my life and I was born again. For me, it was a small match of a moment that led to a wildfire.

One unforeseen consequence of my spiritual rebirth was the impact it had on my social circle. At 15 friends are life for most teens, and for me they were my family, a dysfunctional one, but the ‘Stoners’ were my tribe. I quickly discovered that there wasn’t going to be much enthusiasm mixing Jesus with dope, drinking, doing drugs, sleeping around and all the other general madness and mayhem that went with such pursuits in Garden Home, Oregon.

I began to feel the pain of dissonance, debate, isolation and disregard and after some acute rejections, I began to pray earnestly to the Lord for help. I needed friends that could understand, support and hang with in my new life.

One day coming home on the bus, I noticed a new guy and he had a button on his jean jacket that had ‘777’ in red letters on a background of white. I was familiar with 666 from my affinity with death metal and all things devilish,dark and spooky, so I imagined it had to be the counter reality somehow. So I asked him what the button meant and he explained to me that it was a pin put out by a Christian metal band called Stryper (http://www.stryper.com/).

We chatted some and as we approached my bus stop, I started getting my stuff ready and noticed he did as well. When we came to the stop we both got up to my amazement. As we exited he explained that his mother and him had moved into the same apartment complex where my father and I lived. It was one of the first profound answers to specific prayer that I witnessed.

God had heard my cry and sent me Ken.

Through my friendship with Ken, I was introduced to a group of other young men and women my age, a new church and an unfolding journey of faith that would forever impact my heart, mind and soul.

Our hearts and lives got intertwined in ways that I now know as I approach 50, isn’t the norm for many. We really loved each other and that love grew to expand and connect with others who were before my introduction to Ken and others that followed.

We prayed, witnessed, read and studied the Bible. We listened to untold hours of music, went to concerts, services and bookstores and drank ungodly amounts of bad coffee. We read fantasy novels, watched movies and made our own, we hosted stick battles in the woods that always ended in bruised, battered and mud covered wildness. Our band of brothers, and a few sisters, held our own retreats, traveled to musical festivals and slept in the car. We started small groups on our own, did door-to-door evangelizing, spent weekend nights downtown Portland on Burnside witnessing to drunks, addicts, gutter punks and the homeless.

In our street evangelization we saw God do some amazing things, answer prayers and stun us with His love and power. We would often word wrestle with a certain sectarian barefoot, robbed prophet named ‘Rollo’, who had one of the best churchy lines ever said to me. I was holding a bible down in Pioneer Square in Portland one night while we were witnessing and I stopped to smoke a cigarette. He looked at me with one of those penetrating fundy looks and said “You should have left one of those at home.”. We never did make any headway with him lol.

We caused a bit of trouble for the church folks caught up in our whirlwind. Poor folks didn’t know what to do with us using the handshaking time in the church service to go out and smoke cigarettes. We were too pagan for some and too religious for others and the zeal we had was often out of control, self-righteous and obnoxiously legalistic. We were full blown immature zealots. We were radicals and started more fires than I want to admit, not all were holy fire. But I wouldn’t trade those days for anything, they were heavenly, holy, heroic and harrowing, hellish and hurtful but Jesus never gave up on us, even when we did on Him.

Inter-personally we were often a mess. We fought, punched, screamed, argued, pouted, rebuked, shunned, confessed, repented and forgave. We sinned, backslid together, or judged each other when one of us lagged behind or stumbled.

As time went on, I got married, and Ken was my best man in my wedding. He lived with me and LeeElla a number of times and once we had his mother living with us too. We shared life, faith, hearts and home in a deep manner that I don’t think will ever be quite reached again in my lifetime.

Unfortunately our friendship was severed in a season when we all got wrapped up in a man, a message and a manner of being a ‘outside the religious system house church’ that eventually ended brutally due to the sin and error of the leader and others. LeeElla and I were excommunicated from the ‘fellowship’ for me confronting the leader and challenging, disrupting and seeking to divide ‘the work”.

In that unraveling, I lost my friendship with Ken and many others.

Ken and I never talked again.

I tried to connect in some manner through Facebook and if you look on his timeline, there are many public posts that reflect my longing to figure out how to reconcile, but it never happened in an honest and meaningful way.

To get a message that one of your best friends in life died, is a difficult pain to absorb. I realize now that I had an unresolved story-line that I thought in the back of my mind would someday resolve itself. Now I know It won’t and the finality of that reality has hit me hard in the last couple days.

In the last few years I have rolled through a string of significant physical deaths: my mother, my grandfathers, my father-in-law, a cousin, a friend and former leader in my ministry, a dear church member and this week...Ken.

I am grateful for you brother, I did love you and do still.

You will always have a place in my heart.

I remember you.

Your raised eyebrow, Spock look.

Your laughter.

Your strut.

Your love of miracle whip and ketchup on whitebread sandwiches.

How you ate spaghetti out of the can, cold with a fork.

Your dream of being a guitar god.

Listening to Bloodgood together.

The way you would smoke your Marlboros.

How I almost died in your apartment from doing too much crank.

Dragging you into that guys apartment to fight anyone who was there.

They way you spoke in tongues and how your mom tried to make me do it too.

Your passion for the Bible and the words behind the words.

Your eccentric premillennial oddities like telling LeeElla that you knew who the Antichrist was.

Your black raven hair and it’s inability to grow as long as you wanted it too.

The way you would wrap the car seat-belt under your armpit to the horror of my wife.

Your mom, and all the stories, oh the stories.

Me having to make a “no prophesying’ rule when you and your mom lived with us.

How you struggled so often in your walk with God.

Your pain and loneliness.

The day you walked off the job because of that lying manager who fired me.

The way you idolized Rick and his white leather jacket.

How we bullied Dan into burning his Journey and Amy Grant albums.

All the girl talk.

How I can’t listen to Guns & Roses and not think of you.

I could go on but I will close this personal eulogy with a quote from a fantasy world that we both inhabited in different ways.

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien:

“At last the hobbits had their faces turned towards home…“Are you in pain, Frodo?' said Gandalf quietly as he rode by Frodo's side. 'Well, yes I am,' said Frodo. 'It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.''Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,' said Gandalf. 'I fear it may be so with mine,' said Frodo. 'There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, and tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?' Gandalf did not answer.”

May your soul find rest

and I look forward to the day

when we will sit together in the Kingdom, again.

Much love to you Ken,

you were a mighty weapon of war.

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glowwormsmith · 5 years ago

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FC5 Week-Day 5

In which Layla notices an eyesore and gets some interesting history about her new community...

Warnings: implied violence, nothing of note

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“Huh...” was all Layla could really say as she leaned against the doorway and looked out towards the mountains. When she had first arrived, under a cloud of family tragedy and the combined anxieties and hopes of moving, she had only taken in a small part of the natural beauty of Hope County. Being a native Montanan and having taken many trips into the wilderness also desensitized Layla to her surroundings, so it was only on her third day after moving in with her sister and nieces that she noticed the sign.

“Hi, Aunt Layla! Whatcha’ lookin’ at?”

Layla turned to smile at her nieces, Hazel and Fern coming towards her. She was happy to see Hazel walking about, her injured arm in a sling, but both girls looking clear-eyed and bright even after the recent badness. Hazel had been the one to address her, her younger sister looking at Layla with a curious glance and head tilted in wonder.

“Oh, well, that. You guys know what that eyesore is all about?” Layla asked, jabbing her thumb outwards and looking back at it with a skeptical look.

She saw Hazel and Fern’s looks turn into disgust, Hazel’s eyes rolling so far into skull Layla was afraid they would be lost while Fern sighed.

“Ah, well, it’s a giant “YES” sign, for one thing...” Fern said. Hazel then interrupted bluntly, “Aunt Layla’s not stupid, Fern, she can read.”

“It’s okay, Hazel, it’s good to see that it is a “YES” sign. What’s it for?”

The girls looked at each other before Fern said, “Mom said it’s Mr. Seed’s type of preaching. The Power of Yes. It’s for the purpose of gathering new followers.”

“It’s sooo stupid! Like, he takes motivational speaking way too far!” Hazel added. “He even has dumb billboards all over the county. Nice way to show you have money to throw around when you’re not busy being a greedy lawyer, a-hole!”

“Whoa, whoa, now I don’t have to unpack all of that, kiddos! Who’s “Mr. Seed” and why is he going around talking about “yes” so enthusiastically?” Layla said. “That doesn’t even sound like a real name, why am I only learning of this now?!”

Fern cleared her throat and Hazel fell quiet, though she gave an eye-roll at Fern’s excitement to explain. “Well, his name is John Seed. He’s part of these group called Eden’s Gate—they’re like Pastor Jerome’s church, but they follow their own doctrine, one that Mom thinks is not God’s true voice—and they’ve been here for a while. Mom tells us they’ve been here since I was maybe five, or six. They’ve really grown bigger and louder really recently, but John’s the loudest. Did you see the boards with his face on it while you were driving here?”

“I didn’t really notice. Was too busy worrying about Clover barfing in the car and having Grandma and Gramps micro-managing the move,” Layla said, a warm smile as she saw the girls chuckle. Always good to see them happy. If that poor excuse for a father was still alive, I’d kill him myself for ever hurting them.

“Well, we’ll point some of them out to you next time we’re on a drive,” Hazel said. “There’s some with weird symbols and phrases, but most here in the valley has John’s dumb smug face on it, talkin’ about how “we’ll love you and we’ll take you.” Good to know creeps are advertising their plans to kidnap people.”

“Anyways,” Fern said, her voice rising over Hazel’s, “John Seed is the “face” I guess you could say of this Project. His brother, Joseph, is the leader, but John handles all the finances. He’s kinda handsome.” Fern blushed a bit and rubbed the back of her head with a small giggle. “He’s also wealthy, too. If it wasn’t for Mom saying Eden’s Gate was bad, I’d say he’s like a prince.”

Hazel made a gag noise, but didn’t say anything. Layla said as her brows furrowed, “Your mom never talked about these crazies before, and she knows how much I love ragging on crazies like this. Why does she think they’re bad?”

The girls went quiet, with Fern shifting in her chair and looking away while Hazel bit her lip and narrowed her eyes. Hazel then spoke up.

“We always went to Pastor Jerome’s church, but it changed when Da-that bastard started going to the Seed’s services and talkin’ about how—how great they were, and how “The Collapse” was real, that Joseph was the only righteous voice.” Layla noticed how Hazel’s good hand clenched and unclenched at her side. The girl then spoke loudly, startling the two, “They’re crazy! They’re not good Christians like Pastor Jerome or Mom! Mom became frightened at even the drop of their name when she got pregnant with Todd, and you know she’s not scared of nothin’! That bastard wasn’t the nicest, but he became downright looney and obsessed with Eden’s Gate, even ready to sell our home to John. And I hear things in town. About John buyin’ up properties, weapons being brought in, weird shit goin’ on in the Whitetails and to the east, people disappearing when they make Eden’s Gate mad. They even have a statute of that lyin’ prophet of theirs nearly complete out in the Henbane!”

“Wha—? A statue?! That can’t be legal!” Layla sputtered. What had I gotten into by moving here...and what has Tess not been telling me?

“They can pretty much get away with anything these days. Poor Mayor Minkler is cowed by these people and Sheriff Whitehorse has been overwhelmed by people quitting or...“leaving,” one might say,” Fern said. She then shivered. “Some of the members came to one of Pastor Jerome’s services. They stood outside and shouted how Jerome was a false shepherd, that the Collapse was coming, and the Father was the only path to salvation. Dad and a few others walked out to join them...Mom was very upset with him after that.”

“Don’t call him “dad,” Fern!” Hazel snapped, but softened up. “He wasn’t our “dad” for a long time, and he sure ain’t now after what he did. The fight, y’know, the one where he...he shot us and took Todd away and killed himself...it was about Eden’s Gate,” Hazel said, her voice low. The girls looked ready to cry and Hazel wanted to scream. “Eden’s Gate are evil. I just...get bad feelings from them, even if they had nothin’ to do with my family. They’re bad news.”

Layla then came to the girls and hugged them, rubbing their arms and a kind smile on her face. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. These people sound like every doomsday cult I’ve studied, but guess what?”

After a pause with her nieces who looked confused, Layla said with a sly smirk, “Your badass Aunt Layla is going to be a deputy with the Sheriff’s Department, and you know I don’t let any shit slide when it comes to BS, right?”

“Hell yeah!” “Language, Hazel, but you’re right, you are tough, Aunt Layla.”

“So, if John of Joseph, or any other Seed tries to come around and harass you or Tess, I’ll go and kick their loony-tune as—butts, alongside Clover, right Clover?” Layla’s dog lifted her eyes towards the trio, but she didn’t leave the couch as she let out a small gruff. “Darn straight! No one will mess with my family or their friends, so there’s no need to be afraid anymore, okay?”

Weak smiles returned to the girls’ faces as they looked a bit calmer. Layla then stood up and said, “Tell you what? We’ll go see your mom at the hospital, go to whatever favorite restaurant you like, and take some eggs along to hit any Johnny Appleseed billboards we see. Sound fun?”

“Oh my gosh, yes!!” Hazel said. “Fern, you up for it?”

“Yeah. Will you be okay?” Fern asked. Hazel let out a small huff and flicked her good hand.

“Pfft, I’m fine! I bet I can throw better with my one hand than you girls!”

“Oh, we’ll see about that, young lady!” Layla scoffed as the girls laughed and went to prepare. Before she walked off, Layla gave one last glance at the large white “YES” sign. Unease settled into her stomach, but she shoved the bad thoughts away for happier times with her nieces, to keep things good after all that’s happened to them.

She did allow one snide thought: I wish I had a grenade launcher to shoot that shit down. That would be awesome.

#FC5Week #FC5Week2019 #far cry deputy #depyootee layla

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 5 years ago

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Tahk Myeong-hwan was murdered four weeks after Sun Myung Moon spoke about him as an opponent.

1993

11月4日草創期からの文鮮明の弟子、朴正華（パク・チョンファ）が恒友出版より『六マリアの悲劇―真のサタンは、文鮮明だ！！』を刊行。文鮮明が自らの教えを利用して、多くの女性信者と性的関係を持ったことを告発する内容。

On November 4, 1993 Pak Chung-hwa, who was a follower of Sun Myung Moon from the early years, published “The Tragedy of the Six Marys – the real Satan is Sun Myung Moon!!” (by Constant Friend Publishing). The content included the accusation that Sun Myung Moon used his own teachings exploitatively to have sexual relationships with many women followers.

[Tahk Myeong-hwan wrote the introduction to this book.]

1994 1月21日文鮮明が統一教会の反対運動をしていた卓明煥（タン・ミョンファン）と文鮮明の指示を無視して政党をつくろうとした人物が同年2月18日という同じ日に死んだ（卓は新興宗教団体の信者に殺害された）ことに言及し、教団に反対する者はみな、霊界に連れて行かれるという旨の発言をする。

46 a b 卓明煥「統一教、その実相」

On January 21, 1994 Sun Myung Moon spoke about Tahk Myeong-hwan who was opposing the Unification Church. On February 18th of the same year Tahk died. (Tahk was murdered by members of a new religious group). On the very same day a man who had not listened to the instructions of Sun Myung Moon, and wanted to make a political party, also died.

Moon specifically mentioned that those who oppose the cult will be taken to the spirit world.

46 a b Tahk Myeong-hwan [book] “The Reality of the Unification Church”

LINK to Japanese source of above quotes

In Korea many Christian leaders, to this day, suspect that Sun Myung Moon was behind the murder of Tahk Myeong-hwan.

Dr. Tahk was murdered by one or two thugs who beat him with an iron pipe and stabbed him with a long knife outside his 2nd floor home in Seoul.

This murder is connected to 永生教 “Yeongsaeng-gyo” Eternal Life Church which was founded by 曺熙星 Cho Hee-seong (1931-2004).

JoongAng Daily of Korea described the group in an article dated May 26, 2014: “A Christian doomsday cult in the 1980s called Yeongsaeng-gyo, literally “Eternal Life [Church],” ended badly after founder and leader Cho Hee-seong was charged with extorting money and labor from his believers and ordering some to kidnap and murder nine people who were trying to flee the religion or who slandered Cho. He was declared not guilty of murder due to a lack of evidence but was sentenced to two years in prison for harboring convicts. He died of a heart attack in prison in 2004.” LINK to JoongAng Daily

Dahn Yoga or Dahn World, which originated in Korea, is also connected to the murder of Dr. Tahk. Apparently a man called Im Hong-chin from Dahn Yoga was jailed for the crime.

Video: “He was attacked by a Korean member of the Dahn World sect” LINK TO VIDEO

The leader of Dahn World, Lee Il-chi, became very rich, and there were legal claims from women who said he had sexually abused them. (Dahn is the Korean for “energy”.)

Were Sun Myung Moon and Lee Il-chi connected?

Lee Il-chi 李一指 (born Lee Seung-heun 李承憲 ) “reportedly had help from Hwa-young Moon, a Korean woman who joined Dahn in the late 1980s and whipped [the theology] into shape; she knew a good deal about the enlightenment trade, having grown up in the “Moonies,” the Unification Church.” (Rolling Stone magazine, 2010 LINK)

“During the day time, Lee attended college, and … studied with Unification Church’s Divine Principle study group looking for answers in the bible.” (“Dahn Hak” written by Lee Il-chi, page 199)

From www.freedomofmind.com: “While I was seeking Tao at Moak mountain, I attended Unification Church. … I opened up a Unification Church Il-Wha spring water franchise, but it failed so I had to sell my house.

…Lee first opened his eyes to the enlightenment in 1980. According to Dahn World, President Lee achieved his “Great Connection with the Heaven” on July 15th 1980 at Moak Mountain behind his wife Sim Journg-Sook’s birth home.”

[similar to Moon’s 1936 ‘revelation from Jesus’ on a mountain – LINK ]

In 1980 Lee changed his name from 李承憲, Lee Seung-heun to Lee Ilchi 李一指. Ilchi means “finger pointing to the truth.” [Moon changed his name.]

Lee left two sons and his wife. [Moon left his first wife and young son in 1946.]

Yoga at Cheongpyeong in 2016. Beware of the related Dahn Yoga group.

Tahk Myeong-hwan was offered a bribe of $450,000 to discontinue research into the Unification Church

Tahk Myeong-hwan was attacked with a car bomb

28年間、統一教会やKCIAと戦った卓明煥の証言 / Tahk Myeong-hwan fought against the UC and KCIA for 28 years (until he was murdered by two cult members).

統一教의 實相 과 그 虛像

“In Korea, one even senses a fear, like one induced by the Mafia, among the opposition, and … outspoken opponents speak of death threats.” Prof. Sontag, 1976

In 1975 Korean Unification Church members physically attacked many Christian pastors

The Korean regime imprisoned former Unification Church members who revealed the inner workings of the UC

UC members sent more than 200 text messages to Cho’s cell phone, saying, “We’ll kill you.”

Abducted and beaten up by the Unification Church in Korea

1. Freedom of the Press in Korea – Unification Church style

2. Freedom of the Press in Japan – Unification Church style

#Tahk Myeong-hwan #Sun Myung Moon

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anmaria4001 · 5 years ago

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TAUREN WELLS

Tauren wells could be said to be my favorite artist. I really like his songs because he is a worshiper of God. His songs are very youthful. Born on April 7, 1986 (33 years), his occupation as I said before singer. Wells is married and together they have three children. Wells is a staff member of his father-in-law's church in Houston (Royalwood). Wells and his wife started at the Prisma Worship Arts School, to train musicians. Throughout the school, Prisma offers private training in piano, drums, guitar, bass, voice, violin, viola, and cello. The genres of music he produces are Pop, Christian Rock, contemporary Christian music. You can find his music on YouTube, Spotify, Google Play Music, Deezer and TuneIn.

Well one of my favorite songs of him is called echo and I like a specific part that saysWhen my mind says I'm not good enough God, You're enough for me, yeah I've decided I'm not giving up 'Cause You won't give up on me You won't give up on meYour love is holding on and it won't let go I feel it breaking out like an echo Your love is holding on and it won't let go I feel it breaking out like an echo

This part gives me so much happiness because I know that I am not enough for such a great God, powerful majestic, etc but even so he loves us and the only thing he wants is for you to give him his heart.

Royal Tailor was tha band that he was before.Eventually, life pointed in other directions. The guys began to marry and start families, and their perspective of life on the road changed. In 2015, the group parted ways to pursue individual interests.But Tauren feels he has unfinished business.In many ways, pursuing a solo career feels like a complete reboot. May 2016 saw the release of his first music in three years. The hard-hitting “Undefeated” featured Reach Records’ rapper KB and served as the soundtrack for the internet-famous Dude Perfect’s “World Records Edition” episode on YouTube, which garnered over 14 million views in just three weeks.It’s a taste of the unconventional approach he and his team are planning. “I want to be a pioneer for Christian music, but I’m not trying to be famous or be cool for the sake of being cool,” he explains. “I want to say something that impacts people.”Back home, Tauren and his wife, Lorna, have been quietly busy building a life around ministry and music. In addition to serving on staff at her father’s church in Houston (Royalwood), the two have launched a private music academy called Prisma Worship Arts School, which has expanded to two locations with 20 “Dream Coaches” and 100 students – in just two years.The couple also travels regularly to help churches develop worship teams and music programs.“We said this from the beginning: We are called to this,” he says. “I may be the artist that’s got the deal, but this is a family calling. We found our thing, which is Prisma. We pour into that together equally. Everything else we do, we’re also connected on.

” That commitment to family is part of the way, Tauren continues to rewrite the narrative of his life’s story.Coming from a broken home seemed like a set back for Tauren but ultimately was a setup for God to do what He does best; create beauty from brokenness.“My parents actually met acting and performing in musical theater. They may deny this now but they were both natural entertainers. My mom acts on occasion locally in my hometown. My Dad was really into music and we had all kinds of instruments, drums, keyboards, you name it, in our house. Looking back, I can’t believe he used to let me mess with all his stuff... I could’ve destroyed it at six or seven years old.”“It was actually my dad and ‘step’ mom’s (we don’t use that term) relationship that ultimately led to us making God and faith a real priority. I’m grateful for my blended family and I have strong with relationships with all four of my parents. God truly builds on what remains in our lives.

As I plugged into church, that brought other really influential people into my life.”He benefitted from the presence and involvement of his uncle, who was also his youth pastor and worked at Tauren’s high school. He mentored Tauren, even helping him study John Maxwell books on leadership during his lunch period. Over time, Tauren became hooked on youth ministry and singing.“Seeing him doing ministry and all of that inspired me to think, That’s what I want to do,” Tauren says. “I spoke to our youth quite a bit. He helped me put ideas together. I’d always submit my messages to him, and he would walk through them with me. He showed me, ‘This is how you move on the stage. This is what you do with the mic. This is how you address the people in the room.

#taurenwells

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alwaysracheljoyscott · 6 years ago

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Born September 1, John Robert Tomlin was a young man with a broad smile and bright eyes. He and his family moved to Littleton from Wisconsin when his father accepted a job as a sales representative at Johnson Controls, a heating firm. As a kid he loved cars, baseball, family and God. As a teen he added Chevy trucks and the Green Bay Packers to that list, and his love for Jesus developed in him a strong set of Christian morals.

He enjoyed driving off-road in the nearby Rocky Mountains in his beat-up Chevy pickup, and listened to country music. He attended Foothills Bible Church and was a member of the Youth group at Riverside Baptist Church South in Parker. John may have been shy, but he was quick to laugh, his mom recalled. "He had such a sense of humor. He was always making goofy faces," she said, smiling.

John loved trucks, but not just any trucks. He had a passion for Chevy trucks, particularly his rust-spotted, gold-colored Chevy four-wheel-drive that he paid for with his own money. He had worked 30 hours a week for the last year-and-a-half loading trees, making deliveries and driving tractors after school and on weekends at Arapahoe Acres Nursery and Garden Center where he held a steady job after school and during vacations for the last two years. John's job was loading and unloading trees and plants onto the lot and into customers' cars. He always wore the same thing to work, his friends said: a blue cap, carpenter-style pants, big, mud-caked boots and a Green Bay Packers jacket, in honor of his favorite sports team. ‘’He worked hard but he made the job fun,’’ said his friend, Youngblood.

And he finally realize his dream and bough a truck. "It wasn't pretty, but he was always talking about what he was going to do to it next. He really loved it.'' Michelle Oetter, said.

John and Michelle met at youth group and had been dating for the past seven months. Tthey were nearly inseparable. "He was really nice," said his sister, Ashley. "But, he was gone most of the time because he was with Michelle." The two would have attended the prom on May 1. “I remember the day he picked out his tux and how excited he was, how excited he was to get all dressed up,” Sokol said. “He didn’t want to dance. He just wanted to have dinner with Michelle.” Michelle agreed that John hated dancing.“He hated it. He hated it so much,” she said, breaking her sadness with a smile.

John had a gentle disposition that parents and girlfriends dream of; the kind that didn't need a heavy hand of discipline and that made him an old-fashioned gentleman on dates. “He treated me like the queen of the world,” she said. “He spent so much money trotting back and forth to my house, but he always said I was worth it.”

In 1998, he went on a missionary trip to Mexico with his family and built a house for poor people. "John recommitted his life after that trip", said the Rev. Bill Oudemolen. "He said he wanted to be used by God to serve him." . Seven months before his death he reconnected with God and rediscovered the joy of his faith.

John lost his life in the library grandfather said that the victim "was in the library where he spent every lunch hour studying.'’ His truck sits where he left it Tuesday. Parked in Clement Park near the high school, the vehicle was covered with floral tributes and notes from mourning friends.

"In September, maybe God put it into my heart, or maybe it was when he got his driver's license, but I asked him, ‘John, where do you want to be buried if you die?' "He said, ‘Wisconsin, Mom,’ " Doreen, his mom, she recalled softly, the glass of water trembling in her hand.

The family returned in Waterford Wis., for John's funeral and burial. Before the service began, Tomlin’s grandmother, Elizabeth, placed her hands on the coffin and cried silently. ‘’He is a kid that every parent and grandparent wishes they had,″ she said. ‘’He was always there for you.″ Tomlin was buried in a casket of green and gold, colors of his beloved Green Bay Packers.

Early on, the Tomlins said, John found the move to Colorado difficult. He was rather shy and felt a bit lonely. But, eventually, he made good friends with Brandon Sokol and Jacob Youngblood, both of whom spoke at his service. "John was one of the best human beings I've ever met,'' said Amanda Murphy, who had worked with Tomlin at the nursery for the last year. After moving to Littleton from Wisconsin just over four years ago. Tomlin made some good friends and was well-liked, Murphy said. "He was real shy at first, but he was always a gentleman to the T,'' Murphy said. "He was the most adult 16-year-old you could ever meet.'' Murphy said Tomlin's faith was evident, even at work. "He'd always come in later on Sundays after church,'' she said. "He'd always try to talk a bunch of us into going to youth group with him.''

Friend Jacob Youngblood spoke about how Tomlin loved to drive his Chevy pickup. Jacob said that when he met John a year ago, “the first thing he asked me was, ‘Ford or Chevy?'” “I said ‘Ford,’ and immediately got on his wrong side and that got me on his bad side for the whole summer,” Jacob said. Courteney Lockwood who also worked with John at Arapahoe said, "Every day he would always come in and shake your hand or give you a hug. No matter what kind of day I was having, he made it better," she said. For Brandon Sokol, John was just like "a brother." He and his girlfriend, Lauren, often double-dated with John and Michelle.

After graduation in two years, John planned to enlist in the army. "He was a great kid, really happy, going to school, getting good grades", said his father, John Tomlin. "He knew what he wanted to do. He had everything planned."

"He was as close to a perfect son as you can have," Tomlin said.

Happy birthday John! You’re so missed. 🎈💚

#john robert tomlin #john tomlin #angel in heaven #we miss you

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humansofhds · 3 years ago

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George Vicente, MDiv '24

“I went to my cell, got on my knees, and made the decision to give my life to Jesus Christ. I said to him, ‘this day forward, I'm going to follow you.’ And I did. Before that moment, I gambled in the prison, and I drank alcohol. But after, I cut off everything. It was like night and day.”

George Vicente is an alum of the HDS Diversity and Explorations Program and an incoming student at HDS for fall 2021, planning to study New Testament philosophy. The child of Cape Verdean immigrants, Vicente is originally from Brockton, MA.

A Good Kid

I grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts. My parents are a Cape Verdean, and I grew up in a Cape Verdean household with my mother and my siblings. I didn't grow up with my father.

Growing up, my mother was – and still is – a Catholic. I never went to church with her, but she had statues of Mary all over the house and a big mural of Jesus in her bedroom. She used to scare us with God. If we were misbehaving, she would say, “Jesus, you see what they're doing, right?” We would get scared and jump under the covers. I had a 100% belief in God. It didn’t matter that I didn’t go to church. I believed he existed and that he made all things. It was just natural to me.

I was a good kid. I did good in school, I cared, and I was sympathetic. As I got older, I started to see that the older family members were involved in the street life. At first, when I looked at what they were doing, I was against it.

But I guess, being in that environment, it slowly creeps up on you. By late elementary school, I started to emulate them in the way I walked and talked. I thought that was what a man was supposed to be – somebody who, like them, was tough, somebody who didn't take any type of disrespect.

Over time, I grew into that identity. I would get into fights here and there. Even when I wanted to, I felt like I couldn't back down because of what I thought I had to be.

One day, at the Brockton fair, my friends and I got into a fight with another group of kids, and we got jumped. After the fight, I started thinking that they got the best of me. In my head, they were somewhere looking down on me. My pride was hurt, and I was upset. I wanted to do something to get back at them.

There was somebody in my area who had a firearm. When he showed it to me, I thought of it as an opportunity to do something back. I was 17 years old. In my head, it didn't matter if anybody got shot. I was focused on me. I wanted to scare them or have them run away.

Unfortunately, what ended up happening was a 16-year-old got shot. I shot him. In his lower back. The bullet traveled, and he ended up dying.

When I found out the next day that he had died, I was petrified. I couldn’t understand it – I had just done the biggest crime, the biggest thing you can do in the world. I didn't know how to deal with those emotions and that thought, so I suppressed the realization of what I had done.

I mean, it was never my intention to do that – I didn’t even think it was a possibility. You would think that if you have a firearm, and you point at somebody and shoot, that you know harm or death can occur. But I didn't realize that. My whole intention had been to just do something to show them I was tough.

There were witnesses, so the next day I was arrested. I was sent to Plymouth County Correctional Facility and charged with first degree murder. When I was there, I had this realization: I don't know who I really am. All I knew was that I had put on a front for the last four or five years. I had tried to be this image, this person I thought I was supposed to be. But I wasn’t that person. I was lost.

Finding Hope Through Faith

For the first year and a half of my incarceration, I still tried to live up to that tough image. I got in fights, spent time in solitary confinement. When I was around 20 years old, I stepped back and took a look at I was doing. I realized I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was done.

I started, here and there, to go to church. I had always believed in God, but I hadn’t always obeyed him or done him good. He became more real to me in prison because I felt like I now needed him for survival and freedom. I tried to obey him, and I felt that he would be faithful to my efforts. I struggled, and sometimes I failed, but I still believed.

Meanwhile, at trial, I was found guilty of second-degree murder. My sentence was 15 years to life. I was sent to a maximum security prison, and I was afraid. The maximum security prison was a dangerous place. When I walked into it, I could feel violence in the air – in the atmosphere. But I decided to stay out of any conflict. I knew it would be hard to do, but I was committed.

Six or seven months in, an older Cape Verdean man in my unit came to speak to me. For two weeks, he spoke to me about God and all that God had done in his life. I saw his faith, and I wanted it. I wanted to see God in my life, like he did.

One day, after talking to him, I went to my cell, got on my knees, and made the decision to give my life to Jesus Christ. I said to him, “this day forward, I'm going to follow you.” And I did. Before that moment, I gambled in the prison, and I drank alcohol. But after, I cut off everything. It was like night and day.

My faith gave me the strength to stay out of conflict. And eventually, it gave me the opportunity to leave that prison. I had started getting more involved in the Bible. I would read the Bible for a few hours in the morning, a few hours in the afternoon, and few hours in the night. In between I would pray and go to Bible studies. I was surrounding myself with Christians. This led to me being transferred to Norfolk State Prison, where there were a lot more opportunities to grow.

In that prison, Boston University offered a degree program. When I got there, I decided I wanted to do it. I took the exams and interviewed with the professors. I got into Boston University, and I ended up graduating with a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary studies. My whole life was changed. I had faith, and I had hope for a future. I didn't know exactly what my future was going to look like, but I believed – I still believe – that God is in control of my life. He had a plan and a purpose for me beyond the walls.

Project “Get George into Harvard”

Before that point, I never thought about having a career. I just thought, when I get out, I'm going to go the church, and God is going to use me. I don't know how, but I believe he's going to. I had a purpose – why did I need a career?

That’s what I thought, until one night, I had a dream where I was asking the prison GED professor, “how do you become a professor?” When I woke up, I knew that that was God speaking to me. He was telling me what he wanted me to do with my life.

That day, I went to the GED professor and spoke to her about how to become a professor. She asked, “what do you want to teach?” I didn’t really know, until she asked a second question: “what are you passionate about?”

As soon as she said that, it clicked. I told her, “Christianity.” And she was like, there you go.

I knew from speaking with her that my next step was to get a Master’s of Divinity. I figured I would go somewhere practical, reasonable, and affordable – until my professor suggested Harvard. She said it with such conviction, like it was possible. Instantly, I just – I believed. I thought, if this dream is of God and this path is of God, then anything is possible – I can't give him limits. So we started project “Get George into Harvard.”

At first, I didn't think I was smart enough for Harvard. I also didn’t think I had the money for it. I spoke to the prison chaplain about it. He had doubts at first too, not because he thought I couldn’t get in, but because Harvard is a liberal school and my faith is conservative. He didn’t how that would fit. I kind of felt the same way. But I told him that God is leading me in that direction. Later, when I realized why I was supposed to go to Harvard, put that into words, and told him, he was all for it.

Flash forward to April of 2020, when I was released. I had been in prison since 2002 – 18 years. I hit the ground running. I took the GRE and I connected with an HDS graduate through a reverend I met in prison. She coached me through the application process and let me know what Harvard was like. I also got help writing my personal statement from a journalist friend of mine. It was with through their support that I was able to put words around my desire to go to Harvard.

I wrote my application essay about my faith. I explained that mine is a real world faith – I believe that Jesus and God are real in this world. And so, since I believe they are real in this world, then they must stand firm in the face of philosophical questions, arguments, and debates. I want to be in the classroom, having those conversations, seeing my faith provide reasonable and intelligible answers to challenges.

So why not Harvard Divinity School? It's actually the best place to go to because that's where all the theological and philosophical questions, ideas, and viewpoints that represent the face of the world are going to be. There's no better place.

I submitted an application in January of this year. When I got my acceptance letter, I realized I wouldn’t have to pay for my degree – I got a full ride. And, yeah – now I'm in.

Looking Forward

I took New Testament Greek through the Summer Language Program this summer. We had our last class yesterday. I got hundreds on my midterms, and I think I did pretty well on my final. I've learned the foundation of this new language. Now I feel ready for the fall, ready to start the next part of my journey towards what God has for me.

I'm most looking forward to learning different aspects of my faith and becoming more refined in it through God’s grace. If the professors are anything like the professor I had from my summer language program, I mean, that's awesome. That makes the class.

My goal is to become a professor of Christian Philosophy at a university. I want to teach of God and Jesus Christ in a non-dogmatic way, through reason and logic to students from many different religious and non-religious backgrounds.

Right now, I’m also looking at classes that are different from my faith. I'm excited to be in those classes so I can hear and engage with new ideas. I have faith that God is going to show up in me in those classes. He's going to show me some things. I'm excited about what's going to happen.

Interview by Gianna Cacciatore; photos courtesy of George Vicente

#Harvard Divinity School #Harvard #christianity #large

0 notes

jpaulfontan · 3 years ago

Text

Defending the Faith

Give me a heart like David, Lord be my defense So I can face my giants with confidence!

Hello!

Let me begin today by saying welcome to my fellow Christian brothers and sisters, and to the curious, and most especially to those who are looking for the truth about God.

Here

in the Senior Adult Sunday school class at Corinth Baptist Church in Singleton, Ms. we study God’s Word and are ever discovering His truth. We don’t claim to know it all….

but we’re trying to! Today’s lesson is entitled:

Defending the Faith

This will be the 5th and final lesson in this series called:

Facing Adversity

Scripture for today’s lesson will be coming from the Book of Jude

Now,

the Book of Jude is a letter from the half-brother of Jesus,

though he doesn’t represent himself as such;

and that speaks volumes about how much reverence he’s showing our Christ.

The book of Jude was an open letter to

his friends in the faith;

"those who are sanctified by God the Father;"

which he also referred to as those who were

"preserved in Jesus Christ."

One of my favorite

sections of Scripture

comes from the 3rdchapter of

the Book of 2ndTimothy;

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God,

and is profitable for doctrine,

for reproof,

for correction,

for instruction in righteousness:

that the man of God may be perfect,

thoroughly furnished unto

all good works."

When Paul was penning these words,

I seriously doubt

that he would have had any idea that these very words

would become Scripture

that would be preserved throughout the age;

and I believe the same for this short letter from Jude.

The point is clear.

Men of faith wrote down

the

words as God Himself inspired them to.

And,

just as the gospel that was preached by

the men who had spent over three years

living with and learning from Jesus Christ,

their written word testifies to the truth.

Though Jude was not one of

the twelve original disciples,

he, like us,

came to be born again and

walked in the light for the remainder of his days.

Though he says

he had intended to write to these friends about the salvation they shared,

the direction of his letter changed

to one that encourages them, …

no, ….

That urges them to contend for the

faith that had been preached by the Apostles.

The reason for this was

because he had become aware of false teachings

that had infiltrated the church.

He filled this short letter with warnings

bringing to their remembrance events in biblical history.

In the light of these,

he called the believers reading his letter to

remember the love,

mercy and presence of God; and

to persevere in truth.

Let's not just glaze over

the words I just said;

love,

mercy and presence of God,…

and,

perseverance in truth.

If we are going to defend the faith,

we're going to have to remember that our

salvation comes from God, not from man;

……

By the grace of God,

through faith,

in Jesus Christ.

It's a message that's Simple…

and unblemished.

And yet,

at the time Jude wrote this,

there were already those who had begun to teach things among the saints

that were not entirely true.

Mostly, in my humble opinion, they were adding things to the gospel.

By doing so,

they were corrupting it.

There are a lot of ways to "contend" for the faith.

The 1st things that come

to my mind when considering that word, …“contend,”… are to fight or

to argue.

But remember those words

I just mentioned that

shouldn't be glazed

over?....love, mercy and the presence of God,

and perseverance in truth?

God's Word speaks for

itself.

So, if we know His Word,

we can,

in mercy and in love,

show false teachers their error.

And,

if they refuse to hear it,

we can, in turn,

show the truth to those who would listen

to the false teachers in the 1st place.

Now,

before I get ahead of myself,

let's get into the 1st section of our

lesson for today.

It's entitled:

Section 1:

Contend for the Faith

Against False Teachers Jude 3-4;

Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all. For some people, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.

I don’t know if it’s just a southern thing,

or if the phrase, ”once and for all” is more wide spread than that. But did y’all catch that? Jude didn’t say, ”…to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints…’once and for all;’ he said, “once FOR all.”

It may seem trivial to some of you,

but because the Scripture has been translated and

passed down through ages,

it’s easy to overlook simple things. Generally, the phrase; ”once and for all” is an abbreviation for; ”one time and for all times.”

…(Once and for all… one time and for all times!)

Now, let’s contrast that to the phrase, ”Once for all,”

In my opinion, Once For All is saying that the Apostles presented the pure, untarnished gospel at the very beginning of the church, and, that it was presented to the world; intended for all of mankind.

It’s a subtle difference, but one that completely changes the understanding of the verse.

One thing we can be sure of

is that the grace of God

is not a license to sin.

The only way these false teachers

could have been able to persuade members of the early church that salvation somehow liberated them to sin would have been to deny Jesus Christ.

Jesus came to free us from sin,

not to enable us to sin even more.

In his letter,

Jude is calling for the church to be

faithful and true to the gospel and

to reject those who would twist it.

Jude is letting us know in this letter

that

the ungodliness of false teachings and false teachers wasn't new,

and it wasn't now a surprise to God.

He even went so far as to state

that these people had been pre-designated and

known of God long before that time.

Elsewhere in this letter,

Jude speaks of how God had delivered the Israelites out of Egypt;...

that it was, in fact, Jesus who had done this,

and...that, in the wilderness,

He had seen to it that

all of those same people that he had rescued

who didn’t trust and believe in Him died off

before He granted them access to the promised land.

I’ve heard it said that it’s only about an 8-day walk from Egypt to Israel. They wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because of their lack of faith in the strength of Our God; …. because that entire generation was going to die off before the children of Israel would be allowed to enter that land of milk and honey.

These stories handed down through the ages

about God and how He deals with the

unfaithful aren't just stories.

Jesus, the "real" Jesus that these false teachers denied,

and still deny today,

is not to be trifled with!

Jude gave a very clear warning that the Scriptures have always

taught that rebellion leads to death and destruction.

Seeing to it that

an entire generation died off

because of their faithlessness

before He led them into the promised land

should be taken as an object lesson for all of us.

Christianity isn't a game;

and it's not a means of making a living.

Christians are Christians because we’ve believed.

In our faith,

we're to consistently worship the one true God,

who is holy and just.

We can't afford to become complacent about our

hidden sin and refuse to repent.

We're to take seriously the truth of God and

refuse to be led astray by false teachings.

We're to "know" the Word of God;

to have it stored in our very hearts.

With the strength of the knowledge of the Word,

motivated by love and by the fear of God,

we're to confront false teachers within the church

and proclaim the gospel to unbelievers everywhere.

The gospel;

the good news of salvation,

was handed down by the Apostles.

It came from Jesus through them.

It reflects the truth God laid down in the Old Testament.

How very privileged I feel to have been shown God's

mercy and love

in allowing me to see His truth;

as should we all!

As born-again Christians,

we've been allowed to get a grasp of the bigger

picture of Scripture.

We get a deeper understanding of our faith.

We also get a deeper

and more vivid understanding of our sin.

Understanding the stark reality of our sin

makes the mercy and grace

of our Lord Jesus Christ all the more remarkable.

All of us deserve the wrath of God's punishment....

and once we were under His wrath.

But,

in His mercy and grace toward us, He has given us the gift of faith that allows us to believe on Jesus Christ and thereby be saved from that wrath; to be forgiven of our sins.

We all need to take a deep breath and thank

God for His grace, His mercy, and in the forgiveness

that's found only in Jesus Christ.

Section 2:

Recognize the Signs of False Teachers

We’re going to be drawing from 2 sections of Scripture in this section. 1st,

Jude 12-13:

These people are dangerous reefs at your love feasts as they eat with you without reverence. They are shepherds who only look after themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by winds; trees in late autumn, fruitless, twice dead and uprooted. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shameful deeds; wandering stars for whom the blackness of darkness is reserved forever.

Jude gives very strong warning about these false teachers in these two verses, 12 &13.

I’m sure the imagery he uses here to describe them had a far greater impact on on those early Christians than they do for us today. Though verse 11 isn’t covered in our Scriptural reading today,

let me just point out that Jude declared a “Woe” against the false teachers he is warning his friends about. Jude called them dangerous, worldly, and divisive. He said that those people had infiltrated the body of Christ,

pretended to be in accord with them, but, in fact, were only in it to serve themselves. He says they bear no fruit and have no shame. Jude spoke of Cain. Even though God had warned Cain to resist sin,

but instead of obeying the Lord, he gave in to it without hesitation. Jude also mentioned that these false teachers had traveled the way of Balaam. Balaam made it his business to profit from his spiritual gifts. His arrogance and greed would not be stopped

even when his own donkey literally spoke to him. Even though the Lord God would not let Balaam

pronounce a curse over the Israelites Balaam still found a way to profit in telling the King of Jericho to send seductive women in to the camp of the Israelites. As I said earlier,

Jesus is not one to trifle with….

Balaam paid for his error with his life. Greed …and a lust for power and authority

is what got Korah, his family, his belongings and even those who stood with him

swallowed up by the very earth beneath their feet.

Not only that,

but God consumed 250of Korah’s followers with fire,

and sent into the congregation a fast-acting plague

that killed another 14,700because of the rebellion led by Korah. If you’re not familiar with this fascinating story of how God dealt with those who would rebel against what He had ordained, it can be found in Numbers chapter 16.

The church has the here-and-now responsibility to

have the same notions as the noble Bereans had. These Grecian people listened to Paul’s preaching, but they didn’t accept what he taught

without 1stdelving into Scripture to satisfy themselves that what he had told them was true. Traditionally, brides are dressed in white as a declaration of their purity. The church is the body of Christ,

but it is also the bride of Christ. As such, it …must …be …pure! Purity in the church cannot exist without the truth of Jesus Christ being taught and preached within it. It’s our responsibility to judge those within this body. If someone professes Christ but refuses to turn away from his sins, he’s denying Christ. If we deny Christ, we twist the gospel. In order to keep the purity of the gospel, sometimes we have to take harsh actions. Here, let me read to you what Paul wrote in

1st Corinthians 5:9-13;

I wrote to you in a letter

not to associate with

sexually immoral people.

I did not mean the

immoral people

of this world

or the greedy and

swindlers or

idolaters;

otherwise you

would have to leave

the world.

But now I am writing you

not to associate

with anyone who claims

to be a believer

who is sexually immoral

or greedy,

an idolater

or verbally abusive,

a drunkard or a swindler.

Do not even

eat with such a person.

For what business

is it of mine

to judge outsiders?

Don’t you judge

those who are inside?

But God judges outsiders.

Put away the evil person

from among yourselves.

………………..

And, verses 16-19 of that same chapter;

These people are discontented grumblers, living according to their desires;

Their mouths utter arrogant

words,

flattering people for their own advantage. But you, dear friends, remember what was predicted by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They told you, ”In the end time there will be scoffers living according to their own ungodly desires.” These people create divisions and are worldly, not having the Spirit.

The person who authored this lesson in the Sunday school book says, pertaining to church leaders or church members who deny the Savior and twists His gospel, ”…these people should be put out and treated like unbelievers so they understand the gravity of their sin and their need for the Savior.” This may seem harsh, but it is Biblical. We just can’t look into a persons’ heart to determine where they stand with Jesus. All we can do is to observe the actions of our leaders and teachers;

+ pray for spiritual discernment;

+ be on guard against anything that does not line up with Scripture;

and watch for the sort of fruit these people bear. Just this week I heard of the pastor of a very large church in Georgia who was yielding to the “woke” movement within his congregation. I won’t go into the sordid details here, but what I heard was that the congregation was leaving in large numbers. Actually, I’ve done the same thing, in that I just couldn’t, in good conscience continue to sit under a pastor who was missing the mark. But my question is, should church members abandon their house of worship in response to ungodly things happening there, or should they band together and confront the evil? Our Bibles tell us we are to put the offenders out.

Because of the love of Christ in our hearts, we should act with grace, sincerity, and solemnly confront false teachers in the hope that they will repent and turn to Christ in faith. Still, final condemnation of false teachers … and false believers … rests with God.

Our God is holy and good. He’s not going to tolerate sin indefinitely. Enoch foresaw the coming of the Lord with His angels

to convict the ungodly for their ungodly ways and their ungodly, blasphemous words.

Section 3:

Rely On Christ’s Protection Against False Teachers

Jude 20-25;

But you, dear friends, as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting expectantly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life. Have mercy on those who waver; save others by snatching them from the fire; have mercy on others but with fear, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh. Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.

In preparation for this lesson,

I was quickened in my spirit about the phrase,

…..

"have mercy on others

but with fear,

hating even the garment defiled by the flesh."

…..

There was something about Jude's use of the words,

"but with fear"

that I felt I had to delve into a bit more.

I found the following paragraph on an

Adam Clarke commentary page at the

StudyLight.org Website,

…speaking to verse 23;

………..

"On others show compassion,

in a milder and gentler way;

though still with a jealous fear,

lest you yourselves be infected with the disease

you endeavor to cure.

See therefore that, while ye love the sinners,

ye retain the utmost abhorrence of their sins."

………..

So, it would seem that the phrase,

"but with fear" actually means that while

we are attempting to share the gospel with the lost,

we are to be mindful of the possibility

that the sin they are in could ensnare us.

We're to guard our hearts as we go about our Father's business.

We can and should inoculate ourselves against error by being

fully versed in the truth and love of God.

At this time, I'd like to list four points provided

to us from the author of this weeks' lesson.

"1. Believers build themselves up in the faith,…

while false teachers deny Christ and try to tear down the

faith so they can live according to their sinful desires.

2. Believers pray in the Holy Spirit for protection against error,…

while false teachers perpetuate error because they do not have the

Holy Spirit.

3. Believers remember the teachings of Christ

through the apostles and the teaching of all of Scripture,

recalling the warnings of judgment against those

who would rebel against God. …

False teachers deny the Scriptures,

reject God's warnings,

and…ultimately reap the eternal consequence of hell.

4. Believers contend for the faith and for the saints,

trying to rescue those who might succumb to the

wiles of the wicked. ….

False teachers, on the other hand,

flatter and try to take advantage of others for their own benefit."

So, What are some ways believers can have

mercy on those who doubt?

To begin with, we can share the gospel of

God's mercy in Christ.

We can share the truth of the Scriptures

with joy and consistency.

And, …

this is important now, …

we can be a community of love that listens to questions,

that acknowledges doubts, and stands firm on the

truth of God's Word.

One of the greatest tools the good Lord has given us

is the ability to pray.

We should be using this power to pray for our fellow believers to

remain strong in the faith.

Jude's urgent message to his friends to earnestly contend

for the faith was grounded in the God of our Bible.

With faith in God,

who is able to keep us from stumbling,

we can get close to the fire

and show mercy

and take action to rescue others from the darkness.

God's mercy in Christ leads to eternal life,

and His protection of His people from judgment and error

leads us to worship Him.

And remember, God is the Father,

He is the Son,

and He is the Holy Spirit!

In closing, I'd like to give all of you some words

from our Savior,

that you might take the time to ponder on them.

Find this verse in your own Bibles and bookmark it.

Many books could be written about the things He says here:

It's

Matthew 11:27;

(repeat)

All things

have been entrusted to Me

by My Father.

No one knows the Son

except the Father,

and no one knows the Father

except the Son

and

anyone to whom the Son

desires to reveal Him.

This is a revelation from Jesus Christ Himself;

and though it's easy to read the words,

how easy is it to understand what He's telling us?

Just take some time….and meditate on it.

Let's pray

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strategic-social-media · 4 years ago

Text

PREPARING FOR THE UNDERGROUND CHURCH

By Pastor Richard Wurmbrand

Christian pastors must learn what an underground church looks like and what it does. I spoke with a bishop in Britain for an hour or so about underground church work. Finally, he said, "Excuse me, but you speak of my hobby; I am very interested in church architecture. Would you please tell me if the underground churches use Gothic styles in the building of churches?"

The Underground Church is comparatively unknown. We have it right next door, but we are not ready to join it and we are not trained for it. Every Christian pastor must know this because we might pass through tragic circumstances. Even if we do not pass through these tragic circumstances we have a duty to help and to instruct those who do pass through them.

In Muslim nations, in Red China and so on, many believers have become victims. Many have gone into prisons and many have died in prison. We cannot be proud of this. The better thing would have been to be well instructed on how to do underground work and not to be captured. I admire those who know how to work so well that they are not caught. We have to know the underground work.

PREPARING FOR SUFFERING

Suffering cannot be avoided in the Underground Church, whatever measures are taken, but suffering should be reduced to the minimum.

What happens in a country when oppressive powers take over? In some countries the terror starts at once, as in Mozambique and Cambodia. In other places religious liberty follows as never before. And so it begins. Some regimes come to power without having real power. They do not have the people on their side. They have not necessarily organized their police and their staff of the army yet.

In Russia, the Communists gave immediately great liberty to the Protestants in order to destroy the Orthodox. When they had destroyed the Orthodox, the turn came for the Protestants. The initial situation does not last long. During that time they infiltrate the churches, putting their men in leadership. They find out the weaknesses of pastors. Some might be ambitious men; some might be entrapped with the love of money. Another might have a hidden sin somewhere, wherewith he may be blackmailed. They explain that they would make it known and thus put their men in leadership. Then, at a certain moment the great persecution begins. In Romania such a clamp-down happened in one day. All the Catholic bishops went to prison, along with innumerable priests, monks and nuns. Then many Protestant pastors of all denominations were arrested. Many died in prison.

"Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he has done to Thy saints at Jerusalem: But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto Me, to bear My name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will show him how great things he must suffer for My name's sake "-(Acts 9:13, 15 and 16).

Jesus, our Lord, told Ananias: "Meet Saul of Tarsus. He will be My underground pastor, My underground worker." That is what St. Paul was - a pastor of an Underground Church. Jesus started a crash course for this underground pastor. He started it with the words, "I will show (him) how great things he must suffer..."

Preparation for underground work begins by studying sufferology, martyrology. Later, we will look at the technical side of underground work, but first of all there must be a certain spiritual preparation for it.

In a free country, to be a member of a church, it is enough to believe and to be baptized. In the Church underground it is not enough to be a member in it. You can be baptized and you can believe, but you will not be a member of the Underground Church unless you know how to suffer.

You might have the mightiest faith in the world, but if you are not prepared to suffer, then when you are taken by the police, you will get two slaps and you will declare anything. So the preparation for suffering is one of the essentials of the preparation of underground work.

A Christian does not panic if he is put in prison. For the rank and file believer, prison is a new place to witness for Christ. For a pastor, prison is a new parish. It is a parish with no great income but with great opportunities for work. I speak a little of this in my book, With God In Solitary Confinement.

In other books I mention Morse code, which is also part of the training for the Underground Church. You know what this is - a code by which messages are conveyed. Through this code you can preach the Gospel to those who are to your right and left.

Free parishioners look at their watch; "Already he has preached for thirty minutes. Will he never finish?" When arrested, watches are taken away from you; you have the parishioners with you the whole week and can preach to them from morning to night! They have no choice. There have never been, in the history of the Romanian or the Russian Church, so many conversions brought about as there have been in prison. So do not fear prison. Look upon it as just a new assignment given by God.

Men can accept this. But what about the terrible tortures which are inflicted on prisoners? What will we do about these tortures? Will we be able to bear them? If I do not bear them, I put in prison another fifty or sixty men whom I know because that is what the oppressors wish from me, to betray those around me. Hence comes the great need for preparation for suffering, which must start now. It is too difficult to prepare yourself for it when you are already in prison.

TRUTH ABOUT THE TRUTH

How much each one of us can suffer depends on how much he is bound up with a cause, how dear this cause is to him, and how much it means for him.

In this respect we have had in Communist countries very big surprises. There have been gifted preachers and writers of Christian books who have become traitors. The composer of the best hymnal of Romania became the composer of the best communist hymnal of Romania. Everything depends on whether we have remained in the sphere of words or if we are merged with the divine realities.

God is the Truth. The Bible is the truth about the Truth. Theology is the truth about the truth about the Truth. A good sermon is the truth about the truth about the truth, about the Truth It is not the Truth. The Truth is God alone. Around this Truth there is a scaffolding of words, of theologies, and of exposition. None of these is of any help in times of suffering. It is only the Truth Himself Who is of help, and we have to penetrate through sermons, through theological books, through everything which is 'words' and be bound up with the reality of God Himself.

I have told in the West how Christians were tied to crosses for four days and four nights. The crosses were put on the floor and other prisoners were tortured and made to fulfill their bodily necessities upon the faces and the bodies of the crucified ones. I have since been asked: "Which Bible verse helped and strengthened you in those circumstances?" My answer is: "NO Bible verse was of any help." It is sheer cant and religious hypocrisy to say, "This Bible verse strengthens me, or that Bible verse helps me." Bible verses alone are not meant to help.

We knew Psalm 23 - "The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want... though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...." When you pass through suffering you realize that it was never meant by God that Psalm 23 should strengthen you. It is the Lord who can strengthen you, not the Psalm which speaks of Him so doing. It is not enough to have the Psalm. You must have the One about whom the Psalm speaks. We also knew the verse: "My Grace is sufficient for thee." But the verse is not sufficient. It is the Grace which is sufficient and not the verse.

Pastors and zealous witnesses who are handling the Word as a calling from God are in danger of giving holy words more value than they really have. Holy words are only the means to arrive at the reality expressed by them. If you are united with the Reality, the Lord Almighty, evil loses its power over you; it cannot break the Lord Almighty. If you only have the words of the Lord Almighty you can be very easily broken.

SPIRITUAL EXERCISES

The preparation for underground work is deep spiritualization. As we peel an onion in preparation for its use, so God must "peel" from us what are mere words, sensations of our enjoyments in religion, in order to arrive at the reality of our faith. Jesus has told us "that whosoever will follow" Him will have to "take up their cross," and He, Himself, showed how heavy this cross can be. We have to be prepared for this.

We have to make the preparation now before we are imprisoned. In prison you lose everything. You are undressed and given a prisoner's suit. No more nice furniture, nice carpets or nice curtains. You do not have a wife or husband any more and you do not have your children. You do not have your library and you never see a flower. Nothing of what makes life pleasant remains. Nobody resists who has not renounced the pleasures of life beforehand.

I personally use an exercise. I live in the United States of America. Can you imagine what an American supermarket looks like? You find there many delicious things. I look at everything and say to myself, "I can go without this thing and that thing; this thing is very nice, but I can go without: this third thing I can go without, too." I visited the whole supermarket and did not spend one dollar. I had the joy of seeing many beautiful things and the second joy to know that I can go without.

DOUBT MAKES TRAITORS

I am Jewish. In Hebrew, the language which Jesus Himself spoke and in which the first revelation has been given, the word "doubt" does not exist. To doubt is as wrong for a man as it would be for him to walk on four legs - he is not meant to walk on four legs. A man walks erect; he is not a beast. To doubt is subhuman.

To every one of us doubts come, but do not allow doubts about essential doctrines of the Bible such as the existence of God, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or the existence of eternal life to make a nest in your mind. Every theological or philosophical doubt makes you a potential traitor. You can allow yourself doubts while you have a nice study and you prepare sermons, and you eat well - or you write a book. Then you can allow yourself all kinds of daring ideas and doubts. When you are tortured these doubts are changed into treason because you have to decide to live or die for this faith.

One of the most important things about the spiritual preparation of an underground worker is the solution of his doubts. In mathematics, if you do not find the solution you may have made a mistake somewhere, so you continue until you find out. Don't live with doubts, but seek their solution.

TEST OF TORTURE

Now to come to the very moment of torture. Torture is sometimes very painful. Sometimes it is a simple beating. We have all been spanked as children and beating is just another spanking. A simple beating is very easy to take. Jesus has said we should come to Him like children, which is rather like candidates for spanking!

However, with us, Communists did not stop at beatings - they used very refined tortures. Now torture, you must know, can work both ways. It can harden you and strengthen your decision not to tell the police anything. There are thieves who resist any torture and would not betray those with whom they have co-operated in theft. The more you beat them the more obstinate they become. Or, torture can just break your will.

Now I will tell you of one very interesting case which was published by the Czech Communist Press. Novotny, who was the predecessor of Dubcek and who was a Communist dictator, had arrested one of his intimate comrades, a Communist leader, a convinced atheist, and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. (Not only Christians, Jews or patriots were in prison. One Communist arrested another and tortured him just as they would do anybody else.) They arrested this Communist leader and put him in a prison cell alone. Electromagnetic rays, which disturb the mind, passed through this cell. A loudspeaker repeated day and night: "Is your name Joseph or not Joseph?" (His name was not Joseph.)

They tried to drive him mad. Day and night. He felt that he would lose his mind. At a certain moment, he got an illumination. "I have now met unmitigated evil. If Communists torture a Christian, it is not absolutely evil because Communists believe that they will construct an earthly paradise. Christians hinder them, so it is right to torture Christians. But when a Communist tortures a Communist, it is torture for torture's sake. There is absolutely no justification for it. But wait a little bit. Every coin has two sides, every electric cable has two poles. If there is an unmitigated evil, against whom does this unmitigated evil fight? There must be an unmitigated good. This is God, and against Him they fight."

When he was called to the interrogator, he entered smiling into the room and told him that he could switch off the loudspeaker now because it had attained its result. "I have become a Christian." The officer asked him, "How did it happen?" He told him the whole story. The officer said, "Wait a little bit." He called a few of his comrades and said, "Please repeat the stop before my comrades." He repeated the story, and the captain told the other police officer, "I told you that this method will not work. You have overdone it."

The Devil is not all mighty and all wise like God. He makes mistakes. Evil torture is an excess which can be used very well spiritually.

MOMENT OF CRISIS

Torture has a moment of explosion, and the torturer waits for this critical moment. Learn how to conquer doubt and to think thoroughly. There is always one moment of crisis when you are ready to write or pronounce the name of your accomplice in the underground work, or to say where the secret printing shop is, or something of that kind. You have been tortured so much nothing counts any more; the fact that I should not have pain also does not count. Draw this last conclusion at the stage at which you have arrived and you will see that you will overcome this one moment of crisis; it gives you an intense inner joy. You feel that Christ has been with you in that decisive moment. Jailers today are now trained and refined, aware that there is a moment of crisis. If they cannot get anything from you in that moment, then they abandon torturing: they know its continuation to be useless.

There are a few more points in connection with torture. It is very important to understand what Jesus said: "Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for itself." I have had fourteen years of prison. Brother Hrapov had twenty six, Wong MingDao had twenty-eight. It seems impossible to bear long years of prison. You are not asked to bear it all at once. Do not bear even one day at a time - bear an hour at a time. One hour of pain everybody can bear. We have had a terrible toothache, a car accident - passing, perhaps, through untold anguish. You are not meant to bear pain more than this one present minute.

What amplifies pain is the memory that I have been beaten and tortured so many times and that tomorrow they will take me again, and the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow, I might not be alive - or they might not be alive. Tomorrow, there can be an overthrow, as in Romania. Yesterday beating has passed: tomorrow's torture has not come yet.

LOVE SUPREME

The Bible teaches some words very hard to take: "Whosoever does not hate father, mother, child, brother, sister - cannot be My disciple." These words mean almost nothing in a free country.

You probably know from The Voice of the Martyrs literature that thousands of children had been taken away from their parents in the former Soviet Union because they were taught about Christ. You must love Christ more than your family. There you are before a court and the judge tells you that if you deny Christ you may keep your children. If not, this will be the last time you will see them. Your heart may break, but your answer should be, "I love God."

Nadia Sloboda left her house for four years of prison. Her children were taken from her, but she left her house singing. The children, for whom the police waited with a truck to take them as she left, told their singing mother, "Don't worry about us. Wherever they put us, we will not give up our faith." They did not.

When Jesus was on the cross He not only suffered physically; He had His mother in front of Him, suffering. His mother had the Son suffering. They loved each other, but the glory of God was at stake and here any human sentiment must be secondary. Only if we take this attitude once and for all can we prepare for underground work.

Only Christ, the Great Sufferer, the Man of Sorrows, must live in us. There have been cases in Communist countries when Communist torturers threw away their rubber truncheons with which they beat a Christian and asked, "What is this halo which you have around your head? How is it that your face shines? I cannot beat you anymore." It is said of Stephen in the Bible, that "his face shone." We have known cases of Communist torturers who told the prisoner, "Shout loudly, cry loudly as if I would beat you so that my comrades will know that I torture you. But I cannot beat you." Thus, you would shout without anything happening to you.

There are other cases when prisoners really are tortured, sometimes to death. You have to choose between dying with Christ and for Christ or becoming a traitor. What is the worth of continuing to live when you will be ashamed to look into the mirror, knowing that the mirror will show you the face of a traitor?

LEARN TO BE SILENT

In the Underground Church, silence is one of the first rules. Every superfluous word you speak can put somebody in prison. A friend of mine, a great Christian composer, went to prison because Christians had the habit of saying, "How beautiful is this song composed by Brother _____." They praised him, and for this he got fifteen years of prison. Sing the song, but do not mention the name of the one who has written it.

You cannot learn to be silent the very moment the country is taken over. You have to learn to be silent from the moment of your conversion.

The secretary to Solzhenitsyn was put under such pressure by the Communists (and she had been denounced by Solzhenitsyn's wife) that she finished by hanging herself. If Solzhenitsyn had kept silent, this would not have happened.

Another question which is very important: I thank God for the years which I passed in Solitary confinement. I was, for three years, thirty feet beneath the earth. I never heard a word. I never spoke a word. There were no books. The outward voices ceased. The guards had felt soled shoes; you did not hear their approach. Then, with time, the inner voices ceased.

We were drugged, we were beaten. I forgot my whole theology. I forgot the whole Bible. One day I observed that I had forgotten the "Our Father." I could not say it any more. I knew that it began with "Our Father...," but I did not know the continuation. I just kept happy and said, "Our Father, I have forgotten the prayer, but you surely know it by heart. You hear it so many thousand times a day, so you assign an angel to say it for me, and I will just keep quiet." For a time my prayers were, "Jesus, I love You." And then after a little time again, "Jesus, I love You. Jesus, I love You." Then it became too difficult even to say this because we were doped with drugs which would destroy our minds. We were very hungry. We had one slice of bread a week. There were the beatings, and the tortures, and the lack of light, and other things. It became impossible to concentrate my mind to even say so much as, "Jesus, I love You." I abandoned it because I knew that it was necessary. The highest form of prayer which I know is the quiet beating of a heart which loves Him. Jesus should just hear "tick-a-tock, tick-a-tock", and He would know that every heartbeat is for Him.

When I came out from solitary confinement and was with other prisoners and heard them speaking, I wondered why they spoke! So much of our speech is useless. Today men become acquainted with each other and one will say, "How do you do?" and the other answers, "How do you do?" What is the use of this? Then one will say, "Don't you think that the weather is fine?" and the other thinks, and says, "Yes, I think it is fine." Why do we have to speak on whether the weather is fine? We do not take earnestly the word of Jesus Who says that men will be judged not for every bad word, but for every useless one. So it is written in the Bible.

Useless talking in some countries means prison and death for your brother. A word of praise about your brother, if it is not necessary, may mean catastrophe. For example, somebody comes to visit you and you say, "Oh! I'm sorry you were not here before - brother W. has just left." The visitor could be an informer of the secret police. Now she will know that bro-ther W. is in town! Keep your mouth shut. Learn to do it now.

PERMISSIBLE STRATAGEMS

You cannot do underground work without using stratagems. I know of one case which happened in Russia. The Communists suspected that the Christians were gathering somewhere and they surveyed a street. They knew that the meeting must be there somewhere. They saw a young boy going toward the house where they supposed the meeting would be. They stopped the boy and the police asked him, "Where are you going?" With a sad face, he said, "My oldest brother died, and now we gather the whole family to read his testament." The police officer was so impressed that he patted the boy and said, "Just go." The boy had not told a lie.

We are not obliged to tell an atheist tyrant the truth. We are not obliged to tell him what we are doing. It is indecent for his side to put questions to me, an impertinence.

RESISTING BRAINWASHING

One of the greatest methods is not only physical torture; it is brainwashing. We have to know how to resist brainwashing. Brainwashing exists in the free world, too. The press, radio and television brainwash us. There exists no motive in the world to drink Coca-Cola. You drink it because you are brainwashed. Water is surely better than Coca-Cola. But nobody advertises, "Drink water, drink water." if water were advertised, we would drink water. Some have driven this technique of brainwashing to its extreme. The methods vary, but brainwashing in my Romanian prison consisted essentially of this: we had to sit seventeen hours on a form which gave no possibility to lean, and you were not allowed to close your eyes. For seventeen hours a day we had to hear, "Communism is good, Communism is good, Communism is good, etc.; Christianity is dead, Christianity is dead, Christianity is dead, etc.; Give up, give up, etc." You were bored after one minute of this but you had to hear it the whole seventeen hours for weeks, months, years even, without any interruption.

I can assure you, it is not easy. It is one of the worst tortures. Much worse than physical torture. But Christ has foreseen all things because with Him there is no time. Future, past, present are one and the same: He knows all things from the beginning. Communists invented brainwashing too late! Christ had already invented the opposite to brainwashing - heart washing. He has said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."

Stephen, the first martyr for Christ, had around him hundreds with big stones in their hands to throw at him. He said: "I see." And the wife of Stephen probably thought he saw the danger he was in and would run away. But he said: "I see JESUS standing at the right hand of God." Perhaps she said (it is not recorded), "Don't you see all the mob around you ready to throw stones at you?" "Oh yes! I see some little ants there below not worth mentioning. I look to JESUS." He did not look to those who wished to kill him. Blessed are the pure in heart.

I had passed through brainwashing for over two years. Now the Communists would have said that my brain was still dirty. In the same rhythm in which they said, "Christianity is dead," I and others repeated to ourselves: "Christ also has been dead, Christ also has been dead." But we knew He rose from the dead. We remembered that we lived in the communion of saints.

OVERCOMING SOLITUDE

One of the greatest problems for an underground fighter is to know how to fill up his solitude. We had absolutely no books. Not only no Bible, but no books, no scrap of paper, and no pencil. We never heard a noise, and there was absolutely nothing to distract our attention. You looked at the walls, that was all. Now normally a mind under such circumstances becomes mad.

I can tell you from my own experience how I avoided becoming mad, but this again has to be prepared by a life of spiritual exercise beforehand. How much can you be alone without the Bible? How much can you bear to be with yourself without switching on the radio, or a record player, etc.?

I, and many other prisoners, did it like this. We never slept during the night. We slept during the day. The whole night we were awake. You know that a Psalm says, "...bless you the Lord,... which by night stand in the house of the Lord." One prayer at night is worth ten prayers during the day.

All great sins and crimes are committed during the night. The great robberies, drunkenness, reveling, adultery - this whole life of sin is a night life. During the day everyone has to work in a factory, college, or somewhere. The demonic forces are forces of the night, and therefore, it is so important to oppose them during the night.

In solitary confinement we awoke when the other prisoners went to bed. We filled our time with a program which was so heavy, we could not fulfill it. We started with a prayer, a prayer in which we traveled through the whole world. We prayed for each country, for where we knew the names of towns and men, and we prayed for great preachers. It took a good hour or two to come back. We prayed for pilots, and for those on the sea, and for those who were in prisons.

After having traveled through the whole world, I read the Bible from memory. To memorize the Bible is very important for an underground worker.

THE JOY OF THE LORD

Just to make us laugh also a little bit, I will tell you one thing which happened. Once while I lay on the few planks which were my bed, I read from memory the Sermon on the Mount, according to Luke. I arrived at the part where it is said, "When you are persecuted... for the Son of man's sake, rejoice you, in that day and leap for joy...." You will remember that it is written like this. I said, "How could I commit such a sin of neglect? Christ has said that we have to do two different things. One to rejoice, I have done. The second, to 'leap for joy,' I have not done." So I jumped. I came down from my bed and I began to jump around.

In prison, the door of a cell has a peep hole through which the warden looks into the cell. He happened to look in while I jumped around. So he believed that I had become mad. They had an order to behave very well with madmen so that their shouting and banging on the wall should not disturb the order of the prison. The guard immediately entered, quieted me down and said, "You will be released; you can see everything will be all right. Just remain quiet. I will bring you something." He brought me a big loaf of bread. Our portion was one slice of bread a week, and now I had a whole loaf, plus cheese. It was white. Never just eat cheese; first of all admire its whiteness. It is beautiful to look upon. He brought me also sugar. He spoke a few nice words again and locked the door and left.

I said, "I will eat these things after having finished my chapter from St. Luke." I lay down again and tried to remember where I had left off. "Yes, at 'when you are persecuted for My Name's sake, rejoice... and leap for joy because great is your reward." I looked at the loaf of bread and the cheese. Really, the reward was great!

So the next task is to think of the Bible and to meditate upon it. Every night, I composed a sermon beginning with "Dear brethren, and sisters" and finishing with "Amen." After I composed it, I delivered it. I put them afterwards in very short rhymes so that I could remember them. My books, With God In Solitary Confinement and If Prison Walls Could Speak, contain some of these sermons. I have memorized three hundred and fifty of them.

Out of bread I made chessmen, some of them whitened with a little bit of chalk and the others gray. I played chess with myself. Never believe that Bob Fisher is the greatest chess master of the world. He won the last match with Spassky. He won eight games and lost two. I, in three years, never lost a game; I always won either with white or gray!

Never allow your mind to become distressed because then the Communists have you entirely in their hands. Your mind must be continually exercised. It must be alert, it must think. It must, everyone according to his abilities, compose different things, etc.

I have told you all these things because they belong to the secrets of the underground worker when he suffers. May God bless you.

Richard Wurmbrand

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