tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000915267979691397.post3314941452711081511..comments2023-08-21T18:12:17.758-07:00Comments on Cosmic Antipodes: Of Rodents and AshesRaphael Ordoñezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17991011024942623986noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000915267979691397.post-35439889145276865142015-02-21T22:02:43.776-08:002015-02-21T22:02:43.776-08:00Thanks!
In my own limited experience, the people ...Thanks!<br /><br />In my own limited experience, the people who really hold that idea of "being saved" in its most fatuous form are pretty rare, whatever they might say they believe. Experience is too good a teacher. My wife and I belonged to an unaffiliated church that taught that idea, insofar as it taught anything, when we were in college. It had everything: worship with screaming, sobbing, dancing, leaping, running, speaking in tongues; former demoniacs & vampire cultists; prophets & prophetesses; "deliverance" sessions and exorcisms; deafening hour-long sermons. People would join with fanfare, proclaiming a radical break with their old lives, but vanish quietly. I've always suspected that they became despondent because their old habits caught up with them, and there was no room in their beliefs for the long road. (Well, and some people discovered that the pastor was stealing money, but that's another story.)<br /><br />Another good example in fantasy of the (psychological) need for purgation or healing is the departure of Frodo from the Grey Havens. Wounded by knife, sting, tooth, and long burden, he can't simply return to the way things were. But even the very protestant Pilgrim's Progress, something I read quite a few times back in the day, implicitly carries the same idea in its very conceit: faith as a journey rather than a destination.Raphael Ordoñezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17991011024942623986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7000915267979691397.post-33389139694399102102015-02-20T13:17:56.362-08:002015-02-20T13:17:56.362-08:00Congratultations on the arrival of Agnes C.! My ow...Congratultations on the arrival of Agnes C.! My own Christian background is Lutheran and salvation sola fides is what I was taught. What I wasn't taiught but have come to believe that if it's a gift as is taught then it will be that real purging, remolding thing you describe. Have gone to evangelical churches for several years now, I don't often encounter folks who agree. It's altar call, testimony, baptism, boom! As much as the sacraments are rejected there clearly are evangelical practices that occupy a similar place though most would be loath to admit it.The Wasphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08636805818054637966noreply@blogger.com