In Reply to: Re: Wish you all the best OT2...great, how you keep going posted by Farmer on January 14, 2010 at 20:01:44:
Farmer:
I think that your character is well established enought that people trust you on all these boards; even those vehemently opposed to things you might believe, especially those things they have chosen to hate or dislike in mental stereotypes they may have accepted by reason of undue/unjustified cultural influence.
You have "paid your dues"; so to speak.
At least some of those points of view of people opposing what they view as regular Christians being unknowing and bigotedly against a "homogenized, all-inclusive approach to God" are NOT TF, now, and they are TRYING to think for themselves after a longtime cult membership.
That in ITSELF is good, IMO. It is a start!
Perhaps the habit will grow (that of independent thinking, and the value of actual experience) to where they can question spiritual beliefs originating from spirits not of God.
I am afraid that quite a few of them have taken a tentative position based on mostly post-cult cultural pressure, and things they have read, and merely hope are true, for various reasons--that is a very long discussion; one that must be approached carefully and prayerfully; "yet with meekness and reverence", toward God AND man.
Although I do enjoy Christian apologetics, including historical document analyses (JEDP, etc.--standing for the "...defense and confirmation of the Gospel..."), to me it is much more important to remember the approach of ".. not with enticing words of men's wisdom, but in demostration of the Spirit and of power...".
And, that is available in our witness to Christ, if we're patient, and not just trying to be an arrogant jerk, and win an argument. As Christ had to do, we can only hope to do "...what we see the Father doing...', by the Holy Spirit.
Personally/experientially, I went, as a teenager, from opposing my Dad's rationalist/materialist/atheism and its attendant assertions about the weakly-grouped hypotheses of "evolution" ("no-proof anti-entropy", in my book, hence never observed, much less provable!), to a resultant temporary acceptance of philosophical nihilism (belief that NO belief paradigm COULD POSSIBLY collect enough data to REALLY prove ANYTHING sufficiently), to demon-empowered Transcendental Meditation, Silva Mind Control, Hatha, Raja, Siddha, Bakti and Kundalini Yoga (ALL experientially known by me personally--therefore their "true nature" not arguable as NOT being demonic AFTER REALLY receiving Jesus, and the gift of "discernment of spirits" by the infilling of the Holy Spirit--the One who eventually I allowed to lead me out of the cult, after His MULTIPLE attempts to do so---VERY long story!).
At any rate, I was one of the many "unstable souls" who were easy prey to the 2 Peter 2-type "false teachers" of Berg, et al, when they came into my life, in 1971, at University. Their well-practiced and seductivve recruitment techniques easily persuaded me to drop out and join.
I do hate the devil, but I cannot hate even Berg, by this time. I acknowledge my responsibility in it all, and pray to have learned fully from it, in order to help others (2 Cor 1, etc.).
Yes, TF became EVERYTHING the Bible said would become of false teachers, false prophets with their false Christs ("another Jesus, another Spirit,...another Gospel), and so on.
Absolutely everything; completely degraded and corrupt, like 2 Peter 2 said, and how Revelation described the false prophetess Jezebel--teaching and seducing servants of Jesus Christ to offer sacrificesunto idols and to commit sexual immorality.
So very sad.
OT2