Been lurking a few months

[flawed]

The writings by the late LeRoy Garrett were also very helpful to me. I agree that unless your husband is silently struggling with his own doubts of the COC teachings, this will be tough on your marriage, especially with young children. How will you handle where and who they will attend church with if your husband isn’t willing to leave? I’m not trying to discourage you in any way, I do hope you escape.

[Tsathoggua]

Your screen name is very interesting, by the way. Are you into gardening or does it mean you are just there and trying not to be noticed?

Hahaha... I think every plant I touch dies. It's a Monty Python reference. I'm sure Monty Python wouldn't be approved by the coc.

Hey, Monty Python is the first thing that I thought of when I saw "shrubbery". Welcome aboard from a fellow Python fan!

[SolaDude]

Shrubbery,

I am so distressed by reading more and more CofC stories like yours. I am hoping your husband will be thinking many of the same things you are when you talk to him. But really, there's a courage that everyone must meet up with from time to time and I will simply pray that God will be your strength and courage as you go forth.....it looks like this is something you must confront sometime.

I have not attended a CofC for many years, I'm retired now...my wife and I go to a non-denominational, yet reformed-based church....but it is a congregation of freedom, non-judgmental and non-political....I hope you find your own freedom in the end and that things will work for the greatest good for all of you in your family.....

SolaDude

[Shrubbery]

I began a conversation with my husband. We're still discussing things. So far, he's making the typical coc arguments, but I've been studying even more, and I'm quite confident that the message of the NT is not the one taught by the coc. Once you read the entire chapter or two surrounding the prooftexts given about things, it becomes obvious that those prooftexts aren't talking about what the coc uses them for.

I plan to continue the discussion for a little while before I leave the church. That may be a week or so, but probably not much longer. Just getting it out there has been freeing. I'm strongly leaning toward attending a Christmas Eve service late Sunday night... One with candles and singing Silent Night. It's been a long time since I've done that.

[SolaDude]

Well, it sounds like your husband may have not been thinking like you, but you (via God) may have planted an important seed....in the final analysis, anyone can use the Bible to make it say what they really want (primarily as a forced behavioral act on someone else)....and then lose focus on the bigger picture....that God from the beginning wanted to relate to man, that He did not discard mankind when He had every right to....that His ultimate purpose was to provide salvation for his people on many levels (not just from sin) as a God of intervention and love, that is, to prepare an ultimate way back to Him as it first was in the Garden.....

Here is my own personal take on the CofC after having been gone from it for many years (each individual has their own take, but perhaps this will give you additional reassuring thoughts to ponder, again these are purely my own thoughts and I'm not trying to preach to anyone nor convince anyone of anything....it is just presented as something for you to weigh):

1) It really does not deal with the grace of God, but substitutes one law for another, that is, the law of Moses for the law of Christ, but in a significant sense, views the law of Christ as merely a new law of sin and death which it is not.....beyond that it seemed to me to substitute the Bible for the Holy Spirit, such an odd concept I could never assimilate....the Bible is the arrow that points us to Life, it is not Life itself (i.e., Jesus Christ). I remember seeing a preacher once hold up a bible over his head with long stretched arms glorifying and worshiping it before the congregation....to me, a sight of idolatry (Bibliolatry)...the Bible to me remains a story from beginning to end (Genesis to Revelation) of His people, His church and how time after time He has tried to intervene as a God of incredible love not wanting to simply ditch mankind.
2) The idea of salvation by grace through faith is convoluted into "5 steps"....the phrase "5 steps" is not found in scripture anywhere, it is, in my opinion, a man-made works formula to come out, through hard effort, a "winner", enabling one to pat him or herself on the back.....which brings up another concept....that being that going to church itself is made a work for which one can feel "relieved" (again, sort of a pat on the back) for maintaining one's salvation...when really, we are in His hands and it is He who keeps us....I was saved from beginning to end and am being kept by God Himself.....nothing of myself (rags, rags, rags), thank God, contributed to my salvation worked by Him alone in me through faith.
3) Christ did not only die for our sins, but on the other side of the coin, also for our self-righteousness (which must die, it must), and that concept I realized was never really addressed by the CofC when I was in it....you can live on as a Christian never addressing your own self-righteousness, that is your own tendency to sit on the throne of your own life every day and not let Him take His place on your throne of life.....much similar to the Pharisees, really.....we constantly from day to day throw Him off our throne....He knows that....it is a constant sin we live with....but PRAISE God that when we realize we have been sitting on our throne and throwing Him off, and we repent of that and ask Him to place Himself back on our throne, He is there for us, He is there for us....it is just too glorious for words.....and then we grow in Him....The CofC to me teaches one to beat him or herself up every damn minute of the day....please Shrubbery, I hope you will find a non-condemming place....one that neither condemns other groups, but more importantly, does not make you feel that you must constantly beat-up and condemn yourself
4) Perfection cannot be our goal, but rather in our constant war with sin, our constant focus is placing our trust more in Him and away from ourselves everyday....that is, it is a reliance thing....entering a life-long process of repentance 24 hours a day. Repentence is not merely a "step" in a series of 5 steps...it is the new life we enter, a life of repentance.....recognizing the older we get how sinful we are and how sinful sin itself is and how righteous He is and how much more thankful therefore we can be every day for being made His child from the beginning by Him and through Him.....and because he does not look at ourselves and our rags anymore because he sees us now through His son, like putting on glasses that are tinged red with the blood of Christ and looking at us through those glasses now....we don't have to worry anymore, we have entered His rest now and as Romans 8:1 says there is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.....NONE. (I don't even remember the CofC preaching Romans 8:1)
5) And finally, Shrubbery.....BAPTISM...it's really the clenching deal in leaving the CofC. To me, it is made into a mystic act that somehow "makes current" the bloodletting on the cross.....when the cross (and resurrection) happened long ago and it is our recognition and belief of that that saves us via the Holy Spirit's working. As much as they deny they see it as a work, I could not buy their argument on that. Obviously everything we do in our saved lives is an "act" of faith....our breathing, our getting up in the morning, our embracing others, our praying, our coming and going....faith permeates us and our lives from the moment we believe. I personally see water baptism as the picture of what has already happened to us in Christ and a public declaration of our faith and our desire to follow Him and his example of sacrificial love (love of others to our own detriment). That's just me and whatever anyone else believes about it is fine with me as I really feel it is a personal belief based on one's own study and prayer. I just happen to feel that my understanding is closer to scripture than other bodies of thought on the matter I have come across.

I hope I have not bored you Shrubbery....I pray for you and your family....I pray that the God of intervention will work in your words that you speak with your husband and bless your lives from here on...I pray this in Jesus name....amen and amen.

SolaDude

[Moogy]

Welcome to the board.

[FinallyFree]

Shrubbery, did you go to a Christmas Eve service?

[Shrubbery]

Shrubbery, did you go to a Christmas Eve service?

I did not. I really wanted to, but then during the 5pm coc service, I realized that there was no way I would stay awake long enough to handle 10:30-midnight service. I went to bed before 10pm and got up at 6am to make special Christmas breakfast for the kids.