Where will the REAL persecution come from?

[whyiloveitaly.com]

Hi everyone!
It seems like after years of being a Believer, and having spent many years being indoctrinated by fundamentalist belief, I have only now been able to acknowledge how much hate and condemnation was in my heart when I believed in eternal torment.

I can look back in honesty at the attitude of my heart towards my neighbor during that time. And it was not good at all. I couldn't admit it verbally, but I was fully able to see that inside me I was hating "sinners" because they weren't like me. And what made it worse was: 1) that the experiences I had had in the Spirit were completely opposite to what I was feeling towards these "heathen," and 2) I knew that God is Love, and that His Love is much greater than ours.
Only recently has He given me to be able to acknowledge honestly what the doctrine of hell was doing to me. It was impossible for me to love others (except those who thought like me, of course!)

Now, as I admit this poison, and how it began to dissolve when returning to teachings of God's reconcilation of ALL souls to Himself through Jesus Christ, I am finding that fundamentalists (on other forums) are VERY aggressive and denying of this that was in my heart, even though God is my witness what was in me at that time!!

Anyone of you had similar experiences?

Blessings to all here,
brian

[thinktank]

Sort of, I remember when I first began to believe about hell it was terrible. I didn't hate people as such but I hated God, and when I put ET and also the destructions God did in the OT I thought this God is a strange God, he comes to the cross with great love and then also does great evil. There seemed to be a major problem with God being love and God also being a God of ET. I was going to give up on Christianity/God but Christians seemed to be full of love and I found it strange that such a hatefull book produced, loving fruit from people, so I stuck with it and went out to find the truth about ET, but I found I was in the minority and thought I was an herectic, nobody else had the same belief, so I must be a rebel. But I eventually found some websites that did not belive in ET and it was a great relief after much searching on the Internet. Thankfully I did not find just one group but many, Jehova witnesses, 7thday adventists, and tentmaker to name a few.

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: Yes, but mine seemed to be focused more on the Catholics, because they were really the only religion I was semi familiar with.

I was mad at them because they had the bible and didn't bother to read it (they told my uncle not to bother because only a bible scholar could understand it) or if they (the priests of old) did they kept quiet about it's contents for personal gain, and.

With half my family Catholics by WW2, going to mass in Latin, it was my angst because I had such an uphill battle trying to convince them there was anything wrong, at first. Part of that was my problem, as I had zeal without knowledge, :mblush: but I didn't know that at the time.

Once He took me to task over that, things got better. Almost all of them came to the living God within 4 years of my mother and I witnessing to them, praise be to God for answered prayers. Blessings....

[pickr]

Hi brian,

Everyone brings different experiences to the table, I suppose.

Perhaps a common theme is that traditional Christianity generally embraces the flawed idea that we who believe in Jesus as Lord are more beloved of God than those who do not; or, similarly, that our belief is a sign that we are somehow "good" and "obedient" and deserving of our salvation, while those who lack belief are in that state of lack due to some fatal shortage of virtue or intellectual capacity on their part. So, naturally, we can look down our noses at those stupid, stubborn Hebrews in Exodus or those high-and-mighty Pharisees and fickle multitudes in the Gospels and proclaim that, no, we would have behaved differently! Further, we can rail against people we encounter in life who "refuse" to believe the Gospel or cling to other religions we don't like... and we pull out the trusty ET card to try and scare them straight when the Holy Spirit doesn't deem to be pushing them hard enough. (Of course, this is usually denied very strenuously, but it rarely takes long for such deeply held views to manifest themselves quite openly.)

When God, through the Holy Spirit, bursts our baloons of human tradition and personal pride, don't be surprised that it's noisy and startling, not to mention upsetting, both to us and to anyone who happens to be nearby... whether it's family, church, circles of friends, etc.

It will hurt when people you love start to distance themselves from you, or even come to hate you, but don't be angry with anyone, brother. God has a plan and purpose in every life, and He does not plan and purpose in vain.

Keep on loving!

Andy

[pickr]

On a side note, a long, long time ago in a place called CARM, I was told by one of the moderators that he expected that believers in the UR of all things in Jesus Christ would one day take over the world and fix to kill off all the ETers like him.

I'm still scratching my head over that one.  :scratchhead:

Blessings to you,

Andy

[thinktank]

On a side note, a long, long time ago in a place called CARM, I was told by one of the moderators that he expected that believers in the UR of all things in Jesus Christ would one day take over the world and fix to kill off all the ETers like him.

I'm still scratching my head over that one.  :scratchhead:

Blessings to you,

Andy

I think he means that a one world religion will be created that will kill all christians, which is a common belief among mainstream christianity, he probably thinks that UR is conected to it. He is confused over the different UR orgs, for there is another new age group that wants to bring together all religions and has probably confused the two. Look in the sticky threads and Garry writes about the different UR available. Hope that helps :2c:

[pickr]

I think he means that a one world religion will be created that will kill all christians, which is a common belief among mainstream christianity, he probably thinks that UR is conected to it. He is confused over the different UR orgs, for there is another new age group that wants to bring together all religions and has probably confused the two. Look in the sticky threads and Garry writes about the different UR available. Hope that helps :2c:

Yeah, I've heard that kind of stuff before. But that wasn't my point.

What had me scratching my head is the unavoidable fact that biblically-based Christian universalism represents the beliefs of a tiny slice of the world's Christians and an even tiner tiny fraction of the world's total population. We are, quite literally, outnumbered hundreds of millions to one. So even if we were the maniacal killers Eric Landstrom said we were, I can't see how we could be perceived as such a dire threat. And at any rate, the foundational belief in Jesus as the way, the truth and the life would preclude us from joining in some super-religion that explicitly rejected such a belief.

Anyway, I didn't mean to derail Brian's thread. Just wanted to share that at least one guy thought the real persecutors was us! :)

[bea]

Hi everyone!
It seems like after years of being a Believer, and having spent many years being indoctrinated by fundamentalist belief, I have only now been able to acknowledge how much hate and condemnation was in my heart when I believed in eternal torment.

I can look back in honesty at the attitude of my heart towards my neighbor during that time. And it was not good at all. I couldn't admit it verbally, but I was fully able to see that inside me I was hating "sinners" because they weren't like me. And what made it worse was: 1) that the experiences I had had in the Spirit were completely opposite to what I was feeling towards these "heathen," and 2) I knew that God is Love, and that His Love is much greater than ours.
Only recently has He given me to be able to acknowledge honestly what the doctrine of hell was doing to me. It was impossible for me to love others (except those who thought like me, of course!)

Now, as I admit this poison, and how it began to dissolve when returning to teachings of God's reconcilation of ALL souls to Himself through Jesus Christ, I am finding that fundamentalists (on other forums) are VERY aggressive and denying of this that was in my heart, even though God is my witness what was in me at that time!!

Anyone of you had similar experiences?

Blessings to all here,
brian

This is pretty much my exact story.  I was a very judgmental person and I treated a lot of people pretty badly because I "knew better" than they did and they just chose not to believe the right things. Ugh. When I think about it, it breaks my heart how I treated some people (in my mind/heart and to their faces) who thought I was their friend. I really thought I was behaving properly. I learned it from my mother, though, and she still acts this way. I have done a complete turn around since God shook me up and got me thinking about what I really want for people and what He wants for people. It was a long, hard, awful road to travel but I had no choice and He got me through it.  I still catch myself being judgmental sometimes but it's just out of habit and I know better how to deal with it. I have so much more love for humanity now, it's almost hilarious. God is working on me every single day whether I'm aware of it or not. It's pretty neat to just one day take notice at how much happier I am and how much more love I can give people instead of thinking in the back of my mind "I'm better than you and you don't deserve my respect because you don't believe in Jesus" or whatever the case may be. God is setting me free in ways I never knew about. It's great!

[Universalist Catholic]

I never felt hate against non-believers, but I did wish several times that I wasnt apart of these "True Believers".(when I was Catholic)  Now the real persecution, I see it being performed already.  The traditionalists make up so much garbage up about Universalists that its not even worth taking their material seriously.  Now I do not think we ought to be playing the Persecuted Card, like the Fundamentalists use.  Im pretty sure that every religious group in the world has endured persecution.  Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, New agers, Indigenous, atheists, agnostics are all being persecuted today by any opposing group.  But strangely, I have found that Traditionalists are extremely mean to Universalists, especially on Amazon and Youtube.  I dont mean mild rebukes, these people are just downright mean and unchristlike.  Even the Catholics are acting mean, despite they are a fairly tolerant group.  I guess some people feel the truth would threaten the power their denominations have, and their ego.

[WhiteWings]

Maybe it is because UR is so different from other Christian views. It's not just if the day of rest is sunday or saturday. It 'attacks' many verses. Just compare YLT and KJV. age/eternity, hell/grave, fire is real/spiritual, etc
Those tiny words are on (almost) every page of the Bible. So we are not just talking about a disagreement on a verse on page 300 and 700. No it's about a verse on all 2000 pages...
:2c:

[jabcat]

Yes, very good points.  Witness this latest response from a coworker of mine that I've been discussing UR with;

"It really does cast a different light.  However, growing up with an orthodox outlook I tend to hear my upbringing telling me to be careful of any distortion of the scriptures.  Then as you have indicated the actual teachings I have listened to all my life may have been the very distortion that I was told to avoid." 

[WhiteWings]

Yes, very good points.  Witness this latest response from a coworker of mine that I've been discussing UR with;

"It really does cast a different light.  However, growing up with an orthodox outlook I tend to hear my upbringing telling me to be careful of any distortion of the scriptures.  Then as you have indicated the actual teachings I have listened to all my life may have been the very distortion that I was told to avoid."

James aka teacher of light  :thumbsup:

[Cardinal]

 :cloud9: That's great, James.....now if he will take that realization and add his own study to it, he'll be set free of his orthodoxy, LOL..... :laughing7: