Posts by not a captive

In what I know of Christ there are these things: knowing him has a beginning and spaces in between. But it does begin with just knowing he 's really there. Like the story in John 9:

A blind man is healed. All he knows of the man who healed him is that a man, Jesus, put mud and spit on his eyes and he washed his eyes-- and he could see. He didn't really "know" who the man was. But later when he was asked by some hostile questioners, he said the man who healed him had to be a man of God. The Jews reviled the man and told him he was a sinner through and through and drove him off. Jesus found him and asked if he believed in the Son of Man. Trusting this Godly healer of him, the man said simply "Sir, tell me that Imay believe in him." "You are looking at him; he is speaking to you." "The man said Lord, I believe."

I say this because it pretty well describes some of my beginning of "knowing" Jesus and God. That story was my defense when a fine Christian woman challenged me on being a Christian at all because of doctrinal issues. Her Bible study group that I was in for several weeks, claimed to be non-denominational. But they emphasized that they teach that any who do not believe the Trinity and election cannot truly know God and certainly do not know Christ.

I told her that the blind man knew Jesus without her doctrine. I know him that much and am trying to know him more by trusting him and wanting to do God's will.

Something else I think about is why we make rules for others even other Christians: Jesus is speaking to crowd when a man called out "Master, tell my brother to give me a share of our inheritance.""My friend, Jesus replied,"Who appointed me the Judge or the arbiter of your claims?...Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind." Not too helpful? Jesus put responsibility on the man who asked the question. He wanted --what? fair play? an orderly neat existence?

So it looks like Jesus calls us out (that's what ekklesia means, after all) to take responsibility for our own discipleship. Including sexual issues.It would seem that only in institutional religion you make rules for conformity of behavior. But the way it looksto me, is that Jesus worked the message of reconciliation by introducing God to people and it was on them to decide if they wanted to do God's will and then search it out--not take a vote on it. If someone makes a homosexual Church, it may lack a certain amount of open discourse on some things -- the way an Army chaplain has to scoot around the verses that talk about loving you enemy. But my dad was a soldier, a friend I discover now is gay. They will have to reckon with what is true from Jesus. I talk to them about the Jesus I know an dthe Bible as I understand it.

Have I described a Christianity that resembles a poorly organized camp-out? Strip all the veneer and robes away and put infra-red sensors to detect spiritual brain activity, and watch what people are really doing now, it already looks like a goofy scout jamboree.

I know one thing, if you force conformity to make it look like everyone is in agreement, you will breed hypocrites.

I don't thing making doors on churches makes good Christians. Jesus didn't get real exclusive. Don't go "inside". Go "outside".People will follow or they won't. And people will come together and talk if they want to, "wherever two or more are gathered together..." If people are going to not keep peace and want sectarianism, they will divide. You don't have to throw them out. "By their fruits you will know them" is a way to figure if some are on the right road. Talk to them . Gather with them. Meet together to encourage one another and be a Christian.

Who's to stop you? The "Church"? Well, yes, if you have to go mainstream-- then you'll have to deal with all these doctrinal things once and for all. Have some occasional "new light", pick a great one to rule over you, and figure a way to disfellowship dissenters.

That's what I've been thinking I am learning from Jesus.

347

Why do all intelligent Christians disobey Jesus?

by StoneWall in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-slagzjmdu.

not a captive

Gladiator,

As I see it, use of the written word in trying to live as a Christian is necessary in establishing a relationship with God through Jesus. Jesus is said to have used it when he quit making beam plows and farm implements to inaugurate his ministry. And when believers begin to congregate to "incite one another to love and fine works", the Bible has the authority to guide a lively body of worshippers from descending into pandemonium. Any place where personal experiences and enthusiastic homilies come together there can be craziness, too. It can become a confusing spiritual "pissing contest" where the group's worship gets out of hand (Boasting sessions anyone?). Paul wrote to quell the wild meetings where every one spoke in a foreign tongue---with no one understanding a word that was said.

You are frustrated by my and other's jumbled responses and we by our inability to give unequivocal answers to your dissatisfaction with Christians and there use of the Bible. But at the same time you say "they are sincere and pleasant people who wish the world to be a better place than it really is". Well if that is the case then reflect please when any of us say that we might not be either sincere OR pleasant without Jesus present int this ambiguous but effective way. And yet this can't convince you either.

I find Christian life a long personal essay. I am so grateful that I had a moment of knowing God before the WTS came and ransacked my faith (not like the Mongol hordes but more like a friend whose visits you welcomed until you notice your silverware and precious things are gone.)

I am afraid modern Christians are facing being ruined by the Bible because we are letting it polarize us and we make statements that Jesus would not make, say things that we cannot help but get tangled in. Bible scholars make us appear foolish as we learn how little iof the text can be verified. So what will happen if we are yet filled with conviction --and we can't prove it with footnotes?

I cannot get a certain thought out of my own head --yet I haven't been able to get it to resonate with any but a few Christians in this forum and out where I live and talk to people: this idea of respecting people and their autonomy of faith. Mark 9 and Luke 9 support this view IMO.But not all Christians agree that a personal relationship with Jesus extends so far as having NO DOGMAS.

Though the Bible says that all that is necessary for salvation is faith in the life and death of Jesus the Christ, I've gone to churches where publicly members distance themselves from the idea that I can be a "saved"Christian if I do not profess their dogma of the Trinity or election--all distilled from the Bible they say. But, when I discuss my love and faith in Jesus outside of "church", they think God might not throw me out after all.

I am sympathetic to their anxious concern. People are afraid, a little bit, of Christian freedom. People are afraid to allow of a salvation that is as common as that--think of how easily it can be abused! To reference Paul here, "You are slaves of no one except God, so behave like free men, and never use your freedom as an excuse for wickedness." A free Christianity among the the untried and ignorant? It's like sending our lusty young ones out into the world with the full power to have wild sex and hoping they will use this potential with discretion.--Oh, vain hope!--But that is how it is.

I figure there is a balance between a Christian knowing nothing of the Bible and knowing something

One day I took my five children to the river and ran into a homegrown holiness preacher. His main instruction in Christian faith had come through the gruesome woodcuts in Foxe's Book of Martyrs and traditional preachers who had impressed upon him that "the woman will be kept safe through childbearing"(and no doubt thought I was being kept pretty safe). He was completely and absolutely illiterate. I was touched by his strange and disjointed and somewhat dark expressions of faith. As a woman I shuddered to think of my life relying on such doctrines.

But another illiterate preacher learned in a different manner. Her life is well documented by the writer Nell Irvin Painter. Sojourner Truth was a freed black slave in her latter forties some twenty years before the Civil War. She was an anomally among black ex-slave abolitionist speaker because she was a woman who could and would speak. If they were degraded as women ain slavery were so often abused they hadn't the power to stand and face down more white humiliation.

But Sojourner not only spoke and held her ground against slavers but she held her ground against ministers who derided her faith and her black female perspective. She answer with common sense--and used the Bible that she could not read.

She learned the Bible in feedom, but she learned of Jesus as a slave. She lived for a time as a laundress in a utopian religious community. They took the time to read the Bible to her at her request. But she requested so often for re-reads of certain passages that her helpful adult reader would stop and editorialize the selection hoping to enlighten her. So she quit asking the adults and had the children read to her. They would gladly repeat a verse as often as she asked and never tried to tell her what it meant. Sojourner realized that a society that could be so blind as to enslave and abuse her could not be trusted to interpret the Bible truly.

Again, no pissing contest, my personal story vs. someone else's. But I tell stories because they helped me survive as a Christian while I was caught by the Witnesses.

I figure that my posts are strange in a way. I have no way of knowing what they seem to others. Their length reflects the urgency I feel knowing that I will, for a while (surely not for long ) leave these conversations. And these conversations have been amazingly healthy--for me. They are too long.But I comfort myself: I don't have the power to button-hole anyone; these posts are easily ignored by anyone who notices my lumpy green avatar poofy-haired, bug-eyed, frantically waving at them with her insect arms.

I am embracing a Christian freedom that I didn't have even before the Witnesses caught me with the false promise of "accurate knowledge" that would please God. The God I met so long ago on the open ocean beyond dogma/doctrine is there still and I'm going out to meet him again and I won't let anything stop me now.

If you ever wanted to talk about any of this or would be interested in some readings I have found helpful, PM me. You may not wish to, I can understand that, but I am not a Witness and you won't be offered afree home bible study!

Believe it or not I am moving (though I am spending most my time thinking about and responding to the conversations on this board) I have to reach that tipping point soon, when I pull the plug, literally, from this forum. It is just that I have gotten so much out of the honest and really tough discussions that you and everyone here put out, it is hard to stop.

I have the highest respect for your skepticism, Gladiator. I consider you in no way my adversary. Best wishes, Maeve

9

Wanted to pass along some interesting news about some of the local KH's I found out

by StoneWall in

jw
friends

at least 2 of the 4 closest congregations to me had lower attendance at the memorial this year.. i didn't go to the memorial this year but at my own congregation it not only went down some but by a considerable margin.. last year we had 200+ for the memorial, this year down to 157.. second congregation nearby had a drop of over 20. from approx.

i do believe we have been making tremendous inroads in my area.

so many have just stopped going.

not a captive

Great news. And good for you getting information to people locked in the Organization.

I am returning a call tomorrow ona letter to local paper on a letter about Ray Franz and the significance of his life as a testimony against the destructive power of a priestly class on free conscience and Christian faith. I hope they print it so that news about what he did and what the WTS did to him can get out for others (JWs) to see.

If there is anything we can do to free the captives then we must do it.

I am so happy to be free I can't stand to think of others locked up to the end of their days.

23

Catholic cover-up...The pope and a stench of evil.......(Hitchens says)

by Terry in

the great catholic cover-upthe pope's entire career has the stench of evil about it.by christopher hitchensposted monday, march 15, 2010, at 10:20 am et.

pope benedict xvi on march 10, the chief exorcist of the vatican, the rev.

gabriele amorth (who has held this demanding post for 25 years), was quoted as saying that "the devil is at work inside the vatican," and that "when one speaks of 'the smoke of satan' in the holy rooms, it is all trueincluding these latest stories of violence and pedophilia.

not a captive

"Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees--that is their hypocrisy. Everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear. For this reason, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in hidden places will be proclaimed on the housetops." Luke 12:2,3

3

It's behind; Its behind

by compound complex in

.

http://www.savethecomma.com/spread.html.

you, dear posters, shall view this, it's hoped, before this day, glorious and grand, passes into its tranquil, star studded night .... coco .

not a captive

O, CoCo, the truth is I have a pair of honeymooning box turtles. I did some research to see if CrackShell knew what he was about Sunday morning when I passed his quarters that he shares with his recent acquaintance, Robusta. He had not drawn the curtains so I had caught them in flagrante delicto.

Is it called doggie style when turtles do it?

Was this simply raunchy jail-house sex or something more tender? A little research and indeed CrackShell with his damaged and slightly asymetrical body had not only survived this life, but was throwing his life forward in time by seeking the future (and some relief) against the boney--but female--backside of Robusta.(who needs breasts, anyway?)

----FOR A HALF HOUR!

Slow and steady wins the race. I fed them fresh strawberries and a little red meat when they were ready for refreshment.

If all goes well, the babies may hatch toward the end of August.

I'll let you know how it goes, Uncle CoCo.

Thanks for the post.

Good night.

Maeve

18