I Love the UPCI

[Mr. Smith]

Originally Posted by Ferd

Sorry Mr. Smith you don’t know what I mean. At least your posts are pointed in the wrong direction. I am not defensive of the UPCI. Long before you showed up on this (or any previous forum) there were many discussions about the goings on within the UPCI. WAAAAY back in the day there was the whole topic of Divine Flesh and the split with the Ethiopian Church. I was pretty outspoken that this was handled very wrongly.

In every single discussion of the Affirmation Statement I have been opposed to it. Do a search for the term Infernal Document and see what you find. I have a television. I have no issue discussing the failures of the organization to deal with maturity and instead simply “ban” things.

You don’t have a clue. You have no idea where I have walked in real life. I don’t post a lot of real life things I have gone thru. I don’t because those are my issues and I got’em, thank you very much.

But let’s talk about “the System”. Your issue (at least as far as we can tell from your posting) is that you woke up one day and decided you didn’t believe it anymore. Then you were “shocked” that those in the “System” that you had professed to be a part of for so many years, were not accepting of your new found liberty.

You want it to be a system problem. You want the issue to be their issue. It isn’t. YOU are the one who changed. They have been what they are for several generations now. The UPCI isn’t unique in this either. You want it to be but it isn’t.

I have news for you. EVERY group is like that. When I was growing up a local Baptist girl whose family was very active in their Baptist church converted to Pentecostal. The whole community was in an uproar. Her mom and dad freaked out. The pastor of the Baptist church spent several hours browbeating her to unconvert her. I was personally harassed by kids from that church because I was Pentecostal and from the church this girl started going to.

As much as I would like to say they were way off base here, it was this girl who converted. She is the one that changed. They just acted the way humans act when their belief system is challenged. That girl is now a grown woman with children of her own and she is still Pentecostal (thank God). But she went thru years of dealing with this. Am I mad at the Baptists? Of course not! I don’t agree with them but I recognize this as the way we humans react.

The same is true when we decide we don’t like something in our belief structure. If I walk around my hometown with a goatee, all kinds of people freak out and think I’ve gone charismatic. Talk about a joke. I have gotten phone calls asking me if I’ve backslidden! You think that bothers me? You think I worry about that junk? No way! I recognize that I have challenged their belief structure. I recognize that I am the one that does not walk exactly as they do and that I am the one who has shifted some things. The system did me no harm.

You on the other hand want to change, and you want those you left in the dust to be happy for you. Sorry. Life doesn’t work that way. That isn’t a “system” problem. That is your own unrealistic expectation.

In this thread I have discussed 2 different types that I have issue with. The first being those who won’t move on surely we have that clear now. The other are the ones who MUST change the UPCI. They see the UPCI as all kinds of messed up and they have a personal mission from the voice of the cold pizza box telling them they must challenge and rant and rave against the UPCI. They see themselves as Cervantes challenging the “system” when really they are just the deranged dude from La Mancha trying to knock windmills over with a giant toothbrush (love me some Saturday morning schoolhouse rocks). This group doesn’t even rate a “grow up” comment. They just need the back of the hand. Silly people with delusions of grandeur.


Mr. Smith you don’t have me figured out. You don’t know who I am and you don’t even try to grasp what I am saying. All you know is I don’t high five you when you wax poetic about the evils of the UPCI. You just side with the guy who thinks I hate women who have been raped. That’s kind of sick. Oh well whatever.

I have spent way too much time trying to explain myself to someone who doesn’t care. I get it. Just don’t expect me to give people a pass when they are all freaked out that their friends are shocked when the decide they aren’t gonna be OP any longer.

And I apologize for the long post. I hate long posts.

Red Paragraph: This is EXACTLY what I've been talking about but so far, you're just not hearing me. You're opposed to it. As a faithful, attending, tithe-paying, enthusiastic support of your local assembly, you are allowed to oppose it. But I wasn't!!! THIS is the side of the UPC that many of us have been crying out about and this is the systematic problem of which I speak. You see, after spending a lifetime in the fellowship, I also was opposed to the Affirmation Statement. You know what it got me??? Lifetime banishment!! As a result of that I and my family LOST EVERYTHING!!!! I even ended up homeless and had to find various people to live with. For you, it's a moral objection. For me??? It was life. And it was the result of a systematic dogma that was WAY out of bounds! Again, you get to stick your head in the sand, occasionally voice your concerns. Me? I also voiced my concerns by not signing something I morally, ethically, and spiritually couldn't sign. And it cost me everything I had.

Blue paragraph: Nor do you have any idea my story. Why don't we both just admit that neither of us really know each other. I'm willing to give you a pass. Can you also give me one?


Green Paragraph: Here again is the difference between you and me. If you walk around with a goatee, people talk and you don't care. If I had walked around with a goatee? License revoked, end of story. Or, if I was dealing with a more lenient district, maybe I would just get the heck shunned out of me and the undermining of my church would start and eventually the people of the church would vote me out. You think this doesn't happen? About a year ago there was a pastor who told his congregation he'd like to be able to grow a beard. The district destroyed him. Literally.



The rest of your post just tells me again that I don't know who you are. Fine. You, also, don't know who I am. Knowing or not knowing who each other is or isn't doesn't change the dynamics of the discussion. It still is what it is.