HelenM

I must have seemed angry to the reporter although I wouldn't have said it that way myself. Perhaps I don't realize how angry I seem at times - perhaps I don't realize how angry I am...

Anyway, to conservative Christians, yes, you most certainly do have to believe in the Trinity to be one. It's one of the key distinguishing things between a 'cult' and 'true Christianity' - whether you believe in the Trinity or not. To disbelieve it means you don't believe Jesus is God. And that's about the most central belief of conservative/Bible-believing Christianity.

I'd say people who think it's not essential are definitely liberal Christians rather than conservative ones.

Anyway this particular organization had about 30,000 workshops at the time, being run mostly in conservative Churches or by conservative Christians. I took one - there are some good things in it, fwiw (most teachings have some merit after all ) but it seemed to me at that time that it wasn't quite based on Biblical Christianity. Then the organization eventually came out with statement that they did not believe in the Trinity. Once they were open about it I wrote to churches sending them the statement and saying "Did you realize this?" Many dropped the program once they realized that. It kind of annoyed me that the churches never checked whether this program agreed with their beliefs before beginning to host it. It is a package deal where you watch videos and the facilitator is not supposed to pick and choose. So it's not as if the church is given freedom to 'adapt' it to their own beliefs.

So, it bothered me that I thought the workshop was not up front about disagreeing with the beliefs of the churches that hosted it. After a while they began their own churches and part of the workshop material tells you what's wrong with 'most churches'. I think that's also rather dubious - "Hey, this is what's wrong with your church. Want to join ours?" The church chain they founded is regarded as 'cult' by conservative Christians since they don't believe in the Trinity (<a href="http://www.midwestoutreach.org/journals/weighed.htm" target="_blank">e.g. here it's called a cult</a>).

The way the organization operates bothered me - that it had one person who was in charge of everything and she was idolized by the people who went through the program...

So there were many troublesome aspects of it to me.

But I was as bothered by churches not paying attention that they were bringing in something that disagreed with them on a key tenet of their belief system, as I was by the organization itself. I think the churches should have been more careful.

Anyway in the end I decided to back off; but I was partway ill when that happened and that caused me all sorts of problems because people assumed that meant I now agreed with the theology of the leader of the organization and was a 'heretic' too...*sigh*.

Whereas it had more to do with becoming very uncomfortable about what I was doing - about my motives - about the whole concept of that sort of activism. What I was part of really did affect her ministry negatively, however, it didn't cause her to revisit her own theology so, essentially, it didn't achieve what I had hoped it would, which was that she'd bring the program inline with Biblical Christianity. So, seeing it wasn't working and being very uncomfortable with the negativity of what I was doing, I quit abruptly one day, taking down my page of links to anti-that ministry webpages and putting up an apology to the leader of it instead

It was all an interesting learning experience - quite painful too once I quit and found out how strongly and negatively other people reacted to that...

In one day the people who had hated me for being against their idol thought I was wonderful and the people who thought I was a hero for going after her thought I was pond scum and a heretic.

And maybe some thought I was ill too. It was unfair to link my mental state to whether I agreed with someone's theology but - it happened.

One thing I learned: people are often very fickle and it's a precious thing to find friends who are still your friends on the day you stop agreeing with them...

take care
Helen

Toto

Helen - this whole area probably deserves a thread of its own.

But to tie it to the main topic, we can see how division over a theological point can tear appart an organization and friendships. Secularists can laugh at how Helen describes the theologically incorrect as members of a "cult", when we know that all religions are just cults that have been around long enough and amassed enough real estate to have a stake in normal society.

So what do we have to do for secularlists to all get along? Are our differences on the level of what imaginary state we put a currently non-existing Jesus into? Are these ideological differences just a cover for personality conflicts and power struggles?

Jayhawker Soule

I guess the question is: Get along to what ends?

Toto

The end is preventing the theocrats from taking over the country, diverting tax dollars to their organizations, and legislating their own peculiar religious practices, while they wait breathlessly for armageddon.

Otherwise there would be no particular point for joining together. I think that is why so many people resisted joining atheist organizations when the Supreme Court was firmly in a separationist mode. We can't count on that anymore.

Buffman

And I think I just heard the President of the United States call me "Evil" because I don't support his claim that America is under "Providential" guidance/control.

Jayhawker Soule

If the goal is political, the people that we would want to "get along", the people we would want "joining together", would be precisely those people who are commited to political secularism. The people we would hope to recruit would be precisely those people who could be won to the principle of political secularism. The majority of both groups are theist.

Sectarianism is the act of shooting yourself in the foot while standing on a soapbox.

[ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

Rusting Car Bumper

Indeed. I agree with much of this.

The goal however should not be and is not political. Such a view, as I keep saying, is too narrow.

We need to open dialogue with believers instead of trying to bash and oppose them. They aren't going away and we aren't going away.

DC

Krieger

We do not "bash and oppose" them. They do that to us, but they usually just ignore us (because so few of us are actually out of the closet).

Jayhawker Soule

Sometimes.

Jayhawker Soule

Good grief! The overwhelming majority of "them" do nothing of the kind.

Edited to add: [ September 17, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>