I remember when I left JW's and started going to born-again christians(bac's) churches my "atheist" father laughed at me and told me that I would eventually leave bac's because like J.F. Rutherford said "religion is a snare and racket". He said bac's and jws are just on an endless treadmill motivated by "fear" and not love for God into going to church/KH. He told me that if there was an annoucement made by Jehovah that the Rapture/Armaggeddon was coming in the year 3000 all hell-fire screaming/you will die at Armaggeddon people would say I am out of here from serving God. I hate to admit it but my dad might have a point. I never really thought about it like that. If Jehovah made an annoucement to the world that Armaggeddon was coming in the year 3000 would I be like Job's wife and "curse" Jehovah for making me serve him for nothing. So I am wondering how many ex-jw's that become born-again would leave bac's if Armaggeddon was a 1000 years away? I guess posters I just need some "resparking" of my faith because it has definitely dropped down to 80% instead of 110% like when I was a JW. I used to love Jehovah and Jesus "so much" I would have crawled on my hands and knees for them, but now I just have so many "doubts". Posters what are your thoughts?
Do you know of any "apostate" ex-jws that became "BAC's" that quit bac's?
by booker-t 19 Replies latest jw friends
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sspo
Still a jw but i have other family members as Born Again. They might be closer to the truth more than Jw but with them you'll have to beleive, hell and many other things that i will never accept.
In their situation if you sneeze, it is God's will, if you get hit by a train it is god's will, Jesus is everywhere so my point don't want to jump from one set of beleif to another.
Read God's word and see what exctaly tells you, and enjoy life.
As Barbara Anderson from SilentLambs said, she is done in trying to figure out the complexity of life, it is bigger than us.
Maybe one day Jehovah will make it clear, let's wait on his mercy and if we have screwed up, well, we go back to the dust as billions of others have, put in your time, enjoy life, and do good for your family and mankind.
6000 years or 10000 years of people claiming to have the truth. The key to God, enough is enough, because of religion, mankind is so devided because they all think they are right, and JW have done enough damage in ruining people's lives in the last 140 years
Malawy where our sisters and brothers have been raped, killed,lost jobs and homes because of a 25 cents political card and the in 99 wat. questions from readers they tell you it's ok to vote, HOW ABOUT A DAMN APOLOGY TO THEM.They put the blame On JEHOVAH because , he is the one that eventually revealed that it's ok to vote.
the society should take millions of dollars out of their banks and sent them to those brothers and sisters that have suffered so much. Ho yes we have the truth.
They should take the whole Governing Body for making decisions like that and throw them in jail for life. Enough, by blood is boiling, i got to go
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startingover
Your father is right on. Is having faith important to your happiness? I used to think they were connected but discovered for me I am much happier basing my life on realities.
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LittleToe
Do you mean the form of denomination or are you talking about a person who claims a personal relationship with Christ and then allegedly renages?
I've seen a few folks backslide and then eventually stop attending church, but they still seem to love Christ.
If they are just in it for the religion and the buzz of some kind of communal worship, I can see why they might eventually tire of that. But tiring of a fullfilling relationship? Why would they do that? You don't get bored of your dog, why would you get bored of your saviour?
I do understand that in the States you have a branch of Christianity that is very much fundamentalist and has stolen the title BAC to itself, but IMHO it needs claiming back. Every Christian "believer" is allegedly "born again", not just the few who happen to go to a certain church. In that regard the BAC movement is certainly as bad as the JWs for it's sectarianism, IMHO!
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Narkissos
If I substitute the label "Evangelicals" to "BACs" and leave the eschatological side of the question aside (which I stopped considering as important long before I left JWs), I might qualify to an extent.
Prior to being disfellowshipped from JWs I had no personal contact with Evangelicals, not to mention churches. However, the evolution of my faith (more and more Jesus-centered) naturally brought me close to them. A lot of Bible metaphors such as "being born again" had become very important to me as I read them in their New Testament context, out of the "forbidden 'anointed' box". So I was a very logical candidate to Evangelicalism.
A couple of weeks after I was df'd I wrote to Alfred Kuen, a French-speaking Bible translator in Switzerland whose NT paraphrase I had enjoyed. He kindly responded and put me in touch with Evangelicals in Paris, mostly of his own "open Brethren" movement. I attended a few meetings there but this sounded really too close to JWs to me (elders, discipline, eschatology, etc.). Once I entered another Evangelical church a few yards away from my last KH for the Bible study. I enjoyed this church (a moderate Evangelical church in the Reformed tradition, and definitely not eschatology-oriented) a lot more, and started attending there. In both cases I was welcome immediately. I became a church member a few months later. Only when I started studying in an Evangelical college did a disagreement appear. The conservative approach to Scripture, which was rarely emphasised in church, became an essential issue, and on this I found myself disagreeing more and more. This slowly took me out of Evangelicalism and closer to liberal Protestantism, and finally out of any church.
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Undecided
Littletoe, I wish I could have a relationship with God, but I can't understand his motives. If God did create the universe then I have to look at nature to understand him. I see two different sides to God, one beautiful and peaceful and another mean and disastrous. Which one is really his personality?
Ken P.
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LittleToe
Ken:You'll excuse me, I hope, for asking what I believe to be a few pertinant questions. I'm not being beligerant. I've grown to respect you and your opinions over the years we've both posted here.
When you desire to have a relationship with someone, do you usually begin by first questioning their motives, or do you just get on with it and work out the details afterwards?
I'm honestly not belittling your desire to understand motives. I think we all do that. I'm just confused as to why in this case you are setting up artificial barriers between yourself and someone that you claim to want to know personally. You don't usually do that, do you?
Further, do you hold Henry Ford to such exacting standards of creatorship? If not, why not?
Note: that I'm not trying to give you definite answers here, I'm just following my usual practise of asking more questions that uncover what lays below the surface of the dogma / metal framework we were trained to use by the WTS. I suspect Jesus did something with the Pharisees, though I in no way put myself in his league!
Also: ask yourself if you answered the questions without anthropomorphising God into some kind of morally supreme version of yourself.
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jwfacts
I cant answer the BAC side, but your question is good.
Do JWs serve out of love of God or a date? You will notice that since the 1995 generation teaching (and even before the prevelance of the internet) growth slowed quite dramatically. Meeting attendance is dropping. The ones that go probably still believe in God, but they do not have the motivation to go through the routine as energetically.
That is the risk of building a religion around a date instead of around worship. Still, it is probably better than building it around fear of hellfire.
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LittleToe
Still, it is probably better than building it around fear of hellfire.
I've been going to a variety of churches for well over four years now, having attended well in excess of 500 services. I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard anything preached that even mentioned hellfire, far less majored on it.
Perchance might this be another WTS-raised expectation?
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Undecided
Littletoe, I like the way you view your relationship with God but it doesn't work for me yet. I just can't understand the bad that God allows to continue to happen, especially to little children who had nothing to do with their situation. It doesn't seem kind or loving and I like those kind of friends.
Of course I don't understand what God is and am beginning to wonder if there really is one. Someday maybe he will give me some clue that will get me started in his direction or maybe he doesn't want me as a friend.
Further, do you hold Henry Ford to such exacting standards of creatorship? If not, why not?
It's simple, Ford was human and God is supposed to be a little better at creation than us sinner humans. His creations were supposed to be perfect, except the Devil and man, and some angels. Maybe Henry Ford did just as well after all.
Ken P.