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Would'nt such a belief system would drive a person crazy?
Some predisposed psychological disorders can be exacerbated by spiritual abuse. True Christianity is not intended to be spiritually abusive, however many churches do not practice true Christianity. A lot has been written on this subject. What follows is a summary of some characteristics of a spiritually abusive church.
Apotheosis of the leadership — exalting them to God-like status in and over the group;
Multi-level authority/government hierarchy;
Absolute authority of the leadership;
No real accountability of the leadership to the corporate body;
Hand-picked sub-leaders, based on their demonstration of submissiveness to the ultimate leader rather than on the basis of their leadership skills, spirituality, and anointing and appointment by God;
Pervasive abuse and misuse of authority in personal dealings with members;
Paranoia and insecurity by the leaders;
Abuse, misuse, and inordinate incidence of “church discipline;”
Personal materialism, covetousness, and self-aggrandizement by the leaders;
Members and/or sub-leaders must make a “spiritual covenant,” sometimes a signed covenant agreement, pledging their total commitment and financial support to the leadership and church/ministry;
Partitioning of the group into smaller groups that are led by internally “raised up” lay-leaders who have not been anointed or appointed by God for leadership within the church;
Financial exploitation and enslavement of the members;
Inordinate attention to maintaining the public “image” of the ministry;
Doctrinal demeanment and devaluation — the requisite of espousing and teaching “sound doctrine” is demeaned and devalued;
Theological incompetency by the leadership, especially with respect to the rules of hermeneutics and Bible exegesis employed in the formulation of doctrine, giving license to twisting and adulteration of Scripture in order to provide proof-texts for unorthodox and invented doctrines;
Spiritualism, mysticism, and unproven doctrines;
Abuse and misuse of prophetic giftings as a means to dominate and intimidate;
Devaluation, disallowance, disregard, and displacement of the true Fivefold Ministry within the church;
De facto legalism, or works mentality, and its resulting loss of the “joy of salvation,” though “freedom” is forever preached from the pulpit and the church is constantly touted as being a “safe church” by the leadership;
Esotericism — hidden agendas and requirements revealed to members only as they successfully advance through various stages of “spiritual enlightenment,” i.e., unorthodox, unproven indigenous doctrines;
Isolationism — corporate and individual, especially with respect to exposure to outside ministry sources;
Performance-based approval and promotion system of members predicated on “proven” “loyalty” (i.e., submission) to the leadership;
Devaluation, suppression, and non-recognition of members’ bona fide God-given talents, abilities, gifts, callings, and anointing, as a means of subjugation;
Requiring members to perform menial tasks, such as cleaning toilets, setting up chairs, and acting as the leader’s personal valet or slave, as a supposed means to humble them and teach them to “obey their leaders;”
Constant indoctrination with a “group” or “family” mentality that impels members to exalt the corporate “life” and goals of the church-group over their personal goals, callings, and objectives;
Members are psychologically traumatized and indoctrinated with numerous improper fears and phobias aimed at keeping them reeling in diffidence and an over-dependence or co-dependence on their leaders and the corporate group;
Corporately, there eventually develops an inordinately high incidence of financial, marital, moral, psychological, mental, emotional, and medical problems, including sudden deaths and contraction of “incurable” and “unknown” diseases;
Lack of true personal spiritual growth and development, especially in terms of genuine faith and experiencing the abounding grace, forgiveness, goodness, blessings, kindness, and agape-love of God;
Members are required to obtain the approval or “witness” of their leader(s) for decisions regarding personal matters;
Frequent preaching from the pulpit regarding not getting out from under the “spiritual covering” of the leadership;
Members departing without the prior permission and blessing of the leadership leave the group under a cloud of manufactured suspicion, shame, and slander;
Horror stories frequently told by leaders about individuals or families who left the group without the prior permission and blessing of the leadership, and the terrible consequences and curses they suffered as a result;
Departing members often suffer from various psychological problems and display the classic symptoms associated with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
- You don't know how to manage your own life. You don't know how to use facts, reason and experience to be a good decision-maker. That's you trying to use "worldly wisdom"; it will ultimately fail you.
- There is an omniscient being who is keeping track of your thoughts and feelings and and will hold them against you. This implies that your thoughts and feelings aren't spontaneously generated, that they are the result of some evil force that takes control of you and that you have to constantly ward off. Such evil thoughts include your natural impulses, things like wanting to bang the hot woman you see wearing a bikini at the beach.
- Your conscious experience on Earth is supposed to be repulsive to you. It's a "fallen world" and you're supposed to long for your departure from it. When you depart from it, you'll be given a new body (Wouldn't that be a motivation to not take care of your health on Earth???) and you'll live only among other believers. Any non-believing friends and family you have -- no matter how much of a good life they and no matter how close of a relationship you have with them -- will be separated from you and tormented eternally.
Would'nt such a belief system would drive a person crazy?
It's called real life.
But the whole self-esteem movement and telling people they're just wonderful and great has done better for us? Seriously..do you think that telling EVERYONE that they're special and wonderful is going to result in a better world?
But the whole self-esteem movement and telling people they're just wonderful and great has done better for us? Seriously..do you think that telling EVERYONE that they're special and wonderful is going to result in a better world?
It would make a nice change from being told that since birth you're a worthless miscreant and worthy only of being tortured for an eternity in hellfire.
But the whole self-esteem movement and telling people they're just wonderful and great has done better for us? Seriously..do you think that telling EVERYONE that they're special and wonderful is going to result in a better world?
If everyone isn't special and wonderful.... why are there Christians protesting abortion?
Do you not understand what the quotations mean? And I'm not trying to collect souls. Just correct the misinformed.
If you are claiming fundamental Christianity you most certainly are trying to collect souls or you aren't really a Christian. And trust me, no one here is "misinformed" about anything, most of us nonbelievers used to belong to some type of religion and most of the atheists I know are very intelligent and understand quite well how Christianity works so if you're just trying to "correct the misinformed" then I'm afraid you are wasting your time because we're all well informed.
Your time would be better spent learning about science and trying to figure out why you believe what you believe when there is absolutely no evidence for it.
But the whole self-esteem movement and telling people they're just wonderful and great has done better for us? Seriously..do you think that telling EVERYONE that they're special and wonderful is going to result in a better world?
I agree that unearned self-esteem and ego-stoking is a problem in some quarters, but so it unearned condemnation, which is fundamentalism's stock-in-trade.
It's not as if some of the eight zillion sermons I've heard haven't stuck with me, because not 100% of them were twaddle. A favorite of mine, one of the few that argues for actual balance, was a sermon on the verse that says we "ought not to think more highly of ourselves" than we actually are. According to the speaker, a better translation might have been, "have a sane estimation of ourselves" -- neither too low, nor too high, but realistic and fact-based.
So to the point of the OP, some Christians have a more balanced and psychologically healthy belief system than others. I found fundamentalism so thoroughly pessimistic about human nature that my exit from that system was transformative in how I related to the rest of the human race. Other's mileage may vary.
But the whole self-esteem movement and telling people they're just wonderful and great has done better for us? Seriously..do you think that telling EVERYONE that they're special and wonderful is going to result in a better world?
The only thing that WILL make this a better world is when we ALL accept that we are connected to one another and start living that way in love and cooperation with each other. Everything we do causes ripples and those ripples affect other people in ways that we cannot imagine sometimes. If we cannot accept, respect and love each other unconditionally, how can we ever hope to make this world a better place?
The Golden Rule is a thread that runs through ALL religions and yet, it is completely ignored by 99.9% of religious folks...including those who claim to be Christian. Think on that for awhile!
If you have to ask . . . you do not know God or Jesus. The Father Jesus revealed IS pure agape love. Hell is completely incompatible with God. It is entirely a human invention to sate their human desires for what they call justice . . . but which is really vengeance. Jesus was rejected because He did not condemn anyone or exclude anyone one from His presence who wanted to be with Him. He unconditionally loved everyone . . . so much so that He endured scourging and crucifixion while loving His torturers and murderers. The Father He revealed would NEVER ever create such a place as the Hell so many Christians claim to believe in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmiej
You didn't answer the question. The gospel according to Mystic.
No Jimmie . . . the Gospel according to Jesus . . . NOT YHWH (Jehovah) as described by our ignorant ancient ancestors.
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