Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

Taken ~ Zero tolerance for anyone professing a self-righteous holier than thou attitude.

Taken ~ Complete mistrust for anyone insisting they possess perfect Scriptural interpretation.

Taken ~ Total disgust for 'my way or the highway' know-it-all church leaders.

Taken ~ Super wary approach towards any church promoting human designed traditional beliefs/creeds.

Taken ~ Happiness, knowing I escaped their clutches.

KLP I truly loved your post. That crystal clear clarity is something I share and you worded that perfectly! Bravo!

Ditto to lvmaus and everyone else who echoed that sentiment. Seems to be a common theme.

klp wrote: Oh, and I have taken a songbook here and there.

Stolen songbooks. Now I know I can trust you.

We know where the songbooks are buried.

lvmaus wrote:Taken ~ Zero tolerance for anyone professing a self-righteous holier than thou attitude.

Taken ~ Complete mistrust for anyone insisting they possess perfect Scriptural interpretation.

Taken ~ Total disgust for 'my way or the highway' know-it-all church leaders.

Taken ~ Super wary approach towards any church promoting human designed traditional beliefs/creeds.

Taken ~ Happiness, knowing I escaped their clutches.

YEAH!!! This.

It's interesting that 'bible knowledge' seems to be a theme here. I've noticed that, for those who left the COC and Christianity altogether, their COC-learned Bible knowledge is a powerful tool in their opposition to the religion (or to religion in general). Some of the best-spoken and strongest arguing atheists I know were once COCers. This makes sense, of course: they intimately know what they're opposing.

Lev

Lev wrote:It's interesting that 'bible knowledge' seems to be a theme here. I've noticed that, for those who left the COC and Christianity altogether, their COC-learned Bible knowledge is a powerful tool in their opposition to the religion (or to religion in general). Some of the best-spoken and strongest arguing atheists I know were once COCers. This makes sense, of course: they intimately know what they're opposing.

Lev

Great insight, Lev...I hadn't really connected that before. You're right. We're ten steps ahead of anyone in an argument...like a Master chess player.

Like most of us here, an extensive knowledge of BCV from the CofC. The problem I always ran into growing up was that, for whatever reason, I liked knowing the context and the history of the Bible, and the culture of the Near East and the Greco-Roman world. Seeing the books in their various contexts will eventually drive you Into The World® . I carry a lifelong interest in Bible history and literature, and that of the ancient near and middle east. That's a direct result of all that Bible reading I had to do.

While not growing up in a NI church, I certainly had first-hand experience of the contentious "brotherhood" debate culture, and the culture of reporting on and shaming churches or preachers who had "gone liberal". It left me with a lifelong aversion to seeing and hearing people argue over minutiae and slander one another, and an equally strong dislike of informers.

What is left is really a set of reflexive behaviors: a suspicious tendency, an inclination to having to be "right", and a tendency towards "us vs. them" thinking being the attitudes I struggle with. There's fairly little I carry over with me in terms of theology. I'm not interested in church, per se, and certainly not with the traditional CofC notions of what church is. I have no interest in baptism, IM, inspiration, infallibility, literalism, who can or can't be fellowshipped, preacher or elder authority, denominations, or any of those shibboleths that have defined the CofC for generations.

Lev wrote:It's interesting that 'bible knowledge' seems to be a theme here. I've noticed that, for those who left the COC and Christianity altogether, their COC-learned Bible knowledge is a powerful tool in their opposition to the religion (or to religion in general). Some of the best-spoken and strongest arguing atheists I know were once COCers. This makes sense, of course: they intimately know what they're opposing.

Lev

It's rather difficult - if not impossible - to gain worthwhile and accurate Bible knowledge when everything we read/study is processed through a CoC filter. The CoC has a long history of approaching God's Word wearing blinders and colored glasses, thinking all the time they are Bible students ... I think they are often just legends in their own slime.

I still use the Bible reading skills. I use multiple translations but almost always include the ASV since that is the one I pretty much have memorized and can search on for particular words. ASV is comforting to me because of familiarity but I like to re-read the passage at hand in a modern translation if for nothing else to make me rethink the phrasing and jolt me out of my comfortable understanding and reading. Always reading from the same version and thinking the same thoughts was my particular "filter".

And then I like to look at an Interlinear and maybe run down definitions and usages...hyperlinked documents made this so much faster. Possibly refer to a brief style commentary like Albert Barnes and maybe Gray to provoke my thinking...yes brief is preferred by me rather than some wordy stuff like Henry or Pulpit Commentary...but they all have their particular views and favorite topics such as original sin and dispensational stuff.

lvmaus wrote:It's rather difficult - if not impossible - to gain worthwhile and accurate Bible knowledge when everything we read/study is processed through a CoC filter. The CoC has a long history of approaching God's Word wearing blinders and colored glasses, thinking all the time they are Bible students ... I think they are often just legends in their own slime.

I get what you're saying but I'm not sure I agree. It seems to me that it's just a matter of throwing out the bad and keeping the good. In this case, throwing out the misguided theology (or in COCese, "doctrine") and keeping the simple familiarity with the scriptures. Maybe "Bible knowledge" was too broad. Someone above on the thread called it "BCV knowledge" or something like that. That may be a better phrase.

Lev