JCM Reunion / AMC Conference Check In Thread

[timlan2057]

If there is any proof that these "ole time pentecstal" conservatives are out of touch, cultic, irrelevant and are apostles of a withered and dying movement and theology, it's this thread.

Anyone who brands someone like CC1 as a "liberal" over religious nit-picking has their heads in the sand. Heck, CC1 is a right-wing reactionary.

Actually, a lot of these pentecostal liberals are more "cultic" about their political beliefs than religious beliefs. While I am basically accepted by my old comrades even though I am no longer a pentecostal, I have been de-friended on Facebook by more than one because they are frustrated that they cannot answer my political arguments with the standard right-wing palaver.

I wasn't able to attend the 2010 JCM reunion. I had school and am in a production of "Antony and Cleopatra" and the rehearsal schedule was intense that week.

I attended the reunion in 2005. I enjoyed it and it was one of the great experiences in my life. Hats off to Joel Lewis (Mr. Steinway) for his organizing of that.

What was great about the 2005 reunion? It was relatively unstructured and limited to the 70s group.

I would probably have attended the 2010 reunion had I not had other obligations. BUT: I wasn't crazy about this one attempting to come off as a GRAND, ALL-TIME JCM reunion with a schedule like a general conference.

Heck, I don't know people that attended there in the 80s and 90s. Why would I want to go out of my way to reminisce with them?

I guess I have a right to say this as an alumnus: the more and more these reunions get structured like a general conference or a music conference, the less and less interest I will have in them.

Now, despite the fact many of us have gone in different directions (of course most of us have realized the illogic and silliness and legalism of these so-called "standards), I value the friendships I made at JCM, they are lifelong. Whether someone so totally precious as Renda, those that are still old time pentecostal like Tony and Sharla, etc., the liberal pentecostals like Eddie and Sherri, and on and on.

I personally have NO interest in honoring JCM as an institution. The UPC "Bible School" paradigm is worthless and thank goodness seems to be dying. Unaccredited colleges that take peoples' money are a blight.

So any reunion--the 2010 seemed to move more in this direction than 2005--that wants to honor JCM AS AN INSTITUTION will make me more and more disenchanted and more and more inclined to stay away.

Thank goodness, JCM is closed, dead, buried and defunct. Let it stay that way.

The UPC is too far down the road to oblivion, in my opinion, for this to happen, but the best thing they could do would be for their other "bible schools" to follow JCM into never-never land and begin (what for them) will be the long, slow, painful process to have real accredited, colleges.

Of course that would take discipline, money, vision and a willingness to promote academic freedom--things the UPC is woefully short of in 2010.