New here--recent experience

[Chan]

I grew up coc and gradually started to change my beliefs as I got older. For the last several years I have attended other churches or a more liberal coc. There is a very hardcore coc that I have refused to go to for several years. Recently, because of a family emergency, it was easier to attend this church one Sunday. I had forgotten just how ridiculous and judgmental they could be. The Bible class teacher began talking about a friend of his who was coc but believed something different than the hardcore beliefs. This friend had passed on and the teacher believed the friend was now in hell. But what really got me was the fact that the teacher seemed so happy with the thought that his friend was in hell. I was used to judgments like this but not used to such happiness about it. At least in the coc I grew up in, we were always sad about the thought of someone we loved going to hell.

Even though I haven't been coc for a long time, it was this experience that led me to this board. I am still trying to process how I could have believed some things for so long. And I'm still trying to process how it has affected me and my current beliefs. Even though I don't believe that way anymore, I am realizing more and more how brainwashed I was and how hard it is to overcome. I have read some other posts about trying to find a church that lines up perfectly with our own beliefs and how impossible that it. Even though I can agree with maybe 95% of the beliefs in a lot of churches, the 5% I don't agree with always holds me back and makes me think I can never truly belong. I'm glad to see that a lot of people on here have gotten past this. I hope that I will also be able to get past this as it's very important to me to have that sense of belonging.

[agricola]

Hi Chan.
on your 'happy my friend is in hell' experience - that's not unheard of. After all, the best way to justify your own opinion is to see somebody else caught up in the dire prediction. It is, unfortunately, an easy step from 'we have the Truth' to 'nobody else has the Truth' and then to 'without the Truth we are damned for eternity'. Right away, that means that ANY deviation from some imaginary complete 'Truth' is completely fatal. So life becomes a zero sum game, with nothing but 100% win or 100% fail. If you can't be on top any other way, you can always step all over your friends and cut THEM down instead of rising up yourself. As you noticed, it isn't pretty.

Do you think maybe that is your issue with finding a new faith home? You have internalized this coc teaching that only 100% is 'good enough' and anything less is the same as 100% wrong?

Maybe this life game is more like horseshoes, where you get points for getting CLOSE.

Welcome to the ex board, and I hope you find some help here.

[bnot]

Welcome to the board! Thanks for sharing. I think anyone who leaves the coc has some baggage to deal with, it takes time and a conscious effort to deal with it. Things will feel better as time goes on, but visiting a hardcore coc will stir up bad memories.

[GMan]

Welcome!

[KLP]

welcome and yes, finding a new place is hard. For me one of the hardest thing to realize was that for as different CofC was in some ways...that it is for the most part a human organization and very similar to most any other organization. For me it became hard to justify giving up one set of traditions/rules/authorities for another. The Who song about the new boss being the same as the old boss and not getting fooled again is very hard to not hear in my mind.

[FinallyFree]

Welcome, Chan! I didn't think I would ever be able to find another church that fit my beliefs, and I looked for a long time. Now, I have found something that fits me really well. I go to a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I am very happy with it. I know the CofC makes you believe everything is either all good or or all bad and everything is black and white, with no gray areas. I think raising my kids in that did a lot of damage.

[onward]

Welcome! Hope the information on this board will be beneficial to you.

Most of us have a difficult time searching for an acceptable church because we have been brainwashed too many years in a ridiculous CoC system. We are accustomed to wearing blinders and colored glasses that assure us that we alone are the chosen ones. No church we discover will mesh 100% with our beliefs, which is a good thing, because none of us are 100% right in what we believe.

[Chan]

Thank you for all of your responses. I totally think the brainwashing about "not being 100% right is 100% wrong" is a big issue for me even though I have tried very hard to get past this. I remember asking my dad one time, "But how do you know your beliefs are 100% correct" and he said he wasn't completely sure and that thought scared him. I definitely don't believe in a God who wants us to be scared we have missed some minute detail and is ready to throw us in hell for the slightest infraction.

[onward]

Thank you for all of your responses. I totally think the brainwashing about "not being 100% right is 100% wrong" is a big issue for me even though I have tried very hard to get past this. I remember asking my dad one time, "But how do you know your beliefs are 100% correct" and he said he wasn't completely sure and that thought scared him. I definitely don't believe in a God who wants us to be scared we have missed some minute detail and is ready to throw us in hell for the slightest infraction.

Since every man is finite, and the church is composed of finite people, it's impossible to have perfection in our belief system, but that doesn't stop the hardline CoC tribes from being quick to condemn every "church" that doesn't walk lockstep with them of being apostate, and on a fast track to Hell; they either ignore, or have conveniently forgotten, that God"s grace and mercy is extended to ALL who believe in Him ... Yep, even those dastardly Baptists.

[HighLiter871]

It's hard to imagine hating anybody enough to wish them an eternity in hell. Oh, I have a couple of family members . . . well, 15, 20 minutes might not be beyond the pale of reason.