I decided to delete this post. I just had the feeling if the information fell into the wrong hands . . . well, it would be used against me.
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Key Words: Post-evangelical, disillusionment with Christianity, spiritual abuse, Christian Dualism, Francis Schaeffer, Christian Decision Making, Honesty and Christianity
Mount Baker, Washington
God's Glorious Creation
Seeing the entire universe, the seen and the unseen, as all part of God's wonderful creation.
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Key Words: Post-evangelical, disillusionment with Christianity, spiritual abuse, Christian Dualism, Francis Schaeffer, Christian Decision Making, Honesty and Christianity
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Mount Baker, Washington
What A Christian Monist Believes
A Christian Monist is simply a nudging of the mainstream Evangelicalism back towards it Biblical-philosophical roots, which we think is Monistic rather than Dualistic.
This may sound complicated but it is not. Scripture says that God created man, woman, the creatures and the cosmos . . . then said it was good. Yes the Fall did happen, tainting this world (and ourselves) but it didn't decimate the cosmos, rendering it as totally worthless or even evil.
The old Dualist (such as the Gnostics, which influenced the early church) believed that this physical world is evil. They also believed that Satan is the Lord of the darkness, juxtaposed, to God the Lord of the world of light (and the forces were almost equal). C.S. Lewis disagreed with this view, stating that evil was a lowly parasite in the shadows of God’s wonderfully created world.
The practical implications of this change in perspective is immense and we believe accounts for almost all that ails modern, American Evangelicalism. These implications are too many to discuss here, but to mention a few examples.
American Evangelicalism, which had been greatly influenced by forms of Dualism, from Zoroaster to Plato and others, sees things in black vs. white. The spiritual (invisible) is superior to the seen (the physical cosmos). So to an Evangelical, everything is divided between the spiritual vs. worldly and is almost along altitudinal lines. The earth, our physical bodies, art (especially art by non-Christians), emotions, our brains (eg. psychology) . . . all are inferior to the unseen spiritual.
Therefore Evangelicals believe that events must be understood by their unseen forces or they have no value. In other words, Aunt Martha’s cancer wasn’t caused by a cell mutating but by Satan’s attack. Her cancer wasn’t cured by the smart doctors who developed chemotherapy but only by a “super-natural” hand of God.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Evangelicalism has become very dishonest in places and the younger people (both within and without the church) often see it as a farce. I feel very passionate about this because 85% of children, reared within the Evangelical church, leave it before they are 25. Evangelicalism is on the wrong path. They see the great evil as humanism or evolution. The real great evil (and many young people have told me this) is the phoniness withing the church.
This may sound complicated but it is not. Scripture says that God created man, woman, the creatures and the cosmos . . . then said it was good. Yes the Fall did happen, tainting this world (and ourselves) but it didn't decimate the cosmos, rendering it as totally worthless or even evil.
The old Dualist (such as the Gnostics, which influenced the early church) believed that this physical world is evil. They also believed that Satan is the Lord of the darkness, juxtaposed, to God the Lord of the world of light (and the forces were almost equal). C.S. Lewis disagreed with this view, stating that evil was a lowly parasite in the shadows of God’s wonderfully created world.
The practical implications of this change in perspective is immense and we believe accounts for almost all that ails modern, American Evangelicalism. These implications are too many to discuss here, but to mention a few examples.
American Evangelicalism, which had been greatly influenced by forms of Dualism, from Zoroaster to Plato and others, sees things in black vs. white. The spiritual (invisible) is superior to the seen (the physical cosmos). So to an Evangelical, everything is divided between the spiritual vs. worldly and is almost along altitudinal lines. The earth, our physical bodies, art (especially art by non-Christians), emotions, our brains (eg. psychology) . . . all are inferior to the unseen spiritual.
Therefore Evangelicals believe that events must be understood by their unseen forces or they have no value. In other words, Aunt Martha’s cancer wasn’t caused by a cell mutating but by Satan’s attack. Her cancer wasn’t cured by the smart doctors who developed chemotherapy but only by a “super-natural” hand of God.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Evangelicalism has become very dishonest in places and the younger people (both within and without the church) often see it as a farce. I feel very passionate about this because 85% of children, reared within the Evangelical church, leave it before they are 25. Evangelicalism is on the wrong path. They see the great evil as humanism or evolution. The real great evil (and many young people have told me this) is the phoniness withing the church.
Evangelical Church Exit Interview--Fictional, but Possible
God's Glorious Creation
Genesis 1:31 (New International Version) 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
9 comments:
I think you're onto something. The closer someone thinks he or she is to God, the meaner they get. That seems to be my experience anyway. The Pharasees had the same problem. On second thought, it might be that the closer someone thinks they are to truth, the meaner they get.
Honestly I think you should say "poor me" a little bit. When it comes right down to it, you are alone, and that sucks. Maybe these things could be nipped in the bud if you weren't such a lone sheep, an easy target, if anyone would stand up for you.
It's true that standing up for yourself does squat where fundies are concerned.
That restaurant story is insane. What pisses me off most of all is that it was made to seem like it was your fault. Like you handled it wrong, ergo it became a disruption. I just see this crazy rape victim "you seduced him and asked for it" mentality buzzing around you, but at least you haven't internalized that.
What Jaimie said is true == you are alone. Not an Evangelical, not an atheist, you don't have a clan. You are just one man alone. I feel similarly alone, although thank goodness I don;t have fundamentalists attacking me the way you do. It must be awful.
Do you know of a forum or an online message board where people can talk about healing from religious trauma? I found a good website with resource links but I would love to find a site where real people can talk about their experiences and how they can adjust to life after fundagelicalism. Balancing family needs is especially hard, as you well know, and I think that is just one of many issues people could help one another with. I am going to keep searching for a group like that either real life or online.
Take care, MJ, don't let them beat you down.
You know, my bizarre experiences like this are not common. The restaurant one was about 13 years ago. But I do think there is a risk. If you are around evangelicals . . . and you don't join in the Jesus chatter . . . you are vulnerable to being demonized.
When you're talking God's Speshul Anointed, anything you say not only can but WILL be used against you. In All Righteousness.
The closer someone thinks he or she is to God, the meaner they get. That seems to be my experience anyway. The Pharasees had the same problem. On second thought, it might be that the closer someone thinks they are to truth, the meaner they get.
"Nothing's worse than a monster who thinks he's right with God."
-- Capt Mal Reynolds, Free Trader Serenity
Only there is one that's worse, Mal. A monster who KNOWS he's Right with God.
Maybe the wrong hands should see this post. Maybe the truth really can set people free.
To honest truth seekers . . . the truth does set you free. To those, whose fragile self-esteem rest squarely on the belief that they (and hardly anyone else) has the "truth" then the real truth tends to piss them off. But that's just my opinion.
Well I meant set YOU free. But I don't really know what I'm talking about. :P
I just don't like seeing people afraid to say what they actually believe, especially when it's reasonable. But I do that in my own life I guess.
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