Are you an OP?

[Sabby]

Originally Posted by deltaguitar

I was raised a one-God, apostolic, tongue-talking, holy ghost, born again believer in the liberating power of Jesus name Oneness Pentecostal and was until I was 27.

One by one the beliefs fell until I no longer have any beliefs that I would consider connected to the OP faith.

First, I stopped believing in the standards but still kept them out of respect.
Second, I stopped believing in the Acts 2:38/John 3:5 water and spirit new birth. I just didn't see it in scripture but I was still pentecostal because of all I had seen growing up.

Then I left the UPC during a horrible church split. Once leaving I realized I no longer had to believe the things that were taught to me growing up that I knew weren't in scripture.

I remained a pentecostal for probably six months to a year after leaving the UPC. It was during this time that I started to reject the initial evidence doctrine and finally realized I had lied to myself the whole time and had never received that experience myself. This was actually the most liberating doctrine that I let go of. I then had a lot of anger towards what I had been raised to do and seek after and all that anxiety and confusion I had been put through really got on my nerves.

Finally, the oneness doctrine was the last to fall. It wasn't so hard but because of my upbringing I didn't understand the trinity. It has been a long journey and I have been a trinitaritan for about two years now.

Delta,
Interesting journey, isn't it?
I believe in one God, always have. I went through a period of time that I actually asked the Holy Spirit to forgive me for neglecting to evoke Him in prayer. Then I realized that He is God. Same happened concerning my prayers to the Father, when I began to pray more evoking Christ and calling on His name; I felt guilty not praying to the Father as much as to His Son Jesus, since the Father, is obviously God.
There is a name for God that can be applied to both the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jehoshuah, Yeshua, Jehovah-savior. In our vernacular it's just "Jesus". I have never felt badly about praying to Jesus Christ, and when I use the name of Jesus in prayer, I can mentally differentiate the attribute, whether His loving Fathering of me, His abiding empowerment, or His forgiving attitude.
The problem I have in labeling God as Trinity and/or Oneness is it categorizes Him into preconceived notions (or boxes) of who He is. We wind up having to "unpack" those ideas and 'splainin' what we mean by the definition of the word, trinity or oneness. I feel they are semantic differences.
Since I believe that the NAME of Jesus evokes all three, I guess you could say I'm oneness, but according to my understanding of scripture, and not a pidgeon-holed one-size-fits-all from the manual UPC definition.