| Author | Message | ||
| U2bsda Registered user Username: U2bsda Post Number: 11 Registered: 11-2004 |
I left the SDA church 7+ years ago now and as I continue to learn more and more I keep feeling like I was deceived by church leaders. I know that at least seminarians must have studied things to see the inconsistancies with some of the teachings. How do you handle the feeling of being deceived? My dad went to seminary. I'm thinking he must have known some of the things I am still finding out. I used to think that maybe the leaders were just blind to some inconsistancies, but some of them are so obvious. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 4268 Registered: 12-2003  |
Dear U2bsda, I'm glad to see you again! Welcomeóand thanks for asking this question. In fact, you were deceived. Even if the leaders and pastors were partially unaware of the problems, the fact remains that all of us were deceived. I have a dear friend who was talking to me recently about this very issue. She's a teacher, and her experience has included working with many kids who came from various kinds of abusive backgrounds. She said this (I paraphrase), Being deceived by sincere people who meant well is like a a child who was not protected from abuse because their parents or caretakers didn't recognize that what was going on was wrong. (For example, a parent who "doesn't know" that a spouse is abusing a child, or a neglectful parent who "doesn't know" that what he/she is doing is harming the child.) In such cases, the damage is still real, and there still must be accountability. So yes, you were deceivedóas we all were. Even though our "deceivers" were well-intentioned, we were still harmedóas they were before us. That being acknowledged, God asks us to release to Him our desire to "get even". It's vital that we acknowledge what has really happened without denying the reality of the transgressionóbut we have to give to God our right to get even. One way we can start the process of letting God bear the burden of this transgression is to ask Him to give us a forgiving attitude. Sometimes it's too much, at first, to put faces to the forgiveness; but God is faithful, and He wants to carry this burden for us. He knows that if we carry it, it will eventually suffocate us. He has reserved for Himself the right to mete out justiceóand He is faithful. He is also faithful to recognize the issues in each life that made it hard for people to see and admit the truth. We can trust Him to deal as gracefully and mercifully with those we admired who deceived us as He will also deal with us. Another part of the equation is admitting to God our own culpability. Even though we may have been born into the church, we are still guilty of having embraced "another gospel". It shaped and warped us, andójust as we are guilty of original sin even though we didn't personally eat that appleówe must repent of our own deception and our own love of the untruth that defined us. We must ask God to heal our hearts, to teach us truth, and to anchor us in reality. We need to ask Him to replace the spirit of Adventism with His Holy Spirit in the place in our hearts where Adventism was. The January/February issue of Proclamation dealt with the issue of forgiveness; there is an excellent article in it by Gary Inrig about "forgiveness when there's no I'm Sorry". You can read it and one other article entitled "Forgiven to Forgive" here:http://formeradvent.temp.powweb.com/Proclamation2006_JanFeb.pdf Praying for you... Colleen | ||
| U2bsda Registered user Username: U2bsda Post Number: 13 Registered: 11-2004 |
Thanks Colleen. I'll look at the article. I don't feel like I need to get even at all, but I do deal with issues of trust. I am fully involved in church and ministry now (not SDA) but I refuse to ever put myself in the postion of accepting what someone says without going to the Bible about it. And even then for non-important issues I leave myself open in case I am wrong. In other words, I check everything out with the Bible. I guess that is not such a bad thing to do. Maybe my issues are because I was so fully convinced that the SDA teachings were truth that I don't ever want to put myself in the postion of being fully convinced again. I mean - I was sooo wrong and maybe I will be wrong again. I sometimes watch prophecy seminars on 3ABN and have seen deceptive teaching there. Some things seem so obviously deceptive, but it is not up to me to judge deliberate deception or deception that was hidden to the person preaching I guess  Yes, I agree the Holy Spirit is key and I'm sure that is why I am here today. I received the Holy Spirit on my way out of Adventism and went directly into another church. I've thrown out every teaching of the church and through time have slowly started learning directly from the Bible what the Word of God says. I still have a lot to learn, but I've come a long way in 7 years |
