Urge to kill, rising.

[kryptonitemonkey]

There are so many times when I wonder why the heck God sent me here to Redding and Bethel church. Today I wonder if maybe it's to track a few Bethelites here and punch them in their stupid faces. Maybe in the throat, I dunno. All I know is that I really want to. I absolutely cannot abide falsehood or any sort of christian thought that isn't biblical, especially when it's touted as the way things have to be. If I didn't believe that God still acted like God (continuationism for those who need such labels), not to mention having witnessed it, I would definitely fall more into a Calvinism type place. I am 100% all about the Bible and, you know, doing what it says. I don't care if I don't like something, or you don't, I just care if it's true. Naturally, I tend to clash with a lot of christians.

Needless to say, even though I do believe in the gifts still being about, I also tend to a more stolid, thoughtful approach to things than most charismatics, so I can get into some real conflicts. It happened again today and yesterday on a facebook post in a Bethel group that absolutely has me fuming at outright dumb theology that a number of people here have, which no amount of reasoning or scripture will deter. I'd be more worried about my view being incorrect versus so many others, except I seem to be the only one actually consistently using scripture to argue my points. If I'm wrong, don't keep trotting out the same argument over and over, as if pounding your feelings into me will fix me, but use some damn scripture. Don't ad hominem, don't use a phrase that has nothing to do with the subject, and don't trot out that trite "don't judge lest you be judged". Hell, I'll even provide a verse or two that might work toward your point.


Being vague here, but the whole conversation is longer than I have the energy for right now.

Comments

[vlion]

Mildly relevant.

One of the fascinating bits of church history is the Arianism vs Alexandrian debates. Arianism is probably best repped by Origin, a man generally regarded as decent. But, it *turns out* that we're all Alexandrites today in general. Leaving aside the implications for that specific debate... it implies that there's support in tradition for adequately faithful and believing people to go different directions and still remain broadly consistent in the heterodox church. Not a justification for being wrong, but a good justification for holding things a bit lightly. The linkage with your note is that education tends to produce a broad mind. If your fine folks don't have a competency with scriptures, might be that a discussion from church history might move them more. /me shrug hard to say. intellect is not popular outside of the Reformed circles.

[kryptonitemonkey]

I think I get what you mean. Being here, there's a lot that I have to let be, but there are some things you just can't in good conscience. There's so much in the epistles that are like, they're way off, hand 'em over to satan, but then there's the one where it's like we have different amounts of faith, so don't look down on one another. The maddening thing about following God is how much of our walk has to be an organic one, listening to him.

[vlion]

Right. I consider this is where the long tradition of the church comes into handy - does belief set *x* tend to cause bad issues with people's lives? then it demands to be shut down hard. Sort of reverse engineering "fruit of the spirit".