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  • The Gospel of Jesus Christ

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    There is salvation in no other, for there is not another name under heaven having been given among men, by which it behooves us to be saved."

Praise God For Benny Hinn.

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this is a depressing, yet necessary, thread. i didn't get saved until -after- being indoctrinated thru a Pentecostal, residential rehab facility. I'm thankful, looking back, that I was so sick and burned out (no, really; I should have been put in the state hospital), because had I been of sound mind and able bodied...

they would have put me thru the ringer, like they did so.many.others...

and then I had a long distance older Pentecostal church lady friend. I wish her well, I do, but...what's strange, to me, is that as God moved in my life and my parents began to forgive me (took a lot, miracle they didn't get rid of me), I'd encounter...more and more hostility from her. sometimes masked in quasi-religious stuff, other times not so masked...I dunno. I should not have made the mistake of assuming that she was a 'real friend' in the sense that my unbeliever friends who kept in touch are 'real friends,' nor do I wish to make sweeping generalizations, its just...

well, now she's changed her number, after telling me time and time again how happy she was that "The Lord put you in my life," etc., and the thing is...

especially since my parents saw fit to -do forgiveness- towards me, etc., my life has been on an upswing, and I've been less and less in need of hand holding and pitying, more just...well, I guess I was foolish enough to think that maybe we could be long distance friends, on a more equal, give and take basis. nah. my unbeliever friend (says she leans towards Christianity, now and then graces some of the more left wing Episcopalian parishes with her presence) says that she just kept in touch so she could feel better about her own life. I thought about it, and...

-shrug- I wish her well, I keep her+her family up in prayer. I'll never join a Pentecostal church. Live and learn...

i dunno. I read on a marxist/conflict theory news and analysis site (don't always agree with everything, there, but...it hits hard from the analytical left wing, makes me -think- about society, etc.) something like: religion serves the interests of the powerful. and...'religion makes good people better, and bad people worse.' so, it isn't -just- the Pentecostals. I vaguely remember more middle-of-the road 'church people,' growing up Presbyterian. And then there is/was the 'devout Catholic' psychiatrist (according to my research, he's something like the #2 or #3 psych prescriber on Medicare...in the entire state) who would publicly humiliate me...while I had -obvious- brain damage...from his 'treatments,' at a private, for profit psych hospital (I didn't sign up for shock 'treatments,' certainly not -that much- shock, ok?). The chain that owns that psych hospital owns bunches more, they paid hundred$ of million$ to the feds for fraud (happened to my parents and me, ugh) and other shady junk...

the company's stock went up once the settlement was reached. ready to move on, open for business!

rambling...my own personal jibber jabber aside, Barna data shows that maybe 1 in 3 'evangelical, Born Again' church goers even have the fundamentals of a Christian Worldview. as in...many do.not.believe that Jesus is the -exclusive- savior, way to The Father...or that Hell is real and eternal...or that satan is an actual creature...blah blah blah, it happens.

On the one hand, it has -always- been this way, in Christendom. wheat and tares, wolves in sheep's clothing, false teachers, false prophets, heresies a go-go (gnosticism and various forms of unorthodox asceticism early on, for instance...), and...

well, Scripture -does- indicate that there will come a time when things will '..wax worse...' and then the evil one and his minions will '...deceive the very Elect, if possible...,' so given the across the board problems in the established churches--sex scandals and pedophilia and embezzlement and 'prosperity Gospel' and, before that, the popularity of eugenics within the mainline denomination--one -does- sort of wonder...

"The great deception," "The great apostasy," "The great falling away..."

are we there, yet? if not...how much worse will it get? and...given the dwindling numbers of church goers, the growing skepticism towards all things Christianity-related, and the growing numbers of -vocal- former church people...

will the mighty, established churches go out with a whimper...or with a bang? -shrug- random thought. :)
It will get much worse....
 
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