TheEvan

I've lost track of Ellen (6) and I don't remember her maiden name. Anybody? Ellen, dear, are you out there? My daughter is applying to Brown for grad school and I've got general questions.

You did go to Brown, nay?

Evan

I was Plotinus on these forums way back when. I participated here shortly after these forums began. I sojourned years later as "Juan Cruz." Juan posted some poems that still make me laugh. "I've Got Curses" is a personal favorite of Juan's. Now I'm back as Pax.

I took the PFAL class in the basement of Rye Presbyterian Church in Sept./Oct. of 1971. I was 15. I saw many leaders up close... none were impressive. Some were worse than others. Most of my fellow Groovy Christians of Rye, NY were impressive, and I love them very much. I'm glad that so few are still in bondage to Victor's brand of bad religion.

I got out after seven very active, committed years in which I ran classes, went door-to-door (even in Manhattan), and helped organize events. From reading the best and most respected Christian literature, I saw how sadly wrong, misguided, and venal Victor was. A friend in college died as a direct result of Victor's misleadings re: healing and believing. A dear high school friend was sexually abused by Victor.

I wax indignant regarding Victor. He hurt people whom I love. I let him waste too many precious years of my walk. He is in the lowest place of my deepest metaphorical inferno.

I was born in Endwell and I hope I do. I grew up in Rye, and have lived in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Princeton, Schenectady, and in the NJ suburbs of The Big Apple. Organic gardening, political and environmental activism, reading classics, following NY sports teams, and living happily with my wife (also from Rye and a talented artist), and our two kids (16 & 14) who are unschooled, keeps me grateful.

I believe in God. Jesus is the center of my life. The Bible is my story. I take scripture seriously, but not literally. I'm a progressive, social-justice pursuing Christian. I don't believe God breaks the laws of physics/nature. A man named Jesus never walked on water literally, but metaphorically He did and He does.

I can't commit to stay here long, or to be a regular poster but I love Pawtucket for making this available. I have enjoyed his personal company on occasion, and I equally enjoy his cyber-hospitality here when the spirit troubles my tukhus into the Greasespot Pool of Siloam.

Heh!

Nice to see yyou.

If you peek in here again, exound a bit on your experience "unschooling". We've finished our homeschooling and we networked with many doing the same. I read about unschooling and found the concept interesting and a bit troubling.

Total shock!

Oh Rum, my old friend!

I am so sorry for your loss.

Lombardi-Gras begins!

I think VP would have felt intimidated by Koestler's intellect and academic achievements Apparently Koestler was a highly intelligent monster. I don't think "highly intelligent" fits the old cornfield preacher.

I enjoyed the article. Strange person, that.

Rum,

Didn't we take Christmas (or Thanksgiving) meal together in Keene that year? Would have been '75. It was at the home of a fine New England lady. I remember the Yorkshire pudding, which I viewed with a mixture of interest & horror.

We had, among other things, BBQ turkey yesterday. Here's my recipe:

This is a nice alternative to traditional roast turkey, which I associate with dry, bland and stringy breast meat. It has the added bonus of freeing oven space for those other dishes you need to prepare for a holiday feast.

1 turkey

1 pint of fresh Creole seasoning vegetables (such as Guidry’s Fresh Cuts, found in the produce section).

1 lb andouille sausage, diced.

1 bottle of Jack Miller’s or similar BBQ sauce. Stubb’s original is acceptable, but do not use a dark caramel sauce like KC Masterpiece. The flavor definitely clashes with turkey.

1 small can of frozen limeade concentrate.

Prepare by cutting the turkey in half bilaterally. This will require a heavy sharp knife, strength and patience. Poultry shears will help in some places.

Sauté seasoning vegetables and sausage until the onions are clarified.

Make deep cuts in the thighs and breast meats and stuff with sauté mix. Also stuff the mix under the skin wherever possible. Reserve the remaining sauté mix.

Wrap each half with 4 layers of wide heavy-duty Reynolds foil (other brands won’t hold up to the fire). Place on grill, bone side down, for about 2 hours on a medium fire. Be careful when placing them on the grill that you don’t tear the foil.

Combine the reserved sauté mix with BBQ sauce and limeade concentrate. After two hours of cooking, turn each half (now meat side down), make a small opening on the sides now facing up, and pour in BBQ sauce-limeade-sauté mix. Reserve the remainder to serve tableside. Close up the slits. Cook for about one hour.

The turkey will not need much carving as it will have fallen to bits by now. Place the undignified mess on a platter as is, or if you’d like to get fancy you can separate the meats from the bone and arrange nicely on a serving piece. Either way, enjoy.

In retrospect, test with a thermometer. Those times could have been reduced about 25%

WG:

I don't know jack .... about Calvinism, that's why I'm asking someone else to explain it. My impression is the elect are going to heaven no matter how bad they are and the nonelect go to hell no matter how good they are, and I'm asking someone to explain election by predestination in plain 20th century English, which seems to be a challenge even to its most ardent defenders. I don't want a bunch of extrapolated Bible verses thrown at me; the next person can throw another bunch of extrapolated Bible verses that contradict the first bunch.

I'll do my best with it. Again bear in mind I don't speak for Calvinism, though I do believe in their doctrine of election as I understand it. I find their approach to articulating their beliefs pedantic at times, sometimes very much so. I hope you find my less precise language will contain something useful to you.

The elect do not go to heaven "no matter how bad they are". Nor do they go to heaven "no matter what". They must hear the gospel, be enlightened to their wretched state and need for a Savior, repent and believe. They are then heaven-bound, not on the merit of their election, but on the merit of Christ's sacrifice alone. That said, election says that a response of faith to the gospel is a work of the Holy Spirit, not because some enlightened soul woke up one day and thought it grand idea to repent and be saved.

There are some erroneous responses or beliefs about predestination/election. Some take it as "whatever will be will be". For them, "faith" is an impersonal, stoic thing. They adopt a sort of religious fatalism. Why try? Why witness? After all, whatever will, will be, right? This wrong. Though man is not the master of his own destiny, the scripture still makes each person responsible for their own soul. Furthermore, God is not arbitrary, as many have depicted him. That is another wrong take on election & predestination. Nothing about God is arbitrary. Everything is according to a specific plan, for his purposes and glory. That we fail to understand his ways doesn't make him arbitrary.

In summary, salvation is shown as being God's work in Christ

Damnation is shown as being man's own work and responsibility.

But then again I'm not really a calvinist. (My good calvinist friend calls me a 3.75 point calvinist, but I wouldn't know :) )

This is like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Good Grief!

WG

I can understand your sentiment...but it isn't, really.

Now I don't say this from a Calvinist perspective, not being one myself.

But it really does matter if God meant predestination or if he meant simply foreknowledge that seems like predestination.

If we (our 'free will') are the hinge upon which salvation rests, if God has made his move and now is waiting for us to make ours and has placed his workings in a subordinate role to our action or faith, then our walk is fraught with uncertainty, as it well should. I have good reason to be uncertain about myself!

But if God's plan is entirely in his hands and he will call you, save you and guide you until Christ be perfected in you then you can rest easy knowing he is in charge. He will be faithful to complete what he has begun. This is where the peace that so many are missing rests.

Outstanding performance.

:eusa_clap:

This performance is, if anything, more amazing. Here, Goran is doing a fabulous job of what must be the most difficult of all on guitar: bringing out the different lines of fugue with clarity and separation. Follow Bach's ingeneous chromatic inner lines as they move from the low to middle voices and finally the top voice.

Oops, can't figrue out how to embed a YouTube clip. The link works anyway.

Charlie Musselwhite? Sure enough! He's something of a blues legend.

Here's my contribution from a stone cold virtuoso:

Goran Krivokapic - Bach Violin Sonata III Allegro Assai (arranged for guitar)

Marvelous! I found it at cyber hymnal

I'll look forward to it. It's a lovely text but unfamiliar.

I know it not...

Nor I, though I recognize only a smattering of Gaither songs & hymns.

I just found this. You folks have been having fun and I didn't know!

A bit more contemporary than most submissions here, but this is a fave. Fourth stanza.

O Cross that liftest up my head,

I dare not ask to fly from thee;

I lay in dust life’s glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red

Life that shall endless be.

Body or Bride? Yes.

It gets old, doesn't it? We are now back on after having been without power for 9 days following Gustav. We got phone/cable/net back on the 10th day, but some are still waiting, going on 3 weeks. It got old after day 7. Before that it was lots of fun. But heat, exhaution & stress take their toll.

Keith, I think the short answer is that deviant sexual predators have an uncanny 'nose' for the vulnerable, those whose fences aren't solidly in place. People that have been abused simply don't have the equipment to escape on their own and the abuser senses this. It's heartbreaking to think that the most fragile...those on need of gentlest treatment, instead got carefully set up and abused in the most callous manner.

I loved the book. I, too, was able to identify a great many characters in the drama.

I had lots of red flags about Der Veg but kept getting stopped by thinking similar to what Kris expressed. And I wasn't being abused. Abuse submerges you in a unique 'fog' that makes clear thinking nigh impossible.

No, it's not. That's Steve & Beth Strick.

I'm so sorry about Beth. Steve, if you're reading this: prayers, brother. Beth was a uniquely godly person that shined an uncommon in the Way community.

If I'm not mistaken Beth is JoEllen Smith's sister, so condolences go to her as well.

What an interesting read! The further I go the 'engrossder' I get. The heartbreaking child-beating vignette, though billed as fiction, was only partially so. Though the names are different, I remember the house, the people (the details are there, down to the fingernails), everything.

His getting tossed from the way in 79 makes for gripping reading. What an awful cult.

Gosh, what a great find, Seth. Thanks for posting that. It's funny to see my name in print like that. Obviously Jay is a thoughtful guy and I think he's a fine writer. Despite his description I never beat up people in 8th grade, but I did fall in with a tough crowd when I moved to Wichita from the Bay Area (having recently lost both parents to suicide) to live with my grandfather. I was in 8th grade there for less than 6 weeks before my grandfather shipped me off to military school.

I believe that Jay was in ministry with John Juedes for a time, but I don't know where he is now nor what he is doing. I always meant to apologize to him for my role in dragging him into the way. But perhaps he, like I do, sees it as part of God's sovereign plan that the Lord has used to weave together the people we have become.

Actually, bride, your position is closer to Calvinist soteriology than you might think. The Calvinist view of salvation maintains that if the ongoing sanctification (your "being saved", if you will) is not in evidence, then the initial receiving of Christ was a sham, a religious self-deception. They see soteriology in its totality from foreordination and election, though initial faith and subsequent sanctification to ultimate salvation in the end. Same totality as you declare, somewhat different particulars. I would only take issue with "three salvations". There is only one salvation Christ came to bring to his sheep and it is a complete salvation.

As you said, we are not saved by our doctrine, but by faith in Christ alone.

Romans 3:25 "Whom God hath set forth to

be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to

declare his righteousness for the remission of

sins that are past, "

Hi all,

I was wondering about this topic...being born again. I know the Way's stand on it, but I know I have often times even wondered if I am born again. Does this mean i have no faith???? I am very confused. I get so paniced about this often, and it doesn't help I am already on anxiety meds for a long running anxiety disorder (runs in my family...hooray). I am really trying to figure this out. I know what Romans 10:9,10 says, but I have had people tell me that is goes deeper than that....like what? I was also told that you can lose your salvation once you are born again...and of course this floored me, scared the dang out of me. Because for me, God has been the only real contant in my life, and now I feel like I am losing touch with Him, I find myself even wondering if he is out there, or if He still accepts me. THis has turned into a faith crisis for me, and is seriously affecting my life on a daily basis. I may have touched on this in another post, but if anyone can shed some true light here, I would be very much love to have that feeling of safety I once had with God. Is this something I have worked up in my head? Can people fall from grace? I know I am not without sin, and I know I still sin through my human weakness. But I always makes sure to ask God for forgiveness, but does He eventually close His grace off to us if we sin too much, or give into too many temptations. I won't lie, I have givien into temptations I knew were wrong, but I did it anyway...am I lost!!!!!

Great post, Chuck.

There are a number of competing theologies on salvation and they all seem to have good support, biblically. I'll not address that here. The fact that you are having a "faith crisis" can be a most wonderful thing, as it certainly was for me. My uncertainty and anguish literally drove me to my knees. In the end I got an assurance I never had before and in many ways that was the real start of my life of Christian service. I no longer thought I was saved because of what I believed, but I knew I belonged to God because He is the one who gave me the assurance. That experience gave me separation from my old Way beiefs like no other experience.

My advice is to continue to seek God in prayer. He will answer. Good (if sometimes uncomfortable) journey!

nice leica

We never were taught in TWI about the tranfiguration on the Mount when Christ took Peter, John and James with him and they saw him in his full glory.

But if you read acts and I and II Peter, it was something always with Peter, he never forgot it. As the "main" apostle, he spoke of it often.

I'm also reminded of the incident when Saul went to the witch of Endor and had her bring up Samuel.

She freaked out, because, instead of channeling a spirit, as she probably was used to doing - another ho hum reading, she really did bring up Samuel. God allowed his soul to be brought up from Paradise, or Abraham's bosom - Sheol, where he and the other righteous saints waited for Christ. I think it really was him, not a devil spirit, as VP taught.

We read in Revelation how the souls of the martyred tribulation saints, before they are clothed with their new bodies, ask God how long until they are avenged as they await their new bodies in heaven.

There are just too many scriptures re: souls and they are not blotted out or obliterated. There is a place where those who await judgment go, and a place where those who are His are with him as both groups await their bodies prepared for eternity.

Sunesis or others, can you recommend anything on the topic that deals with the state of the dead biblically? I'm particularly interested in something that answers the annhilationist and 'soul-sleep' positions we learned in Der Weg.

We have a home fellowship with a mix of former Way and never Way. A wonderful 'never-Way' man brought up this very question and a brief discussion ensued. I've been meditating on it and the word-picture of Lazarus being 'in the bosom of Abraham' resonates with me. So I'm interested, not that I expect to solve the problem and declare a written-in-stone doctrine, but in seeing the value of the orthodox position. (I've often described my post-Way journey as a long, slow slide into orthodoxy)

Preacher, folks can engage in 'dueling bibles' till kingdom come and only sow discord and never solve a thing.

Why is doctrine so important? How important should it be? Must we have a certain doctrinal statement for every possible point? I think not and I think it is a mistake to think there are no mysteries that will remain unsoved. No wonder the apostle wrote "GREAT is the mystery of godliness..."

Well gee, you're welcome. :)