| Author |
Message |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 1790
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 12:10 pm: |     |
Bob wrote: "I think it has a lot to do with our view of OC law based morality."
I agree, Bob. Any group that preaches the "keeping of the Law" is only asking for sin to increase. That's what the Law does--and is, in fact, what it was intended for! If you try to put people under the Law, you're only asking for disaster--especially in false churches where the people aren't regenerate and don't have the Holy Spirit living inside of them and leading them!
quote:"The Law came in so that the transgression would increase;" (Romans 5:20a NASB.)
"Therefore, my brethren, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
5For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.
6But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter." (Romans 7:4-6 NASB.)
I still remember that when I quoted part of Romans 7:5 (without using quotation marks) over on RevivalSermons.org, they told me that it was "obscene"!
Jeremy |
Jeremy
Registered user
Username: Jeremy
Post Number: 1791
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 12:15 pm: | |
Colleen, when you listed some of the different kinds of abuses in Adventism, you left out a few, such as: dietetical, social, educational, spiritual...and the list goes on!
Jeremy |
Lucybugg
Registered user
Username: Lucybugg
Post Number: 29
Registered: 2-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 12:47 pm: | |
I only attended 1 year of church school, 7th grade. I desparately wanted to attend academy, but my father wouldn't stand for it. However, when it came time to choose a college I was in control and chose Southern.
It was the worst experience of my life! I had things/money stolen from my room. The girls on my hall were always talking about the best places to have sex and not get caught. It was so shocking to me.
I was invited to a meeting shortly after I moved in. All the attendees were public school students. We were basically told that we weren't to socialize with the academy students because we'd corrupt them since we'd been in the world.
I found the entire room check, lock down procedure and mandatory worship attendance too restrictive compared to what I'd had at home. I left after one semester. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 5843
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 4:38 pm: | |
You're right, Jeremy. And Lucy, I remember having that same feeling, that kids who went to public school were "wordly" and likely to corrupt us. That's part of what kept them on a different rung of the social ladder. Kids who weren't immersed in Adventism and SDA schools were just "marginal" Adventists.
Oh, my goodness, it's really pretty horrifying to look back and recognize all those assumptions and feelings I had about people. I believed my attitude sprang from sincerity and commitment--and I guess it did, but it was not to the Lord Jesus; it was to my church!
Colleen |
Flyinglady
Registered user
Username: Flyinglady
Post Number: 3645
Registered: 3-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 5:02 pm: | |
You are so right about SDA kids who go to public schools and those who go to SDA academies. My son was so ignored when he started going to public school. When the academy kids came home on vacation or summers, he was ignored. By then he had many friends from school, so it was not bad at all.
He commented on how snobby they were.
I went to SDA day academy and I was still ignored because my parents did not have money or positions in the church.
Thank God it is all in the past and I am free. It was worth it all.
Diana |
Marysroses
Registered user
Username: Marysroses
Post Number: 10
Registered: 4-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 7:29 pm: | |
Adventists convinced me when I was young, that something I loved was evil. Wanting to do right, I believed them. Several years later, my senior year in college, I found out I had been lied to about so many things, history, Ellen White, etc., it was a horrendous feeling of betrayal. I remained Christian for a time, but the scars remained. I took comfort in familiarity without really dealing with what had happened. A time came when for many years I quit attending church and did not call myself a Christian. I practiced Buddhist meditation and didn't want to put ANY label on myself. I refused even to give a straight answer to whether or not I believed in God. What I perceived as the 'injustice' of hell (whether eternal torment or eternal death didn't even matter) was sufficient excuse in my mind for rejecting Christianity.
About five years ago, while sitting quietly on my porch in the evening, I had an overwhelming feeling of wanting to 'go home'. My reaction was that it was nuts, no way did I want to return to such a spiritually abusive, unjust religion (all of Christianity, not just SDA). The pull continued and I resisted, filling my mind with all the reasons it was unfair, unjust, unreasonable, (I had quite a list by that time). I continued to feel this gentle tug to return, I continued to object and push it away. I don't really have words for this, but the tugging turned into such a feeling of being loved. The answer to my questions about hell, about fairness seems almost too easy, but God is love. He knows us, everything, from our genetic code and any inherited tendencies, all the circumstances of our lives and every influence we have experienced and choice we have made, and He can be TRUSTED to do absolutely what is best for each person He created. I don't have answers for exactly what Hell is or who will end up there, outside the fact that it exists. I feel certain though, that it is not a matter of arbitrary chance, that God is in control, and we can trust him to do what is best.
All this martyrdom to me, comes from not trusting God. If you can't accept yourself, how can you trust that God will accept you? If you can't trust God to make the hard decisions, what can you trust him with? If you can't trust God, why be a Christian?
I've been home now for FIVE years! Glad to be calling myself a Christian again  .
Moving to my hometown though, has opened all the old wounds and its been hard. Thanks so much for letting me fellowship on this forum.
MarysRoses |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 5845
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 - 8:36 pm: | |
We're glad you've joined us, MarysRoses. Praise God for bringing you home.
Colleen |
River
Registered user
Username: River
Post Number: 764
Registered: 9-2006
| | Posted on Friday, May 18, 2007 - 5:00 am: | |
Marysroses,
I know exactly what you mean by “coming home, for a long time I just drifted, didn’t attend church, study my Bible and I did things I ought not to have done, overcame by temptation so easily, I drifted, my case was not like yours accept the part of “being away”.
But God called me back to himself just as he did you and he used Seventh Day Adventist and the word of God to draw me to repentance and back to himself. Although they proof texted scripture, scripture still speaks to the heart by the Holy Spirit.
God calls the wounded, the drifting, even the rebellious back to himself, back into the fold and I thank God for that, if not where would I be?
Unlike the situation in the parable of the drifter and the jealous brother, welcome home Sister, back to the family of God, this is where you belong, not out there. Thank you for writing.
River |
Reb
Registered user
Username: Reb
Post Number: 43
Registered: 5-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 4:14 pm: | |
I didn't really find that I was treated as a second class citizen as a convert, but I have had the impression that I am considered "ignorant" by SDA school educated SDAs because I was educated in Public schools.
I remember when I was at the beginning of my journey out of Adventism being told by an Adventist because I was not born in the church and I was educated in Public schools I can't possibly know as much about the Bible as someone born in the SDA church and educated in SDA schools!
I'm laughing about this right now but I kinda didn't think it was funny at that time. |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 5878
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 8:01 pm: | |
That is exactly the sort of attitude we mean, Reb! Yes, that comment reflects general Adventist thinking!
Colleen |
|
