Posts by NanaR

51

Prayer to the Holy Spirit

by Amazing in

jw
friends

this is a touchy topic for some because of strong beliefs about god's nature.

many believe that the nt bible is a law book, designed to give us exacting instructions and formula on what to do and not to do.

on prayer to the holy ghost (holy spirit), the new advent says:.

Jim,

Thank you for this beautiful article, and for the ones preceding it.

This statement especially resonates with me:

"The first and powerful change was that He gave me peace - unexpected peace with myself, with God the Father, with Him, with Christ, with the Christian faith. The kind of peace that we feel sometimes when we have a brief moment of freedom from stress ... like when we were children, just sitting in the yard, enjoying a bright sunny day, and not having a care in the world. Eacept, the peace lasts!"

I feel that peace now every time I attend Mass (and I am not even able to take communion yet). I am reminded especially of John 14:27: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid." That statement directly followed Jesus' promise to send the Holy Spirit to be with the Church.

The other scripture that came to mind was Matthew 11:29 (here I will cite the NWT reading because I like the wording): "Take my yoke upon YOU and learn from me, for I am mild-tempered and lowly in heart, and YOU will find refreshment for YOUR souls." I never felt that "refreshment" at the Kingdom Hall, but now I know what that scripture means. When I go to Mass, it is food for my soul. I leave feeling peaceful, rested, with the burdens of the week lifted. I carry the peace with me into my everyday life. It has made me a happy person again. Also, I am longing for the time when I can be baptized and take communion.

I believe it is entirely appropriate to pray to any one of the Persons of the Holy Trinity according to the nature of my petition, and I do so.

NanaR

22

A call to all NF's and NT's (Myers Briggs)

by becca1 in

jw
friends

ok, some of you may be sick of these personality type issues but here goes.. i've noticed that whenever these topics come up, nf's and nt's come out of the woodwork.

in case you didn't know, these are the minority of the geneal population.

in a random setting you will have only 2 to 5% of n's (infp, infj,enfp,enfj,intp,intj,entp,entj).

NanaR

ENFP here :-) As I have taken the tests at various times over the years, I always come up overwhelmingly ENF. The "P" at the end sometimes morfs to "X" (evenly divided), and one time came up as just barely "J".

I love working in higher education. The percentage of "N" (particularly NT) personalities in the higher ed community is much higher than that in the regular population.

When I got my job here in Jan. 2003, I remarked that it was nice for once to not be the "weirdest" person in the building (my building mates are mathematicians and computer scientists).

Ruth

106

POLL: Would You Ever Consider Going Back To The Organization?

by minimus in

jw
friends

yes, no or maybe....and why?

NanaR

Nope.

They had me for about 50 years. I'm laying claim to whatever years are left.

NanaR

36

The Mystery behind the Conventions and Assemblies

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

the mystery behind the conventions and assembliesin the organization, the idea behind the conventions was to unite gods people under one roof.. .

looking back and knowing it is not gods organization raises.

a few questions about the conventions and assemblies.. what was the real motivation behind the conventions?did the watchtower hold conventions to show the world god has a united people?.

NanaR

What was the Real Motivation behind the Conventions?

As to the WTS motivation in HAVING them, who knows? (but the reasons already mentioned sound reasonable)

As to GOING to them -- well, if you were a single witness above the age of 13, I believe the main motivation was meeting the opposite sex :-) I mean, how were we EVER supposed to get married if we didn't have these large "mixers" so we could find a JW partner who lived on the other side of the country and then marry them the day we turned 18...

Without conventions, I'm thinking there would have been a great many more marriages "out of the organization".

So, keeping the young ones corralled to breed with "their own" maybe?

NanaR

124

Debaters: Let's have It Out !

by Amazing in

jw
friends

this thread was going to be about the true church.

but i simply changed the title.

okay ... so my experience thread set the stage for what seems to be a need to debate catholicism ... maybe because in the minds of many, there is a comparison to the watchtower ... a comparison which i believe is false.

NanaR

I have a question for all of you who contend that it is absolutely necessary for every believer to verify every teaching of the church with which they associate in their own personal copy of the Bible:

Are there true Christians now or have there been true Christians (meaning individuals who have been annointed by God's Holy Spirit to serve him) who either cannot read or have no access to the Holy Scriptures in written form?

And if there are such (and I believe there are -- both now and in the past), then how were they taught and by whom? And how would they carry on without an organized Body of Christ to worship with?

NanaR

175

The facts on crucifixion, stauros, and the "torture stake"

by Leolaia in

finally, i will look at biblical and patristic evidence bearing on the crucifixion of jesus in particular.

we need to examine the earliest known descriptions of the kind of crucifixion adopted by the romans and the specific terms they used to refer to it.

apparently the society believes that crux still meant "stake" in the second century a.d., when tacitus composed his annals.

NanaR

Leolaia,

Thank you for doing all that research!!! I will mark this as one of my favorites so that I can refer to it in the future.

I particularly liked this comment of yours:

"So if a historian from the future discovered an advertisement to the latest Lexis cars, would she be justified in looking up what this word originally meant in Middle English or Latin, and conclude that Americans were still driving chariots in the 21st century?"

Not all Bible Students got rid of their "cross and crown" pins. I saw one when I was little (belonged to my Grandmother).

NanaR

4

My Son, The Church, My Son in Law, and Iraq

by Amazing in

jw
friends

my son-in-law has received his orders to go to iraq.

he will leave soon.

i would go in his place, as he is like a son to me, but i am too old and not in good health, and the military will not take me.

NanaR

Jim, You have raised good and responsible sons. I have read your experiences; I believe you are an outstanding father. I hope your daughter and grandchildren are close by so that you can be a comfort and support to them during this time. I volunteer for a local Veterans organization and greatly appreciate the sacrifices that are made in the name of Duty to Country. Your other son has found Christ, just as you did. When worrying about my children, who are still without Him, I remind myself that Christ seeks us even as we seek Him. He knows His own. I will include all of you in my prayers. Ruth

16

Comments You Will Not Hear at the 1-28-07 WT Study (GIVE HOLY SPIRIT)

by blondie in

1) 'i cannot face this on my own.

3) one of jesus' disciples once requested: "lord, teach us how to pray.

q5) what does the illustration about the persistent man teach us about our disposition when praying?.

NanaR

For some reason, this particular Watchtower study motivated a "brother" to pay my husband a visit this afternoon. This is the second visit where the "brother" (different ones) particularly asked for Fred. The last time he was not in the house. Today my husband was running on the treadmill (right beside the door).

The "brother" (one that was not an elder when we were there, but who knows now?) came to the door in freezing weather wearing only his suit jacket. When I told him that Fred was running on the treadmill, he said he wanted to encourage us to come back to meetings and he held up a highlighted and underlined 12-15 Watchtower. He pointed at a passage that pretty much said "The end is upon us" or some such thing.

Like I've never heard that before.

He said, "We want you to know that Jehovah loves you." This from somebody who was close to being inactive when we were going to the hall. But the "end is near", so I guess HS is motivating everybody these days.

I admonished him for being out without an overcoat. He said he was "just making return visits".

Wonder why they are asking for my husband? My thought is that they want to talk to him about the activities of his wife -- headship and all that c**p.

My husband, who didn't slow down the treadmill even though he should have been able to hear who was at the door, said, "Maybe I'll go back to a Thursday meeting when my schedule changes" (he's going to be working doubles on Sundays). He knows I won't be going with him. He knows exactly how I feel about the whole thing. I guess if he goes back, I will have to write a letter to avoid a meeting with the elders. But I think he's just baiting me, otherwise he would have come to the door.

Anyway, thanks Blondie, for reminding me every week just WHY I don't ever want to go back to another mind-numbing Sunday morning meeting...

NanaR

63

Faith in God and the Church - Part 2 of 2 The Catholic Faith

by Amazing in

jw
friends

my story is sub-titled so you can skip ahead to parts that interest you most.. by way of reminder, my posting on "faith in god and the church" is not meant to convert anyone, because i have been out of the preaching business now for 14-years.

i am sharing my views given the questions i get when i do post about belief in god or my association with the catholic church.. why the catholic church?

protestants, especially fundamentalists and evangelicals have a hard spot with the roman catholic church.

NanaR

He was not excomunicated from the church but was removed as an official teacher for the church. Other Catholics could still attend his classes but recieved NO CREDIT. Notice how he was restricted by the Church? Now, this is stated in your own information you provided. So can you really say you are not at least pressured into sticking to the church's official doctrines? Lilly

He was a Theologian. I am not, nor will I be if/when I become a Catholic. So, no, the ordinary Catholic is NOT pressured into sticking to the church's official doctrines.

We disagree, Lilly, and that's okay. I'm most comfortable learning doctrines that have been handed down from the days of the apostles, especially after leaving the Witnesses. I was absolutely astonished to find my faith inside of a Catholic Church, but that is exactly where I found it.

This is Jim's thread, so I'm done now.

Ruth

63

Faith in God and the Church - Part 2 of 2 The Catholic Faith

by Amazing in

jw
friends

my story is sub-titled so you can skip ahead to parts that interest you most.. by way of reminder, my posting on "faith in god and the church" is not meant to convert anyone, because i have been out of the preaching business now for 14-years.

i am sharing my views given the questions i get when i do post about belief in god or my association with the catholic church.. why the catholic church?

protestants, especially fundamentalists and evangelicals have a hard spot with the roman catholic church.

NanaR

Amazing,

I hope you don't mind my commenting here:

With regard to Catholic Church tolerance (or lack thereof), notice this section of Chapter 1 of Crisis of Conscience (this chapter is found online at http://www.commentarypress.com/eng-crisis-ch1.html ):

The examples of three men—each a religious instructor of note in his particular religion, with each situation coming to a culmination in the same year—illustrate this:
One, for more than a decade, wrote books and regularly gave lectures presenting views that struck at the very heart of the authority structure of his religion.
Another gave a talk before an audience of more than a thousand persons in which he took issue with his religious organization’s teachings about a key date and its significance in fulfillment of Bible prophecy.
The third made no such public pronouncements. His only expressions of difference of viewpoint were confined to personal conversations with close friends.
Yet the strictness of the official action taken toward each of these men by their respective religious organizations was in inverse proportion to the seriousness of their actions. And the source of the greatest severity was the opposite of what one might expect.
The first person described is Roman Catholic priest Hans Küng, professor at Tübingen University in West Germany. After ten years, his outspoken criticism, including his rejection of the doctrinal infallibility of the Pope and councils of bishops, was finally dealt with by the Vatican itself and, as of 1980, the Vatican removed his official status as a Catholic theologian. Yet he remains a priest and a leading figure in the university’s ecumenical research institute. Even students for the priesthood attending his lectures are not subject to church discipline.(They simply receive no academic credit for such attendance.)
The second is Australian-born Seventh Day Adventist professor Desmond Ford. His speech to a layman’s group of a thousand persons at a California college, in which he took issue with the Adventist teaching about the date 1844, led to a church hearing. Ford was granted six months leave of absence to prepare his defense and, in 1980, was then met with by a hundred church representatives who spent some fifty hours hearing his testimony. Church officials then decided to remove him from his teaching post and strip him of his ministerial status. But he was not disfellowshiped (excommunicated) though he has published his views and continues to speak about them in Adventist circles.
The third man is Edward Dunlap, who was for many years the Registrar of the sole missionary school of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Watchtower Bible School of Gilead, also a major contributor to the organization’s Bible dictionary (Aid to Bible Understanding [now titled Insight on the Scriptures]) and the writer of its only Bible commentary (Commentary on the Letter of James). He expressed his difference of viewpoint on certain teachings only in private conversation with friends of long standing. In the spring of 1980, a committee of five men, none of them members of the organization’s Governing Body, met with him in secret session for a few hours, interrogating him on his views. After over forty years of association, Dunlap was dismissed from his work and home at the international headquarters and disfellowshiped from the organization.
Thus, the religious organization that, for many, has long been a symbol of extreme authoritarianism showed the greatest degree of tolerance toward its dissident instructor; the organization that has taken particular pride in its fight for freedom of conscience showed the least.

Note that Hans King WAS NOT excommunicated from the Catholic Church; he was not even silenced. He was removed from a position of speaking FOR the Church regarding Church doctrine, but other Catholics are still allowed, with no penalties, to listen to him. He is still a PRIEST as well.

I am getting ready to go into RCIA. I have had a great many discussions with one of the RCIA teachers regarding the subject of Catholic tolerance of diverse beliefs (I have a certain difficulty with the concept of eternal torment but no problem with the concept of eternal destruction or eternal separation from God). I have been told by this teacher that entrance into the Catholic Church is dependent upon acceptance of the Nicean Creed ( http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11049a.htm ):

We believe (I believe) in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and born of the Father before all ages. (God of God) light of light, true God of true God. Begotten not made, consubstantial to the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven. And was incarnate of the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary and was made man; was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, suffered and was buried; and the third day rose again according to the Scriptures. And ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, and shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, of whose Kingdom there shall be no end. And (I believe) in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father (and the Son), who together with the Father and the Son is to be adored and glorified, who spoke by the Prophets. And one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We confess (I confess) one baptism for the remission of sins. And we look for (I look for) the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen."
So I expect that someone who does not truly believe in the Trinity, or who does not believe that Jesus was God in the Flesh, would not be accepted as a member of the Catholic Church. Also I expect that belief in the virginity of Mary as the Mother of God would be necessary.
She told me, however, that many new converts have difficulty with one or more Catholic teachings (the example she used was Transubstantiation, not because I had mentioned it but because someone in a recent RCIA class had mentioned it). She said that all Catholics grow in their knowledge and understanding of Church doctrine as they mature as Christians, and that the oridinary Christian is not expected to be a Theologan.
My friend also has frequent discussions with another lady she works with. This other lady is a devout and practicing Catholic, but she is wishy-washy with regard to the role of the Magesterium and has difficulty with the concept of papal infallibility. These views do not inhibit her Catholic worship or her standing as a Catholic, and my friend does not view her any differently just because they disagree on this point of Church doctrine.
My husband left the Catholic Church in 1972. He also very forcefully insists that the Catholic Church is much more arbitrary and authoritarian than I have found it to be. His experience with taking his questions to the parish priests was about as bad as that recounted above by Amazing. He has been inactive with the Witnesses for as long as I have, but contends he is still "going back" to the Kingdom Hall and that he would never return to the Catholic Church (he is a "cradle Catholic" who was baptized, confirmed, and graduated from a Catholic High School). When he was attending Mass, it was conducted in Latin. He is astonished and greatly troubled by my decision to investigate the Catholic Church.
It seems to me that the Church went through some difficulties in the last half of the 20th Century. There were some infamous disagreements regarding the catechism during that time. These difficulties may have simply been a reaction to the spirit of revolution and of protest that was so prevalent during the 60s and 70s. I really don't know, as I was a firmly entrenched "cradle JW" during those years.
I am finding the Catholic Church to be a very welcoming environment with patient and loving teachers who attempt to answer all questions that I might raise.
Ruth