oK. heres the scoop. I'm not looking for a debate AT ALL. i need to vent and maybe get some support?
I was born to an atheist jewish mother and and a jewish father who was raised orthodox and rebelled to total secularism. I never attended Hebrew school and was not batmitzvahed. when i was 14 i began searching for myself since i knew nothing of God or religion or spirituality . I joined a Jewish youth group. After 4 years of learning about zionism and Judaism, i won a scholarship andI spent my freshman year in Israel. went back my junior year as well. I lived on kibbutz, i worked in development towns, i studied in Jeruselem. I studied Old and New testament, but still didn't pray..didn't know if i even believed in God.
When i was 21 i got married and quickly divorced..raising my daughter as a single mom. when i was 22 i met man who was Catholic and began attending church with him..he was insistent that i consider conversion so i took classes.
he ended up being abusive and i left him within a year - but i believe God led me to him because he forced me to look at myself spiritually and deal with god. i continued my studies cuz i was fascinated with what i was learning, i loved attending church (had always hated synagogue) and felt part of a community. After 2 years of studying i still wasn't ready to covert tho. And i wanted to make sure i was doing this for myself.
Then I had an experience...i'm not a holy roller or anything, but i was touched/moved/ ..i somehow connected with what i can only say was the Holy Spirit. I knew all of the sudden in my heart what i believed. I invited Jesus into my heart. I converted and was baptised and confirmed.
But i was not happy in the Catholic church for a variety of reasons and my studying continued. I went to many churches, spoke to priests, pastors, ministers...and tho i continued to pray and read - i never really found a church to call home.
still with me?
Ok. so when my dd was 6 i met my true soulmate, fell in love and we were married 3 years later. I still had traditional jewish holidays..chanukah and passover, but considered myself a Christian spiritually and a Jew by race/culture. Anyway...he was raised Baptist and suggested we check out a church nearby.
we went. I have to say that i was scared. I'd heard so many negative things about those "born again Christians" and how 'they' evangelize. I was, however, immediately drawn to this tiny little church. The choir still has no robes, the pews are chairs, the pastor and his wife are adorable loving people and their son is the youth pastor. My 11 year old loves kids church - is studying the bible, and even goes on the van on Wednesday nights to bible study by herself. I have met people i trust and like - other moms with babes the same age as mine. Since we've been going to the church i've felt so much better about my life, my relationship with Christ...everything. we had the babys dedication in august and shortly after my older dd and I were re-baptised and born again. My life feels complete. I've been so happy.
So - here is my problem. Happy as i am, my church believes that only Christians go to heaven. Period. "only through me shall you enter the kingdom of heaven". So if you're not saved, you're condemned to hell? . I HATE this. I don't believe this. I don't believe MY God, a God of love would condemn all Jews, Hindus etc to burn in hell with the likes of Timothy McVeigh and terrorists and rapists. I do not believe my mother is in hell, my grandmother, that my sister and her children will go to hell because they are Jewish. I cannot bear this. I do not want to believe this. I think this is a misinterpretation of the word.
Dh says that i should take what i need from our church and let the rest go. He says its ok to teach our daughters that the church is not always right and that we simply disagree with some things. I wonder if i'm in the right church now...i LOVE these people, they're like another family to me. and i love hearing my Pastor preach. He touches my heart. But then he says things that make me so angry.
Ok. i'm ranting now. I could go on about some of the other things my church thinks are wrong, that i think God forgives.
Do those of you who attend church regularly believe EVERYTHING your church teaches. I know he quotes the bible, i read the bible too...i just think sometimes that we interpret it differently. My pastor says theres no interpretation..its there in black and white. I'm not that fundamental in my thinking. Should i choose a different church?
ok. thanks for listening. having a hard time tonight with all of this cuz of the sermon wednesday night.


~~Barb~~
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Have you ever heard of Jews for Jesus?

Here's their website http://jewsforjesus.com/welcome.htm

I am not Jewish myself, but do have friends that are & have become Christians. I know one friend who was able to resolve many of her concerns through the help of this organization. HTH in some way :o)

Many blessings.

Brenda

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Barb~

I wish I had a great answer to your first question (about only Christians going to heaven), but I don't. However, I did want to comment on your second issue (attending a church that teaches things you do not believe). My family and I recently stopped attending the church we have attended for the past two years for similar reasons. We love the people and we believed we were in that church for a purpose, but some of the teachings were truly beginning to bother us (regarding discipline of children and "being a real man"). It came to a point where it was difficult for us to keep our hearts open to learn from this particular individual (an associate minister) because we were no in agreement with so many of the things he was teaching (and when I discussed it with the pastor, I was pretty much brushed off). We realized that if we were unable to worship, we needed to find another place. We've been searching for two months now. It is hard, but we know now that God is leading us elsewhere.

I don't know if this helps any, but I guess I just wanted to to know that there is nothing wrong with not agreeing with everything you hear (as long as you are staying in the Word and keeping your heart open to God's guidance). Pray about it and see where He leads you.

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Barb, I don't have any advice to you. I just wanted to let you know that I read your post! I am not christian or anything. What comes to my mind is, I have friends that are christian. We definatly don't believe in the same things, but we are still good friends and hang out. I think that it is ok to not agree on everything. I hope this helps you some.

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cd, uncirc, select vac,bf, nature loving family!

i've actually been to that site. Jews for Jesus main purpose is evangelizing Jews...and thats not where my head is at.
thanks mamas. i 'll just pray and see what happens

~~Barb~~
<font color=red>Soulmate to Tommy</font color=red> and
<font color=blue>loving sahm to Chelsey</font color=blue><font color=purple>and Zoey </font color=purple>
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Just wanted to direct you to my reply on the "great christian links post". I had read your post and then a few others. My thoughts ended up on that post.

Email me if you want.

peace...cindy

Oh Barb! I feel the same way! I am Catholic. While I feel comfortable there, there are beliefs I don't completely subscribe to. Specifically .... divorce, mandatory confession & like you, salvation only for Christians. I know MANY non-Christians that are more Godly than some Christians I know. I think good deeds & loving your neighbor gets you a ticket into heaven, not what you label yourself as. Baptism or verbally accepting Jesus, Mohammed, etc as you Savior isn't the end all of be all, you have to live a good life. I have a very close muslim friend. He is so loving & giving, there is no way he isn't going to heaven. Same with some jewish friends of mine. I look at religion as a preference. For example, some people like chocolate ice cream, and others like vanilla, doesn't mean chocoholics aren't going to heaven. People are individuals with individual needs. Finding a comfortable place spiritually is a personal choice, not one to be judged by others. While I disagree with some catholic doctrine, its where I fit best & feel most comfortable! I don't think the *perfect* church exists for me.

HTH!

<font color=purple>~Tiffany, mommy to Ryan (9/25/98) & Alex (8/14/99) </font color=purple>

<font color=purple>tiffany@amitysworld.com </font color=purple>

Barb,

I am very close to God and am strongly Christian (I think so, anyway!) and I actually believe the same thing you do. It isn't popular, and I don't bring up the subject because I find that many people who are Christians were raised Christian and know nobody else but Christians so they don't quite have the same perspective I do (many people in my family are Jewish). I've prayed an awful lot about this issue, among others, and I am getting closer to finding peace with it and I believe it's God leading me to that peace.

Here's the basic idea for me--if a child is born into a strongly Christian family and at some point a Buddhist comes along and tells that person that if she doesn't convert to Buddhism she will go to hell. Would she convert? Not likely. She is just as convinced of her Christian beliefs as the Buddhist is in hers. We as Christians are called upon to share the word and speak openly of Christ's sacrifice and of God's enduring love, but it is neither loving nor effective to threaten with eternal damnation. That's really another issue...let me get back on track....
I don't believe that a person raised to be devoutly Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc. and actively, sincerely, and purposefully attempts to be the good person that God (aka Allah, etc) calls on her to be, that that person will be punished with damnation. Our God is a loving God and I have no doubts that we will all be made to understand this complicated issue in time, but while we are on this earth we are just called upon to be tolerant, loving, kind, and to show our love for God by serving others.

I don't know if this has helped you at all, but at least I hope you take away from this that you are not alone in your questions, and that perhaps you will find answers from God if you continue to ask Him.

Genevieve

Genevieve

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Have you tried a Calvery Chapel in your area? I was raised an orthodox jew in england which I think translates to 'conservative' here...but my husband is a Salvation Army 'brat' meaning his parents are Captain's and we have both studyed eastern philosphies too...Basically, this church suits us both, is non-denominational, has beautiful folk music songs and provides wonderful nursery for the children, so you can attend and really find the prayer in your heart...

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Hi Barb!

I have to preface this by saying that I do a lot of reading at work so I tend to skim over things instead of reading them thoroughly so I apologize if I missed something when I was reading, but I did want to respond.

I'm Roman Catholic and yes I do believe "everything" the Church teaches. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I believe that the Church is divinely inspired and led by the Holy Spirit. I believe that God's guidence ensures that the Church does not have morally incorrect doctrines (not to be confused with practices -i.e. the inquisition). The second reason is because everytime I have had questions or concerns about a Catholic belief, after I've taken the time to study the reasons for a particular teaching, it makes sense to me. I do believe in religious obedience but I don't agree with blind faith (i.e. I want to understand what I believe and make sure that it makes sense to me).

The second thing I wanted to mention is that the Catholic Church does not teach that you have to be Catholic (or even Christian) to go to heaven. I'd have to pull out my Catechism for the exact quote, but the Church believes that God's mercy is great enough to allow all to enter His kingdom. The Church does however teach that someone with a mortal sin on their soul cannot enter heaven because committing a mortal sin is basically a rejection of God - a break from His grace. But for a sin to be mortal, it must be of grave nature, be voluntarily commited by the person and the person must understand the graveness of the sin. The Church does not teach that anyone, whether it be Hitler, Stalin, of Timothy McVeigh, is in Hell since we don't know what was in their hearts those last few seconds before their deaths. Anyways, I hope this helps. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

Maryalene

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I too am Catholic and beleive everything the church teaches for the same reason's above. However my dh is American Baptist and they do beleive that if you aren't born again or a christian you are going to hell. His father (my fil) is a preacher and I actually listened to one of his sermons on this- in the same sermon he said that you cannot be baptized by sprinkling (has to be total submersion) or you are not saved therefore going to hell too (that means that myself and our three kids are headed for hades in his belief). Well, I happen to have a very good Jewish freind and when he started going on about the jews going to hell I got up and left. I didn't even know they believed that! (my dh was not paying attention and didn't even hear his dad say that- but my dh doesn't believe that thank God!- he thought I just went to go to the bathroom). I told my dh that when the girls are old enough and his dad preaches that sermon when we visit I will remove us from the church and we won't be back. I was terribly upset by this as my church doesn't think that way at ALL! To me that is teaching hate, and I could never join a community that beleived that.

(((((Hug))))) I feel for you mamma!

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I totally agree with you Marti! Those words and teachings are judging, intolerant, and hateful--all things that Jesus did and would condemn. It really upsets me that there are so-called Christians spouting this filth!!! And it seems that they are the ones who get the most attention, so it's no wonder that so many people turn their backs on Christianity. It just really, really makes me angry. Grrr! http://www.amitymama.com/images/icons/mad.gif

Genevieve

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Hi ladies, First i wanted to thank all of you who responded here, by email and instant messages. I really appreciate being able to talk about this stuff, hear your thoughts..
After much discussion, dh agrees that we should go check out some other churches. Chelsey (my 12 year old dd) is upset that we may leave her friends , but understands that if i'm this uncomfortable, maybe its Gods way of leading us somewhere else, where she'll meet new friends. So she says she'll try to keep an open mind. Dh says he just wants me to be happy, but i think a new church would be good for him too - he doens't agree with alot of what his church teaches...but i think he's afraid of leaving it and looking elsewhere. But he's willing to come with me.
I'm going to check out calvary and uniterarian i think. From what i've heard those make the most sense to me as maybe being close to what i need.
Anyway, thank you all again, and i guess we'll see where He takes me next :)


Barb~~Soulmate to Tommy & loving sahm to Chelsey & Zoey
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I really sympathize with your predicament. I was raised Catholic, but fell away from the church because I was uncomfortable with some of its basic tenets. After studying briefly for conversion to Judaism (baby's dad is Jewish), I realized that Judaism was just another organized religion with its own dogma. Now I am an atheist. It was a long and hard journey for me to get where I am now, a place without God, but I am finally happy. Anyway, I think you are right to question whether you want to belong to a religious community that preaches something you don't believe in. If you look long enough, I'm sure you'll find somewhere you feel comfortable. (Or perhaps you won't, but don't settle -- not where spirtuality is concerned.) There are many communities, like the Societies for Ethical Culture, that join together to learn and do good works without espousing a particular religious viewpoint. For those seeking Christian worship, I have heard that the Unitarian and Universalist Churches are extraordinarily inclusive.

I just have to chime in here for the Unitarian Universalist Church. I was raised Catholic, and dh was raised , well, nothing. We have been on a serious spiritual journey for about 8 months now, and the UU church has been just what we were needing.

It IS a very inclusive place where everyone is accepted regardless of what they believe. Our minister is a Jewish Rabbi, our president is a Taoist. We can all come together at church and learn form each other, and support each other. It's been wonderful. Definitely worth checking out.

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