ITHINKISEE Request: Noticing little things that I could use some help on.

by ithinkisee 29 Replies latest members private

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  Mulan

  I had my husband read this thread this morning, and he has some thoughts for you too. He said he will post them later. I need to remind him.

  Someone suggested reading Ray Franz' book or books. I think it's too soon to suggest that to her. I was fading for two years before I took that step. I am not sure why exactly................maybe fear of what he says. But...........after I read Crisis of Conscience, I couldn't bear to go back to the KH ever again. I realized just how corrup they are back there at HQ.

  What Nina (cruzanheart) said is really good I think.

  Christianity and Christian are not necessarily the same animal. Maybe that will help. Something Dave suggested is to read the book of Acts, and you can see just how simple it really is (being a follower of Christ)

  I still consider myself to be a Christian, but am definitely NOT part of any religion and cannot see myself ever joining or attending a church. To me religion is religion.............very little differences between them all when you look below the surface.
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  Nathan Natas

  As for news, remember that in the news industry the motto is "if it bleeds, it leads."

  News is about BAD news. Mostly bad stuff far away that you can't do a damned thing about.

  I recommend news in small doses, with frequent long breaks. Concentrate on what is happening close to home. Be active in your community, make it a better place by doing whatever good you can. Pay special attention to GOOD news - medical advances, for example, that continue to extend the useful human lifetime. Discoveries in both the scientific and natural worlds. This is an amazing planet!

  My personal feeling - and it is not politically correct - is that there is also great benefit in reading about the lives of famous and sucessful people. Recognize the good and great deeds done by these otherwise ordinary extraordinary people. They show us what is possible.
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  GentlyFeral

  what are some things I can say to her when atrocious things are shown on the news, and the glut of bad news the evening news seems to focus on?

  Go out and ferret out the good news that "doesn't sell papers".

  www.odemagazine.com

  gently feral
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  GoingGoingGone

  Without getting too deep how does a Christian deal with the hypocrisy of many Christian leaders (Pat Robertson comes to mind ... lol). Do I just remind my wife that it is a personal relationship with Jesus and that these guys are basically crazy?

  Some people will be happy without organized religion forever after the WT. Some people need to find a church with real people to worship with. And since there are no perfect people, you will never find a perfect church. They all basically preach love of God and neighbor, and you can find many wonderful people in churches, but there are plenty of losers, too. Sometimes they even happen to be the church leaders.

  In the WT, they eject anyone who doesn't appear perfect. Thus, everyone hides their 'sins', and double-lives among dubs abound. It doesn't make the JWs less sinful than the next Christian church, it just makes them look better.

  I'm so happy for you and your wife, btw!!

  GGG
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  GentlyFeral

  That was a real breakthrough for me, to see just how deeply the JW's have works in their brains. They truly do believe that works lead to salvation.

  I don't see how you can avoid it entirely.

  I mean, how could Jesus respect anyone who passionately believes in him and treats other people like sh*t?

  gently feral
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  tetrapod.sapien

  So my question is .... what are some things I can say to her when atrocious things are shown on the news, and the glut of bad news the evening news seems to focus on?

  i know i may seem obsessed with the theory of evolution, but it seems everything keeps coming back to it, for me.

  what does she think about the theory? what does she think about the implications of the theory? how would she react to the simple analysis that we are a bunch of hairless apes with primitive minds doing primitive things to each other? i am not being sarcastic. it explains the problems in the world, and what we see on the news every night better than any other explanation that i can think of. i've tried to think of them all. this one is the most parsimonious.

  and regarding how to be a modern christian in the face of crazy christians leaders?

  yep. jesus is all that matters. spirituality is more important than organization or authority. if his yoke is kindly and light, then so should the life of a christian be.

  TS
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  Ingenuous

  Do I just remind my wife that it is a personal relationship with Jesus and that these guys are basically crazy?

  I like the way C. T. Russell put it. From Thy Kingdom Come, pp. 184-187:

  There are various degrees of bondage among the different sects of Babylon--"Christendom." Some who would indignantly resent the utter and absolute slavery of individual conscience and judgment, required by Romanism, are quite willing to be bound themselves, and anxious to get others bound, by the creeds and dogmas of one or another of the Protestant sects. True, their chains are lighter and longer than those of and the Dark Ages. So far as it goes, this surely is good--reformation truly--a step in the right direction--toward full liberty--toward the condition of the Church in the apostolic times. But why wear human shackles at all? Why bind and limit our consciences at all? Why not stand fast in the full liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free? Why not reject all the efforts of fallible fellowmen to fetter conscience and hinder investigation?--not only the efforts of the remote past, of the Dark Ages, but the efforts of the various reformers of the more recent past? Why not conclude to be as was the apostolic Church?--free to grow in knowledge as well as in grace and love, as the Lord's "due time" reveals his gracious plan more and more fully?

  Surely all know that whenever they join any of these human organizations, accepting its Confession of Faith as theirs, they bind themselves to believe neither more nor less than that creed expresses on the subject. If, in spite of the bondage thus voluntarily yielded to, they should think for themselves, and receive light from other sources, in advance of the light enjoyed by the sect they have joined, they must either prove untrue to the sect and to their covenant with it, to believe nothing contrary to its Confession, or else they must honestly cast aside and repudiate the Confession which they have outgrown, and come out of such a sect. To do this requires grace and costs some effort, disrupting, as it often does, pleasant associations, and exposing the honest truth-seeker to the silly charges of being a "traitor" to his sect, a "turncoat," one "not established," etc. When one joins a sect, his mind is supposed to be given up entirely to that sect, and henceforth not his own. The sect undertakes to decide for him what is truth and what is error; and he, to be a true, staunch, faithful member, must accept the decisions of his sect, future as well as past, on all religious matters, ignoring his own individual thought, and avoiding personal investigation, lest he grow in knowledge, and be lost as a member of such sect. This slavery of conscience to a sect and creed is often stated in so many words, when such a one declares that he "belongs" to such a sect.

  These shackles of sectarianism, so far from being rightly esteemed as shackles and bonds, are esteemed and worn as ornaments, as badges of respect and marks of character. So far has the delusion gone, that many of God's children would be ashamed to be known to be without some such chains--light or heavy in weight, long or short in the personal liberty granted. They are ashamed to say that they are not in bondage to any sect or creed, but "belong" to Christ only.

  Hence it is that we sometimes see an honest, truth-hungry child of God gradually progressing from one denomination to another, as a child passes from class to class in a school. If he be in the Church of Rome, when his eyes are opened, he gets out of it, probably falling into some branch of the Methodist or Presbyterian systems. If here his desire for truth be not entirely quenched and his spiritual senses stupefied with the spirit of the world, you may a few years after find him in some of the branches of the Baptist system; and, if he still continues to grow in grace and knowledge and love of truth, and into an appreciation of the liberty wherewith Christ makes free, you may by and by find him outside of all human organizations, joined merely to the Lord and to his saints, bound only by the tender but strong ties of love and truth, like the early Church. 1 Cor. 6:15,17; Eph. 4:15,16

  The feeling of uneasiness and insecurity, if not bound by the chains of some sect, is general. It is begotten of the false idea, first promulgated by Papacy, that membership in an earthly organization is essential, pleasing to the Lord and necessary to everlasting life. These earthly, humanly organized systems, so different from the simple, unfettered associations of the days of the apostles, are viewed involuntarily and almost unconsciously by Christian people as so many Heaven Insurance Companies, to some one of which money, time, respect, etc., must be paid regularly, to secure heavenly rest and peace after death. Acting on this false idea, people are almost as nervously anxious to be bound by another sect, if they step out of one, as they are if their policy of insurance has expired, to have it renewed in some respectable company.

  But no earthly organization can grant a passport to heavenly glory. The most bigoted sectarian (aside from the Romanist) will not claim, even, that membership in his sect will secure heavenly glory. All are forced to admit that the true Church is the one whose record is kept in heaven, and not on earth. They deceive the people by claiming that it is needful to come to Christ through them--needful to become members of some sectarian body in order to become members of "the body of Christ," the true Church. On the contrary, the Lord, while he has not refused any who came to him through sectarianism, and has turned no true seeker away empty, tells us that we need no such hindrances, but could much better have come to him direct. He cries, "Come unto me"; "take my yoke upon you, and learn of me"; "my yoke is easy and my burden is light, and ye shall find rest to your souls." Would that we had given heed to his voice sooner. We would have avoided many of the heavy burdens of sectism, many of its bogs of despair, many of its doubting castles, its vanity fairs, its lions of worldly-mindedness, etc.

  Many, however, born in the various sects, or transplanted in infancy or childhood, without questioning the systems, have grown free in heart, and unconsciously beyond the limits and bounds of the creeds they acknowledge by their profession and support with their means and influence. Few of these have recognized the advantages of full liberty, or the drawbacks of sectarian bondage. Nor was the full, complete separation enjoined until now, in the harvest time. Now the Lord's words are heard, Come out from among them: be ye clean (free, both from wrong practices and from false doctrines), ye who bear the vessels (truths-- doctrines) of the Lord. Isa. 52:11
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  Ingenuous

  how would I answer regarding war, and politics, and so forth - when the Scriptures do seem to point to unfavorable alliances between religion and government

  There's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The corruption and hypocrisy within the Org is plain enough. That doesn't mean that everything we've ever learned from it is wrong or that nothing of value has been gained through our JW studies. Now is the time to sit down and start from the beginning, determining from personal study what to keep and what to throw away. If it appears that a few things were right (given how much the Org "says", there's bound to be a piece of truth here or there), why re-invent the wheel? If some things seem supported by scripture and worthy of holding-on to, there's nothing dishonorable in doing so. There's also nothing wrong with dismantling your belief system a bit at a time, instead of taking a wrecking ball to the whole thing in one fell swoop.
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  ackack

  I too vouch for "In Search of Christian Freedom" for your wife. A well written, very loving book. Not bitter, very gentle.
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  Will Power

  I will also vote for In Search of Christian Freedom - excellent, easy reading, like you are in a room with a bunch of people with different opinions. He presents them all.
  
  as for the BAD NEWS I like this little saying....
  
  "we can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone.."
  
  Wp