Too Busy to Blog
I knew I had been too busy but when it hit me that I had not blogged for several days I knew I was on the verge of a burn out. I have been writing on others' blogs because I do like to respond to what people are saying. I love some dialogue so comments turn me on. Here, I am usually alone so there is no one to dialogue with.
On a internet discussion group the recent buzz has been about R.C. Sproul Jr and his entire elder board being disfellowshipped from their denomination and their ordination removed. That is a severe penalty in our day and age and rare to behold.
Their wrongs were related to lying about the doctrine of child communion. They believe in and practice it. However, they lied to their denomination about it. In addition, the group seems to have practiced a rather brutal style of church authority and harshly removed a family and all the children from their church. The supposed cause was disobedience to the absolute authority of the elders.
But that is not all. The pastor and elders shunned the family and their five young children. If ever there was a case of "corrupted power" I suppose this is it. Thankfully, some of the former members refused to stay silent and reported the incidents to the overseers. You may take a look at the following blog for more information.
http://www.bruisedreed.blogspot.com/
Keep all concerned in your prayers. All of us can be tempted and to fall into sin. If you are involved in an unhealthy or abusive church, leave immediately.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
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2 comments:
Thank you Gary for your blog. I always find it enlightening. Todays topicconcerning spiritual abuse was no exception.
Since the days when we were both babes in Christ we have run across our fair share of well meaning folks that have lead the flock on excursions throughout the wilderness, interpreting the Guide Book as they see fit. I read through “The Bruised Reed” blog today and see that the desert tours are still in vogue.
In this post you mention the shunning of R.C. Sproul, his former Churches elder board and Reverend Sproul’s family and the seriousness of this matter. This brought to mind an earlier blog you in which you mentioned that as a young Christian you were shunned from a Baptist Church and how you dealt with things. My wife and I were shunned by a congregation almost 30 years ago when she proposed an intercesory prayer group, which sounded way too Roman Catholic for the pastor. The hurt that this caused lingered with me for many years. To think that those I considered to be my closest and dearest friends would band together and pronounce myself and my family to be pariah. It wasn’t until I came to a realization after feeling anguish, humiliation, praying for my old friends and forgiving them that I hadn’t heard back from the congregation to see if I had learned my lesson or even to check in and see if O’Hara was still breathing. So I chalked that up to experience, kicked that stumbling stone out of the way and got on with things. If I had seen things then as I do now I would have realized that I was far better off to be thrown back in the briar patch.
I read through the documents related to Sproul el al. and got out my ChristianSpeak to English translation dictionary to decipher. The bottom line is just like you said, The Gang of Sproul are guilty of allowing children to share in the Lord’s Supper. What a travesty. Those kiddies should be playing video games, running up minutes on the cell phone or watching TV. I concur with your diagnosis Dr. Sweeten. It is a bad case of CIN (Christian Induced Neurosis.)
May we all walk in His ways and do what is right in His Eyes.
Dr. Sweeten, thanks for your insightful post. My read of the RC Sproul Jr debacle is that the practice of paedocommunion, contrary to the rules of his donomination, did play a part in Sproul's defrocking. But a bigger issue is the fact that Sproul had conspired to subvert the will of his Presbytery. Bigger still is the issue of his stealing the tax id number of another denomination.
RC Sproul Jr wasn't defrocked merely for doctrinal differences, he was defrocked for moral and ethical shortcomings. Sproul Jr appears to be a very dishonest man who plays by his own rules to get what he wants. A man that would delude and deceive fellow pastors and elders can't be trusted to be honest in any situation.
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