7thMo. 2024 Blog Posts (11)

Part Two, A revealing conversation

As part of settling into my new job, I had a few conversations with my supervisor about his faith and mine. Recently I’d been reading the Bible and was also attracted to the early Friends and their experience of hearing Jesus’ voice inwardly. In one of our discussions, I mentioned that I felt this was important.

“But you’ve got to watch that,” Ernest said. “Because what…

Part One, Attempting to save themselves

During one year of my life, as a young adult I attended church. I often went with my supervisor and his family to the Sunday morning service at the most Fundamentalist church in town. They also attended the Sunday evening service, the Wednesday evening service, and all the Bible studies. In addition, they held a family prayer service before breakfast, lunch, and supper.…

Years ago, I was steadily moving toward the Truth while still struggling to include other Christians in my world. I didn’t want to dismiss believers who didn’t agree with the early Quakers, so I kept attending church.

One Saturday evening, I participated in a singles group at a Charismatic church. There were about 15 of us. After we played volleyball and some board games, the youth pastor led us into an adjoining room, where we all sat…

One of the most absurd doctrines I’ve ever encountered is “positional sanctification.” A friend, supposedly a Christian, described it to me: We live in this world, as in a deep, narrow channel, with our sins. God looks down from above and does not see our sins but only the righteousness he has given us through Jesus.

This piece of fiction is blasphemous: God sees everything, and it’s beyond absurdity to contend that he doesn’t. When I heard…

Toward the end of my churchgoing days, while visiting friends I went to a worship service at their church. An enthusiastic pastor conducted the service, and I soon realized I was the only new person there.

This was easy to notice because she appeared to be directing everything she said to me. While speaking, she held my gaze and, when it was time for the altar call, she launched an all-out effort to get me to come…

An orchestra is just as likely as any other workplace to harbor gossips. In a conversation with Kathy, one of my casual friends, I mentioned that “I don’t set foot in any church unless God sends me there.”

I knew that Kathy’s good friend, Beryl, was an extremely churchy Baptist, and that Kathy would report what I’d said. That this had occurred became clear at the next rehearsal.

During our 15-minute…

In the days when I was attending a Fundamentalist church, I found that I couldn’t stand the pastor’s and members’ rigid convictions that only a person who believed certain specified doctrines could go to Heaven. In particular, I couldn’t stand this in reference to my mother.

She was an atheist ethnic Jew. When I became a Christian, this was hard for her, but she did let me tell her what God was doing for me.…

In the early 1980s, during the years I was reading the Bible, Fundamentalist Anita Bryant was shrilling against homosexuality all over the (radio) airwaves.

I noticed this because the Bible testifies that God requires righteousness across the board. Why, therefore, would any Protestant elevate one sin above another?

For decades this baffled me. Finally, after I’d noticed many other things about the…

Before I became a Christian, I met Janet at the office where we both worked. I was between my bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Janet and I became friends and, since she lived close to the office, we frequently walked to her apartment for lunch. During that year, I’d been reading the Bible, and was encountering many passages I couldn't understand.

Exod. 4:21 begins the story of how God delivered the…

Gretchen was a college friend. All went well with our relationship until after that Meeting for Worship in the Name of Jesus. We’d both been Christians prior to that Meeting, and were accustomed to tell each other about our spiritual lives.

After that pivotal Meeting, I next stayed with my father at our family cabin in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Prior to this visit, I’d experienced unmistakable signs that my relationship with him was…

Introduction

In 1985, when I was 31 years old, I attended my first Quaker Meeting for Worship in the Name of Jesus. I’d been going to Quaker meetings for the past three years, but these were liberal meetings in which nobody agreed on who their teacher was.

In the Meeting for Worship in the Name of Jesus, I received a massive visitation of God’s love and power, and knew I was in the presence of Christ.…