| Author |
Message |
Dd
Registered user
Username: Dd
Post Number: 349
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2005 - 1:22 pm: |     |
What I find frightening is that all those Sabbath "rules" were just a way of life. I just lived knowing that this was how I was to live...listen to Christian music one day of the week, wear a dress (with nylons!) to church, have my house spotless and the food for Sabbath in the refrig before sundown Friday night...
This thread goes along with the other thread regarding SDA education...it really does blow my mind when I sit and contemplate how I mindlessly went through all the motions without ever asking why and seeing the absolute idioticalness of the "rights and wrongs" of Sabbath activities. It had to be the SDA education that made me just like the Pharisees of Jesus day. |
Pw
Registered user
Username: Pw
Post Number: 330
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2005 - 6:53 am: | |
When I was an SDA , I was told that watching tv is not right during sabbath hours. But on another forum, some SDA was on his computer posting his opinions. I pointed that out to him asking why he's on the computer during these hours and he actually said "Don't get all legalistic about these things towards me, afterall, I'm using this time for spreading the truth about the sabbath". I found that to be ridiculous. No tv, no stereo, no work but it's ok to be on the computer? |
Bb
Registered user
Username: Bb
Post Number: 76
Registered: 7-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2005 - 3:43 pm: | |
It all has to "feel" like a Sabbath thing to do. They can watch 3ABN all day on Sabbath or listen to a Christian station on the stereo, so they think it is perfectly fine to be online if they are doing "religious" things.
What is funny is that I used to listen to Christian music only on the Sabbath, but now that I am free I listen to it all week long! |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 1506
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2005 - 8:31 pm: | |
Bb, I've marvelled at that same thing! I listen to Christian music any time now! (In fact, my listening is almost all Christian now--what a switch for a die-hard ADventist music major!!)
Colleen |
Heretic
Registered user
Username: Heretic
Post Number: 9
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 2:02 am: | |
Since learning about the beauty of the New Covenant and, thus, developing a deeper understanding and appreciation for grace, so much more of Christian music comes alive. That's almost all I'll listen to, now. It helps that in the past 10 years or so Christian music has gotten much better in quality, at least in my opinion. |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 1614
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 4:00 am: | |
Dd, Have you read the book by Pat Darnell, All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go? You can read the entire book by logging onto Janet Brown's site. In her book she says when pantyhose came out she was admonished by the SDA preacher for wearing pantyhose because by having no seam down the back they made her legs look naked. Then years later when seamed stockings came back into style she was admonished by a SDA preacher because he said wearing seamed stockings drew attention to her legs and causes lust. In SDA'ism it doesn't matter what one does, it most likely will be the wrong thing. |
Pw
Registered user
Username: Pw
Post Number: 331
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 5:54 am: | |
The SDA's really harp on how people dress. Especially women. No makeup, no jewelry and no panty hose! I wonder if they preferred women who didn't shave their legs since that tends to draw attention as well. |
Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 765
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 7:09 am: | |
How do you all handle swimsuits? B is so critical of what people wear and it needs to be modest ...blah, blah, blah, then criticizes me because I won't wear a bikini. What's up with that?? |
Greg
Registered user
Username: Greg
Post Number: 38
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 7:38 am: | |
Heretic, I am in the same boat. Christian music has a much deeper meaning to me today than it ever did when I was in the throes of Adventism. You are right--the quality of contemporary Christian music has improved dramatically over recent years.
Some of the older generation in my family are obsessed about music. The format of their local Adventist radio station has changed recently from playing "Adventist elevator music" to a more contemporary style. My relatives can't stop talking about how horrible this all is and how un-Christian it is.
This is just another example in my mind how Adventists want to build a wall around themselves and retreat from the evils of the world. They don't realize that we were called by Jesus to be the salt of the earth. We are literally called to season the world around us, not to lock ourselves up in the salt shaker.
Greg |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 1615
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 8:15 am: | |
Music-Last year I was very blessed in that I got to go hear John Michael Talbot in concert. Oh, I just love listening to him. I took my mom along to the concert. It was at a large Catholic church in a nearby city. Then just several weeks ago I heard The Nordic Chior. I just don't much care for what is referred to as comtemperary music. And, Melissa, I guess it's a complament that B. wants you to wear a bikini. He probably just thinks you'd look hot in a bikini and then to be seen with a hot chick at his side, well, guys just like that. I know. I'm around males almost exclusively (except for my elderly SDA mother). That's just how they are. |
Tdf
Registered user
Username: Tdf
Post Number: 49
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 9:02 am: | |
Greg,
I really agree with your post. As a musician who ministered through music for many years in Adventist circles, I know from first-hand experience what it's like to be persecuted for Christ. I always thought that music was simply a war topic in every denomination. But I've found that, since leaving Adventism, and getting involved in music in a number of different denominations (I've worked as the Director of Contemporary Worship for a Church of Christ congregation and a Methodist church), folks are far less judgmental. Of course, it's true that everywhere you go, people have opinions about music. However, outside of Adventism, folks simply state their opinions (there is no bashing you over the head with quotes from EGW or telling you that you're efforts are sinful and are causing others to stumble). What a refreshing change!
tdf |
Freeatlast
Registered user
Username: Freeatlast
Post Number: 298
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 10:02 am: | |
What? No admonitions that "praise" music and "celebration" worship is really a secret Jesuit conspiracy to infiltrate the SDA church with RCC doctrine? |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 1617
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 10:30 am: | |
TDF, I thought the Church of Christ doesn't use instraments. Am I mistaken in that? And, Freeatlast, my historic SDA neighbor says contempary and praise music is a Jesuit plot to infilterate the SDA church. Of course, she hasn't attended the local SDA church in years because according to her most of the congreation are Jesuit infilteraters and there are only a few real SDA's that go there and that is just because they won't open their eyes to see that the little church has been taken over by the Jesuits. It goes round and round with her. This lady is living on disability and yet she buys scores of Jan Marcussians book, National Sunday Law and leaves them around town. She eats at the homeless shelter (she is not homeless) so she can spend more money on those books rather than buying herself food. It is very tragic. |
Freeatlast
Registered user
Username: Freeatlast
Post Number: 299
Registered: 5-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 11:19 am: | |
Susan2, that is exactly the reference I was referring to! My mom is also a hardcore Jan Marcussen supporter and spends tons of her money on that which is not bread... Makes me sick to my stomach and breaks my heart at the same time. |
Weimarred
Registered user
Username: Weimarred
Post Number: 36
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 12:18 pm: | |
My experience was music and dress.
There was an evil beat that was lurking out there, that was just ready to make all us teenagers mindless cretins commiting all sorts of sins.
And the dress thing. If all ladies have to wear dresses, doesn't that expose their legs? I wonder what the ratio of "leg-guys" is in the SDA church? |
Colleentinker
Registered user
Username: Colleentinker
Post Number: 1511
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 1:10 pm: | |
Ha! I had to laugh this morning--Richard was listening to Chuck Swindoll in the car. Chuck was preaching part of a series from the book of Esther. He was explaining the purification/beauty rituals Esther had to go through before her presentation to the king as a queen-hopeful. He pointed out that the process of skin preparation, perfuming, oiling, etc. took weeks.
Then Chuck said, Now I've noticed that as people become immersed in the Word and grow more spiritual, often the women become plainer and plainer. This just isn't necessary! There are products available to help a person age gracefully and stay attractive, and you should feel free to use them. In fact, many of you need them! Whereupon the congregation roared with laughter.
(Let's see, it must be nearly time for me to see my beautician...)
Melissa, that question of swimsuits and modesty--I have seen such an undercurrent of ADventist men who can't take their eyes off provocatively dressed women, and an equal array of women who deliberately dress provacatively in order to get that attention. (Don't get me wrong--I've seen that same thing among many students at the Christian school where I taught as well--)
But seen quite a different approach to this subject in the Christian community than I ever saw in the Adventist one.
A few years ago Richard was interviewing potential candidates for a job opening in his office. One candidate was an Adventist young woman (married) who was a grad student in the dept. of religion. She appeared for her interview in a very short-skirted suit (she normally wore jeans around campus), and sat provacatively in front of his desk. Richard said he carefully and deliberately refused to look anywhere below her chin.
He was pretty miffed that she so blatantly tried to use seduction to influence the interview. He told the incident to his small men's Bible study/prayer group, which was involved in praying he'd find the right person for the job, and those men all said in effect, "You don't need that in your office!"
This is just to say, Melissa, that, as you already know, not all men give in to the flattery of seduction--which is what women exercise when they wear skimpy things. On the flip side of the coin, however, if that young woman hadn't had reason, coming from her experience in Adventist education and employment, to think that method would yield results, she wouldn't have dressed that way.
That being said, I'm convinced that the near-obsession Adventists have with dress and music reveals a deep fatal flaw. Remember the near-orgy proportion of the Dammon trial during Ellen and James' early "ministry" days? I'm convinced that part of the Adventist legacy is a pervasive curiosity and fixation on inappropriate sexual behavior. Now I know that's a pretty strong statement, but it does seem to be quite a pervasive problem.
Praise God for filling the emptiness that drives so much of that compulsive behavior!
Colleen
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Melissa
Registered user
Username: Melissa
Post Number: 768
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 2:45 pm: | |
I heard that Swindoll lesson as well...I thought it was very funny.
My pastor says "if the barn needs paint, paint it". (That's his take on makeup). I always laugh at that one.... |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 1618
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2005 - 5:25 pm: | |
Freeatlast, My historic SDA neighbor buys all those National Sunday Law books. Scores of them per month. She then leaves them in the local laundrymats, on the bus benches, here, there and everywhere in this community. People toss them in the trash. Then she told me one day, "I know the people in this community are hungry for the truth because when I go back and check on the books I've left they are always all gone." Yeah, because they got tossed into the trash. I figured out one time at the cost of that book to the millions JM claims he has sold how much money he has made off that piece of trash. It's phonominal! |
Tdf
Registered user
Username: Tdf
Post Number: 50
Registered: 11-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 04, 2005 - 6:32 am: | |
Susan,
I worked for the United Church of Christ, a denomination that was formed in 1957 with the union of the congregational church and the evangelical/reformed church. The United Church of Christ is completely separate from the Church of Christ sects that don't use instruments in their services (don't you just love denominationalism). The United Church of Christ is actually quite political and its stances on political issues tend to be far more liberal than my wife and I are comfortable with (which is why we're no longer there). |
Susan_2
Registered user
Username: Susan_2
Post Number: 1622
Registered: 11-2002
| | Posted on Friday, March 04, 2005 - 11:10 am: | |
Yes, I am aware that the United Church of Christ and the Church of Christ are two totlly disinct organizations. I would probably attend a United Chruch of Christ but the nearest one is around 25 miles from where I live. The local United C of C does a lot of things together with the Quakers (Friends) and the Unitarian. Those three locally do a lot of combined projects. |
Chris
Registered user
Username: Chris
Post Number: 682
Registered: 7-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 04, 2005 - 11:41 am: | |
It suprises me that either of those two groups would fellowship with Unitarians who are a completely non-Christian group. |
