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Hey faithGoons! Since we're doing reintroductions: I'm a protestant congregationalist pastor's kid who had a brush with conservative evangelicalism in middle school and now identifies as a primarily-but-not-exclusively-christocentric universalist. My Dad was a second career preacher, so I experienced growing up in a church as a regular congregant and then high school and college I was The Pastor's Son which let me see the role both from the inside and the outside. I mostly lurk but do follow the conversations and try to grok how we all approach and experience the divine in our lives. To lean on one of my favorite metaphors, I like to see the many lamps we have from which shines one light.
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Jan 13, 2021 15:05
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 02:05 |
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Tias posted:That's cool. What do you recognize of deities besides Christ/G_d? What a great question. So in my Congregationalist background, I found it helpful to to describe it using a contrast with more regimented and hierarchical denominations. Rather than a specific creed or listing of beliefs, Congregationalists instead mutually affirm one another's beliefs. I may percieve and discern the nature of God one way, while the person in the pew in front of me may have a completely different realization of the divine. Rather than debate over who may be right, we can accept that no matter our viewpoint, God isn't wrong and can support one another as we continue to learn and practice our beliefs. I like to take that now a step further: I have no place standing between somone and their concept of divinity, of holiness, of guidance from Gods. There is no compulsory Church of Nth Doctor and I've also come to the conclusion that I myself am not a diety so I can't self appoint myself inquisitor. :-) So with that being the case, then as respectfully as possible: I recognize dieties worshipped by others as the way that they best experience holiness, and try not to project my own view of God into their experiences, into their worship, and into their faith. I once likened the myriad ways we all experience our faith and interact with our dieties as different wrapping paper on the same gift. Later on, Hey Guns I believe it was said independently that it is the ritual that they find most important and I realized that the wrapping paper metaphor can trivialize that and diminish their beliefs. I'm still looking for a better metaphor but put plainly: while I conceptualize a trinitarian God in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of mainline protestant Christianity, I do not and can not bar anyone else from having a different concept or set of concepts. I feel like I'm writing this really clunkily, and sincerely hope I'm not being disrespectful. By popular demand posted:The splittings and persecutions between religious sects who believe basically the same things are endlessly confounding to me. The Narcissism of Small Differences is a good starting point. Or for the sound and light experience https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3fAcxcxoZ8
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Jan 13, 2021 19:23
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My friends, casseroles and hot dishes are nice but can't we all agree that the pies made by the littlest and oldest ladies are the best thing on the 1970’s era card table over by the coffee urn?
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Jan 14, 2021 08:07
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Worthleast posted:The smell of stale coffee fills the church of God. It's a step up from the aroma of burnt offerings.
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Jan 14, 2021 15:02
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PantlessBadger posted:
That's a good silly hat.
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Jan 15, 2021 20:48
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 Great physician, heal our hearts.
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Jan 17, 2021 21:14
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Fritz the Horse posted:Then I'd say NOOOO and the looks on kids faces are priceless. Varying mixtures of confused and indignant etc. "Science is not a belief system!" Then I'd talk for a bit about how science works. I love everything about this
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Jan 23, 2021 02:26
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Fritz the Horse posted:edit: No but you're the bestest horse in these here parts, and that counts for a lot.
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Jan 25, 2021 06:21
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WrenP-Complete posted:Hello new thread. I was literally just thinking about you and your beloved a minute before scrolling your post onto view! I can't recall: have you guys set a date yet or are you awaiting the after times?
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Jan 25, 2021 14:04
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My ADHD is raging something fierce, and I'm sorry if I didn't read all of the conversation on Forgiveness so far well enough to pick up on everyone's nuance. Forgiveness to me proves I'm not divine. Or at least proves to me I have a ways to go in following God's example. As a Universalist, I do sincerely believe everyone is heavenward bound and seek best to work in the here-and-now to make our society more like what I believe the Kingdom of God to be. There are many about whom I very naturally think "that person's a bastard, gently caress them." and have to grapple with my own inability to forgive them vs. my belief that God has granted them grace. Grace I can't begin to understand, but am okay for now with not being able to do so. I find it disquieting when I catch myself so angry at someone I've never met and find myself blind to the fact that they too are a creation of God. It's one of the big things I'm trying to work on 
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Feb 9, 2021 23:41
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HopperUK posted:Solidarity mate. I got diagnosed a few weeks ago and it's contextualised a lot about my life in general. Welcome. I got my diagnosis about three years ago and it did the same. Within a year I got the promotion I had been working on for literal years.
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Feb 10, 2021 03:42
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sb hermit posted:This resonates with me a whole lot because it allows the victim to make peace with the fact that the wrong-doer will continue to do wrong. And attempting to guide or change the wrong-doer's agency simply via forgiveness can lead at the very least to frustration, if not somewhere worse. What keeps rolling around in my head with this tweet is: Having and expressing the capacity to forgive is about my character. Repeatedly harming is about theirs.
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Feb 10, 2021 06:47
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Night10194 posted:I too deal with the ADHD, though my case is pretty mild and well-managed. It's the Generalized Anxiety Disorder that gives me trouble. The depression for which I was in therapy for years? Primarily present thanks to the undiagnosed ADHD. Same with Mrs. Doctor's anxiety. She was so mad the therapist she had seen for years hadn't caught the ADHD that she found a new one over it.
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Feb 11, 2021 13:50
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White Coke posted:My father is going in for surgery tomorrow to have a tumor removed from his remaining adrenal gland, please pray for him. Greatest physician, guide his surgeon's hands.
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Feb 12, 2021 13:23
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Thirteen Orphans posted:A coin set of the corpus of sigils from the Key of Solomon. I thought some folks in the thread might find them interesting. It took me a minute to parse that this was kickstarter, and I thought these were medieval coins being sold for over $45k. "Huh, a bit cavalier to have these just knocking around in a velvet bag if they're this valuable" Literacy is hard today. I only know the season because of what color the banners in the church are dontchaknow.
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Feb 18, 2021 16:10
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Greatest healer, lay your hands on Pershing as to heal their body. So too lay your hands upon Emily, as to heal her heart. Let the memory of Mary be a blessing to all she knew, and welcome her into what lies beyond.
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Feb 19, 2021 02:28
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zonohedron posted:HEY GUNS and I have been insisting for at least four iterations of this thread that ritual isn't the seasoning you sprinkle on top of your religious life (where some people like more and some people like less and some people just leave it off) but is instead absolutely central to it HEY GUNS' stating the centrality of ritual to his faith actually caused me to reconsider and discard a metaphor I'd been using for ecumenism that I'm sure came off as incredibly hurtful.
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Feb 26, 2021 03:08
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TOOT BOOT posted:I was actually involved in a related discussion on Facebook today, about whether there's such a thing as unforgivable sin. I used the example of Judas and pointed out that one of the gospels says Judas repented, and it's within what we know of Jesus's character to believe that he would forgive Judas. Does this mean Judas is in heaven, or is what he did unforgivable despite repentence? Grappling with whether Judas would be condemned to hell for his role in salvation sent me on my path to universalism.
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Feb 27, 2021 23:06
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Bilirubin posted:*hauls out thick doctrinal book, blows dust off of it* So Question #2 is whether Christ was born a man and granted Godhood or was right from the get-go, right? Please answer in essay form and show your work.
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Mar 5, 2021 20:52
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WrenP-Complete posted:We just taught the high schoolers a mishnah that has the opinion that in order to get rid of leavened bread before Passover you can throw it into the ocean. (It's halachically legal and such a thrill!). This is amazing.
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Mar 15, 2021 05:35
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Please pray for my grandfather, Hal (son of Hope and Southard). My mom just got the call from his hospice nurse and then one from his social worker that while he isn't transitioning yet, it isn't far off.
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Apr 1, 2021 17:12
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So I feel very fortunate. While my Grandfather's care team don't see him as getting better, neither has he begun "transitioning" as my parents put it. I was able to speak to him and his wife tonight. He's still lucid, and cheerful though he couldn't recall Mrs. Doctor's name. I was able to have my kids say hello and tell him that they loved him. Death and dying stuff. My father's stepfather, my other grandfather essentially, went into the hospital after a fall last March, tested positive for COVID, developed a UTI, and then passed away on Easter morning last year. I never got a chance to say goodbye to him, let alone my kids. Because of all of the lockdown stresses and such, we didn't even tell them anything until after he had passed. A UTI is also what happened here, and so in a lot of ways this feels like history echoing. I'm thankful that I was able to call and have a conversation. I'm not sure how many more I'll get.
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Apr 2, 2021 01:24
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Christ is risen indeed! I can never get over how many times John repeats that he won the footrace to the tomb.
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Apr 4, 2021 14:36
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zonohedron posted:Because he was younger and faster, not like the old creaky fisherman Peter (who was probably only three or four years older, but details), and yet he was polite enough to wait, look at all his He waited for slow Peter, of course, because he got there first. By being faster. 
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Apr 4, 2021 14:55
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BattyKiara posted:Here is my favourite Easter Poem. Some of you will NOT like it, but I absolutely love it:
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Apr 4, 2021 22:34
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Captain von Trapp posted:Oh, I love that one. I think "Low in the Grave He Lay" is probably the definitive classic Baptist Easter hymn, and I love it too: Any Hymn with harmony that allows me to Bass the heck out of it is a Good Hymn.
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Apr 5, 2021 15:32
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My Grandfather left this life behind this morning. Ever the gentleman, he waited until my mother had left the room to go get coffee. His last words were his musical cadence of "and I love you" in response to my mom. His pain is over and while I'll miss him, I'm glad he is at rest.
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Apr 8, 2021 04:02
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Lutha Mahtin posted:martina luther would have written an entire book raging about the damnable curse of menses That may be how it was pronounced in the Middle Earth years of the early 16th Century but nowadays wouldn't it be better as "the damnable curse of men"? 
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Apr 17, 2021 13:09
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CommonShore posted:Someone sent me this story today and it is relevant to the current conversation That was beautiful
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May 24, 2021 23:02
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WrenP-Complete posted:I gave my sermon! It was about becoming aware of our own reactivity, calming ourselves, and taking a deeper dive into a multiplicity of truth, dialectic and non duality. My grandfather said it was an encapsulation of the values he's been trying to impart to me my entire life. Really incredible experience. I'm so glad for you! Good Sabbath! HopperUK posted:I once lost my temper and stormed downstairs and went "For gently caress's sake Mark it's three in the loving morning will you go HOME" to my priest, who had formed an accordion-organ duo with my dad to sing a million loud Irish drinking songs forever. You should've joined in, that sounds loving awesome. 
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Jun 19, 2021 19:02
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Aaaaaah! Wren I'm so happy for you!
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Jun 30, 2021 06:09
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docbeard posted:There are a whole bunch of minor variants that are really funny when you get a bunch of Christians who were raised in different places/from different denominations together and go SURELY WE ALL HAVE THIS IN COMMON. This factors in to one of my favorite episodes of Moral Orel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cT1yVtu9NTY
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Aug 5, 2021 18:01
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CPAP life is a good life. I've had a blackout since Wednesday and miss my air machine something fierce.
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Aug 13, 2021 20:34
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WrenP-Complete posted:We have had a few students delay their bar or bat mitzvah celebrations because of the pandemic, and now it's becoming more and more apparent why we don't commonly have public celebrations of 14 year old girls. Blessed sabbath and good vibes to you. I'm glad the young ones have someone with your mindset as an example. E: power came back on and I had my first good night's sleep in days last night. CPAP showed nearly 10 hours of use.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:40
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Double post but prayers for Haiti where on top of everything else they just suffered a major earthquake stronger even than the devastating 2010 quake.
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Aug 14, 2021 23:02
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Goodbye anything with slant rhyming
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Sep 2, 2021 05:28
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D34THROW posted:Is there a Christian music thread on SA or would this be it? I searched for Christian, gospel, worship, and got...jack. Five Iron Frenzy really holds up in a lot of ways, IMO.
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Sep 2, 2021 18:12
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Fritz the Horse posted:Happy Rosh Hashanah to our Judaigoons! L'shana tova! Happy 5782!
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Sep 7, 2021 11:59
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Bar Ran Dun posted:At seminary the students all do this a lot in hospitals for end of life ministry. It is incredibly common for cross denomination and even cross religion death rituals to be done. Its a one is the only person there sort of thing as it was explained to me. Oh WOW did this drum up a memory for me. I'm coming back to write it up but I really need to finish the chore I'm in the middle of doing
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Oct 19, 2021 02:37
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 02:05 |
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Nth Doctor posted:Oh WOW did this drum up a memory for me. So I had forgotten about this until this evening. I don't think I'm 100% comfortable about what happened, but I know that this moment is 100% not about my comfort. The last church which I attended regularly was a Church of Christ (Disciples of Christ) church. While there, I served as a deacon, an elder, as the council vice president and the council president. I spent a good six years in active lay-leadership. One of the central practices of the denomination was communion that was open to all. Our church would go once a month to a local nursing home to lead a worship service and offer communion to the attendees. One time, on my way out after we had finished up, a woman approached me and asked if we were here giving communion to residents. "Are you a priest?" "Well, no. We're protestant. I'm Nth, an elder though." "Hmm... okay. My mom is here and has memory issues. Can I introduce you as Father Nth and you can give her communion?" I went along with it with a few justifications: Disciples of Christ elders are the ones who recite the words of institution and pray over the elements, I had been clear with the daughter and she was in a better position than me to know her mother's faith, that if the mother drew meaning from taking communion then who was I to interrupt her feeling closer to God by saying I wasn't specifically what I was being presented as. I'm still more convinced I did the right thing than that I did the wrong thing, but I also think that isn't a universal opinion.
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Oct 19, 2021 04:08
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