[BrotherEastman]

Originally Posted by pelathais

We are attached to our various social groupings in a variety of ways. We will often choose to leave one of those groups when it is no longer in our best interest to remain.

Many people remain in Pentecostal churches (or whatever church they attend) long after they have broken their philosophical attachments because remaining in the church is in the best interest of their family attachments.

Others simply have no choice except to remain because they are under age or - as I've seen at times - because they have an employment within the church body that they are reluctant to lose.

For myself, I had an employment, a position with some status, and a family network within Pentecost. But when I refused to "backslide" along with a few of those around me I lost my job, my position - which I was willing to accept, but then they turned at my family to continue and even intensify their attacks against them. This really disgusted me to the point that I had no fight left in me and I left.

I am somewhat disappointed with myself today, many years later. I have found out how that I had let down many other people who were still in the church and I handicapped the district leadership in the ability to govern affairs that they were charged with overseeing. I should have stayed and fought.

However, simultaneously to all of this; I was wrestling with the core belief system of the group. Jesse Williams, a man I had admired, had said something at about that time. He has said, "If you no longer believe the doctrine, then be a gentleman and leave." So for me at the time, the 'easy way out' was to "be a gentleman" and that made my departure a little easier.

The speaking schedules that I was tasked with arranging were now in the hands of men wanting to cover up the adultries of their Okalahoma buddies. Those Oklahoma buddies were given time to make the financial arrangements so that their pending divorces and loss of pastorates would not be as expensive as it would have been if I had spoken up.

Somehow, these guys were the "faithful" while I was the "Ex-Pentecostal..."

I'm still against pandering to adulterers and using church resources to enable what amounts to essentially a sex club. But this view makes me an "Ex-Pentecostal..."

I'm against "moving money around" to defraud the wife you've abandoned and I have some serious question about whose money that might have been - the church's? I don't know. All I know was that 13 weeks were required to make all of the arrangements after the wife found out. I was fired during the second week when I began to figure things out. The reason I was fired was because I was "hindering revival."

There are folks who may be reading this now who will remember a storied 13 week revival. I saw many of you dancing in those services. I didn't dance. Because you did dance, you are Pentecostals. Because I could not bring myself to dance, I am an "Ex Pentecostal."

That's the way it happened for me.

Your allowed to dance now. ;-) I appreciate ya Pel.