Moved from Christian Advice - I can't help my family...

Lee M said:

I really do have a volatile anger toward Christianity and it's ideas.

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And you want your Mom to "have peace" with this? Sorry, but how can you expect that to happen? I think your best bet is to tackle the control issues that are apparently attached. You're a grown man, your family has done its best to influence you in what they feel is a positive way, their hands are clean of your decisions.

I really don't see anything more powerful or valid than that. Good to see your concern here, Lee.

Lee M said:

Motherprayer,

Actually I just tried to type all that I think I can tell about him and it suddenly dawned on me what I believe is happening... I think I see it now. The anger from his past that he has repeatedly testified of overcoming through Jesus Christ and through the methods he elaborates on having used really isn't gone at all, he's painfully put himself through many processes that allowed him to chain it up and keep it from showing but it's like his flesh quakes because it's still there deep, deep down in there that he doesn't remember anymore.

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If this is true it just means he struggles, and is not perfect yet. Being human and all.

Lee M-

Define what your mother and sister include as necessary in order to be a Christian. Does it include these as essential to being a true Christian?

1. The Creation Story is to be accepted as literally true.

2. The Great Flood is to be accepted as literally true.

3. The Tower of Babel is to be accepted as literally true.

4. The minister is to be accepted as the voice of God, and to disagree with any agenda he promotes is to disagree with God himself.

5. Faith is insufficient. In order to attain salvation laws as interpreted by the leaders of that denomination must also be kept meticulously.

6. All other denominations are to be seen as 'on the wrong track', if not flatout condemned as false prophets.

7. All members of the Roman Catholic Church are to be seen as hell-bound, and the pope is to be seen as the antichrist.

8. Christians are to see themselves as the instruments of God's wrath, with anything they do to nonbelievers seen as God's vengeance toward them.

9. Matthew 25:31-46 (the 'feed the hungry' passage) is to be rejected as no longer applicable to Christians. Their job is to bring more people into the only 'true church' (that pastor's particular denomination).

10. Members of that church are to interact with others, whether they be other members or nonbelievers, only to the extent, and in the manner, that the church's leaders direct them.

If your answer is "Yes" to any of these, I suspect that what you and your relatives have experienced has not been Christianity; it's been exploitative theology. And it has only one purpose, namely, to increase the power of the heirarchy of a particular denomination over their laity.

IOW: Your fighting against what that pastor is attempting to do through both his own efforts and through his direction of your mother and sister (and I strongly suspect that your problems with both of them have been due to his orders to them) may very well be directed by God himself. Rather than your 'digging in your heels' being a fight against God, as you suspect is the case, you're actually being warned by God to go no farther in the direction which that pastor wants of you.

Thank you Harry, I couldn't agree more

Lee M said:

I am not a Christian and I am not the least bit interested in being a Christian but I think maybe I could still learn something from you all by presenting you with this real life problem I've run into because it involves my Christian family and I want to help them but I don't know how.

My Mother is deeply worried about me, she doesn't know if she can hold on for me much longer, her hope for me to be saved is flickering. She believes that I am on my way to a devastating hell. She sent my previous pastor a plea for help that I happened to see and in it she expressed that she was losing hope for me to be saved and she was asking him to keep praying for me. This broke my heart and I really really hate what this religion is doing this to her, I hate that it's hurting her, it makes me so angry that this thing is inflicting so much pain on my mother and I can't help her see what I see. can't take her pain away. I want to take away her fears but I can't, I can't change what she honestly believes and her beliefs cause her great pain.

My sister sent me a message full of anger and regret, chastising me for being this messed up and this selfish and this ignorant, all the while claiming her love for me, she's scared i'm on my way to a hell.

I want to help my family, I want to help my mother and ease her pain but I can never be a Christian again because I see what it is and they do not see it yet and I don't really believe I can ever help them see it.

I just want to help my family It hurts me so much to see them so afraid and full of pain. I just want to help my family... but I don't know how. I am not interested in taking away or destroying their beliefs, I wouldn't ever try to do that to them, I just don't want to see them hurting this way.

I have considered lying to them and acting like a Christian just to take away their pain, I mean none of this matters to me anyway, I think I could stomach the dishonesty if it gives my mother peace in her later years though I don't know if I could actually pull it off. I really just want to help them be at peace... this pain in them makes me so angry at what's doing it and hurts me very much.

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Sounds like they belong to the ignorant fundie version of Christianity.

In the end, you can't change them, you can only change yourself. First and foremost, learn what real Christianity is. You don't need to agree with it, just learn what it is. Hint - it's not what they have been brought to believe.

Second, stop being mad at Christianity. Those who escape fundamentalism often have anger towards it, but anger at hate only hurt the one who is angry. I heard a great proverb recently which is quite true, supposedly attributed to the Buddha, "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned."

Third, take the higher ground. Show that your way is better. Instead of being mad at Christianity, simply live your life, and no matter how misguided you think their beliefs are, respect what they believe (or rather, the fact that they believe it).

And I can empathize with you - my fundamentalist parents told me my grandmother was going to hell for being an Orthodox Christian, and later when I converted they nearly disowned me....

Lee M said:

I can't help being bothered by Christianity, it affects my life and my family and it does make me mad. This doesn't mean i'm obsessed with it but I can't just shut it out of my life very easily, it's all around me.

Things with my family have gotten better I think, it's sort of an off limits subject now. I think they have accepted it isn't their responsibility anymore.

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One thing you should perhaps keep in mind is something Jesus talked about. He said, "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of."

If the heart is full of hatred, the mouth will speak hatred. If the heart is full of fear, the mouth will speak fear. If the heart is full of love, the mouth will speak love.

'Christianity' is a religion with can be interpreted in a zillion different ways. Just peek into the 'debate' boards here to see what I mean. So 'Christianity' is not the source of your struggle with your family (even though they claim 'Christianity' as their motive), anymore than 'Islam' is the source for Islamic terrorists (though they claim 'Islam' as their motive).

Just don't wear yourself out fighting the wrong enemy, friend.

I'm glad things are going more smoothly with your family. I wish you all healing and peace.

Lee M said:

Yes I am aware of the problem the Christian system has in finding unity within itself. I am concerned with becoming obsessed or full of anger too. I don't believe in these things so I shouldn't spend too much of my self on it. Kindness, mercy, goodness, peace... these are all very important parts of my own philosophy so I don't need to become enraged or depressed by this system.

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Yes.

One thing I've noticed is that the 'systems' that we have grown up in and rejected are the ones we virulently hate. My own experience was discovering my own untenable hypocrisy and dishonesty (all in Jesus' name, of course). So every time I catch even a whiff of the s*** I used to shovel, my blood starts boiling.

The thing is, though, that if I now start pronouncing on high my shiny new doctrines, then I am the same child of hell that I used to be. I'm just shoveling with a different color shovel.