Email From My Former Pastor

[Mikefight]

Mike, I enjoyed our lunch yesterday. Thanks for going. I also thought about your question, "Is it ever right to kill a child" and the obvious answer is no....unless you are God. In those cases in the OT the death of those children was always because of the sins of the fathers. It is a Biblical principle and certainly a social one that can be observed today, that parents have enormous influence for good or bad on their children. What happens to a parent will have an impact on the child. Those children all died do to the sin of their parents and their parents are held responsible. However that doesn't mean the children are lost eternally. If we see the big picture, that this life is short and is not all of what we are to be, then their death did not result in a rejection from God but could be seen as his mercy on them and a judgment on the parents for not following God's ways.....Just a thought. Which brings me to why I am emailing you. I was praying for you this morning and had a real burden for your family. It's one thing to marry someone who is an atheist, who is heading in a certain direction, it's a total different thing for a spouse to change boats midstream. I haven't spoke to Jessy about this but I can only imagine how difficult this must be for her, not to mention your children. I would encourage you not to "preach" to her. If your "faith", what you believe is right, then what a person believes doesn't really matter much, as long as it works. If her "illusion" of having a relationship with God helps her be a better wife and mother, then what difference would it make to you. Without this attitude, I believe you are in for turbulent times. Mike, I must be honest and say there is great fear in my heart for you. I believe Satan is trying to deceive you and is trying to destroy you and your family. I am praying that God will reveal Himself to you in a powerful, indisputable way. But be careful.....Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.(Galatians 6:7) I've attached a website for your investigation, http://www.khouse.org/articles_cat/2007/technical/Sincerely,Pastor

 

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My reply:

 

I enjoyed our lunch too. It is never okay to kill kids. It is just an excuse to say their parents were bad so it was okay.It is just a way to make God fit. My Dad has done a lot of bad things and so has Jessy's. We are not responsible for their actions and it is crazy to think that any God would kill kids for their parent's actions. Not much of a loving God and not fair at all. Couldn't he just teleport the kids into a good home with good parents? God can do anything right? Even the simple minded could come up with a better solution. Maybe an adoption agency. About my wife, it is hard for her. It is hard for me too. I am afraid she is going to leave me and try to stop me from seeing the kids. You know, protect them from Satan. Anyway, I do not preach to her. We have had a few discussions. I have shown her some science stuff. I have agreed not to bring it up unless she ask me. About her illusion, I see many problems with it. But that is not the point, I am going to respect my wife and her wishes. I know she is smart and will eventually realize that stories about men raising from the dead are just a myth. If she does not, It would not stop me from loving her and my kids. I wish reaping what you sow were true. Then all the murders and rapist would be caught. To think that they get punished in some afterlife makes people feel good. It does not mean it is true. I have looked at that website before. It is funny how anywhere that science lacks information, God gets put into that gap. As we make new discoveries God slowly gets pushed out. Some examples: Disease are caused by demons, dark mater, dark energy, the world is flat, the world is the center of the universe, witches cast spells to cause bad weather, thunder is God's anger. It's called God of the Gaps. I would venture to say that material on that website will be revised or removed as new discoveries are made. Religion: Here is our conclusion, find facts to back it up.Scientist: Here are the facts, what is the logical conclusion. Thanks for meeting with me, it was nice to help your learn a little more about evolution. I used to think I knew what evolution was all about before I studied it too. I am going to read the book you gave me next, then The Blind Watchmaker. Maybe we could read that one together and compare views. I think that would be fun. Thanks,Mike

Tell me what you think.

[xild]

Wow!!!!!!!

 

You did well, firstly. But I have a different sort of observation, if you'll permit me...

 

See how without even a pause he feels he can intrude right smack into the center of your family? That's not right, Mike. There is something seriously wrong with him doing that. He has not even the vaguest sense of what personal boundaries are and that you as a person have them, let alone have them as a family! Unbelievable. Thank you for sharing this communication--it is so validating to me to just be able to see this one HUGE thing they do. He didn't even hesitate. He actually told you what you can and can not do within your own family ... un freaking believable.

 

When in the future he does bring up your family, by the way, you would be well within your right as a person, an autonomous person who is outside of even the tiniest hint of his control, to ask him--to kindly remind him--that it is your family and so further discussions about them are not welcome. The more information you share with him the more it gives him a little ... edge under which to stick his fingernail and lift... to try to manipulate you, but worse, your wife, whom he will no doubt be poisoning behind your back.

[Piprus]

Whoa!...this guy sure tried to send you on the guilt trip didn't he now? But it doesn't look like you took the bait. Good for you! Making out like he's carrying such a burden for you, and he's praying for you, then finally a veiled threat trying to drive a wedge between yourself and your wife! Jeez, what an ass!!! Not one scintilla of respect for your questioning point of view. This guy does NOT respect you.

[Ouroboros]

this guy sure tried to send you on the guilt trip didn't he now?

The fuel for religion: Guilt and Fear.

[xild]

"I would encourage you not to "preach" to her?"

 

How DARE he "encourage" a man not to talk to his wife about his own personal beliefs? What a crass ass.

 

I love the scary canned ending, though:

 

Mike, I must be honest and say there is great fear in my heart for you. I believe Satan is trying to deceive you and is trying to destroy you and your family. I am praying that God will reveal Himself to you in a powerful, indisputable way. But be careful.....Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.(

 

Booowoooo.....

 

Mike, what he means is that HE is going to destroy your family. Don't give up so easily. Just keep on loving your wife and showing you love her in every way but going back to her church. That's the best I can suggest. Love love love her.

[Checkmate]

Mike, you're doing a great job handling this prick, er, preacher. I couldn't do it. I have a hard enough time dealing with nitwits on the internet. If any pastor wrote me or spoke to me like this, then I'd be speaking to you all from a prison computer, because I'd have killed him.

 

[i suppose that explains why people don't preach to me IRL, huh? ]

 

I don't know how you might go about this, BUT, keep an eye out for the influence this asswipe has on your spouse. I suspect he may ruin your marriage with HIS counsel to your wife, and THEN blame YOU. These preachers are evil. Beware.

 

Maybe you can convince the wife to switch churches? (She probably won't buy it now, though. This church is her anchor in this current storm, and she'll cling to her familiar church "family" for comfort.) Still, I don't like the idea of having this "serpent" whispering sweet nothings to your "Eve".

[Taphophilia]

My take on it is that the preacher is afraid Jessy is going to be infected by this way thinking and he's going to lose more members.

[xild]

Well then based on that I have to wonder, is your wife extremely INto this church? Or is there a genuine threat to this pastor that she may end up going elsewhere and taking her tithe money with her? (That IS something isn't it? that ten percent...They lose enough of those and they're sunk.)

[Open_Minded]

Mike:

 

My parents left Christianity when I was in my early teens. It took my mother a few years longer than my father. She tells us children that she hung on as long as she did out of fear for us kids. I am the second eldest. All of her children were under 13-14 years old. Most of them were under 10. We were all in the Catholic School system. She felt we had our social relationships and that we were receiving a better education than we would've in public schools.

 

She worried about our social lives and our education. After a while she couldn't lie to herself anymore and left the church. My elder sister and I stayed in the Catholic School system through highschool (I'm happy we did - I really needed the small classes and personal environment). All the rest of the kids transfered to public schools and did wonderfully.

 

In hindsight she knows she held on too long. But, she didn't have 20/20 hindsight in the middle of it. She was just doing the best she could. She'd been taught all of her life to be a submissive wife and all of a sudden her husband was questioning whether God even existed at all. It really threw her for a loop. She considers herself Diest now, but at the time she really struggled with all these things. The mixture of worrying about us children and her own feelings of anxt at all the implications of letting go of everything she'd been taught since childhood were just too much to handle in a short span. She needed to work through it.

 

Don't let this pastor intimidate you. Be a loving, patient and supportive husband. It can work out - now Mom and Dad look back on those years and laugh.