The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Being muzzled by orthodox Churches, what to do?

Practices Church
#41

In Tennessee, all snakes are protected by law from being killed. Even the poisonous kind. (Rattlers, Cottonmouths and Copperheads. We’ve had several people die from Copperheads in the past year, as it happens–and they aren’t even usually fatal! Some snakes, typically the ones that kill by biting like the otherwise rather harmless garter snake, are just as poisonous as rattlers but lack an efficient delivery system and pouches for storing it.)

Several years ago, a highway patrolman caught a woman backing up to see if she had run over a rattler, a couple of counties over from here, and fined her stiffly for it. Insanity.

But the point of course is to protect the relatively harmless constrictor (and biting) snakes from being killed along with the poisonous ones, since all of them help keep the rodent population in control, thus also reducing grain lost to rodents.

Still, they can dang well fine me: if I find a poisonous snake I’m killing it. (My area of Gibson County tends to run heavy with cottonmouths, even though I’ve never personally seen one alive in the wild somehow. I’ve seen copperheads before on rare occasion. No rattlers around here, for some weird reason. Not that I’m complaining.)

#42

Thank you allen for your advice! I shall try to put into good use hopefully soon.

#43

:laughing: Corpselight. It was lucky for that rattlesnake I was so shocked. But yes, snakes are very cool. We used to have one that lived in the bathroom (we had a log house). It was a scarlet snake – a little one. I used to pick it up and admire its lovely “coat.”

Years later, when I was visiting my folks in FL, I came across a lady in the parking lot of the store I was going to, in obvious distress. She wanted to use my cell phone to call her husband to come and take care of this huge snake curled up in the hollow spot in her car door. It was a (very large) scarlet snake, so I took a towel and picked it up and carried it to some grass at the edge of the parking lot and let it go. She thought I was Crocodile Dundee or something. :wink: It was fun.

Jason, incredible! But yeah, people will shoot all kinds of snakes – which is a bad thing. I like snakes. I grew up on a lake in FL with two little brothers, so it was a matter of survival that I should like snakes. But if I’d been a little bit more collected, that particular snake would be in snake heaven now – or maybe snake Sheol. :wink: It isn’t against the law here.

#44

I just realized something about your advice allen. While it is good advice, I don’t think I will be able to use it because while you say just smile and say one of the responses, I wont be able to do that because while I can be nice, If I get into a debate I don’t let it go and I will still argue so I may want to stay put for now.

#45

I can relate bro… I’m not one to take things lying down, nor keep things to myself, very easily either. :neutral_face: I know there are those who can do well in such environments, but I don’t think I’m one of them… and that may mean that I’m immature or behind spiritually, but honestly, that’s where I’m at. :neutral_face:

I haven’t officially left the Baptist church I’ve gone to for the last five years, though I haven’t gone much in the last year…
I’ve kept putting off talking to the pastor and letting him know that I no longer wish to be a member there, and to ask him to take me off the rolls, yeah… been dragging my feet on that… hopefully I’ll get up the courage to do it sometime soon…
there are some cool people there, people I’ve connected with, and I do hope to stay in touch with some of them, but I feel that in remaining there either I’d have to hide how I really feel (which is something I don’t think I can do) or I’d end up stirring up trouble, which is not something I want to do… :neutral_face:

Anyways, I think though while some pieces of advice may work for some, they may not work for all. We’re all different, and are all at different places in our journey.

I think some things to take from Allan’s advice though is that you shouldn’t isolate yourself, and also that you should pray that you’d learn and grow in your ability to love and get along with those who see things in very different, and even in very frustrating, ways… and Allan is right… we shouldn’t just be asking what others can do for us, but we should also be asking what we can do for others… though I will say that we needn’t force ourselves to remain in environments where little or no good is coming, either to us or to others, from our being there… there’s no shame in walking away in some situations…

With that said, Allan, I think you’re a cool dude, and I appreciate a lot of what you have to say here. :slight_smile:

And hang in there, Brent. I believe God can lead you and guide you to find places where you can learn and grow spiritually as well as where you can serve others. :slight_smile:

Blessings to you :slight_smile:

Matt

#46

Thank you for that ed, but I have another problem, I work on saturdays and sundays now so I really can’t go to church. I think I will just worship by myself for a while until I can find me a community I can worship with.

#47

Ah, I’ve been there, bro :wink:

But you don’t necessarily need to go to a Sunday morning service (I rarely do myself these days) to have a sense of community… there’s this forum, and other places on the internet, there’s people you can talk with over the phone, or maybe like-minded people (if you can find 'em) that you can get together with on your days off, for fellowship and prayer.

When it comes to social networking, I guess you’ve just gotta be creative and persistent… my natural tendency, as an introvert, would be to curl up in a corner somewhere by myself, but there’s that other part of me that longs for connection, so I try to seek it out in whatever way I can.

Worshipping by yourself is great… sometimes I go out late at night with my dog to stargaze, pray and wonder… but then, like the pastor at the Methodist church I’ve visited said, though it’s good to connect with God on your own, it’s also good to connect with God in a community… you need both. :slight_smile:

If you’d like, I could try to help you find some people you could connect with, maybe even in your area.

Are you on Facebook? That’s a good place to start to meet some people. :slight_smile:

Blessings to you, bro :slight_smile:

Matt

#48

Nor do I! I get myself into all sorts of hot water. But as I grow older, I’m getting better at not arguing. First, I just can’t be bothered (not enough energy). Second, falling testosterone levels make me less competitive. And third, I’ve learned from long and bitter experience that arguments rarely achieve much, and often create bad feeling.

I’m a slow learner. :slight_smile:

#49

Yeah allen seeing how I am 18 im full of testosterone and get into arguments alot. And yes ed if you could help me find people in my area that would be fantastic! :smiley:

#50

Whereabouts do you live? :slight_smile:

#51

I live in carleton, Mi

#52

Oh okay cool :slight_smile:

Jeremy, aka redhotmagma, here on the forum, lives in Detroit…

That’s about all I can think of here on the forum… maybe you could post a new thread, asking if anyone here lives in Michigan?

I’d probably have an easier time hooking you up with people on Facebook…

Do you have an account there?

Blessings to you bro :slight_smile:

#53

Hi – want to add my two cents to the issue of being muzzled, that is, forbidden to speak about EU. I think the issue is so inflammatory with non Universalists because it is an inflammatory issue. And I think that is also why it is important to be ‘out’ on it. I think it is up there, in its way, with issues like civil liberties or gay rights or something like that because it goes right to the heart of the gospel and the nature of God. If it could be argued that one of the most important things Christ did when he came was to clarify the nature of God, to show us the Father – to demonstrate exactly how we are to be in God’s image, and what that means, then whether God is capable of inflicting ECT or came to Love and Save all, and is powerful enough to do so, is central. It is Jesus. For many of us, I think, believing that God could deliberately send anyone to pointless (not point except to inflict pain) endless torture for not believing in ‘him’ is like saying that God is capable of enormous sadism, or egoism or racism or … in short, that God is capable of evil. This is not a minor issue. I know for me personally, ECT caused an enormous crisis in my faith and sanity when I first became a Christian. It was THE point upon which my faith turned and I don’t think I was alone. I was terrified of a God who could inflict ECT on people I loved who were not and never will be, Christian. The doctrine is just so important because it is central to whether God is Love or God is Power – and I would like to suggest that the latter definition is possibly Satanic. It is not possible to be simultaneously Love and also willing to inflict ECT on the majority of humankind. I think that may be why many of us are chaffing at the gag rule. It isn’t a minor side issue – it IS our faith and those who don’t believe may, in a way, be more different in their understanding of God and Christ from IU believers as someone who believes that God’s chief prophet is Mohammed or the Christian Identity adherents who also believe that we should return to thinking God ordained slavery. It constitutes a different faith in many ways, since so much is implicated by it, so much changes as a result of it – for me to keep quiet on this is paramount to keeping quiet about attempting to be a disciple of Christ at all. There may (and are) many times when I do keep my faith to myself and possibly it is not always respectful of other beliefs or faiths to make a point of speaking up – but at least in the place where we are practising our faith, we can’t, I believe, be silent about our faith or vision of Christ.

#54

Great thoughts, Sasha, thanks for sharing :slight_smile: