This is a pure example of what I've discussed in my most recent post--a lot of groups in that particular flavour of Christianity are dominionist and even cultic, but every once in awhile someone in those groups discovers something that causes enough "cognitive dissonance" they know something in the church isn't right.  It's a rare thing when people actually manage to keep their faith in the process.

This preacher is a prime example of it--he read the Bible, realised he couldn't accept the idea of Hell--and whilst his congregation left him, he found his "key" to realise what is broken--and hopefully to fix it someday.

Robert Bakker is another person I bring up in this, too--he's an evangelical who, after both being involved in paleontology and reading the Bible along with the works of St. Augustine, could no longer accept the Biblical account of creation--but his research and his "crisis of faith" actually has helped him in his own religious path, and he actually mentions in his speeches paleontologists who both believed in evolution and were diehard Christians to show people that the two are NOT incompatible.

There are others like that, too.  The thing is, we can't force it--everyone has to discover the "key" for themselves.  

(This is another reason, as a minor aside, why I often shake my head at especially the ordination requirements for the Assemblies of God and "independent charismatic" churches.  To become an AoG preacher (or Vineyard or Calvary Chapel) you merely need to sign a statement of faith and pay a fee--you don't have to go through any formal seminary training at all.  You can literally be a deacon at an AoG church (a duty that requires no seminary or even "Bible college" training whatsoever) and, with the recommendation of a pastor, a few hundred bucks, and a signed statement of faith, become a fully ordained AoG pastor.  One of the posts on Yurica Report regarding dominionist infiltration of the military and in particular by the Assemblies of God details this; this article notes how far this has gotten.  (Boykin, as an aside, has also been directly implicated in human rights abuses in the Abu Ghraib scandal--and there are indications he was in fact the mastermind of the abuse.  Even worse, the Assemblies of God has defended other Assemblies-associated parties being investigated for having committed torture.)  Considering that the "Bible colleges" promoted in the pente community often are essentially fundamentalist madrassas, the fact they require not even this level of training is kind of scary.)

by dogemperor on Sun Dec 18, 2005 at 09:45:49 PM EST
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