RDP

[Barb]

Originally Posted by Titus2woman

I had to do a little thinking and a lot of praying on why I have been so negatively affected by your posts and here are some of my conclusions:

You represent everything I ever hated about a movement I am as quickly distancing myself from as possible. While I do not know you personally, I feel like I have met you 100 times, in the preachers who say hateful things over pulpits everywhere. Who laugh at those who 'only got wet' at their baptisms, who gleefully talk about all who will burn forever in tormenting hell for some small mistake they do not even know they are making, who leave people confused and unable to ever trust in God. The preacher who I watched have a man crawl around the platform begging God to save him, while so many of us sat sickened but feeling powerless to stop it. The preacher who bragged from the pulpit about how he refused to pray with a dying saint in the hospital because someone had turned the television on in her room, even though she pleaded with him to pray because she had been conditioned to believe that she could be neither saved nor healed without his prayers.

Yes, you epitomize the controlling pastor I've saw tell people to give up their vacations and give the money to building fund while he took his family to the holy-land for 2 weeks in an all expense paid vacation given to him by the church membership. The pastors who can not even live in the neighborhoods where their churches are because there simply are not big enough Mc Mansions for them. The ones who dress down their congregations for the tiniest infractions of their dress codes and are later found sleeping with the church secretary or molesting girls from the youth.

You hide behind anonymity here and spout your self-righteousness, show disdain and disapproval for others, make pronouncements about the status of others salvation and it disturbs the heck out of me. Because while you, on your own, would be nothing more than a good laugh to me, you do these things in a place where many of the people have a lifetime of abuse by horrible pseudo-preachers like yourself behind them. They are sensitized to it, and you add to their burdens and make them feel that they have to defend their most basic human right, to worship God in their own way. You make them question whatever progress they have made toward healing, you open old scars and salt healing wounds.

And worst of all... YOU DO IT SIMPLY FOR SPORT.

No, I am not a victim. I am a survivor... And you RDP... are a monster.

Originally Posted by Whole Hearted

Titus2woman

You are fillied with bitterness and hatred and it is consuming you.

T2W, I feel your pain, and disagree with WH...your are not bitter. You are experienced with hurt and disappointment, but no, I don't believe you are bitter.

Your life experiences may lead to bitterness, but I don't hear it in your posts here. I hear a tiredness of the junk, and frankly, who can blame you?

Some of my family members have been terribly wounded by idiocy and arrogance (not UPCI), and it has all but destroyed their children.

But I beg you to not think that we are all in the same cesspool that has brought you, and sadly many others, to this place of wanting to be distanced from this "movement."

For every heavy handed, "controlling pastor" you have seen, there are more who have learned that administering the Word in love and longsuffering is the better way in the long run.

Pastors are not the enemy. The enemy is the spirit of 'it's all about meeeeee'. It's that which leads to godlike attitudes that always lead to a downfall.

There have been several good men of God in bygone days who were strongly affiliated with this forum, and by all accounts are leaders of integrity.

I daresay that even some of the pastors presently posting here may not be as hard in personal dealings as they are here, and that is the nature of the beast we know as cyberspace.

People often forget that when we post, it is not just a blank page or window we are responding to. Rather, there are living bodies seated there who may be having all manner of issues going on...people with feelings which can become bruised by the written words we so freely spew out.

For those who play this as a game and think that folks shouldn't take all of this so seriously...please stop and remember that you are not the only somebody here. Not everyone has your grasp of 'reality'.

So, T2W, you are in my prayers, and I truly mean that.

WH, a little kindness goes a long way.