So, I haven't written much in this blog but this is where my more 'gripping Core Issues' are shared, and I have a need to process my own thinking tonight.
Back on May 2nd, 2015, I was attending my cousin's wedding. I used to be quite close to her in my mid to late 20s, but we had lost touch for several years. I was curious to whom she was getting married to. Especially because she said she wasn't getting married to the guy she had dated who was working in the Middle East.
Well. It was a church wedding, and I was quite blown away by the sermon that day. The pastor was a lady who was very fervent and outspoken. Said a few very radical things. Initially, I thought wow, she must be totally crazy. I mean, she was claiming that most marriages today fail because we are not living accordance with the Bible. The wedding ceremony that day included an exchange of vows which was also very surprising if not impressive. It was the most well articulated promise I had ever seen a man and a woman exchange thus far. The groom vowed to the bride that he will 'Use the Language of Love' and the bride promised the groom to 'Use the Language of Submission.' Submission? Are you crazy? You're saying women should 'Follow the Orders of Her Husband?' as in, like a slave?? I was raised by a semi-feminist Mom who was well educated so this statement was truly offensive to my thinking.
But the sermon continued and she proved her point during a fully 60-80 minute sermon. It was obvious despite her quoting of the bible, she was super insightful about how a Korean marriage is like for the vast marriage of the population. She wasn't just faking knowledge. She knew what a man and a woman is really like in a marriage in 21st century Korea/Seoul. And she cracked a few jokes which surprised me even more.
Anywho. Fastforward a year and 9 months to today, and after attending her church and getting Christened and trained, and participating in daily scriptures studies, and Small Group Sharings... I am at a crossroad contemplating my Choice of Faith.
Since the beginning of January, we have been studying John's Gospel. My initial impulse to leave the church happened September 2015, after all the 'fun stories' ended (Jacob, Joseph, and Juda and Damal) and we went into Acts of Apostles, Romans, and Leviticus. And week after week, the fun died out, less jokes were made, and this got shit-crazy Heavy.
On top of all this, my Anger Gauge was rising. There were these confusing, double-speak stuff going on. And what appeared initially as a coherent and reliable, unified teaching gradually began to show its 'clay feet.'
I don't know, maybe the problem is that I'm way more Fundamentalist than even my Fundamentalist Church. But, the more I tried to follow to the best of my ability what my Church and Scripture Studies proved difficult and impossible to fulfill.
Before I launch into the 'problems' let me assert though that being at this Church had had its merits and there were reasons to give it credence. My family relationship has been restored, a few personal 'mini miracles' have happened. Even my ENTP-ADDness improved as I worked on my daily scripture studies. And a lot of my Intercession prayers for others have come true.
However, (here comes all the good stuff!) as this church is an Evangelical one, the brunt of the authority relies on 'The Word of God.' Which is basically the 2 bibles; Old Testament and the New Testament.
Even though my church was helpful with family life improving, it really became a sore point for me in my career life. Week after week, we hear that our focus should be on the Kingdom of God, and making a Successful Material Life our main focus is basically a 'Sin.' This began to be a bigger problem when the teaching some days focused on denying this material pleasure and focus, with other days preaching to us that we should still be 'good stewards' of God. To me, this was double speak. And my misery grew inside. I grew up with a highly successful father, Industry was probably the only sole value my parents agreed upon. Work ethics was our life. I knew how to live that life. I didn't know what my Church really wanted me to do regarding my career. Do you fucking want me to succeed and have a lucrative business or not? It became clearer as time piled up, the Church has not declared with clarity to what degree they really expected us to follow up on their teachings.
I met with the pastor who was in charge of Youth Sector (even though I'm almost 40, unmarried people get lumped up into this sector unless you specify that you want to join the Professional or Career People Sector). I told him that I am troubled a) I didn't have a real reception of Jesus and not sure what that is supposed to be like, b) it feels to me that Image Consulting is directly against the heart of Christian teaching.
He did a reasonable job defending the Faith, but it didn't solve all of my problems. So that was September, and it is February right now, and I still haven't had a personal 'Reception of Jesus.' I shared this with my Church friends and some had a personal reception, others had not. Most encouraged me that this will 'happen in God's time.'
Now, here are some of the issues that bothered me about the biblical scriptures that I came across:
#1. Use of Astrology For My Business - I had planned on using Astrology for my Image Consulting Business, and my Church advised me not to. I came across a sermon where my pastor preached about King Saul and how he sought out a Female Astrologer and how we as Christians should not use it. I had to go into research mode why this is. And this sprang up bigger problems for me... the more I knew, the less credible the Bible became as a whole.
#2. Molech - there were some passages where the Bible kept repeating that Baal Worship and Molech Worship are to be avoided at all cost. It was given in such a crude and blunt way, I had to look these up. Seeing this at first glance, I thought, OK, sacrificing babies and putting them in fire, that's just plain wrong. But further research led me to think, wait a minute, didn't Abraham get asked to sacrifice Isaac? So, Old Testament God is allowed to test Abraham's faith by doing something the New Testament God says WE shouldn't do? God, you drunk? There is absolutely no consistency here. On top of which, if Jesus IS the son of God, God himself is acting LIKE Molech. He killed his own son. So yeah, this just doesn't fly. Not to my logical, coherence seeking brain. This is just completely offensive to me and my Intelligence. If this is a higher being than me, God needs to behave better.
#3. Poverty Consciousness - Maybe this is what really bothers me about my Church. As described above, there is an Unclarified view of Money at my church. We are told repeatedly that we should not seek to be 'rich' and 'prosperous' because 'Money Worship' is sinful and offensive to God. This is Idolatry. Worship of anything OTHER THAN God is in fact a sin. And yet, my church has no problem, taking away a tithe of my income. If I followed everything the church tells me to do, I will end up a 'Loser' who doesn't do well in business, who focuses on saving other souls, and basically end up like Jesus's disciples.
#4. Implication of Martyrdom as Our Prize - My cousin listened to me and my issues and her first response was that my nature is highly focused on 'the future.' I guess she's right. The Bible's more revered figures, and this includes Jesus himself - all of them died in SUCH HORRENDOUS WAYS. I have not read all of the Bible but I was raised Catholic, a Sunday Catholic and I know that Peter was hung upside down and was martyred, John's head was cut off and given to Salome on a platter, Jesus was crucified and tortured. And yet, the Church keeps saying, we need to BE MORE LIKE JESUS. And oftentimes, we are told that as Christians we need to be long suffering, and LONGER suffering than our Un-Evangelized brothers and sisters. Because basically, we are loved by Jesus, and we are saved, but they are not. It really sets us up for Spiritual Superiority, and then we are told that we shouldn't be boastful just because we were the first to believe. Hearing these 'Unnatural Demands' makes me feel crazy. It's like a long list of Should's. Whatever Grace was formed in me through this Church, the Church exacerbated my Doubts and Anxieties in multitude. The more I tried to make sense of the whole, the less it made sense to me. There were so many internal inconsistencies and the Church could not help me resolve each of them. They didn't care. Or, all they could say was 'Pray' and 'Wait' until God would reveal it to me. Yeah, right.
#5. Suicide - One of the big no-no's of a Christian Faith is that one should not take their own life. But if Jesus himself WAS God, and God IS omnipotent, isn't allowing himself to be put to death on the cross, even if it is for the sake of our sins, basically a Suicide?
Anyway. So, these were some of the issues I was running into. Where I had to look up sources outside of my Church's teaching.
My current understanding is that an Evangelical Church is nothing other than a 'Jesus Franchise' for the Socially Minded. I don't think the pastor who set their churches up intended to 'hurt' their followers. But when most scholarly trained pastors and ministers are fully aware of the discrepancies within the Bible, I don't understand how they do not bring this fact up in their ministries.
My Dad told me a decade ago, that there are at least 14 different ways to study the bible. That's how many standard interpretation of bibles there could be. Add to that other flavorings here and there, it is no surprise how diversified and un-unified Churches really are. And that's where the whole Franchise Business idea fits into this scheme.
Here on, I want to include a few of my findings... That puts the Holy Bible, the Word of God in a more historical context. My short conclusion for today is this: each believer and taker of Faith has a different need for a Church and God, and Jesus. Some can believe even though the Bible is faulty and the unreliability within the scriptures does not affect their Faith, solely because they are invested in their 'Personal Relationship with Jesus' whatever that entails. Others though, like me, will have trouble unless they KNOW that the Bible is a credible source, and for us, deconversion is a natural course because Absolute God cannot be constructed upon a Flawed Text. It's in a way, if you're really passionate about it and dig around, you end up finding so many facts that you can't stay Christian; if you're weak in your powers of critiquing and analyzing and happy just gobbling up what your pastor says, yeah, you will stay in the fold a lot longer, perhaps for life.
OK. Here are the sources I liked:
#1. Bible as a Plagiarized Text: Christianity is a Egyptian Myth - Horus=Jesus, Isis=Mary, Osiris=God, Amun=Amen, Apophis=Devil
This shows how Christianity as we know it is a direct copy and paste of ancient religions and mythology. It is a good collection of visuals that makes a singular point! Christianity cannot be a God inspired text, with these many plagiarized and non-Christian sources... The bible is not authentic. Nor is it 'holy' or of a 'monotheistic' God.
#2. A Possible Tracing of Jesus - Jesus: King of Edessa | The TRUE origins of JESUS CHRIST w/ Ralph Ellis
#4. St. Paul and Josephus Flavius - Actually this was one of the first video that I found in researching the origins of Christianity, which led me to Ralph Ellis. Origin of Christianity - The Piso Flavian Dynasty
It turns out, that many of my Facebook friends who came from a committed Christian background who have read the bible all knew how Paul's Gospels had no bearing on Christ. He never quoted Jesus and he espoused very different views to the traditional views of the Hebrew God. It is no wonder, after seeing the above video as well as Ralph Ellis's video, and Dr Ehrman's talks (he doesn't mention Josephus though for some reason, just that Paul is different from the other Gospels) why the bible has so many unresolved problems.
I got into some conversations on Facebook with some of my friends regarding Christian faith, and one of my friends is an author who has researched this for decades! Here is a link to his blog on the topic of St. Paul...
Glenn Hefley
Back on May 2nd, 2015, I was attending my cousin's wedding. I used to be quite close to her in my mid to late 20s, but we had lost touch for several years. I was curious to whom she was getting married to. Especially because she said she wasn't getting married to the guy she had dated who was working in the Middle East.
Well. It was a church wedding, and I was quite blown away by the sermon that day. The pastor was a lady who was very fervent and outspoken. Said a few very radical things. Initially, I thought wow, she must be totally crazy. I mean, she was claiming that most marriages today fail because we are not living accordance with the Bible. The wedding ceremony that day included an exchange of vows which was also very surprising if not impressive. It was the most well articulated promise I had ever seen a man and a woman exchange thus far. The groom vowed to the bride that he will 'Use the Language of Love' and the bride promised the groom to 'Use the Language of Submission.' Submission? Are you crazy? You're saying women should 'Follow the Orders of Her Husband?' as in, like a slave?? I was raised by a semi-feminist Mom who was well educated so this statement was truly offensive to my thinking.
But the sermon continued and she proved her point during a fully 60-80 minute sermon. It was obvious despite her quoting of the bible, she was super insightful about how a Korean marriage is like for the vast marriage of the population. She wasn't just faking knowledge. She knew what a man and a woman is really like in a marriage in 21st century Korea/Seoul. And she cracked a few jokes which surprised me even more.
Anywho. Fastforward a year and 9 months to today, and after attending her church and getting Christened and trained, and participating in daily scriptures studies, and Small Group Sharings... I am at a crossroad contemplating my Choice of Faith.
Since the beginning of January, we have been studying John's Gospel. My initial impulse to leave the church happened September 2015, after all the 'fun stories' ended (Jacob, Joseph, and Juda and Damal) and we went into Acts of Apostles, Romans, and Leviticus. And week after week, the fun died out, less jokes were made, and this got shit-crazy Heavy.
On top of all this, my Anger Gauge was rising. There were these confusing, double-speak stuff going on. And what appeared initially as a coherent and reliable, unified teaching gradually began to show its 'clay feet.'
I don't know, maybe the problem is that I'm way more Fundamentalist than even my Fundamentalist Church. But, the more I tried to follow to the best of my ability what my Church and Scripture Studies proved difficult and impossible to fulfill.
Before I launch into the 'problems' let me assert though that being at this Church had had its merits and there were reasons to give it credence. My family relationship has been restored, a few personal 'mini miracles' have happened. Even my ENTP-ADDness improved as I worked on my daily scripture studies. And a lot of my Intercession prayers for others have come true.
However, (here comes all the good stuff!) as this church is an Evangelical one, the brunt of the authority relies on 'The Word of God.' Which is basically the 2 bibles; Old Testament and the New Testament.
Even though my church was helpful with family life improving, it really became a sore point for me in my career life. Week after week, we hear that our focus should be on the Kingdom of God, and making a Successful Material Life our main focus is basically a 'Sin.' This began to be a bigger problem when the teaching some days focused on denying this material pleasure and focus, with other days preaching to us that we should still be 'good stewards' of God. To me, this was double speak. And my misery grew inside. I grew up with a highly successful father, Industry was probably the only sole value my parents agreed upon. Work ethics was our life. I knew how to live that life. I didn't know what my Church really wanted me to do regarding my career. Do you fucking want me to succeed and have a lucrative business or not? It became clearer as time piled up, the Church has not declared with clarity to what degree they really expected us to follow up on their teachings.
I met with the pastor who was in charge of Youth Sector (even though I'm almost 40, unmarried people get lumped up into this sector unless you specify that you want to join the Professional or Career People Sector). I told him that I am troubled a) I didn't have a real reception of Jesus and not sure what that is supposed to be like, b) it feels to me that Image Consulting is directly against the heart of Christian teaching.
He did a reasonable job defending the Faith, but it didn't solve all of my problems. So that was September, and it is February right now, and I still haven't had a personal 'Reception of Jesus.' I shared this with my Church friends and some had a personal reception, others had not. Most encouraged me that this will 'happen in God's time.'
* * *
#1. Use of Astrology For My Business - I had planned on using Astrology for my Image Consulting Business, and my Church advised me not to. I came across a sermon where my pastor preached about King Saul and how he sought out a Female Astrologer and how we as Christians should not use it. I had to go into research mode why this is. And this sprang up bigger problems for me... the more I knew, the less credible the Bible became as a whole.
#2. Molech - there were some passages where the Bible kept repeating that Baal Worship and Molech Worship are to be avoided at all cost. It was given in such a crude and blunt way, I had to look these up. Seeing this at first glance, I thought, OK, sacrificing babies and putting them in fire, that's just plain wrong. But further research led me to think, wait a minute, didn't Abraham get asked to sacrifice Isaac? So, Old Testament God is allowed to test Abraham's faith by doing something the New Testament God says WE shouldn't do? God, you drunk? There is absolutely no consistency here. On top of which, if Jesus IS the son of God, God himself is acting LIKE Molech. He killed his own son. So yeah, this just doesn't fly. Not to my logical, coherence seeking brain. This is just completely offensive to me and my Intelligence. If this is a higher being than me, God needs to behave better.
#3. Poverty Consciousness - Maybe this is what really bothers me about my Church. As described above, there is an Unclarified view of Money at my church. We are told repeatedly that we should not seek to be 'rich' and 'prosperous' because 'Money Worship' is sinful and offensive to God. This is Idolatry. Worship of anything OTHER THAN God is in fact a sin. And yet, my church has no problem, taking away a tithe of my income. If I followed everything the church tells me to do, I will end up a 'Loser' who doesn't do well in business, who focuses on saving other souls, and basically end up like Jesus's disciples.
#4. Implication of Martyrdom as Our Prize - My cousin listened to me and my issues and her first response was that my nature is highly focused on 'the future.' I guess she's right. The Bible's more revered figures, and this includes Jesus himself - all of them died in SUCH HORRENDOUS WAYS. I have not read all of the Bible but I was raised Catholic, a Sunday Catholic and I know that Peter was hung upside down and was martyred, John's head was cut off and given to Salome on a platter, Jesus was crucified and tortured. And yet, the Church keeps saying, we need to BE MORE LIKE JESUS. And oftentimes, we are told that as Christians we need to be long suffering, and LONGER suffering than our Un-Evangelized brothers and sisters. Because basically, we are loved by Jesus, and we are saved, but they are not. It really sets us up for Spiritual Superiority, and then we are told that we shouldn't be boastful just because we were the first to believe. Hearing these 'Unnatural Demands' makes me feel crazy. It's like a long list of Should's. Whatever Grace was formed in me through this Church, the Church exacerbated my Doubts and Anxieties in multitude. The more I tried to make sense of the whole, the less it made sense to me. There were so many internal inconsistencies and the Church could not help me resolve each of them. They didn't care. Or, all they could say was 'Pray' and 'Wait' until God would reveal it to me. Yeah, right.
#5. Suicide - One of the big no-no's of a Christian Faith is that one should not take their own life. But if Jesus himself WAS God, and God IS omnipotent, isn't allowing himself to be put to death on the cross, even if it is for the sake of our sins, basically a Suicide?
Anyway. So, these were some of the issues I was running into. Where I had to look up sources outside of my Church's teaching.
* * *
My current understanding is that an Evangelical Church is nothing other than a 'Jesus Franchise' for the Socially Minded. I don't think the pastor who set their churches up intended to 'hurt' their followers. But when most scholarly trained pastors and ministers are fully aware of the discrepancies within the Bible, I don't understand how they do not bring this fact up in their ministries.
My Dad told me a decade ago, that there are at least 14 different ways to study the bible. That's how many standard interpretation of bibles there could be. Add to that other flavorings here and there, it is no surprise how diversified and un-unified Churches really are. And that's where the whole Franchise Business idea fits into this scheme.
Here on, I want to include a few of my findings... That puts the Holy Bible, the Word of God in a more historical context. My short conclusion for today is this: each believer and taker of Faith has a different need for a Church and God, and Jesus. Some can believe even though the Bible is faulty and the unreliability within the scriptures does not affect their Faith, solely because they are invested in their 'Personal Relationship with Jesus' whatever that entails. Others though, like me, will have trouble unless they KNOW that the Bible is a credible source, and for us, deconversion is a natural course because Absolute God cannot be constructed upon a Flawed Text. It's in a way, if you're really passionate about it and dig around, you end up finding so many facts that you can't stay Christian; if you're weak in your powers of critiquing and analyzing and happy just gobbling up what your pastor says, yeah, you will stay in the fold a lot longer, perhaps for life.
OK. Here are the sources I liked:
#2. A Possible Tracing of Jesus - Jesus: King of Edessa | The TRUE origins of JESUS CHRIST w/ Ralph Ellis
Ralph Ellis though not a scholar, has interesting ideas about whom Jesus might really have been. He has numerous great talks and books and I think a lot of his ideas though not proven fully, makes reasonable claims that a rational thinker could mull over...
#3. New Testament Scholar Leaves His Faith - Top Bible scholar leaves Christianity .. Prof. Bart D. Ehrman reveals the truth about the Bible
Bart Ehrman is probably the most reputable source for a rational thinker who wants to examine the Bible and Early Christianity from an enlightened and realistic perspective. He does not fall into sensationalizing and conspiring ways to prove his points; he sticks to a scholastic examination of the New Testament as a text, without condemning Christianity as a whole. He does state that he is anti-Fundamentalism of any sort, whether it is a Christian one or an Atheist one. What he purposes to do is get people to examine their own beliefs and what it is they are believing.
#4. St. Paul and Josephus Flavius - Actually this was one of the first video that I found in researching the origins of Christianity, which led me to Ralph Ellis. Origin of Christianity - The Piso Flavian Dynasty
It turns out, that many of my Facebook friends who came from a committed Christian background who have read the bible all knew how Paul's Gospels had no bearing on Christ. He never quoted Jesus and he espoused very different views to the traditional views of the Hebrew God. It is no wonder, after seeing the above video as well as Ralph Ellis's video, and Dr Ehrman's talks (he doesn't mention Josephus though for some reason, just that Paul is different from the other Gospels) why the bible has so many unresolved problems.
I got into some conversations on Facebook with some of my friends regarding Christian faith, and one of my friends is an author who has researched this for decades! Here is a link to his blog on the topic of St. Paul...
Glenn Hefley
#5. Regarding the Astrology bit and how it's tied to the Christian beliefs...
Here is what I found...
I can't remember exactly which video I saw this on, but it turns out that during the Roman Empire's rule, Jews who lived in Palestine were a bit of a headache for the governing body. Not only that, in the early Christian era, there wasn't just one church of Jesus, there were two big groups. The Jewish people at the time attended the traditional church of Jesus, the Nazarene Church. This group actually practiced Astrology and their synagogues had large images of the zodiac on their floors. (I think it was Ralph Ellis who said this...) But the gentiles who were the newly recruited Christians of that time, were forming a new Church, and these were the Christians that we are familiar with from our Western Christian churches today. Josephus Flavius was a Jewish young man working for the Roman Empire, and he basically IS Paul in the bible... who had a need to appease the two opposing forces, the real Jews and the governing powers of the Roman Empire.
OK folks. That is all I have for tonight.
May we make 'informed decisions' over whom we give our Power to...
Blind Faith... is it really Responsible Faith?
