Comments on: LOPWMIPFMTIMAC

By: Chris K (Hong Kong)

Chris K (Hong Kong) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:17:48 +0000

Hi everyone. I am a long time Mission field friend of Pam Hogeweide. She has been a “godsent” from the very beginning of my de-convertion! I had lost touch with Pam after she left her work with the Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong in the mid 1980s, only to reconnect again via internet (Facebook) again 27 – 28 years later.
I said to my good friend a few years ago, who had then resigned his pastorship soon after reading “Pagan Christianity,” that I would have to renounce my faith to hopefully find it again somewhere, somehow. Then Pam showed up with her godmessedupmyreligion blog and asked me if I believed in hell. And over time introduced me to fellow aberrants, namely the likes of some of you here. I am so glad there is a growing number of sincere Off-the-wall spiritual writers, Jesus followers, philosophers out there. The pagans have been telling of a global paradigm shift in spirituality at end of the age of the Pisces, an age of chaos from the time of Christ to the new age of enlightenment. And now I am also seeing it happening in post Bush/Blair’s fundamentalist horse-shit in the West. I am thrilled!
The intellectuals insist that there is no God. I disagree. The problem for me has always been, how badly have we misrepresented Her ! Happy trails everybody!

By: Redeemed

Redeemed — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 20:40:47 +0000

I think the Apostle Paul put it well when he said “follow my example as I follow the example of Christ (1Corinthians11:1). Any other example is a very risky gamble. We as humans can not be like Christ by our own effort however the Holy Spirit works in us throughout our lives changing, pruning, and refining us to become more like Him. (Note: Only if we allow Him to and dont just resort to looking to other human’s standards so that we might find ourselves feeling comfortable in our continuing to stay in our sin). This lifelong process of being made holy by the work of the Holy Spirit is called sanctification. 1Peter1:13. You see a good example of before and after in Galations5:19-26. It’s weeding out sin and replacing it with Christlike attributes. Something we must as Christians desire and strive for. Read and I mean really read 1John. It’s a great test to see how healthy our “Christian” walk truly is. I praise God for the genuine Christians that He has put into my path that have shown what a person striving to live like Christ looks like.

By: Kathy Baldock

Kathy Baldock — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:40:49 +0000

My pastor Rod Haleckey, The River Christian Church, Reno, NV–His preaching that challenges me weekly and in particular a series on social justice that finally made me see that my heart was breaking over injustice to the gay community.
Bill Hyatt, Austin TX, Director of Outreach to the homeless and is the man I love–I have never been near a more gently giant who gives till it hurts him and loves till it heals others.
Maria Caruana, pastor of Freedom in Christ Evangelical Church, SF-an openly gay church. She loves without any judgment and guide a hurting people back to a loving God. She is the sister I never had.
Michelle Morandi-Sacramento. She mentored me in the years of greatest challenge in a marriage with a bipolar man. She help me love him till God said it was time to let go–12 years later.
Justin Lee-founder and President of the online community of 11K gay Christians worldwide who has created a safe place for gay Christians to find the way back to God when a mostly condemning church has told them they cannot be both gay and Christian.
Doug Shaffer, pastor of White Rock Community Church in Dallas, TX who calls himself the “Clorax Man”. He is a recovered meth addict and living with HIV/AIDS and has over 900 people on his monthly rolls that get clothes (both sexes-many are trans), cleaning supplies so that they can stay healthy and dog and cat food, knowing that many only gt out of bed each day to tend to their pets. I have only felt this for one person–when I look in Doug’s face, I see Jesus.
Todd Ferrell, President of the The Evangelical Network a group of evangelical churches and supporters to the gay community. Todd, a gay man with an unmatched sense of God/wicked/social humor has included me in the many political/social justice/Biblical discussions btwn church and gay community. I heard the sides from the most intimate of levels.
My Mom, Roberta McCormack, Surprise AZ who got saved at 74 after mocking me for decades. She so completely changed that I know God never gives up.
and me, Kathy Baldock, REno, NV. I know who I am and what I have done and who I SHOULD be . He healed me and it is overwleming that someone could change so much.

Reno Nevada

Me—Kathy Baldock

By: Benjamin Ady

Benjamin Ady — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:47:36 +0000

Jeff,

It feels like you really want me to believe that God is real. Am I hearing you correctly? Why do you want that?

My experience with people wanting to pray for me and telling me so is often that they wanted to change me in some way, and instead of just saying that they wished I would change in that way, they instead offered to pray for me. I’m not saying you are doing that. I’m just saying that I shy away a bit at offers of prayer because of that experience. Such offers feel like an unlistening, in a sense. I mean to say it seems to me that everyone has hopes/dreams/wishes/wants/needs/ways-in-which-they-want-to-change. Listening means to some extent beginning to get a sense about all that stuff. Offers to pray for that stuff because one has listened and found out what it was are different from offers to pray for someone regarding my own hopes/dreams/wants etc. regarding them. Does that make sense?

By which I mean to say that hoping God is real is not very high on my own radar. I can’t really see any reasons to hope for that. It doesn’t motivate me. Do you hope for it? Do you want to hope for it? If so, why?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:06:38 +0000

Ben,

Hey brother…hope you don’t mind but in my times of questioning and doubt there’s nothing more that I would want than people praying for me…you may see no connection there or see it as anything special but why not have a hope that if God is real then let other’s pray on your behalf to make it become evident in your heart…what’s there to lose? God bless you

By: Benjamin Ady

Benjamin Ady — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 03:13:17 +0000

Jeff,

I do not currently call myself a Christian. I have no idea what people are talking about when they say that they love Jesus as a person presently alive and in relationship with them. That seems strange to me. I can see saying one wanted to follow the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the various gospels, although some of those are a bit strange too, it seems to me.

I’ve been realizing very recently that I can choose to believe anything. This has been very liberating for me. I don’t currently choose to believe much of anything at all about God. It’s not super important to me to believe stuff about God. I think people are way more interesting and real than God.

It’s interesting that you posit this either/or–either what God did was insufficient, or we were never his child in the first place. Often this days when I hear either/or statements, my immediate thought is “Well, I wonder what other possibilities there are which lie outside this position?”

I believed I was God’s child for a long time. I no longer believe that. It’s not so much that I don’t currently believe it–it’s more that I don’t understand it anymore–it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Thank you for asking really interesting questions. You rock.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:35:47 +0000

Ben, I feel some of your pain. I grew up in a very fundamental Bible-thumping turn or burn church but as much as I have been disenchanted with that type of church over the years…It turned into a positive–by God’s Grace it never made me loathe myself or become overly bitter because many of those people meant well and a lot of what they said was dead-on but they got too caught up in Creed without Deed…that’s what balancing the Christian life is all about and what makes it messy and beautiful at the same time. Christ fills that void and still can…not me in my own power.
Last question…you say that you have de-converted from Christianity currently or you feel you are a still a Christian? We all need to remember that “Chrisianity” is not a religion like we talk about other religions of the world. Christianity (the word) is not found in the Bible…and it’s not a private thing where whatever is good for me is good for me and whatever works for you works for you. It’s a public love affair with our Savior and we should live it loud! So when you say “de-convert” I immediately thought NO it’s not a religion you can just decide to come and go…I firmly believe Christians can have doubts and struggle along the way but God cannot lose you out of his mighty hand. Either what he has done is insufficient or we were never his child in the first place. Only the God of the universe truly knows our hearts but what are your thoughts on that?

By: Benjamin Ady

Benjamin Ady — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 18:50:09 +0000

Jeff,

what a delightully curious question! Thank you. =)

There’s a lot of stuff on my blog about bits and pieces of my story. Just so ya know.

I think for me what happened was that I was told I was wicked, and so I believed it. Growing up I was never taught how to take care of myself, how to be responsible for my own feelings and beliefs, how to be able to relate to other people safely–that is, knowing that I didn’t have to believe and feel what they believed and felt, and vice versa. I was told verbally and relationally that I didn’t deserve to be listened to, that my needs weren’t important, that my feelings were not real. Lots of really toxic stuff. All this came in the same context as being told I was wicked. What it led to was extremely high levels of self fear, self loathing, self hatred–what Dan Allender calls self contempt. Self contempt led to contempt toward others, and I mostly ended up alone in a rather dark place contempting myself and others, while more or less still seeming to function at some level, so that basically no one even knew I was in that dark place–in a sense even I didn’t know–I had never developed any place to stand where I could safely observe myself.

Wow–there’s a mouthful.

I trust myself a lot more than I used to, and am learning to trust myself more and more. By that I mean that I trust myself to provide for what I need, or to get the help I need if I can’t provide it, and to not be really mean to myself, but rather to be kind to myself. I trust that my best instincts are right and good, and that I can go with them, and I trust myself to be able to learn/change/grow if/when/as I need to. I am able to tell myself, now, “Benjamin, I’m here for you, and I’m going to take the best possible care of you, and you’re safe with me.”, and know from experience that I’m being truthful with myself when I say that.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:57:37 +0000

Ben, emotions are imortant…he gave us emotions…but at the end of the day…me by myself can’t be totally trusted and I am fine with that…Christ didn’t come to make us independent but to put our complete dependancy on Him so that we may truly live. Why would I need Christ? If he’s just an example of how to live then I would see why the pressures of digging deep in my own power would make this a really tough subject to deal with. But he’s not just our example…he’s our Savior.
Leaning on him completely is a lifelong sanctifying process…I believe Scripture when it says among other things we can experience the most satisfying and comforting Joy when he is in control and at the center of our lives.
Can you explain what happened and why you believe it wasn’t good for you to be told that we are naturally “wicked” and explain your take on trusting yourself?

By: Benjamin Ady

Benjamin Ady — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 05:08:35 +0000

Jeff,

You asked “would you agree?”. I have to say I wouldn’t agree, and in fact in my story being taught that I was wicked and there was no good in me was very damaging to me.

So when you said “It doesn’t matter how I feel”, did you mean that you believe your emotions are unimportant?

Would you mind saying how you feel about not trusting yourself, even though you think it’s not important?