I was wondering this week while thinking about the holiday season what would happen if every excommunicated holdeman refused to participate in the ridiculous custom of the advoidance. When our parents, brothers, sisters, etc. invite us for Christmas we would tell them we will come only if they treat us as normal human beings. Can you imagine how frustrating it would be to them if we stopped submitting to them and no longer allowed them and their evil empire to have dominion over us?

I didn't know I had to wait for Christmas!

Bryon, I told my parents years ago, "no separate table."


I said, "If we'll be set by at a separate table, don't bother inviting us."

The thing that pissed me off, and still does to this day, is when we were assured that we would't be set separate at my own brother's wedding many years ago.

After the usher tried to show my wife and me to the expelled table I refused and we went, instead, to the café to eat.

Never again will I allow myself or my family to be treated as second rate citizens.

I do allow the Holdi-buffet, sometimes, but I don't like it. I find that the less time spent with them the better.

Bryon:

Good idea, although like Scott and Sirius said, why wait for Christmas. Personally, although I never joined the Holdies, I have made the decision that I will not be present where the avoidance is held.

If all X's and N's were to boycott all events where the avoidance is held, I wonder at what point the Holdies might eventually say it's just not worth it?

My husband and I explained to his parents (when we were expelled 5 1/2 years ago) that we would never put up with the nonsense of the avoidance. His mom (or dad, I don't remember) was distraught and begged us to "submit" to the avoidance. We declined and the comment was then made that it won't work if we don't submit.
Our relationship with them is now non-existent, by their choice because they refuse to deal with us if they cannot avoid us. I have seen them only a handful of times in the last five years.

>>it won't work if we don't submit< <br>
Precisely. That's why a full-on boycott of situations of Holde-avoidance would be so powerful. It takes the power away from the abusers and puts it into the hands of the victims. The fact that your in-laws won't interact with you unless they can shun you goes to show that they can't handle having to treat 'outcasts' like you as equals. They realise that they are powerless to force the avoidance on you if you don't submit.

So, to everyone who is affected by the Holde-avoidance, let this Christmas be the season in which you stand up to the evil empire of the Holdechurch and tell them that you will not participate in the avoidance, either by participating in it (i.e. sitting with Holdies while the ex'es are shunted off to the unholy card table), digifiying and tolerating it by attending events where the Holde-avoidance is held (sitting at the unholy card table with ex'es) or by submitting to it (allowing them to put you at the unholy card table if you're an ex).

(By the way, I just got off the phone with my aunt and told her politely and gently that we would not be attending the family gathering at her place because of the separate tables situation. Also, for the first time in 10 years, I will be able to eat Christmas dinner with both of my parents. No, my dad is not reaccepted, nor has my mom been expelled. But there will be no Holde-avoidance in my parents' home this Christmas or any other day).

"will be no Holde-avoidance in my parents' home this Christmas or any other day)."


Never was at our house either. Me pappy said we are family, in or out of church. He wouldn't allow it at home when he was in the church. and he didn't allow it when he got excommunicated. Its the one thing ,among many, that I really admired of my father.
Satan loves the holdeman church for it's unbiblical avoidance practice.

It's a painful situation all around when it involves parents. With anyone else, we can state our piece and they can feel like they want, but when it's our aging parents and we make a scene, it hurts them because we are not dealing with an adult/respect issue;we are forcing them to go against what they believe to be their salvation. This is something I have struggled with much because I know my parents hate doing it, but they feel like in their home they need to....and then I feel like when it is their home we owe them some respect. Or else we just don't go. How do we deal with the whole respect thing as adults? I expect them to respect my ways in our home so then should I in theirs? When we have the family here for a meal they know we all sit together and they accept that so what is our responsibility to them?

Well, cupcake, you're assuming that the Holde-position is the default position. If your parents believed that sacrificing babies was a good thing, would you go along with it in their home because you feel you owe them 'respect'? Not likely. (I think!) So, why go along with them on something that is morally objectionable and anti-social like the demonic practise of holding the avoidance?

What galls me about this avoidance thing is that vast majority of holdemans approve of avoidance and
they don't even know the scriptures on it. Guys like TR,TM, and my b-i-l are going to tell you, "Well the
Bible says 'Do not even eat with such a one'", without having the slightest idea what the first part
of the verse says. These guys are, once again, simply following a long standing church rule, all because
the preacha said so, and. "yeah we know what the Bible says, but thats not what we believe". You holdemans
will pay dearly for hurting people like you have, trust me, you will.

I find the whole avoidance thing funny. The mennos here avoid me and my wife like we are lepers (while spreading the most amazing rumors about us), but they feel free to contact us if they want to sell us something! So I ignore them and shop elsewhere.

Taken from a website:

Lesson 6: Ethics and Morality

So much of what is preached and publicized on behalf of Christian churches today consists of encouraging and sustaining morality as a basis of Christian theology. In fact, one might hear the proposal that morality is theology.

Morality is not theology because it consists, as Alan Watts wrote, of telling people how to behave. Focusing on morality - telling people how to behave - does not impact public or private thinking except as it relates to control of behavior. So long as the emphasis is on morality the emphasis is on control.

Preaching morality rather than the virtues of goodness particularly the common good we all ought to be seeking gives us mostly sermons and exhortations limited to issues that are defined entirely by judgmental thinking.

Judgmental thinking in a religious or spiritual context drags the positive and negative aspects of human behavior into moral areas where actions are governed out of a concern for reward or punishment. Judgmental thinking has at its core the idea of worthiness based on reward and punishment. Reward/punishment tools of fear, shame and guilt if ever used successfully; always result in the right things being done for the wrong reasons.

So long as we Christians view the Bible and use the Bible in a manner driven primarily by concerns about moral behavior, we remain in a one-down competition with ideas and philosophies that do in fact elevate the concept of doing the right things for the right reasons.

There is value in reward and punishment if the only goal is that of deterrence, intimidating those who would commit acts that would harm another person. In that regard deterrence is a device intended to discourage criminal activity.

This sort of spiritual construct only works if God is likewise viewed as judgmental and punitive, responding to human behavior in a manner that creates deterrence and control. Whether spiritual or civic, this control is legalistic in thinking it is both spiritual and civic governance by the letter of the law.

It also exaggerates and escalates sin into the realm of criminal activity.

Sin has been incorrectly defined and then institutionalized for the most part as a wicked act, something that is an affront to God who cannot "tolerate sin with any degree of allowance" and also suggests that therefore we too should obsess on sin.

Sin originally meant "missing the mark," as in, to "try and not succeed". If the "sin" has negative consequences on someone else then one is guilty of missing the mark with a wider and more serious consequence. In any regard, sin meant a choice based on poor or faulty judgment.

A changed meaning and image of sin as something immoral which is then married to the image of a judgmental and punitive God creates in our lives a sense that sin is something connected with the more powerful word, "evil". It becomes easy to accept the idea that the monarchical God is offended because when we "sin"; because we commit evil acts.

One might conclude that when the phrase we are all sinners is expressed, the horrific we are all evil is just around the bend. Sinfulness in that regard relegates humanity to living in a state of criminal activity as viewed by God. That seems to be the desired state needful to those who equate morality to theology.

Once we can conceive of God being offended, we cause Him to no longer be God, because he has become judgmental to a fault. God seeing things only in either/or or black/white terms is something wanting in wisdom and gives lie to any pronouncement of mercy. Jesus understood this and used the Prodigal Son to demonstrate it.

From the labels of sin and evil, the next logical step with sin is a concept of exclusion or discriminatory thinking in which the "sinner" somehow has failed while the rest of us are still acceptable to God. The sinner now has a handicap that leaves him/her "less-than" until the other FORMula (as in form over substance) ingredient of repentance is accomplished.

Exclusionary thinking awakens discrimination at this point when we decide that since the "sinner" is now "less-than" who or what we consider ourselves to be and since we feel "uncomfortable" in the presence of sin and/or sinners, we exclude by condemnation, social avoidance, shunning, excommunication or something worse.

Such is a false and non-scriptural path and reflects the thinking of the Prodigal Son's older brother. When the Father of the Prodigal Son responded to the judgmental and resentful score-keeping older brother, he did not applaud the sons literal thinking nor the sons blind obedience. Had he done so he would have agreed that the younger son didnt deserve the treatment the Father was about to give. He would have been The Judgmental Father of a Judgmental Son and justified 500+ years of Christian moralizing.

We don't have to be bigots to suffer from the illness of self-righteousness. All we have to be is of a mind that one of our spiritual "shoulds" is to discern not "sin" but whoever has "sinned". We allow ourselves to condemn the action and feel to thank God that we have not done what the "sinner" has done. However, we tend not to stop there and many of us behave in a way that suggests that we personally feel in fact more holy and worthy than the sinner - and even more righteous.

We dont hate the sinner. We hate the sin, but we love the sinner.

There is a smugness and condescension in that statement that is almost impossible to hide. It is not the thinking of the Father of the Prodigal Son. It is a thinking that lies at the heart of an attitude which accelerates from hating the sin to advocating punitive action against the sinner. It is not Go, and sin no more.

Again, Jesus understood this. He made no attempt to modify the stoning of the woman caught in adultery into something less capital but still punitive. He simply said, Go and sin no more. Try to stop missing the mark and you will stop harming yourself and others.

It is not God who insists that we label ourselves and convince ourselves that we are sinners, sinful and essentially evil-natured. It is merely other human beings, equally flawed and imperfect as we are who insist that it must be Gods will that we all walk around labeling ourselves as sinners, as sinful and therefore bordering on evil as our natural mortal state.

and then I feel like when it is their home we owe them some respect

Cupcake, that's bull**** and you know it. Why do you owe them respect? Are you for or against the breaking up of families? Do they sit you and KB and your children at a separate table, or is it just KB by himself and you and the kids with everyone else?

I don't know if you realize this or not, but when you allow this type of behavior at their house you are basically giving them the go ahead to break up your family if only for a short while. That short while is a very important part of human interaction, eating and sharing together.

we are forcing them to go against what they believe to be their salvation.

What in the world are you forcing them to do? It is obvious that it's not a salvation issue for them, otherwise they wouldn't eat with you at your own house. What's the difference, your house or their's?

And what is this telling your kids, that dad is doing something wrong? Get a backbone, cupcake. Stand up for the father of your children. Don't allow your parents to show him this kind of disrespect in front of the most important part of your lives, your children.

About three years ago I thought I had had it with the whole avoidance thing. I decided I would tell my family they would no longer be seeing me if it continued. I was ready to say it the next time I saw them when God spoke to me very clearly, just like I could hear a voice in my head. (Yes, Sirius, he speaks) He said "If you will take the lowest seat in the house now someday I will give you the highest seat in the house." That was all, and I never fretted about it again, except for one thing. I made it clear that if they were going to do it to me they would also do it to my children who have never been members. I won't put my children in the position of eating apart from me, and if my family is comfortable doing it to them, well, then, more power to them. It is less harmful for my children to be avoided along with me than to participate in avoiding me. That is just what happened to me. I'm not saying what I think is wrong or right, or what anyone else should do. On the infrequent occasions when they come to my house, I eat with them. I certainly will not avoid myself in my own house, and by coming to my house they give their tacit approval to the way I am going to handle it. Just because I decided to go ahead and let them avoid me doesn't mean I like it or that it is easy, but I did find some peace in the matter. I was not prepared to give up my family, and I decided I could be the bigger person and let them do it to me. It is never easy, but I haven't had the turmoil about it since I made the choice to let them abuse me and let it be on their conscience. As I already said, it is never easy.

We've gone with the boycott route for the past several years, and it seems to work fairly well. Once you get the message across one way or the other that you're not gonna tolerate that insanity, everything goes better. Sometimes they (the H) like to act stupid, like they don't understand why you're not coming to their house for a meal, but I think it is pretty self explanatory. Like Sirius, we have tolerated the holdebuffet, but I think I'm almost done with that, since it is just another way to accomplish the same thing. It's a freak show.

To go along with that, I've decided that we will not attend a church service where they will not shake our hand. The only exception would be a funeral.

You gotta fight fire with fire.

This avoidance doctrine definitely puts enmity between family members. I've did a lot of thinking on this matter and everything comes to a dead end. If you use your own power to deal with it, your own religion gets involved. And the way I submitted to it I don't think is quite spiritually sound. But the family is one of the oldest institution in the world, and it's a beautiful one to boot, and I'm sure you exholdemans that have children would agree to that. And if your children should get a different religion than yourself when they grow up, what would you say when they avoided you? But if a religion is so intense it causes hate, it's just as well to avoid. But hate for hate don't justify the avoidance either. This new generation of young people growing up in the church appears to be a very pious bunch, and if that appearance pans out, its going to take the church in an extreme direction. When I was in my adolescence and already expelled from the church, my mom's mother would never allow the avoidance in her home. Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter on their farm west of Fairview against those red hills, were very festive without any sense of religion in the air. But look folks, none of us brought religion to the farm. Religion has been pretty free in my parents home too concerning the avoidance, but I concede most of that's on my part by shear will {which I have questioned in myself}. But woe folks, if I should bring my own religion into their home, I fear it would raise that ugly head of avoidance through the roof.

Brent

Okay, My take on this... However unpleasant, they treat me like "salt that has lost its saltiness" good for nothing but to be thrown out. And today that happened again... And I feel like boycott. But then how are we suppost to be yeast for the Kingdom if we stay away? And did not our Lord pray that the Father not take us out of the world but leave us in it, and protect us?

VS, that a thoughtful post.

Brent

VS,good thoughts.

And Sirius,as hard as it is for you to believe,there actually are more ways than yours of dealing with things..

GM, that article was extremely interesting and deep. It basically deals with the basis of performance-based religion. How could cruel judgements and exclusive arrogance not flow from a foundation like this.

Scott, those were my thoughts too. What also stood out to me was this:



>Judgmental thinking in a religious or spiritual context drags the positive and negative aspects of human behavior into moral areas where actions are governed out of a concern for reward or punishment. Judgmental thinking has at its core the idea of worthiness based on reward and punishment. Reward/punishment tools of fear, shame and guilt...< <br>

So much of the H preaching is fear-based 'judgmental thinking'. We are 'worthy' if we DO all the right things.


And this one:

>Exclusionary thinking awakens discrimination at this point when we decide that since the "sinner" is now "less-than" who or what we consider ourselves to be and since we feel "uncomfortable" in the presence of sin and/or sinners, we exclude by condemnation, social avoidance, shunning, excommunication or something worse. < <br>

This is where we get our self-righteous, holier-than-thou attitude. If we grow up with this exclusionary thinking it's almost in-bred in our DNA.

How do we deal with the whole respect thing as adults?

so what is our responsibility to them

Cupcake, when you and KB married, the respect and responsibility you had toward your parents shifted to each other. I'll bet even the Bible indicates that somewhere.

I still say if you watch your husband being treated this way, especially in front of your kids, and go along with it, you belittle the vows you took at your marriage.

And Sirius,as hard as it is for you to believe,there actually are more ways than yours of dealing with things..

Well, cupcake, as hard as it seems for you to believe, actually making a choice to deal with something is better than making no choice at all.

Here's you, cupcake.

"Oh, I don't know if I should stay a Holdeman."

Complain about the Holdemans.

"Oh no, I wonder if I'll go to hell if I leave."

Post a you tube.

"Oh dear, I just don't like the avoidance thing."

Joke about bras.



Christ almighty,lady, make a choice!

I totally agree!

Advice from the atheist and htroll?! I'm all ears!

Cupcake, looks like you're being jerked around between a Joker and a King. Play your cards carefully, take your time and make the right decisions. I'll tell you when to hold'em and when to fold'em. You can trust me, lol!

Play your cards carefully, take your time and make the right decisions.

GM, taking her time is one thing you wont have to caution cupcake on.

By the time she finally decides to play her hand and leave the Holdemans, the jukebox will be silent, the whiskey will be gone and the sun will be coming up.

Yeah, but she'll have a Full House, and win the jackpot! [I really don't know what I'm saying, it's 12:00 , by then ,uh well, uh my mind, uh hum uh gets kind of fuuzzyy.............

"I totally agree"

Ha! Now Htroll, if that isn't a joke! The proverbial pot calling the kettle black! Look in the mirror.

it's 12:00 , by then ,uh well, uh my mind, uh hum uh gets kind of fuuzzyy............

Come on, GM, ol buddy, shake it off. Go outside and throw a little snow on your face. We gots a long night ahead.

Well, I hain't gots no snow heah, but I'll tell ya what now, It's colder'n a well diggers butt out thea, it'd freeze a feller stiff in a few minutes...

Well, I gots plenty a snow here if you wants some. Cold too. A feller needs to keep his britches hiked up real good on account of the cold will get down there if'n he don't.

---

Strange, I see none of the Chosen Ones weighing in on this sensetive subject. Does this mean they decided not to defend the in defensible?

If they choose to do so, just what verses do they use to defend it? I would like to see whole verses within the context they were written in. I would like to see them juxtaposed next to the verses of Jesus having interaction with proclaimed sinners.

Then, an intelligent dicussion might be possible.

Heres GM

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Come on man are you afraid the tech committee is watching

Say watch ya want to say and let it be!

I am spending this Christmas with the realization that when it comes to family it doesn't matter who is right or who is wrong, life is too short and too precious to bicker about details, love your siblings and their kids. You never know when your time with them is over....I lost a brother way too soon to brain cancer, the reality is he is gone, his wife has moved on and remarried. They are uncomfortable with the situation...its awkward, where do we fit into their picture and who are they and us with out the link that connected us. How do the kids adjust to the new life??? ...do they need to let go of the old one??? So many questions remain unanswered, and I don't know what our Christmas will look like...but I do know now that I don't regret a moment of time spent with Les, or a single laugh we had. We didn't agree in some areas but we always loved each other.
I have decided to celebrate this Christmas regardless of the outcome, expressing love not opinions.
Pray for me that I accomplish this.

OS,I have been taking care of other things lately.

I would like to weigh in here.I know that the practice of avoidance is a very touchy issue.There is also a confusing variance in the way it is carried out.The gambit runs all the way from members who complete ignore it to those who treat the expelled with a holier than thou rudeness.

Personally I feel it is not my prerogative to judge anyone.When I invite someone to my home they are treated with scriptural hospitality which includes sitting at my table and eating with me.In my opinion the avoidance is best held by refraining to engage in any conversation that would cause my guest to become offended or cause him to sin or justify the sins he has previously committed.

The same holds true when I meet someone.I respectfully shake their hand and bid them the time of day.I believe there is a distinct difference between the handshake of christian fellowship and the handshake of courtesy.

I need to get ready for worship service and may post further afterwards.



Mr. Gomez

I was reading on a JW site yesterday. They are dealing with the very same problems that is being discussed here. This is what one person had to say:


Gareth wrote:

I also would find shunning difficult to do in a practical sense. If someone talks to you is it difficult to avoid talking back without being rude. I was never brought up to be rude.
However I do believe that this is the right thing for Jesus' congregation.
Jesus talked to everyone and anyone who would receive him. However when he talked to the apostate leaders he was often critical and deliberately talked in parables that they would not understand. Only those who receive him understand him.
I think the Bible demonstrates that shunning was a feature of the original congregation through the letters of Paul and it is also reminiscent of the Mosaic system where the names of opposers were removed from the book of Israel.
Obviously they were also stoned to death and in that respect the Christian arrangement is rather more forgiving.
One thing to remember is that disfellowshipping is never seen as a permanent thing. It is meant to be temporary. It is hoped that the person will feel remorse if the congregation as a whole show that they can not accept certain behaviour.
I hope you can put your doubts behind you. I do think you are unlikely to receive any worth while advice on a DB like this. Why don't you discuss shunning with the elders? The congregation are the best place to take your doubts and questions to.

The most difficult thing I ever had to do was shun an elder that had been my husbands closest friend in the truth.
They actually worked at the same place for some time.
I did it one time. Walked right past his smiling face and looked through him as though he was invisible. I never did it again. I saw him often and always told him hi and smiled and asked how he was. He was out for almost 8 years. Then he was reinstated and is once again an elder.
Was shunning any part of his going back? No. He just got tired of being an alcoholic. When he quit drinking his problems away he decided to go back, called another elder and they got together and he began coming back to meetings. < <br>

The website = http://www.topix.com/forum/religion/jehovahs-witness/TFFJ7PEULBSM62TP4/p3

Herb
Thank you. I appreciate your heartfelt warmth and sincerety.

"Personally I feel it is not my prerogative to judge anyone."

The first time I sat in on a member's meeting where someone was expelled I refused to stand. The above sentence summed up my feelings exactly. Naturally, I was confronted by my brethern on this divisive behavior. It was explained to me that I was not judging the person, rather supporting the judgment placed upon the member by the leadership. Okay, so that absolved me of any responsibility. Great!

Then came the avoidance. I never was comfortable with anything but that. Totally avoiding that person. But, that didn't feel right either.

The conclusion I finally reached was this. A born-again Christian and a worldly sinner have so little in common that they don't want to spend time with one another. The feeling is mutual. I feel that this is what Paul referred to when he said we should have nothing to do with them, least of all, sit down to a meal with them.

The current system put in place by the COGICM harks back to the old Mosaic Law, But then again, why shouldn't it? So much of the OTVC doctrine does just that. The stoning to death is done in a figurative sense rather than a literal. The effect is much the same.

Your approach, Herbie, is a Christ-like way of dealing with a sinner. He did not "avoid" them. Rather, he went out of his way to be with them. He helped them and fellowshipped with them. Most of all, He loved them. This was done at the expense of being critisized and ridiculed by His so-called brethern. Many of your brethern would do well by practising His example.

The COGICM is proving once again that history repeats itself. They are heading down the same road many OTVC groups have gone before. The road where Killer Law takes precedents over Life-giving Grace.

BTW, I chose the boycott method years ago. But, I understand that it is easier for me. I have very little family in the church. I believe Jesus weeps when He looks down and sees what this perversion of His Gospel has done to the families of His children.

I will only spend Christmas with My TWO Son's , who are not H .
We spent this past week end togather in southern Michigan , It was
Wondefull . All 10 of us .

For me I will never go where I am treated worse than a dog .
So if I have to go to Hell for that so be it .
At least We were honest with each other and each other's well being
was the main consern .

We sat forth some planes to help the boys and there familys way
throw life , perhaps some easer .

>>This new generation of young people growing up in the church appears to be a very pious bunch, and if that appearance pans out, its going to take the church in an extreme direction< <br>


I really don't agree with this statement. They (some of them) appear pious, but most are just living how they are told by the church and their parents to live. They have no real convictions on anything. If you ask them why they believe what they say, most of them don't know... The holdman young people (not just youth) are so shallow it is honestly sad. My b-i-l (he's 22) is very strong on what the church believes but in all reality he has no idea why he believes it, except that it's how he was taught.

There are many older holdemans that dissagree with me but what I say is true of all the young people that I know in the H church. Granted I don't know them all, so maybe its just the midwest (ks, ne, ok, tx, co, missouri) young people that are like that. Oh, and all the youth and young couples at the congregation where we live now. I hope that God can open thier eyes so they can see that they are living a full life for the holdemans, not a fulfilled life for God.

Micky,

Not having "real convictions" don't mean they are not pious.

What I meant is the youth appear to be very devoted to the church, way more than when I was a youth.

The church appears to come first before anything else, even if those other something else's are also God's ways.

Brent

Thats what I was meaning. Sorry I didn't make that clear. What I was trying to say is that they look and act like good holdemans but really don't know why except for that its the way they have been taught. They are worshipping the church, not God. And at revivals they make peace with the church. They think that its all the same tho, if their in good standing with the church than they think they are with God too.

Micky:

Your experience sounds similar to mine. I noticed this around 15 - 20 years ago when I still had interaction with Holdeyouth. Most of them were extremely uncomfortable with discussing, and reluctant to discuss, things spiritual or theological.

I've noticed this in my own family as well. Case in point, several years back I challenged all of them to explain the Biblical basis for holding the avoidance on our father. After some hemming and hawing, one of them volunteered the phrase 'with such an one no not to eat'. Of course, they had never considered the passage preceding it. After more hemming and hawing, they pulled out the famous BD&P, which of course, mangles and cobbles together verses and parts of verses to try to justify the Holdeavoidance.

At the risk of sounding Hankian, my assessment is that in the decades following the purge era of the 1970s the resulting 'dumbing down' of the collective thought processes and intellectual abilities and pursuits, combined with an increased religious, social and cultural gheottization has resulted in a group of people that has become more or less devoid of any true spirituality.

And the sad thing is, that was the desired goal. Deep thinkers, individuals, renegades of any kind are done away with. Church schools which only go to 8th grade, forbidding Bible study groups, are all signs that only the Holdedoctrine is allowed. I agree with Brent that the young ones are becoming ever more "pious" while actually having less and less true understanding of God. Let one of them try getting filled with the Holy Ghost. See what would happen to them. But the whole system is designed from the time they are infants to prevent anything but the channeling of BD&P through them. This effectively kills any vitality or true life. I see young people who,the farther they go in going to the movies, listening to music, will cling more and more tightly to the church. You see some of these young people and realize they are quite slack, and think they are on their way out the door, only to find out that they worship the church with an unholy fervor. Weird.

>>see some of these young people and realize they are quite slack, and think they are on their way out the door, only to find out that they worship the church with an unholy fervor. Weird.< <br>
I've noticed that paradox as well.

by Micky,
> They have no real convictions on anything. If you ask them why they believe what they say, most of them don't know... < <br>
>What I was trying to say is that they look and act like good holdemans but really don't know why except for that its the way they have been taught. They are worshipping the church, not God. And at revivals they make peace with the church. They think that its all the same tho, if their in good standing with the church than they think they are with God too.< <br>

In the past year, I have asked at least a dozen members this question, Do you think a lot of the holdeman people are worshipping the church more than worshipping God? After having a stunned look on their face,everyone that I asked gave an answer something like, Yes, I could see that. It would be interesting what the percentage would be if this question was asked to all members.

Well, if you have God, and go to a church where others keep those rules, you may well go along with them. But if they don't have God, it certainly causes you carefully inspect your motives.

After leaving them, I simply do not think you can serve God and conference, no matter how much twist those preachers attempt to twist you to think otherwise.

If a conviction does not flow from an honest heart, after carefully studying the scripture, then the conviction is worthless in spiritual value.


Having said that, I really loved the Holdeman youth, we had them over all the time. And I don't think they are necessarily bad, neither good. But they pretty Well did what was expected of them.

But when push came to shove, and a glaring bible principle went contrary to proven protocol, I never met a holdeman yet that would stand. They are taught to "cave" to the unity of the church, and if they refuse they are disciplined as if they are sinning.

If you show them that the preachers are sinning against the scripture, show them the scripture, they get a look of terror in their eyes, and their tongue gets tied, for if God is headed one way and the church another, then God looses every time, or they get expelled. How can god Bless that effeminate spirit?

Grace, your Dec. 21 post was very well put. My sentiments exactly.

I'm only dealing with feeling judged because I'm not living up to their expectations. As far as literally being avoided, I'm sure I don't know what I'd do unless I'd been there. Take comfort that you are standing strong and a leaving an abusive system.

Many Christmas blessings to everyone.