Facing the Morally Bad Future

[gomtuu77]

Well, considering I'm the one who knows best what I believe, I'm telling you I was a reborn Pentecostal Christian equipped with the Holy Spirit. I can't describe to you in words how sincerely I believed, unless you knew me in real life.

Somehow I knew you were going to mention the Pentecostal church. I see this kind of thing a lot from Pentecostalism, as well as the hell fire & brimstone 1950s brand of fundamentalism. This fact alone lends credence to my own view, since the very often manipulative and emotive methods used by the Pentecostal and Assemblies of God denominations often produce deeply emotionally and psychologically powerful attachments to the Church and all the machinations that go along with it. And like you, everyone is totally sincere in their professions, and I certainly take them at their words. They and you were and are quite sincere. On that, we have no disagreement. But whether you were a truly regenerate believer in / follower of Jesus Christ or not, I do not have sufficient reason to affirm in the positive. I can affirm that this is what you truly felt/feel and believe(d), but I cannot go beyond that. Don't let my inability to affirm the reality of your being a Christian be apprehended as any kind of denial as to the strength of your belief or the sincerity with which you held it.

Theologically, I agree.

Theologically? Is there a distinction you'd like to make?

I still feel like you're trying to push me into the box of 'fake Christians'. That's fine, I can't really express through this medium how sincerely I believed, but I'll leave you with this about me: I'm a broke university student. Last year I saved up for ~4 months all my pennies so I could go on that missions trip I mentioned (in the list). I was broke for those 4 months. Didn't have money for fuel, lunch or social activities in general.

You can feel any way you wish, but I would urge you not to put words in my mouth simply because I cannot affirm the truthfulness of your statement. That doesn't mean what you've said is untrue, but it does mean that I do not have sufficient reason to change my position and affirm your proposition in the positive. With all due respect, seeming sincerety of belief looks exactly the same as genuine sincerity. The distinction between the two is made by perseverence. Do they stay or do they fall away? Something can be highly intoxicating and deeply satisifying but still not produce a genuine or lasting (persevering) conversion. This is particularly true within Pentecostalism. My wife experienced this kind of thing when she so-called "received the gift of tongues". She has since matured in her understanding and therefore, her faith. I would not call you a fake Christian, but again, all I would say is that I have little reason to believe that you ever were a genuine Christian. I'm not pushing you into any box, and I would urge you not to push me into any box. Only God knows your heart. I cannot hope to judge such a thing rightly. However, in terms of making my own assessments upon things with which I'm face; I have to make assessments that appear to make sense of the reality before me. What appears to make the msot sense is that you are a person "Hebrews 6:4...who [has] once been enlightened, who [has] tasted the heavenly gift, and [has] shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away...".

I wanted to do what Drich does. Not convince people to believe, because as you sort of said, that's between them and God. They have to take that last leap of faith. I just wanted to clear up any misconceptions they had so that the path to God would be clear. How I was preparing myself? Well funny you ask. It's partly my preparation/research that was giving me not-so-good apologetic material. You see, for anyone to believe they need to understand what the NT is. They are supposedly accurate historical documents, some written by eyewitnesses. Well, that's exactly the sort of proof I needed to be able to show people that this is the way and the truth. Turns out that my 'ideal' view of the NT was only backed up by hearsay from my church. 100% baseless assertions on what they wish was the case, but not supported by a critical view of history.

Who or what is "Drich"??? Faith is not a blind leap, but merely a step of trust on the basis of good reason. This is yet more evidence that tells me there was a significant problem to begin with. What do you mean by a critical view of history? I am not an expert in textual criticism, but just by reading what you've wrote thus far, I can see that there is a woeful lack of information on your part. This isn't surprising, given that you were coming at this from a Pentecostal perspective.

Thank you. I'll look into that.

That's promising. If you're open to the idea that you are suffering from both insufficient information and poor teaching with regard to textual criticism coming from the likes of Ehrman, then I think the broadcast and the books I mentioned can be quite helpful to you. Remember one thing about Ehrman. He studied under and claims to have mentored by none other than Bruce Manning Metzger, perhaps the greatest expert on lower criticism of the Bible to have lived in the 20th century, and yet he came to diametrically opposite conclusions than the ones Ehrman came to. Without deciding who was right or wrong, that by itself should give you pause and reason to look into this much more, far beyond merely the works of Ehrman or others of his ilk. There's nothing wrong with reading his material, so long as you're also open to reading the correctives that debunk and lay waste to his central thesis regarding the corruption of the Bible in transmission to the Church.

Yeah I'm willing to accept this is a possibility. With that in mind, let's discuss a bit of history.

Okay...

None of this applies to me. I wasn't some sort of double-identity Christian that was a Christian by day and an unclean filthy sinner by night, nor did I have some upbringing that impacted me negatively. My parents are both non-practising Catholics that brought me up as a Catholic. I'm very grateful for the family that I have.

This is not what I was referrring to. I was referring to someone who was self-deceived. They were not someone who was double-minded, but someone who had built up a self-deceptive construct to allow them to more easily maintain a power pretense that was untrue because the emotional and psychological nature of that with which they were involved was so deeply satisfying and in some sense, addictive. From their perspective, they were entirely sincere in every way that they could identify, but unknown to them, they were living in a state of complete denial and self-deception. Is it possible that this could describe you? This kind of stuff happens quite a lot within the Church, though to varying degrees.

I am no expert, but I am certainly willing to entertain any questions or challenges you might have. I wish you well in your journey, and I do hope you will consider the pardon offered by God through Christ as a viable way of escape from your condition and mine.