4EverFree Posted May 7, 2014 Posted May 7, 2014 Just wondering did anyone here grow up or worship in churches that referred to people making false confessions at all? The sect I was born into was very dogmatic and closed with growth mostly from reproduction. It was always a big event when someone ‘got saved’. Families within the fellowship would call from home to home to pass on the good news. Every now and again though there were some folks who were said to have professed to be saved but ultimately a short amount of time showed that it was just a ‘false confession’. These folks were considered sincere of heart who had desperately wanted it but they just hadn’t managed to get this salvation. They then often remained ‘under conviction’ for months, before they managed to figure out how to get this official seal from god. Generally curious how common this teaching/thinking is in mainstream churches? ….So many of the other churches I went to thereafter never emphasized the concept of ‘real’ or ‘false’ professions at all. Salvation was just believing and many folks did not have an exact time or date of salvation to recount when they passed from ‘death unto life’ as the lingo goes. This teaching is a fantastic tool for a) manipulating people to get into a cycle of endless repentance and recommitment and cultivating the concept of an elite group of believers that are truly saved (unlike the rest of the rabble).
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted May 7, 2014 Super Moderator Posted May 7, 2014 My old assemblies of god church had something similar. Basically anyone who didn't quite fit in or toe the party line was referred to as a "false christian" or a "wolf in sheep's clothing". It was a good way for parents to discourage their kids from hanging out with undesirable characters.
par4dcourse Posted May 7, 2014 Posted May 7, 2014 My old assemblies of god church had something similar. Basically anyone who didn't quite fit in or toe the party line was referred to as a "false christian" or a "wolf in sheep's clothing". It was a good way for parents to discourage their kids from hanging out with undesirable characters. I was that character.
Super Moderator TheRedneckProfessor Posted May 7, 2014 Super Moderator Posted May 7, 2014 My old assemblies of god church had something similar. Basically anyone who didn't quite fit in or toe the party line was referred to as a "false christian" or a "wolf in sheep's clothing". It was a good way for parents to discourage their kids from hanging out with undesirable characters. I was that character. That's probably why we never became friends until now.
Neverlandrut Posted May 7, 2014 Posted May 7, 2014 I came from a different tradition at first, the "once saved, always saved" crowd. That was a comforting thought until I began to read the bible and think for myself within the Christian context. I came to believe against "once saved, always saved." I became charismatic after that, so I guess I had a little of both. The fear of hell plagued me until, still as a Christian, I realized there was no solid biblical evidence for the traditional idea of an eternal hell. Now that I think about it, I have kinda been deconversion for a really long time.
Guest afireinside Posted May 7, 2014 Posted May 7, 2014 I was never secure in my faith because I never really heard or experienced God as saying "you are mine". I was always looking for reassurance, I thought I was a professor, not a possessor and that my faith was in vain. Towards the end I came round to just believing and hoping God accepted me and went with that as it was less traumatic, I watched hours of the "grace revolution" teachers and held onto that theology that God was better than I saw in the Bible and all opposing views almost sent me crazy with panic attacks and depression at being lost and family being lost. I would sometimes cry at night thinking about my family being damned and burnt forever and also of being a goat on the final day and being told by God he never knew me and to depart. Emotional and psychological terrorism plagued my Christian years. And the believers wonder why I'm angry and bitter at their precious God!
4EverFree Posted May 8, 2014 Author Posted May 8, 2014 I was never secure in my faith because I never really heard or experienced God as saying "you are mine". I was always looking for reassurance, I thought I was a professor, not a possessor and that my faith was in vain. Towards the end I came round to just believing and hoping God accepted me and went with that as it was less traumatic, I watched hours of the "grace revolution" teachers and held onto that theology that God was better than I saw in the Bible and all opposing views almost sent me crazy with panic attacks and depression at being lost and family being lost. I would sometimes cry at night thinking about my family being damned and burnt forever and also of being a goat on the final day and being told by God he never knew me and to depart. Emotional and psychological terrorism plagued my Christian years. And the believers wonder why I'm angry and bitter at their precious God! Totally identify! I also spent years fearing the 'depart for me into everlasting fire, I never knew you' proclamation at the end of it all. I bounced between asking forgiveness for being a 'doubting thomas' and then overdoing evangelism efforts to prove how on fire I was for god to constantly recommitting my life to god, working myself into deeper sense of disgust at my sins, just in case I hadn't appreciated how unworthy and hell deserving I was in the in the first instance. It's totally toxic and and I have minimal tolerance for any of it now. From a conservative legalistic background, I even ended up in the ultra charismatic churches as I figured that even if I couldn't hear god, that folks in these churches appeared to hear from him lots so maybe he would relay messages via them.......it would be comical if it wasn't so pitifully desperate. So glad to be free and on the road to recovery. 1
rach Posted May 8, 2014 Posted May 8, 2014 I guess you're talking about the "Jude One-ers". That's from Jude chapter one "These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm....They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever." We were taught that there were "infiltrators" who made professions of faith but weren't really committed to Christianity. They were the most dangerous of all people. They could quote bible verses to your face but when they went home they'd watch porn, and lust, and swear! God have mercy! They were sitting there at our "love feasts", looking like normal Christian people, but they were actually satan's secret allies sent to infiltrate the church with sins. They were "wandering stars" whatever that meant, and on their way to hell. We were all so terrified of this. Could I be a "false professer" and not know it? Could the lady sitting across from me at the banquet be a tool of satan? We were never sure. And it was all insane because our church also taught that all you needed to do was pray the salvation prayer and you were a true saved Christian forever. But in the next breath they'd turn around and say that some people who said the prayer were actually not real converts. So you'd say the prayer, they'd tell you you never have to worry about hell ever again because you've just been saved, and then later on if you aren't living up to their standards, they'd say you didn't really pray the prayer sincerely enough "it didn't come from your heart" so that's why it didn't work. This led to many church members praying the salvation prayer obsessively trying to get it to "take" and never sure if it did. After all, if we were to be honest, and everyone was afraid to be, there was no way of knowing if we were changed people or not. Our thoughts and feelings were the same as before "salvation." The only thing that changed was our outward actions- like actors in a theatre we could display the appropriate outward response but we could not change the way we really felt inside. The best example was a sunday school teacher from my church who left his wife for another woman. He had been a very sincere and intense Chistian. He was no half-hearted sunday school teacher. But one day he "fell into the sin of lust" and went after another woman. They moved in together and he stopped professing the Christianity that he had heartily professed before. So our church said that he was a "false professer", meaning he must have been pretending to be a Christian all along because real Christians don't fall into lust and leave their wives. The minister said that true Christians endure to the end, they got that from Hebrews or something. So if you left the religion and didn't endure, it meant that you were never really a true Christian. They never considered the other option....that the bible and salvation are all a lie. I was truly really absolutely 100 percent saved. I made damned sure of it. The Lord Jesus was probably shouting from his holy cloud "shut the fuck up my child" after my 400000th "sinner's prayer" was said from the depths of my heart, just to be sure I was really, really saved. No wandering star here. True Christian, and I didn't just pray the bloody prayer, I lived the damned bible out to the letter. I walked that fucking walk because my ass was going to burn if I didn't. So any Christian that says I was never a true Christian is going to get punched in the nose. But I guess I was a wandering star and blot on the love feast all along. Because I left Christianity. I renounced my own salvation, all 400000 of them. I told Jesus to get out of my life (this was after reading the how-to-beat-your-slave-and-kill-your-neighbors-oxen manual that I thought was going to be the book of love and good tidings).
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