The Power of Words: The Other F-Word

Many people think I’m weird about words. “It’s just a word,” a counselor friend declares – attempting to convince me that it’s fine for children to curse. I don’t agree. Even while teaching adults, I often stopped students in hallways and common areas who were dropping f-bombs to let them know that educated people should have attained the use of a broader vocabulary than f-ing this and f-ing that. It simply makes people sound ignorant, in my opinion.

When it comes to my children, I’m even more vigilant about what they can hear, because what goes in may eventually come out. With my oldest, I managed to prevent him from even hearing the f-word until he was ten. That wasn’t easy to do. It meant heavily restricting his movie-watching, friends, and most-importantly: where he went to school (private Christian school). Then one day, it happened. I left him with a trusted sitter, someone I’d known forever and trusted. She, apparently, thought nothing of saying it in front of my kid. And he came home and proudly repeated it. Theory confirmed (what goes in comes out).

But the real f-word is much more dangerous, in my opinion. The word is “fool.” I remember the first time I heard someone use the word – in seventh grade as we were heading for our after school buses, a worldly kid shouted at another boy, “You’re a fool!” A felt icy cold air around me. I felt certain that boy had just signed himself up for hell.

But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.
- Matthew 5:22

When I was around fifth or sixth grade, some of my peers started using the word “idiot.” When my folks heard us kids using the word, they put a stop to it, pointing out that idiot is synonymous to fool. I later came to realize that most insults are also synonyms of fool. So are there any safe insults to hurl at people? Is this the point of Matthew 5:22? Don’t insult people? Don’t call people names?

Although, I’ve overcome my past enough to realize much of what was taught and widely accepted was not biblically accurate, I’m still terrified of words like fool.

And worse than fool, is the taking of God’s name in vain – which, to my mind, I confuse with blasphemy. Maybe I’m incorrect about that, but I figure it’s better to be safe than sorry. Truthfully I’d prefer to hear the f-word a million times than to hear someone take God’s name in vain.

What do you think about the power of words? Harmless or very potent?

We Are Going to Hell

I have spent my life fearing hell. You have to be baptized to avoid hell, we were told. You cannot be baptized because there is no preacher here.

So here is the story the elders and older folks told us so we wouldn’t live our lives in a panic: your parents were baptized, so you were “born holy.” Now all you must do is earn your way into Heaven. Avoid fornication by getting married in your teens. Avoid divorce, no matter how bad things are in your marriage. The rules in the bible do not release you from marriage if your husband abuses you or molests your children or other people’s children.

The only way out of marriage, for a woman, is the death of her husband. If her husband sleeps with other women, tsk tsk, she must not be putting out.

But for a man, it’s not so difficult to throw out a wife you don’t want. Just make her life miserable. She’ll leave. You can tell your children that their mother is going to hell (this has happened before – poor children). Now that you have been abandoned by a “non-believing” wife, choose a new victim – er wife.To be free, to start over, you have to convince the church of your innocence. Make the woman the villain. It was all her fault. She is guilty; you are innocent.

I understand the unforgivable sin to be blaspheming the Holy Spirit. But I always believed that divorce was the real unforgivable sin – for women.  A man can go on with his life if his wife cheats, she is cast out. He is still in. Just one of hundreds of double standards and biblical misinterpretations.

There was a young lady who committed a different “unforgivable sin.” Please forgive me for not having perfect recall about this incident. If I get something wrong, I am not lying, I am writing about something the way I remember it. If I get some details wrong, please be gracious in correcting me. I will change them. So this young woman, she was a few years older than me. Glenford was still alive, so our church had a form of leadership, but no real hope. No one to “save” us through baptism.

This girl was maybe fourteen (maybe?) and she had grown up like me, being told that salvation comes through a human who can bestow sanctification through full immersion baptism. Her father was a controversial man – a friend to Tom Nichols – and someone who had his own ideas – gasp! Her father had been entertaining a man who claimed to be a “called apostle.” The church didn’t accept the man – he wasn’t from Oregon City, so how could his claim be authentic?

Well this young lady listened to the man who was spending time with her family. She asked him to baptize her. And he did. When the church discovered that she had been baptized by this “false prophet” she was done for. Going to Hell for sure. Her fate was sealed.

She continued attending the church services, but the girls her age were told by their parents to shun her. Better not speak to a damned child, it might rub off. What was she to do? She was part of our church. This was her life. This was all she knew. Except that she had done the unthinkable.

After hearing all her life that she needed baptism for salvation, she had done it. She had done was she was told she needed to do. And in doing so, she had committed an unforgivable sin. She would be damned if she did, and damned if she didn’t. Only by doing so, she was to endure hell within the church. Shunned.

She wasn’t my age, but she started sitting by the girls my age because she couldn’t endure the shunning her former friends were enacting against her. I asked my mom what to do and she told me that I could say hello to her at church.  I was glad for that. I always said hello. But I didn’t say anything else. “Hello” was all that was authorized. I wasn’t much of a conversationalist anyway.

Of course, the young lady didn’t last too long. I don’t remember when or how she left. Maybe she just sat with her parents at church after a while. Of course she left. She had been condemned. There is no living through that. There would be no period of shunning followed by reincorporation. She had committed the unforgivable.

There is no such thing as being “born holy” unless you’re Jesus. And even Jesus was baptized. But don’t fool yourself into thinking baptism is what saves you. We all deserve hell. Every mortal person deserves it. That is why Jesus died.

This analogy is not my own. I have heard it from others. I’m sorry I do not know where it originated, but it has helped me to comprehend the good news of Jesus Christ. Imagine that you are standing before a judge (God). You are being accused by the district attorney (Satan) for your crimes / sins. Jesus is your attorney. For every sin that Satan accuses you of, Jesus responds by saying, “I have paid.”

We all deserve to die. We cannot save ourselves. Only the blood of Jesus can pay for our sins. Without Jesus, we are damned. What will you choose? To try and defend yourself for crimes you are guilty of or accept the free gift of Jesus? I have made my choice. I deserve Hell, I have deserved it since I was in second grade or so, but I’m not going. Thank you, Jesus, for paying the price.

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God

Romans 3:23-25

Frequently Asked Questions - Part 1

I have gotten a lot of questions about the Followers of Christ throughout my life, both when I was attending and since. Here are some questions that come to mind. If you have more, please post them under the comments, or email them to me and I will answer them in a later blog.

Question: Since the Followers do not accept outsiders into their congregation, are they concerned about running out of potential mates for their children?

Answer: No, they are not worried. Followers are allowed to marry cousins, as long as they are at least second cousins. It's not unheard of for a girl to keep her maiden name because she has married someone with the same last name. A side note, some worldly people think the Followers are called “kissers” because they are kissing cousins, rather than the practice of the “Holy Kiss.”

Question: Are the number of childhood deaths increasing due to the shallow gene pool.

Answer: Maybe. I haven't gathered genetic samples and run tests. More likely, the number of childhood deaths are more visible due to more recent legislation and news coverage, not actual increasing numbers.

Question: If a Follower decided to become a doctor, would it be OK to go to him/her? Seems like trusting your own to aid in your own health care would be allowed?

Answer: If a Follower decided to become a doctor, he/she would not be welcome at church – the heretic!

Question: Do the midwives have any training? If so, who trains them? Do they sign the birth certificates?

Answer: Yes, they have practical training. They have to have given birth themselves. They also have to help at a set number of births before they can be an official midwife. No formal training though – and many do not have even a high school diploma. They do sign the birth certificates. In the box labeled hospital, it says “Followers.”

Question: If there are no ministers or Bible teaching, what are church services like?

Answer: Every Sunday morning and Thursday evening, the women and young children enter the sanctuary and sit according to their life situation (by age and gender for children, the newlyweds sit together, new parents sit near the back so they can take their babies out if they cry, after this life stage, people sit near relatives and friends). When it is time for church to start, all the men file in and find their wives to sit by them. The piano player sits at the front at a grand piano (the pulpit is deserted, though it is set up just like it was when there were men to teach and preach). If there is an announcement to be made – someone needs prayer, someone needs care, there is an upcoming wedding, etc – one of the five men who are appointed as the church leaders will make the announcement from the microphone near the piano. The piano player announces a song number and everyone stands to sing all the verses of the song. Next the congregation kneels at their benches and prays silently for two minutes. Everyone takes their seats, and eight more songs are announced and sung. The piano player will announce, “last song,” and everyone stands to sing the last song. The men file outside to talk amongst themselves and the women and children stay inside to socialize. That's it. Takes about twenty-five minutes start to finish.

Question: When a Follower is taken to the hospital from a car crash, do they get shunned?

Answer: No, church members come and visit them and pray for them. When I was a kid, I remember a really bad crash where an older lady broke something like twenty bones. The doctors gave a very poor prognosis, but we all prayed, and the next day, the bones had miraculously healed. The doctors said they had never seen anything like it. Incidents like that really reinforced the idea that God was on our side, and doctors/hospitals were irrelevant at best, but more likely harmful and deadly.

Question: Why won't Followers talk to the media and defend themselves for their beliefs and practices.

Answer: One of the biggest rules is to keep our business private. We are convinced that anyone who talks to outsiders about our religion is a heretic and blasphemer. Even those who leave often live the rest of their lives in fear of breaking this rule not only for their own soul, but for the social repercussions of the relatives they left behind who are still in the church.

Question: Do you regret leaving? Are you in fear of your immortal soul for going public with this information?

Answer: I do not regret leaving. I do not believe I am sinning, or wrong, by going public with my experiences and opinions. My writing is meant to be informational, helpful, and enlightening.

Question: When will your book be finished?

Answer: I have another six months of writing left before I go into the editing and rewriting stages. All final edits will be complete by this time next year.

Question: How does your family feel about your blog and memoir?

Answer: They haven't disowned me yet.