From another thread:
...anytime someone proposes something that is new or different to someone else, that we are asking them to trade what they know to be true up to that point in time for the possibility that what they know is not true. This is an important phase of any new or different understanding. Because there is a trade off and in any trade off there is the loss of something for the gain of something else, it is therefore vital that we spell out the process.
As I look back on my Christian life, I can see where I have "changed" in various ways. Not merely personally, but as far as doctrines and beliefs go. Yet, I cannot pinpoint anywhere or any situation in which I had a "long held belief" that I had to "let go" of in order to "accept a new belief".
In the beginning, if you would have asked me if I believed in the Trinity, I would have said "Yes." If you would have asked me to explain it, I would have said "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three different ways God relates to us." If you asked me "what is the Father's name, and what is the Spirit's name?" I would have told you without hesitation "The name is JESUS" and I would have pointed you to
Isaiah 9:6. This was about one or two years or so before I ever even heard the term "Oneness" as a theological doctrine or system. I had been baptised in His name because a few days prior I got the Holy Ghost, and the moment I got the Holy Ghost I KNEW that was JESUS who had just taken up residence in me, that JESUS CHRIST IS MY HEAVENLY FATHER. (This is why I say there is a REVELATION involved in this "Oneness" thing...)
Anyway, in those early days, I heard rapture teaching and preaching. I never believed it. I couldn't find it in my Bible. In fact, I repeatedly found things that contradicted it.
I heard 7 year tribulation teaching, singular personal Antichrist teaching, revived Holy Roman Empire teaching, massive end time revival teaching, massive end time apostasy teaching, etc etc etc. When I heard anything, I always took the attitude "I'll check into that, see if it lines up with Scripture." Most of it never did.
All the things I believe now, are the result of years of study, prayer, and experience. I have refined my beliefs over the years. I have obtained clarity in many areas. Early on I was a staunch "modalist" meaning I was debating trinitarians and using the "three modes or aspects of the godhead" approach. Since then it has been refined more towards a Scriptural God-manifestation, incarnational Christology. But it didn't involve some wholesale hit the brakes throw it in reverse do a 180 type of thing. I didn't have to "give up" anything, I had nothing I was clinging to because of "tradition" or even prior beliefs. Everything has been refined and modified to bring things more in line with Scripture. At least as far as I know.
And this thread is not about what doctrines are correct. Rather, it is about this phenomena of people having to radically change some belief for another. I have simply never had that happen to me, except when I changed my paganism for the Gospel.
Speaking of which... paganism that is... within the first year of being a Christian I had no interest in Christmas or Easter. I could see the paganism involved, because I came out of paganism. I got to the point I routinely pointed out to people that "Easter" is simply "Ishtar" which is the "Ashtoreth" of the Bible. Several year ago I discovered that is not actually correct. Easter doesn't come from Semitic Ishtar, but from German Oestre, meaning "rising". Now, the date and the celebratory traditions associated with Easter are certainly pagan, in many cases. But the name simply is not Ishtar.
But when I came to that understanding, there was no "radical departure", it was just a clarification of the information I had. A growth. A correction.
And maybe I will discover more solid information connecting the Germanic "Oestre" with "Ishtar". In fact, as I think about it, there seems a linguistic similarity to estro-, as in estrogen, the female hormone, and estrus, the menstrual cycle. Perhaps there is a connection between Ishtar (goddess of fertility) and and the actual word "Easter". I dunno. But in any event, it certainly wouldn't be some worldview-crashing psychological trauma for me to adapt to the new information.
Is this weird, or out of the ordinary?
Linear Mode
