From Pastor Brenda:
- God’s love and favor depends on my behavior.
- All ministers are people of God and can be trusted.
- Material blessings are a sign of spiritual strength.
- I can work my way to heaven.
- Problems in my life are a result of some kind of sin.
- If it’s not in the Bible it isn’t relevant.
- A strong enough faith will protect me from problems and pain.
- God hates sinners, is angry with me, and wants to punish me.
- Having true faith means waiting for God to help me; doing nothing until He does.
- More than anything else God wants me to be happy.
About Number 10: How many times have I heard exgay advocates report happiness as a key objective in their personal testimonies?
Well, name names I say.
Yeah…that one bites folks in the butt both ways, though. Not disagreeing with you…it’s just a very “human” sort of response to situations.
I love the list, by the way!
pam
I find #4 and #10 rather vague. Pastor Brenda needs to clarify what she meant to say in those statements. Otherwise, I agree with her.
Mike, what’s wrong with happiness being a key objective? I mean its not the point of trying to be “exgay”, but in general it seems like the point to me.
Randi,
I don’t think there is anything wrong with happiness being a “key objective”, I just don’t think it’s particularly one of the key objectives of God. I think he wants our wholeness and our holiness, and out of those ideas would and could very well spring happiness, but it’s a by-product, not an actual objective. As least that’s the way I read the scriptures.
j.
Jonathon I was referring to Mikes questioning this being a key objective of “exgay” advocates who aren’t necessarily obligated by any concerns of a god.
Randi,
“Jonathon I was referring to Mikes questioning this being a key objective of “exgay” advocates who aren’t necessarily obligated by any concerns of a god.”
Do you know of any ex-gay advocates who don’t believe they are obligated to the concerns of God?
Re point 8
“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.”
Jonathan Edwards, 1741
Posted by: Timothy Kincaid at October 23, 2006 04:02 PM
Timothy, admittedly I don’t know any “exgays” who don’t believe they are obligated to a god. I guess I was reacting mostly to my own beliefs which is that happiness is the key objective, although I’d say in theory this could be an acceptable belief for exgays as well.
Guess you could say I’m a little bit slow today Randi! It’s a Monday!
j.
Timothy loves to trot out that “Sinners in the hands of an angry God” sermon from the 18th century now and then 😉
C’mon, David. You have to love it.
Not only is it the quitessential fire and brimstone message but it is considered part of our American heritage and is included in Early American Literature classes.
It also demonstrates the extremes to which the Puritan mindset goes in viewing the frailties of humanity and warns of the direction that the anti-everyone type of religious zeal goes. Unless you check yourself, you end up looking at your neighbor and yelling “burn, spider, burn!!”
True, it’s a good lesson and it is history, but I wouldn’t want to characterize Christianity by that one sermon, or even the mood of an era. Even in seminary we were taught this was an example of extremes. Just remember the audience 😉
It is, as you say, “quintessential fire and brimstone,” I’ll give you that!
All ministers are people of God and can be trusted.
Well, of course not. Only ministers from our church are the true ministers of God, and only they can be trusted. Everyone else is an infidel and a heretic and is going to burn in hell.
Or maybe I’m just cynical.
Totally agree that these are ten beliefs that demonstrate spiritual disease. But I’m not sure what the point is… even religious-right anti-gay types don’t believe most of these.
Only #3 and #5 are popular heresies among conservative evangelicals. In fact, they’d use #3 to disprove #6: “Material blessings, such as my 40-foot sailboat, are spiritually relevant because they are a direct result of my obedience to the purity codes in Leviticus.” Indeed, they’d shoot down the other eight and back it up with Scripture. 😉
And they’d proudly add, “And since I only believe two or less of these ten, I must therefore have a healthy faith after all! Get thee away from me, Mike Airhart!”
Anyone who believes even five of these, I’d expect is not attending church at all, or maybe a “C & E” churchgoer at best.
God does not “want you to be happy.” God wants you to have a clue. Jesus did not make his disciples “happy.” The Apostle Paul did not spread “happiness” from Palestine to Rome. Peace, now that’s another thing. Love your neighbor. Be a servant to all. The first shall be last, and the last first.
From a UNIX fortune (one could substitute “Exodus information” for “personality test”):
A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his morning meal. “I would like to give you this personality test,” said the outsider, “because I want you to be happy.”Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the toaster — “I wish the toaster to be happy too.”
Jay said:
even religious-right anti-gay types don’t believe most of these.
That covers a lot of ground. I have spent most of my years involved in conservative, evangelical denominations (Assemblies of God and Southern Baptist). I have seen most of these beliefs manifest among some substantial congregations – if not overtly as doctrine, then certainly in practice. Now when I was 20-25, I would have answered as you have 😉 Perhaps your statement reflects your own spiritual health more than the error in others?
…your own spiritual health more than the error in others?
Good thoughts, David. Or maybe it is the collective health of pastors and fellow faithful I’ve been close to over three decades, which includes many, many social conservatives (Christian & Missionary Alliance, Baptist General Conference, and the Bible college I graduated from).
I guess I should consider myself fortunate to have had teachers and friends who really did have a theological clue, instead of the manipulative leaders and phobia-crippled followers so abundant today.
“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else”.
I didn’t know that was written in the 1700’s. It’s almost word for word what Frank Worthen told me when I decided to leave EXODUS…
Michael, its clear to me that people like Frank Worthen project their own feelings onto their god – they wish their god feels like they do.