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What is a REAL Christian and what is a REAL church?

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mediasmart
 
Reply Fri 10 Jul, 2009 05:39 pm
What is a REAL Christian and what is a REAL church?
What is a REAL Christian?

I ask this specifically to you ex-FI/COG members. (Note: I am not an ex family member)

Before you answer... please read further.
When I read The Family's Statement of Faith http://www.thefamily.org/en/about/our-beliefs/ it all seems pretty much like they believe what most evangelical christians believe. But if you scroll down to point 30 it is clear that their viewpoint on sexuality is different to what most evangelical churches preach (OK, OK, this we all know already!) I think it is safe to assume that most of you participating in this forum and know the history of FI would agree that The Family IS NOT a real christian church, thus, a sect and/or a cult.

It would be interesting to know how many ex-members:
(a) still believe in a god, (b) does not believe in a god (c) still attend a christian church (which I can imagine is hard to choose from, because you get so many different denominations).

I hope you guys see this as fair questions to ask. Maybe this topic has come up already in other posts. Please send me the links if there are!

From the posts I have read so far on this forum, it is becoming clear to me that there are basically two camps of ex-members: those who believe (in God) and those who don't. The common denominator here is the experiences you guys had in The Family. It would be interesting to know WHY some of you still believe in a loving God IN SPITE of the abuses you went through, and WHY some of you don't believe in a god anymore - is it because of the abuses, or because of the weird mixture of christianity AND sexual abuses, or has it nothing to do with your experiences in The Family? (Sorry I know these are VERY personal issues and it must seem very brash of me as an ex-member to ask such questions). Please let me know if I am stepping on any toes. I am not trying to be sensational, I just honestly wonder about these things.

If I can divert a little bit here... I heard different accounts of ex-family members ending up in the sex trade. I find this very sad Sad
Two days ago I watched the Montel Williams interview with Davida Kelley http://video.xfamily.org/view/62/montel-williams-escaping-a-cult/ I know Montel isn't exactly the king of interviewers (frankly I can't stand his way of talking and he seems insincere and "showmanny" to me). But with that said, at the end of the talk he touches on a very sensitive point and seems genuienly concerned when he confronts Davida to get out of the sex business she is in. I find it truly ironic that after one flees from a sex sult one ends up having to use sex as a means to support yourself! This makes me so angry Evil or Very Mad towards The Family, even though I am not an ex-member! I sincerely wish Davida will get the total freedom she so desperately craves and deserves!

Anyway this raises more questions, and it might be another topic for another time: How many ex-members are (a) currently involved in some kind of sex trade and why, and (b) believe in "free love" VS believe in monogamous relationships? It is also interesting to note that Davida said in an interview with Larry King that she still believes in Jesus even though she is a fetish model. So I guess the quesion then is, CAN one be a christian AND be sexually active outside the confines of marriage or be involved in open sexual practices? Well, The Family did and still do believe this, and that's what caused all the "%*# problems to begin with!!!

Please allow me to go off the point with something else...I guess another question I still have (specifically to the ones of you who DO believe in God), is HOW COULD GOD ALLOW THE ABUSE THAT HAPPENED TO YOU, and how did you come to a point that you forgave God for what happened to you? It's one thing to say, well it was the ABUSERS that performed the evil acts on me, not God. But then I must raise the point: It was God that allowed it! I would very much like to hear comments on this from ex-members who now profess to be christians. I got a great answer from Thorwald (and his reasoning makes a lot of sense) when I asked the same question in another topic I posted (QUESTIONS http://xchildrenofgod.xfamily.org/general/questions-t6767.html)

Anyway, sorry for the many questions. The main question I wanted to ask you guys was what is a REAL christian (as supposed to a FI christian), and in the same breath, what is a REAL church then?

Looking forward to your replies!
 
evanman
 
Reply Fri 4 Jun, 2010 10:34 am
Re: What is a REAL Christian and what is a REAL church?
I would say that the family's statement of faith is very similar to many other Evangelical churches, which is why many cannot discern truth from error these days.

Most "Evangelical" groups today follow a different definition of what it means to be Evangelical than, say, in the earlier Evangelical movement. The changes came through men like Billy Graham and a host of others who have been influenced by him. The Neo-Evangelical movement has a much broadcer idea of what it means to be a Christian. Salvation is simply the result of a prayer asking "Jesus into one's heart!" yet nowhere do we see this message ever preached by the Apostles of Jesus Christ anywhere in the New Testament.

The message they preached was, "Repent, believe the Gospel and be Baptised"! Repentance is not simply feeling sorry, or even saying, "sorry" it goes much deeper. It is a change of atitude, a change of mind towards God and is measured by contrition and the turning away from the direction that one is following in one's life.

Salvation is dependent upon one's faith in Christ and what He accomplished at Calvary. We are saved NOT because we prayed a "sinner's prayedr" but because Jesus Christ died and thus reconciled us to the Father. We know this is true by virtue of the ressurrection.

Berg's idea was that now we are justified and "saved" it doesn't matter what we do as long as "it is done in love"! This is ridiculous, and not what Paul meant when he said that "Love" is the fulfillment of the Law!"

If we read Christ's own words in the Book of Revelation He still condemns fornication--yet the CoG/FI still practice it by "sharing"!

Church is simply a group of likeminded believers who gather together for fellowship in Christ's name. Berg has this right (up to a point) however it is not about communes, or a communal pot!
 
rcbako
 
Reply Wed 8 Sep, 2010 06:00 am
Re: What is a REAL Christian and what is a REAL church?
The word christian was mentioned in the new testament. It was explained that those who believe Christ are to be called by this name. But to believe is not to merely believe without any single amount of action. To believe on Him is to do the things he has commanded us to do.

During Christ time he had built His church. He is the chief stone of His church. He called his apostles to assist Him on His divine work. His church is founded by Him, His apostles, His prophets as said by Paul to his letter to Ephesian.
 
renee 2
 
Reply Tue 1 Mar, 2011 04:48 pm
Re: What is a REAL Christian and what is a REAL church?
I know this is an old thread, but since i'm reading it, and since i think probably more people are thinking about this after the 'reboot' happened, and maybe even visiting this site for the first time...like me... Smile

I'm still learning what real Christianity is so don't feel qualified to answer really. But I do still consider myself a Christian, or rather, I want to be a Christian. I wasn't abused physically as a child but have discovered that my belief, trust, time, etc. were used and misused by david berg originally and then (possibly unintentionally, i haven't figured that out yet...if i ever will) by his successors. I feel betrayed and deceived, lied to, by people who i completely trusted, and yes, it was all in the name of God. Everything I learned in tfi included some aspect of Jesus and Heaven, etc. and all I really knew about Jesus I learned from the Family. So now that I've learned that different things, like adultery and hearing from the dead as a couple of examples, is really bad according to Jesus' own teachings and the Bible, I've had to come to grips with the fact that I wasn't a real Christian after all, even though I thought I was. TFI was basically a trap for sincere potential Christians to get trapped in, and never go any further.

So from what I'm learning, I can be a real Christian and I can be "washed white" though I feel pretty dirty right now emotionally and mentally, but it will just take time and study. I don't know exactly yet, but i think the first step is to research and learn for real what the Bible really says and who Jesus really was and is and what He wants of his followers, and get clean...somehow get forgiveness....again, i'm not sure what the steps are yet but I'm sure so far that it involves at least resolving to put everything that turns out to have been wrong out of your life...and then to just live the type of life that's actually close to God and as much as possible (without all the spiritual stress that we had in tfi) do what Jesus really asked...which turns out to be very different from what david berg and the tfi admin wanted.

I'm saying this in the first person because I'm not qualified to speak for anyone else Smile

anyways...
 
 

 
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