My Rough Road

That Paul explicitly warns about not needing to observe the Jewish Old Testament Law, I wish I would have learned that in Sunday School instead of how to save the world.

Like, I get it. The world is bad—it really wasn’t that bad, but the church I was at wanted me to solve Global Warming, and poverty and all that nonsense. I mean, it was good… I used it as a muse to develop Psuedo-technologies for Sci-Fis, but generally, I should have been learning solid theology and foundational Christianity.

At about the time I was fourteen, that’s when you really need to encounter Paul. Christ is for a young child, you learn Him, and build the foundation, but Paul’s for a teenager, because by about that time you’ve made some big mistakes, and need to learn the lesson of Christianity, which is we all fail, and need redeemed. At about 30 you need to learn Moses, and the time for War, and the harsh realities of life, that it’s not candy, and sometimes morality is ugly. Which, you know, we know when we watch TV the bad guy gets it, but we need to know what war is by 30 because that’s when we have the most mature reason to understand it.

But, I’d say around 14 I needed to be taught Paul and Song of Songs, and some of the other epistles. As I was not fully aware of what Christianity was by the time I got sucked into a well meaning, but destructive Messianic Jewish cult. I mean, the man who taught me, taught me a lot about Judaism, and I respect the ideas of the Covenant, and the Sacrifice and all that other stuff… it let me understand the Old Testament, from having lived it. But, to be forced into it, or to think I needed to do those things to be saved, really that’s why I needed a better teacher in my youth, who could teach me Sunday School.

Instead, he taught me the Bible was a bunch of stories, and even theologians say so, which made me disdain theology with a passion, if it could teach you that about the Bible. As I had bad influences all around me, and I needed the tools to combat it. As, I dealt with true spiritual forces, and I needed to know the good. And I needed to know Paul at 14 and 15 and 16 instead of about Feminism, Global Warming and how to solve Poverty. Which, you know… it got me thinking about those things, but I’m in no position to fix any of that. I would have been better off with a sound theological framework so I wouldn’t get sucked into a cult. Because I really wanted the morals, to fight back the evil that was surrounding me, and wanted to make me a prey.

So, he taught me some good things… in Sunday school my teacher taught me to help the poor. That’s foundational to who I am, and I’m thankful for that, just like the Cult Leader taught me about Judaism… so it worked for the good. I have a very deep theological depth, so quite inadvertently these traps sprung on the devil, and made me far more aware of the true religion, and capable of understanding it.

So, I’d never say either of them were bad people… they’re not… they’re just mistaken on opposite ends. One’s a secular Christian, the other a Messianic Jew, and they taught me dual things about the faith… but the meat and potatoes wouldn’t be taught to me until I was in jail, when the Chaplain told me to read Galatians, and I heard Jay Vernon McGee sermons on the radio, and found he had identical readings of the book of Jeremiah. Which, backtrack, was prepped in me by a Baptist church I was going to, but that’s a whole other story. I think he tried to tell me, but the damage was already done, and he might have called the authorities on me, because I used the wrong name… he was kind of a weird dude, too.

So, anyone who cries about abuses in the church, I don’t think I ever had a religious leader who taught me anything close to resembling the truth, except Christ Himself, and I’ve always somehow figured it out, and I guess that’s the Holy Spirit in me teaching me as I go… and I’m really understanding the concept of the Law’s Abolishment, that all things that condemn you, are abolished in the cross, so it leaves you with hope to become a better person.

On the good side, however, I had great Sunday School and Vacation Bible School until the Lutheran Church became secular. I had a good catechism teacher. And at the Baptist church I was going to, I learned fundamental theology from the Pastor, and had a good Sunday School, who I think were the authorities in question, called in to deprogram me from whatever cult I belonged to... which I'm a little miffed at actually because I think they hindered me in many things, and no such apparatus ought to exist in a free country. But, that's generally the fact. I appreciate what they taught me in the realm of apologetics, though. But, generally, the spying and all that other crap needs to stop, as the person who was in that cult and taught me is harmless. He just believed something eccentric.