If other people actually told you were that seriously raises the possibility that you were not saved, you were in fact a very sincere churchian.
A christian's faith in christ has to be between them and God, another person cannot declare you are saved for you.
There is actually a classic novel on this subject! Calvinists especially would find this book interesting.
Archive.org library - private confessions of a justified sinner
Well, there's a very strong possibility that nobody here is saved. If you had asked me then whether I was saved, whether I had made a commitment to Christ, if the Spirit worked through me, I would have said absolutely, and meant it. At the time my faith was sincere, and we would sit back and laugh at all the other "churchians." The thing with "churchians" is that it's always those other guys who believe x instead of y, or who have different traditions than us.
Wow - that was harsh. I can sort of understand a church not wanting you to be involved in ministry, perhaps even not attend IF you were living with her etc., but total excommunication? ! Have you been able to reestablish ties with family again? Which denomination was it?
It's hard to say, just Trinitarian Pentecostal, I never considered it much more specifically than that. My mother (who was not a part of that church) and I were much closer after that, but she passed away. She was nominally Catholic, but actually very agnostic. My sisters disowned her as well.
Ironically, after not hearing from either sister in about 7 years (and even then it was through lawyers, so closer to 12 years now), I received a letter a few months ago from one of them asking for money. I have no intention of ever reestablishing ties with either of them.
I really don't like the sound of that church itself. It sounds very legalistic and not willing to examine beliefs very well. I hope if you ever reconsider attending church again you make sure that you get a more balanced type of church.
I did look for about four years or so, even tried a return to Catholicism, but as I'm going to explain later, I wouldn't let myself find faith that way. I found new communities that didn't involve faith, and looked for it on my own, because that's how it had to be. I could no longer involve other people in what I believed. It had to actually be personal. The result was I don't really have faith, I have what can be better described as curiosity.
That last statement is very revealing. IF your faith had been measured by intensity of feelings, then when feelings disappeared your faith did as well. Welcome to the club!
That's what happened to me after I moved towns and had no fellowship at all and I gradually moved away from God until I hardly felt anything at all except slight guilt at times.
Honestly, I still felt feelings (I'm not sure if that's what you mean). The problem I had with fellowship is that I didn't believe because it made sense to me, but because it allowed me to be part of a community. I was only accepted to the degree that I agreed with what "management" said. To the point where when I did put my foot down for someone I loved, I was literally, and completely abandoned (actually had my belongings thrown out of my house). I felt used, taken advantage of, and manipulated. That's why from that point on faith became very personal, and not something for me to let other people dictate to me.
I broke down as many beliefs as I could and examined why I believed them. If I couldn't make sense of them, they just sort of evaporated. That was, of course, over a period of almost 8 years.
The difference is that when I heard a street preacher in Oct 2006 it jogged my memory of what had been taught to me many years previously I decided to examine the evidence for Christianity again. That is when I came back for good. Answered prayers and meeting people at exactly the right time only happened AFTER I returned to God, not before.
Have you ever re-examined Christianity via proper apologetics sites? There is material for thinkers out there, yes obviously they are by Christians but they are WAY better than than "the bible says it, therefore believe it/it's true" variety that churches like your old one probably depend on too much.
If you're interested I have lots of links on my favourites list.
I might take a look, but I've looked plenty before. The problem with apologetics is that the evidence always travels in the wrong direction. People look for evidence to validate the conlusion they want to reach, rather than the evidence that's available. Or they tend to assume that all of reality is a dichotomy, and say if it's not
a then it must be
b, ignoring that it might be
c, or
d, or
e...That tends to be prone to bias, selective reasoning, and selective attention. I'm not prepared to think that way anymore. I'm following evidence that leads me to the conclusion that I reach, not the conlusion I want to reach. Realistically, I doubt that I'll ever make a conlusion in any event.
