Discussing Church Of Christ with Two Ex Members

so I had an opportunity to talk to some ex Church of Christ members recently I've been doing some of this on my podcast I thought it was a really good discussion so I decided to put it up on my main channel if you want to check out my podcast you can go to the cards in the corner or the links in the description I have it on a youtube channel and on iTunes you can get the iTunes podcast on Apple devices or on Android so check it out okay let's get into it thank you guys for coming I have mark and Joris here who are both from the Church of Christ originally now we wanted to wanted to get into a discussion and talk about this because the Church of Christ is something that a lot of people aren't really aware of it's kind of a it seems like a smaller group of people that isn't really a concern but as it turns out they're actually as big as Jehovah's Witnesses and I've heard some kind of disturbing things about people's history with them so I yeah I'm glad to have you guys here thanks for coming Joris do you want to you just want to tell me a little bit about yourself yeah yeah I was a christ member for roughly about 20 years but you could say member in quotations because I mean I grew up in it so pretty much from the time I was born until the time I was around 22 21 is when I ended up leaving but yeah it was a definitely an interesting experience yeah we're gonna get into that in a minute I've got some some questions to ask you about that so we have we also have mark here right are you there mark okay so why don't you tell me a little bit about your experience with it well I was adopted by white people in 1985 so I was raised in the church across except mine was a lot more conservative than Joris it was rather more moderate so liberal and I actually was on the road to becoming my preacher and so I left churches 16 that's fascinating I am really interested to hear that story so I figured we'd start out with a couple of basic questions like on the social side of things I'll start with Joris how did you find yourself in that religion you said you were born into it right oh yeah the the way it kinda end up working out was my grandmother was a part of it and then when my mother moved here she joined the church my grandfather was in it as well but my my dad never really was and I haven't been able to work out of him one way or the other why he wasn't but yeah that's how I got into it okay so how about you mark do you like how did your family get into it how did you find yourself were you born into it or well I was adopted from the Philippines and my mom my dad I believe was raised Baptist Catholic but my mom was terrorized during a tent revival back in the 60s to be baptized into church Christ I mean the preachers scared the hell out of her by telling all these kids about Hellfire and brimstone and a hot tent in the summer so she was terrorized become Church of Christ and my dad converted and that's that's what we went to and so they divorced when I was 13 and I stuck with and so I left at 16 yeah they have a tendency to do that preach Hellfire and and try to scare the out of people right I mean that's something you find in very oppressive religions commonly is they like to use those types of tactics for money that's really interesting Pentecostals are kind of widely known as you know pretty extreme so the fact that Church of Christ is anywhere even in that ballpark is is very interesting I really need to do another expose on them so I had another question for you juris did your parents kind of shove it down your throat I know you touched on this a little bit you were saying that your dad wasn't really involved in it so do you feel like your mom kind of shoved it down your throat kind of forced it on you or or was it a little more relaxed with you know it was it was fairly forced I mean we I'm trying to think in the years that I went up until I left I can really only think of maybe two or three Sundays we missed and we would go Sunday mornings Sunday evenings we didn't go Wednesday evenings but we have went to every single yeah I know I was an awful Church of Christ member but we went to every every event they had all the pot Luck's all the midweek outings and conferences and such but okay yeah even went to church Christ summer camp as well about the only metric I didn't hit as I didn't go to a Church of Christ college so that's really interesting so let me ask you this how many meetings do they have every week is it two three four the one that I went to there was a Sunday morning a Sunday evening and a Wednesday evening but then there realized it was revival week yeah unless it was a survival week and then you went every day but and then there were like different groups that would get together like I remember there was a women's group that would get together every so often and our youth group usually did yeah our youth group did things on Monday evenings Joris can you tell me a little bit more about their revivals and and what they are and how they work it's pretty much like for instance one of the ones the one that I went to did traditional revivals and they also did like for instance a friends day which was a few weeks ago and basically what it would be is you would invite literally every single person you knew to come on this one Sunday and there would be this huge church service they have a massive potluck afterwards and I got an invitation for this year's friends service but I politely declined said invitation but they had the revivals are you essentially you're going to church every evening and they are going to teach you and preach to you essentially Hellfire and brimstone it's basically a scare tactic to get more people into the church or at least that's kind of what I had seen of it they have a different theme for revivals like restoration or patience or forgiveness but it's usually our revivals were usually several speakers that were guest speakers or they would have one speaker that was really well-known in the church price circuit the guy we we did a similar thing with the church in a neighboring County they would they would have fatigue sorry frequently have those types of meetings and we would end up going to those and then we got to we got to see the the number one top Church of Christ speaker Lonnie Jones I remember everyone freaking out about that that deed is crazy did you know him mark I would equate into well to put a finer point on it it's like listening to a live version of Hitler really very he was very good he was very well-spoken he was very captivating his message made you want to listen and he could take a preach he was one of the ones that I that I admired and tried to model my preaching abilities with dad and he's actually fascinating I used I used to preach sermons once a month yeah we had a we had a young men service that we did once a month and I usually signed up and got chosen to do them really the main sermon while I'm addressing you I actually had a couple of questions for you did your parents kind of shove it down your throat is your family still in it did you say your dad was Baptist originally well he was born Baptist I believe his family was Baptist but he converted over to church Christ when he met my mom and it wasn't it was just a thing we did during the week but when my parents divorced it at 13 when I was 13 my mom really got into it I mean it was to the point that she got so stressed out that I was not saved she would make me go into my bedroom and with all the lights turned off and crated the dear Lord that I wouldn't die and go to hell and wow man and a lot of my friends at the time we're getting baptized and they would talk to me I'll be like why don't you take that step why don't you take that step and I couldn't you know tell them that I have questions you know I'm doubting I died because I was one of the ones in class that would constantly ask questions about this and that and why we believe this and or what about you yes and no resting so let me ask you this I'm sorry go ahead no go ahead I was gonna say wait how old were you at that point where you kind of had questions about it and stuff it was before you basically got baptized is that right I got baptized when I was 13 the year of my parents divorce because the stress became so much that I was like you know what I'm just gonna take take a leap of faith go ahead get baptized and see what happens hmm yeah you find that to be the case a lot of the time I know in in my religion I I kind of felt like I you know interestingly enough I was the only kid in my church who was getting baptized or seeking baptism or anything like that at the time but so it wasn't like I was trying to follow a trend or anything it was more along the lines of I been pushed into it and you know by my parents and my friend my my adult friends who were Jehovah's Witness trying to encourage me to do that kind of thing and that's kind of a shame I know Stephen asan talks about for those of you who don't know Stephen asan he's written a lot of books on cults and cult mind-control and things like that but he's talked about undue influence about making decisions without proper knowledge of the consequences of those decisions and things like that so I know where you're coming from with that so let me ask you this mark do you have to deal with any shunning now has there any has there been any kind of shunning or ostracization or anything like that since you left okay funny story I was really in Bagan with my youth bird I mean I went to church camp I thought I went to to church camps every summer one was a free Hardiman University itself and one was an actual countdown by late run by the church Christ and I think Georgeson I talked about this are the youth was very cliquish they didn't take in new members to all very well they were friendly but you know if you hadn't been in class with us and studied with us then you kind of weren't a part of us sure so well when I left at 16 the reason I left was is that I was outed to my youth minister by somebody who well was basically a piece of right and my youth minister wanted to have a discussion with the person that I had slept with and his parents and my parents and I was having none of that so I wrote a letter to the elders basically telling them that even according to scripture you have no right to judge me and I'm not discussing this with anybody so as soon as I did that and I left the church I lost every friend I had in the youth group nobody talked to me only now one of my best friends in the youth group became a preacher for 10 years and he's left the church he's a deist now and we have just reconnected this year and I left in 2001 so it's been about 17 years since I've spoken to him that's a shame I a hundred percent know where your and from with that I've had to deal with similar things so it's been about 10 or 11 years for me since I've talked to some of my friends because I left in 2000 let's see 2008 I think is when officially I got this fellowship so how about you juris did you deal with any shunning or ostracization like what was your experience with that exactly I I think Church of Christ in general like there they're youth groups structures are pretty similar like at the time really the only people that understand Church of Christ are the ones that are in it it's like that it really because a lot of it makes very little sense so really the people that believe it are your friends and after I left the church I had these people that would talk to me every week and I would see every week and text me back and forth and then that stopped and like I had died or something which it it really did it was it really did suck and I had to end up branching out and making new friendships with other people but I mean there's some of them that to this day I just they have not reached out to me I've tried to reach out to them but they've never responded back in it I mean it sucks it's really sad because like these people are your quote friends quote until you leave because once you're not Church of Christ to a not to a Church of Christ person you're pretty much garbage yeah is their way the only way yeah I definitely understand where you're coming from with that it's similar with Jehovah's Witnesses like I said I have I have a friend who might when I got this fellowship we were absolute best friends I mean we were together all the time we'd go skate the the streets of our city in this area and everything all through the summer just always together and as soon as I left that was it just not Oh word from him and it's the same with most Jehovah's Witnesses in my congregation I mean I grew up with these people you know I I've known these people since I was six or well actually eight and you know to to just lose your entire social structure like that is devastating it can be very very devastating and that's why I encourage people who are just kind of finding their way out of religion especially younger people like in their teens to find friends on the outside that is heavily discouraged among Jehovah's Witnesses I don't know about Church of Christ but Jehovah's Witnesses are heavily discouraged to make friends on the outside heavily encouraged to make them on the inside so it's important that that you break that that standard so with that being said Joris where are you now in your religious journey or lack thereof are you still religious do you still believe in any of it are you atheist what's the situation I would say my I I don't believe in if there is any God out there this God is not the god of the Christian Bible or just really I I would say I haven't been presented with a religion that I think yes this is it I guess I would say I'm more of an agnostic at this point simply because like just the admittance of I don't know so like I can't say one way or the other I just don't know but no after I left the Church of Christ I entered the Baptist Church for a little while kind of following a girl that I was attracted to you at the time that happened yeah which ended up being a weird thing but by the by the by all in all no I I'm not associated with any Church and I probably will never be yeah it's kind of similar with me so what about you mark do you are you still religious where do you sit with your religious journey now well well actually my one of my youth ministers actually on trouble with the elders because he taught a series of religious studies because his belief was how do you try to convert other people if you don't understand the room their religion so we studied you know Baptist Methodist Jehovah's Witness Mormons which got me interested in religious studies so I went off on my own and did research into different religions when I left I was angry I was angry at God I was angry at everybody else I was angry at myself because Church Christ only the peer pressure but the guilt of sin he can make you feel like the lowest person because he almost seemed like every time that we were we had a call to come for the pastor for the preacher to pray for my sins I always felt compelled to go up there because I would say I would pray every night when I was in high school with that for God to not make me gay because that that is a number one sin my mom told me she said I would rather you be a pagan than I would to have a case on we're okay now it's been a long journey with my parent to reconcile that point they finally figure that it's okay to love your gay son but it's been a rocky road so when I when I did it I went to the only religion that I felt that was accepting of everyone even though was steeped in mysticism and I be I studied Wicca for a really long time and did that and that's where I found my peace as of now atheist agnostic I can't say unicorns don't exist but I've never seen one so I really don't believe in it and and I'm borderline anti theist the more that I see you know 25% of Christian use in the Bible Belt the south will attempt suicide or succeed in suicide because of the guilt that the churches push and that's always bothered me because I was one of those kids that would constantly ask you know God why don't you love me what is wrong with me did you not create me to be this way I never asked to be gay you know and I try to explain my parents and said who in their right mind would go would say gay is a choice who in the right mind would live in Tennessee in the south and want to be gay when it would be so much easier to be a heterosexual male to have a family and not deal with all the so for a long time I carried that carried that burden I've managed to work through it and I'll tell you what it's been a hell of a journey I wouldn't take I wouldn't take anything away from it but it's been crazy yeah I can definitely understand that I know that a lot of the time I get asked the question if I could go back and just have a normal life would I and to to that question I have to think like where would I be if I hadn't gone through all of this who would I be and ultimately I don't think that I would change anything as shitty and awful as this whole experience has been for me it has empowered me to talk to people and and show them that I understand what they're going through - and that is something that you can't really get without experiencing this stuff so I'm definitely on the same page there and I heard you mention like you know being gay and your parents kind of not being okay with it honestly I'm I'm surprised pleasantly surprised by the fact that your parents appear to be okay with that at this point because that's that is like not up for discussion in a lot of areas of the u.s. you know if your kid is gay you just kind of disown them well the interesting part is and he actually went to waste when I came out my mom until that I came out at nineteen it wasn't till I was 21 and I had an honest discussion with my mom where I told her point-blank I said mama I am an adult and I will always be your son but you have to start talking to me it is not a phase sure oh that I that I'm gay and it's taken her a while but she is to the point she is she we talked about the sibling and I said I've always had these feelings they I've never truly been attracted to women the only times I had sex with women was basically try to convert myself to lighter and women so yeah I told her too that she's like she's like oh well she now understands my dad is of the mindset I love you it's okay that you're homosexual it's not okay that you act on yeah he has a very he is the Mormon point of view oh it's okay that you're gay but don't you ever act on it you're you're you're relegated to a life of loneliness and I told my dad that he's like well God gives us no more than we can handle yep oh my god that's so funny that you say that because I hear the exact same quote from Jehovah's Witnesses it's ridiculous and actually I knew this gay guy in my congregation who was so obviously stereotypically gay like he had dyed hair and he spoke with a lisp and he was a hairdresser and things like that great guy really genuinely honest guy and he lived as a gay guy for like 20 years and suddenly he's just not gay one day when he wants to get reinstated as a Jobos witness he's just not gay he claims he's not gay doesn't want a girlfriend doesn't want a wife doesn't want anything he just wants to not be gay in this religion it was it was so heartbreaking to see somebody just suppress this part of themselves who they are fundamentally like that it was really depressing and yeah so I want to mention one more thing I was gonna talk about I heard you mention antitheism I thought that was kind of interesting so as far as I understand it atheism and agnosticism address different claims now you guys can give me our opinion on on how how you view these two in a second so how I view atheism is it's based on what you believe so do you believe and live your life as though God is real so I don't live my life or believe that so I would be an atheist but as far as agnosticism goes it's a claim about whether or not you know if God is real or not so you've got agnostic theists who are religious people but they claim that they they don't know if God is real or not they just live their lives as though he does and then you've got agnostic atheists who don't make any claims about knowing whether or not God is real and they they live their lives as though he isn't they don't believe that he is and of course then there's an t theism which is an interesting little thing so my question is do you actively believe that God is not real or do you feel like religion is harmful for to society or how do you define anti-sea as a mark for the longest time I studied Karl Marx where he said religion is the opiate of the masses so I've always been against organized religion especially after I left church Christ because I realized that organized religion when it leaks over into politics personal lives whether your church Christ Catholic Baptist Jehovah's Witness Mormon weenie at leaks over into your personal life and makes you feel like for decisions and mistakes that you make as a human being when it is difficult to for people to forgive when they preach forgiveness but it's difficult for a human being to forgive another person and hold a grudge that's when I that's what makes me borderline antitheist I realize there's a lot of people that need religion to either behave or to feel that they have purpose in the universe and I'm not I'm like you don't tell that I'm not there to try to destroy any illusion what I am trying to destroy is how harmful especially with the younger generation that religion does canon and essentially does to young people I'm with a lot of people you really shouldn't indoctrinate younger children they should be allowed to make their own decision when when they become adults or when they have critical and logical thinking skills because if you indoctrinate a child in any type of religion and then their worldview is yanked out from underneath them they have nothing to fall back on and that is to me essentially harmful then I would say heroin or any other type of drug yeah I think um it's really just withdrawal yeah I agree with you on that completely I think that we're on the same page with that whole thing well that's that's really interesting I don't think I'd personally use the title antitheist yet I'm just kind of filling it out seeing where it goes and it doesn't sound like you really hold that title quite yet either is that a fair assessment or I don't go in people asked I simply say you know atheist agnostic and I used the unicorn example I believe it's intellectually honest to say I'm not entirely sure if you know there isn't something out there I mean we could be from a progenitor species for all we know or somebody could have on this blue ball and the humans crawl from it don't know and honestly I don't care because in end of the day I want to be cremated and put in made into a tree there we go careless what happens to me after I'm dead because I'm dead and I can't complain about it there you go that's that's really interesting I think we share pretty much exactly the same views on all that although you know honestly there is something that seriously bothers me about death like I know I'm not gonna be aware of what's happening after but there's just something that really bothers me about what's gonna happen with my body when I die I don't know I know it's irrational but it does it's gonna say whenever I left religion I had this big like philosophical debate within myself of like what does this mean now when I'm gone and something that gave me a lot of comfort and it's kind of weird but yeah something that gives me a lot of comfort is when I die the atoms in my body don't stop moving right everything is always moving because if yeah if I haven't stopped moving that heat death of the universe but you know it's just kind of comforting to know that I mean even after I'm gone the particles that made me up or just gonna continue to be yeah I think yeah that's definitely yeah so on that note I am I'm gonna move on to doctrine next I just wanted to say one thing I thought was kind of amusing I had an ex who told me she cared so little about what happened after she died that she would be okay with me giving her body to a necrophiliac for all she cared I don't know if I'm gonna keep that in or not I don't know if I'm gonna keep that in but I thought it was hilarious that is God so anyways onto doctrine I'll start with you juris how did how did they feel about control I'm sorry how did they feel about controlling clothing and hair style and how did you feel about that well the only thing in my church that I can remember is like if you were a man you weren't supposed to have of long hair and if you were a woman you weren't supposed to have short hair clothing wise I mean just dress modestly so they weren't too extreme about it in your church is that fair to say yeah they weren't particularly too extreme well I mean that is definitely one of the areas where that the church that I went to is pretty moderate about yeah it is nothing to I mean about all the issue or anything yeah all the elders and the preacher and everything they all dressed like they're from the 50s but I mean that's how hard is that to like imagine or inspection sure sure so one thing I want to make note of here too is for those of you listening who don't know much about the Church of Christ as far as I understand it you guys can correct me if I'm wrong here but I I believe that the Church of Christ like all of the churches are different from each other right they all have kind of their own rules they don't have like an an overarching governing body who sets rules for all the churches Churches of Christ that's not fair to say or absolutely no actually as I understand it they kind of do have a conference where the elders of the church Christ get together and they discussed about doctrine and what is and is not acceptable because I believe that's how they move past anybody well nobody was alive in the 50s but my mom told me women were expected to wear dresses and skirts in fact my grandmother Ward it wasn't until the 90s that she wore pants wow man because that that was Church doctrine they do get together all the churches Christ and discuss the dot it's it's kind of informal it's kind of a conference style but they just could they discuss you know try to get on the same page about issues sure okay but essentially the hierarchy always arranged the same you have your elders then you have your deacons and you have your women leaders and what not but your elders pretty much established the rules of the church and yeah it was depending on where you went you could go to what it could be progressive or it could be pretty conservative very interesting so then in that case let me ask you this like what was your experience with them controlling clothing and hair style did they kind of control it in your church or you know how much I got when I've got a mohawk and dyed my hair blue no they didn't I mean I'm a Filipino guy and the jaws dropped when I walked in the church with that and I got I got in trouble for wearing like almost on t-shirts corn because I'm a t-shirt and jeans kind of guy I've always been it's frustrating my mom the only time I ever got dressed up was for Sunday morning service and that was you know dress coat tie and khakis or black pants but any other time I was in jeans and t-shirt and they tried to tell me oh well it is corn you know uplifting to God or do you think God really likes that kind of music and in my mind I was going you know what if the Lord can love people who can who have or who are tone deaf and sing leaning on the everlasting arm someone notes behind everybody else then I don't think he really cares oh that's hilarious man I love it no he cares about corn there's instruments of course right that's what I was thinking actually so that brings me to my next point mark like hang on I lost my place just a second I was looking for the the right question so that brings me to my next point mark how do they feel about instruments and in your church and how did you feel about that you said you wore a corn shirt and a Rammstein shirt if I pronounced that correctly I imagine they didn't like that because they don't like musical instruments right well I mean they didn't like rock and roll basically you weren't supposed to listen well you weren't supposed to listen to heavy metal I was I still love heavy metal and German industrial and whatnot I was always kind of out there but I was still in it but with instruments your voice is your instrument it doesn't matter if you're tone deaf it doesn't matter if you can sing like an opera singer we used to have a guy that would lead singing and he was a very large guy and he could hit those baritone notes when he did his belly shook and every time he'd say I had to bury my face in the hymnal and same thing inside the hymnal because I would start snickering in church but we had a church church that we used to be very close with in fact my family attended for a couple of years because it was closer to where we lived but uh they decided that they would like to have a you know guitar and piano accompaniment oh wow with their singing service so we miss fellowship me at that entire church because we were told don't associate with that church Wow if they're your friends just just just don't have anything to do with them because they they're going outside you know the Holy Bible and the Lord stopped her same exact thing happened with the church near where I lived right over across the river yeah so what was your experience with it Joris oh yeah you uh people are so like just they got way too adamant about instruments I remember there was obviously the church right across the river that did musical instruments we were told that they were bad because they did there were some church members who thought it was controversial to listen to worship music on the radio that had musical instruments in it okay so to clarify then real quick so they're not against the use of musical instruments altogether they're just against the use of musical instruments in worship right yeah okay okay so continue sorry do you know do y'all know where that comes from where does that come from Psalms David lifted up his voice unto the Lord with no musical accompaniment that's the that's the verse they used to justify that there is no musical instruments because King David worshiped the Lord and sang songs to the Lord with his voice only that is a little bit thin to me I don't know maybe it's just like apostate view but their whole dr. and is pretty thin like they do they do that exact same thing which is about all of their like core tenets and rules as they will just cherry-pick these little verses or maybe even sections of verses to really get what they want so what misconceptions I'll start with Joris what kind of misconceptions do you feel there are about the church like common misunderstandings about how it operates or what it is or what they believe do you have any for that I would say the most kind of misunderstood thing is a lot of people just think there's some normal regular old church when they're really not there like that they're very much I'd say they're very unique in how they do their brand of Christianity in that they really for instance my time in the Baptist's you were encouraged to reach out to Methodist Pentecostals really anyone but if you're a Church of Christ member you're really only supposed to reach out to other churches of Christ because all of their religious denominations are wrong and there shouldn't be denominations because of everybody who's doing Christianity like the Church of Christ well then there wouldn't be a need for denominations because it would only be true Christ but yeah I think the biggest misconception people have is that it's just some normal run-of-the-mill thing because it's really not they happen there it's really catch of Christ I mean Christianity for a lot of people as a lifestyle but I would say even going so far is very Church of Christ member not only is Christianity a lifestyle for you but Church of Christ is also a light additional lifestyle like one level above it then as what you're saying okay so what about you mark like how do you do you know of any kind of misconceptions you'd want to set straight about the church two points the first point I can prove with the joke okay the first point is a man dies and goes to heaven and Saint Peter is giving the man a to heaven and heaven is split in two corridors halls though as they're walking through you know they passed by one hallway and you can hear singing and praising and just general shouting some sucker a really good party and the man goes st. Peter who's down this hall and he said oh that's the Pentecostals you know they're really happy to be here and okay semantics is okay so they they walk Barrowman all of a sudden they hear beautiful singing and chanting and God goes well who's down this hall and st. Peter replies oh that's the Catholics they're very serious about being here you know so we leave them to do what they want to do so and so they continue walking and st. Peters pointing out these different halls and who's down the halls and finally st. Peter before they get to the last hallway he looked at the man and puts his fingers over his lips and says you need to be very quiet and the man goes why are whispering he said well down this hall is the Church of Christ and they think they're the only ones up here that's really funny I love it that was that was good I've never heard that word before I like that and the other misconception is that people really don't understand Church Christ they were during the Reformation about the same time that Jehovah's Witness and Calvinists came about because they wanted a more stricter doctrine uh you know it was during the time of the Great Depression and the prohibition in fact Church of Christ were very supportive of the Prohibition era because and like George said they do cherry-pick for example all went all in the believe in the book of Acts says anything not in moderation is basically a sin well Church Christ will take that is you can't drink a drop of alcohol because human beings cannot drink in moderation and that's it's very thin because that's not what Paul said or the love of money is the root of all evil well some Church of Christ would take that is any movie any love of any money is the root of all evil if you're rich well you're basically an evil person unless you're giving it to charity or puces the church or to you know uplift the Lord or spread his word so it not only is a cherry-picking it's kind of twisting the scripture to fit their narrative which is a very dangerous practice and if you don't know your Scripture and you haven't studied it and you haven't looked at different versions then it's a very insidious message and one thing that George do not agree with church crisis is very good with peer pressure they can pressure pressure you to believe something and to do something and here and if you if you're not crazy if you're not critically thinking then you're and you finally memorization what the this is not what I'm stay out to do but this is what I'm doing even though I'm a it's not a damn bit of sense I don't know why I'm not going to the school dance because my youth minister told me that oh I might get turned on by by a girl swaying her hips at me that doesn't make any sense but yet I'm not doing it because if I do go then the youth group will report back oh so-and-so was at the dance and he was he didn't leave any room for Jesus sure sure that's that's that's the way it was and ya realized that I have a funny little anecdote that's reminded me of that there is a running joke in my youth group at the time about a dance called the Jesus twist and essentially what it was is we had studied a tract in one of our Sunday schools and it was about what type of dancing is appropriate for Church of Christ members and basically this amounted to you were standing like straight up and your hips we're like in place you didn't move your hips but you would move your shoulders back and forth and that was the that was the Jesus to us see that's fast that's that's funny man see that's that's really interesting because that's the kind of thing that I'd expect to hear from Jehovah's Witnesses and I don't know if you guys ever watched Seth Andrews he's the thinking atheist but he's said this phrase before dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire and I just thought that was on point that is an awesome phrase so anyway yeah that's that's a really really fascinating stuff we're coming to the end here so I figure I'm gonna ask you guys two more questions each first of all I'll direct this to Joris if you could change one thing about their rules or doctrine to make members happier and one thing to make it fail what would those things be one thing to make members happier I guess would be to have a system of checks and balances in place for the elders because they really run the church without any sort of guidance or any sort of repercussions and then to make the institution fail I would say let it continue to be run by the elders because they're sure doing a great job of running it into the ground okay that's the very interesting answer so how about you mark like if you could change one thing about their rules or doctrine to make members happier and one thing to make the church fail what would those things be well one of the ones one of the things that I would change and run exactly sure how to express that it's set by personal experience grandmother was a very lovely person throughout her and her entire life she said not a cross word to anybody she would just shake her head and walk away instead of cussing someone out and for her entire life she felt that she was not worthy of heaven she was constantly worrying my granddaddy never went to church because he was made to feel like back well a member of the church Christ told him a World War two veteran that you fought in war so you're going to hell hmm and one thing that I would change to make members happier is to stop making everybody feel guilty for having human feelings and being human to make it fail I was yours because my friend who was a preacher for 10 years and is now Adeus the one I said before when he did his internship at the church that I went to hit the first question that the elders asked him what are you gonna do to save this church because the elders because women are not allowed to hold any leadership position the elders themselves had no idea what was wrong with the church it was the ladies of the church that understood who needed to be visited who needed to be supported who was doing what and what needed to be done to make the church successful but since all the elders are men and they do not listen to a woman there you go it's inevitably gonna fail right that's fascinating well hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer before we start seeing it go on the decline because I know with Jehovah's Witnesses they are net losing people in different countries now the u.s. they had an increase of below population growth which means the members are having children but more of those children are leaving than are coming in and they're not really bringing in any new members now in Europe and other countries we've seen with Jehovah's Witnesses a lot of people just outright leaving they're just losing people net so that's good to see and hopefully we'll start to see similar patterns from the Church of Christ if we aren't already I'm gonna look those statistics up but they may be worth looking up now just to finish up here I was hoping to get you guys final statements you I'll start with Joyce you have anything that you wanted to mention any kind of final thing you want to say about the Church of Christ about something that that you feel is pretty important that people know or understand about it I guess my main final thought is is that if you are a member of the Church of Christ and you happen to find this and you've made it this far into it please ask questions that I was so discouraged from asking questions and the thought of even asking a question was sinful and I was meant to feel quite bad about it is you were you're not as bad as they tell you you are you're not alone either you're not alone either obviously I mean there's two ex Church of Christ members on this podcast right now but you're not alone and you're not meant to feel that bad about yourself and there's an entire world out there that you just need to ask questions like don't take everything they say for granted ask questions yeah I think that's that's definitely fair to say what about you mark do you have any kind of final statements that you want to get out to to the world about this okay to kind of piggyback off yours that best that is the main problem they don't ask questions they don't think critically if it sounds stupid then it's a mystery of God that we human beings cannot understand faith is accepting things blindly that don't make a damn bit of sense my main thing is is that there are good people out there there are good people that are Church Christ members we're not saying that all of them are bad people but there they don't know what they're Cushing is a bad product goods I would equate it to pushing heroin but you don't know that batch is bad yeah it sounds like a good message but in the end if you're not thinking about it because they they invite you in they make you feel welcome every member will come up and hug you shake your hand and bite you the potlucks and Joris and I've talked about it Church Christ one thing we can do is we can get together put together food and cook but yeah especially younger younger listeners who are Church Christ I'll study and study hard be able to present evidence that what they're claiming is true even and there's nothing wrong with that in question just to George said me wanting to become a preacher was ultimately the downfall for me leaving church Christ because the more I studied the Bible and the more I studied the text of other religions and science and things of that nature the less I started to believe the Church of Christ doctrine in fact I still have and I keep it in my my keepsakes the very last sermon that I preached at that congregation and the topic was narrow mindedness and I used a lot of quotes from the Lord Kelvin Einstein Darwin and my main message was and it was a direct message to every member there that narrow mindedness is going to make your life very very unsatisfied you're not gonna see the beauty around you you're not gonna see the forest for the trees because your mind is focused on one thing and you're gonna miss out on a lot of great things that even if you do believe in God that God you know may have given you you know to be human to make mistakes that have free will which everybody purports the Lord has given us you're not exercising that freewill if you're clinging on to a doctrine that doesn't make sense and was put together by men sure that's a that's a really good final statement I can completely agree with all that and something else I wanted to note is maybe try not to get yourself in too deep because with Jehovah's Witnesses if you get baptized that's it your family has the right to shun you from then on and they very well may so try to keep it at arm's length as much as possible until you know until you just can't anymore so something to think about but yeah I appreciate you guys coming on and talking to me and it's been very fascinating so we will talk to you again sometime okay appreciate it that's all I've got for you don't forget to check out my podcast channel if you're into that kind of thing and join my discord in my Facebook thanks for watching guys [Music] [Music]

Channel: Telltale

Views: 52,713

Rating: 4.8023601 out of 5

Keywords: youtube, video, telltale, cults, bible, jesus, jehovah, god, religion, church of christ, coc, podcast, music

Id: 8WGmI-jL1J0

Length: 54min 41sec (3281 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 22 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/chiefos]

This has been rad to listen to. Thanks for sharing.

It's weird how I'm 6 years totally removed from the coc and I still find myself judging these guys for being more liberal than I was at one point.

At the time I was good looking, sharp, and charismatic so I was definitely groomed down a path where my sardonistic attitude was encouraged. Looks and smarts have faded, but shit if I'm not still either being an asshat or actively working against not being an asshat a lot of the time.