Name a really bad doctrine that needs retiring

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rockytopva

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1. The bad doctrine (one at a time please)
2. Your analysis on why it is bad

"Touch not My anointed." Chances are you’ve heard this weird doctrine based on 1 Chronicles 16:22. In an attempt to discourage any form of disagreement in the church, insecure leaders tell their members that if they ever question church authority, they are “touching the Lord’s anointed” and in danger of God’s judgment. Let’s call this what it is: spiritual manipulation. It creates worse problems by ruling out healthy discussion and mutual respect. Church members end up being abused or controlled—or even blacklisted because they dare to ask a question.
 
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DPMartin

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Sure there are many doctrines and theologies over the many years that have been adopted by church authorities, even doctrines on their authority, that many believers in the Son of God disagree with. But is that disagreement because they are in agreement with Christ Jesus, or just another doctrine or theology?

And truly is it wise to do so, considering even the Israelites had many different doctrines and theologies, but Jesus came to them anyway, didn’t He?

Consider, even though many believers don’t have any doings with the Vatican, if the Vatican was to be destroyed what would that mean to the Christian community? Surly it would imply that the church or churches no longer enjoy God’s commitment to keep them and protect them no matter what follies they may or may not have, like He did with Israel. Doesn’t most churches enjoy that same type of Grace from God? Wouldn’t it stand to reason that the Lord God maintains the churches privileges for the sake of the faithful? And not the deceivers that manage to gain authority there in? Granted, there are many teachers of doubt, to the faithful, but what is faithfulness if there be no doubt to abstain from. Hence the faithful are faithful despite the doubt, not because there is no doubt.

The Lord God teaches plainly that one should trust and take refuge in Him only, and if Adam and Eve did that in the Garden they would have survived the situation at hand. Instead they trusted their own judgement, and the words of the serpent and suffered the consequence.
 

rockytopva

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Laodicean church age new ones - Doctrines that were unknown to the church pre-1980... I

Inaccessible leadership. In the 1980s, some charismatic ministries began to teach pastors and traveling ministers that in order to “protect the anointing,” they must stay aloof from people. Ministers were warned to never make friends in their congregations. Preachers began the strange practice of skipping worship on Sunday mornings—and then appearing on the stage only when it was time for the sermon in order to make a dramatic entrance. Shame on these people for attempting to justify arrogance. Jesus loved people, and He made Himself available to them. So should we.

Armor-bearers. The same guys from the above doctrine started this strange fad. Preachers began the practice of surrounding themselves with an entourage: one person to carry the briefcase, another person to carry the Bible, another to carry the handkerchief. Some preachers hired bodyguards … and even food-tasters! The armor-bearers were promised special blessings if they served preachers who acted like slave-owners. Reminder: True leaders are servants, not egomaniacs.

The hundredfold return. Before his death in 2003, Kenneth Hagin Sr., the father of the faith movement, rebuked his own followers for taking prosperity teaching to a silly extreme. In his book The Midas Touch, he begged preachers to stop misusing Mark 10:28-30 to suggest that God promises a hundredfold return on every offering we give. Hagin wrote, “If the hundredfold return worked literally and mathematically for everyone who gave in an offering, we would have Christians walking around with not billions or trillions of dollars, but quadrillions of dollars!” Hagin taught that the hundredfold blessing refers to the rewards that come to those who leave all they have to serve God in ministry.

Money cometh. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for giving money publicly to be seen by others. Yet in the 1990s, some charismatics got the wild idea that God would release a magical blessing if we would drop wads of dollar bills at the preacher’s feet while he was in the middle of his sermon. Leroy Thompson of Louisiana popularized this flamboyant practice with his infamous 1996 sermon, in which he encouraged people to shout in King James English, “Money! Cometh to me now!” Then the people would run to the front of the auditorium to pour cash into his coffers. The money came, for sure, and more cash-hungry preachers jumped on the bandwagon. Taking an offering became a form of exhibitionism, and Christians began viewing their offerings like lottery scratch-offs.

Tongues - There was a push in the 1980's - 1990's to actually teach people how to speak in tongues. They would say things like "ba ba ba ba ba..." You've got it mate! I have heard people say things like you've got to fake it to make it. True Pentecostals will tell you that the Pentecostal Baptism is some thing that comes out of your spiritual inner man, the Spirit of God then flows out of the heart and into the tongue. If the seeker did not get it in the heart first he is no better than those who do not claim tongues.
 

laid renard

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rockytopva said:
Money cometh. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for giving money publicly to be seen by others. Yet in the 1990s, some charismatics got the wild idea that God would release a magical blessing if we would drop wads of dollar bills at the preacher’s feet while he was in the middle of his sermon. Leroy Thompson of Louisiana popularized this flamboyant practice with his infamous 1996 sermon, in which he encouraged people to shout in King James English, “Money! Cometh to me now!” Then the people would run to the front of the auditorium to pour cash into his coffers. The money came, for sure, and more cash-hungry preachers jumped on the bandwagon. Taking an offering became a form of exhibitionism, and Christians began viewing their offerings like lottery scratch-offs.
My brother is guilty of this. He gives money to Christian causes for the sole purpose of getting a hundred fold back while here on earth, not for agape toward his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Sad. :(
For the love of money is the root.....

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rockytopva said:
Tongues - There was a push in the 1980's - 1990's to actually teach people how to speak in tongues. They would say things like "ba ba ba ba ba..." You've got it mate! I have heard people say things like you've got to fake it to make it. True Pentecostals will tell you that the Pentecostal Baptism is some thing that comes out of your spiritual inner man, the Spirit of God then flows out of the heart and into the tongue. If the seeker did not get it in the heart first he is no better than those who do not claim tongues.
This actually happened to me. After my divorce due to infidelity on my husbands part, I returned to my home town to discover that my brother was involved with a false religion. Out of sheer depression and boredom I attended a few of their "home services." They had it set up so 4 same sex genders had to leave their home town and move way across county. Who they targeted were the opposite gender to attend their 'home services." Anyway, at one of these meetings, I arrived early just in time to hear them playing a tape of other several foreign languages, as they were mimicking them to sound anything but English speaking.
Then they tried to get us to speak in tongues by going be bo uh me mi la sa ka...... etc...... just make it up they said.
I knew instantly they were a bunch of ungodly phonies out for money, with their "flirty fish" tactics.

I have only genuinely spoken in tongues twice in my life. And both times it fell powerfully down upon me. There was no effort on my part, for it was from God. The second time He even gave me the gift of interpretation. I was sound asleep and bolted right up in bed into a sitting position. Both times, I was in great need of Him. THATS why He gives us this utterly priceless gift--for our sake, not for the sake of loud, repetitious, on purpose noise.
 

HammerStone

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Name It and Claim It - There are a number of names that this goes under, but it all can be contained under the umbrella of materialism. We've tried to synthesize Christianity with materialism in the form of most of the Word Faith concepts and it's left us with a faith that is all about acquiring things (blessings). This has obviously penetrated the middle and lower classes most strongly, but I would argue that it also appears in the form of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. It's all stemming from the notion that God is here to be a divine butler or vending machine. It's been exported across the globe and looks more like self help religion. This brand of Christianity becomes more about what's in it for me, rather than centering around God and our relationship with the Creator of the universe.

With that said, I think one can go too far down the opposite extreme. I see a number of people who preach or teach "good" doctrine, but get caught up in the idea that life doesn't ever really seem to include happiness. IMHO, name it and claim it doctrine sprung out of an attempt to form a theology of joy or happiness, but it just went too far.

By the way, Rocky, you broke your own rule! ;)


1. The bad doctrine (one at a time please)
 

DPMartin

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Name it and claim it, yea there’s a lot of that going on. It’s easy to sucker punch those suffering the brutality of poverty and the fear of going to the poor house.
The truth that acknowledgment of the Lord God brings blessing is turned into something that is defined by the judgement of the listener of a interpreted version to entice. Who sees things from their point of view and judges for themselves what is good for themselves. As long as men believe they can judge for themselves what is good for themselves in their own judgement, then they are set for disaster.
 

kjw47

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rockytopva said:
1. The bad doctrine (one at a time please)
2. Your analysis on why it is bad

"Touch not My anointed." Chances are you’ve heard this weird doctrine based on 1 Chronicles 16:22. In an attempt to discourage any form of disagreement in the church, insecure leaders tell their members that if they ever question church authority, they are “touching the Lord’s anointed” and in danger of God’s judgment. Let’s call this what it is: spiritual manipulation. It creates worse problems by ruling out healthy discussion and mutual respect. Church members end up being abused or controlled—or even blacklisted because they dare to ask a question.
1)32,999 disunified mass of confusion--trinity based religions
2) 1 cor 1:10
 
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brakelite

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kjw47 said:
1)32,999 disunified mass of confusion--trinity based religions
2) 1 cor 1:10
Eccl.12:13 ¶ Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.


Do you keep all God's commandments kjw47?

The final church of the last days, the remnant church, which your church claims to be, do keep God's commandments. Do you?

Revelation 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Revelations 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.


Or is the keeping of God's commandments one of the bad doctrines that need to be run out of town?
 

kjw47

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brakelite said:
Eccl.12:13 ¶ Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.


Do you keep all God's commandments kjw47?

The final church of the last days, the remnant church, which your church claims to be, do keep God's commandments. Do you?

Revelation 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Revelations 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.


Or is the keeping of God's commandments one of the bad doctrines that need to be run out of town?
Keeping Gods commandments is always the wise choice--but one better be serving the only true God whilst doing that or it is for naught.
 
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brakelite

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kjw47 said:
Keeping Gods commandments is always the wise choice--but one better be serving the only true God whilst doing that or it is for naught.
What about the 4th commandment kjw? Do you or your church keep the 4th? Does anyone here keep the 4th commandment? Both practices, Sunday keeping or Sabbath keeping cannot be right, so is one of those a really bad doctrine that needs retiring, and if so, which one?
 

kjw47

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brakelite said:
What about the 4th commandment kjw? Do you or your church keep the 4th? Does anyone here keep the 4th commandment? Both practices, Sunday keeping or Sabbath keeping cannot be right, so is one of those a really bad doctrine that needs retiring, and if so, which one?
I was taught that 4th one was done away with in the new covenant. Its almost like an impossibility to keep that one.
 
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brakelite

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Your church teaches that they are the only church that has come "out of Babylon". Yet Sunday keeping has its roots in Babylon.

kjw47 said:
I was taught that 4th one was done away with in the new covenant. Its almost like an impossibility to keep that one.
What is most important....your teachers, or the Word of God?
 

Brother James

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Here is one that I find to be harmful.

"With every head bowed and every eye closed, if you want to invite Jesus into your heart right now just raise you hand. Yes, I see you. Yes. Yes. Anymore? Yes, yes. Okay, now, right there in your seat just repeat this prayer: Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner and the you died for me. I invite you into my heart right now to be my savior and I trust in you to guide me from here on out. I know that my home is in heaven because you've saved me. Amen. If you just prayed that prayer then God has saved you and heaven is your eternal home."

Even the whole altar call I grew up with does not strike me as being in any way biblical. And I certainly don't see any example of "repeate after me" salvation in the Bible.
 

rockytopva

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Brother James said:
Here is one that I find to be harmful.

"With every head bowed and every eye closed, if you want to invite Jesus into your heart right now just raise you hand. Yes, I see you. Yes. Yes. Anymore? Yes, yes. Okay, now, right there in your seat just repeat this prayer: Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner and the you died for me. I invite you into my heart right now to be my savior and I trust in you to guide me from here on out. I know that my home is in heaven because you've saved me. Amen. If you just prayed that prayer then God has saved you and heaven is your eternal home."

Even the whole altar call I grew up with does not strike me as being in any way biblical. And I certainly don't see any example of "repeate after me" salvation in the Bible.
Well... That makes a pretty good Yankee alter call, but in the old south it was not that way. Excerpts from George Clark Rankin (http://www.christianityboard.com/topic/18564-the-life-of-george-clark-rankin/) story. I was fortunate that this type religion existed in SW Virginia when I came along...

George Clark Rankin talks of his religious experience in which his first taste of religion was of the Presbyterian sect...

"Grandfather was kind to me and considerate of me, yet he was strict with me. I worked along with him in the field when the weather was agreeable and when it was inclement I helped him in his hatter's shop, for the Civil War was in progress and he had returned at odd times to hatmaking. It was my business in the shop to stretch foxskins and coonskins across a wood-horse and with a knife, made for that purpose, pluck the hair from the fur. I despise the odor of foxskins and coonskins to this good day. He had me to walk two miles every Sunday to Dandridge to Church service and Sunday-school, rain or shine, wet or dry, cold or hot; yet he had fat horses standing in his stable. But he was such a blue-stocking Presbyterian that he never allowed a bridle to go on a horse's head on Sunday. The beasts had to have a day of rest. Old Doctor Minnis was the pastor, and he was the dryest and most interminable preacher I ever heard in my life. He would stand motionless and read his sermons from manuscript for one hour and a half at a time and sometimes longer. Grandfather would sit and never take his eyes off of him, except to glance at me to keep me quiet. It was torture to me." - George Clark Rankin

Then he got it good in the Methodist church in Georgia...

...Quote...
After the team had been fed and we had been to supper we put the mules to the wagon, filled it with chairs and we were off to the meeting. When we reached the locality it was about dark and the people were assembling. Their horses and wagons filled up the cleared spaces and the singing was already in progress. My uncle and his family went well up toward the front, but I dropped into a seat well to the rear. It was an old-fashioned Church, ancient in appearance, oblong in shape and unpretentious. It was situated in a grove about one hundred yards from the road. It was lighted with old tallow-dip candles furnished by the neighbors. It was not a prepossessing-looking place, but it was soon crowded and evidently there was a great deal of interest. A cadaverous-looking man stood up in front with a tuning fork and raised and led the songs. There were a few prayers and the minister came in with his saddlebags and entered the pulpit. He was the Rev. W. H. Heath, the circuit rider. His prayer impressed me with his earnestness and there were many amens to it in the audience. I do not remember his text, but it was a typical revival sermon, full of unction and power.

At its close he invited penitents to the altar and a great many young people flocked to it and bowed for prayer. Many of them became very much affected and they cried out distressingly for mercy. It had a strange effect on me. It made me nervous and I wanted to retire. Directly my uncle came back to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me if I did not want to be religious. I told him that I had always had that desire, that mother had brought me up that way, and really I did not know anything else. Then he wanted to know if I had ever professed religion. I hardly understood what he meant and did not answer him. He changed his question and asked me if I had ever been to the altar for prayer, and I answered him in the negative. Then he earnestly besought me to let him take me up to the altar and join the others in being prayed for. It really embarrassed me and I hardly knew what to say to him. He spoke to me of my mother and said that when she was a little girl she went to the altar and that Christ accepted her and she had been a good Christian all these years. That touched me in a tender spot, for mother always did do what was right; and then I was far away from her and wanted to see her. Oh, if she were there to tell me what to do!

By and by I yielded to his entreaty and he led forward to the altar. The minister took me by the hand and spoke tenderly to me as I knelt at the altar. I had gone more out of sympathy than conviction, and I did not know what to do after I bowed there. The others were praying aloud and now and then one would rise shoutingly happy and make the old building ring with his glad praise. It was a novel experience to me. I did not know what to pray for, neither did I know what to expect if I did pray. I spent the most of the hour wondering why I was there and what it all meant. No one explained anything to me. Once in awhile some good old brother or sister would pass my way, strike me on the back and tell me to look up and believe and the blessing would come. But that was not encouraging to me. In fact, it sounded like nonsense and the noise was distracting me. Even in my crude way of thinking I had an idea that religion was a sensible thing and that people ought to become religious intelligently and without all that hurrah. I presume that my ideas were the result of the Presbyterian training given to me by old grandfather. By and by my knees grew tired and the skin was nearly rubbed off my elbows. I thought the service never would close, and when it did conclude with the benediction I heaved a sigh of relief. That was my first experience at the mourner's bench.

As we drove home I did not have much to say, but I listened attentively to the conversation between my uncle and his wife. They were greatly impressed with the meeting, and they spoke first of this one and that one who had "come through" and what a change it would make in the community, as many of them were bad boys. As we were putting up the team my uncle spoke very encouragingly to me; he was delighted with the step I had taken and he pleaded with me not to turn back, but to press on until I found the pearl of great price. He knew my mother would be very happy over the start I had made. Before going to sleep I fell into a train of thought, though I was tired and exhausted. I wondered why I had gone to that altar and what I had gained by it. I felt no special conviction and had received no special impression, but then if my mother had started that way there must be something in it, for she always did what was right. I silently lifted my heart to God in prayer for conviction and guidance. I knew how to pray, for I had come up through prayer, but not the mourner's bench sort. So I determined to continue to attend the meeting and keep on going to the altar until I got religion.

Early the next morning I was up and in a serious frame of mind. I went with the other hands to the cottonfield and at noon I slipped off in the barn and prayed. But the more I thought of the way those young people were moved in the meeting and with what glad hearts they had shouted their praises to God the more it puzzled and confused me. I could not feel the conviction that they had and my heart did not feel melted and tender. I was callous and unmoved in feeling and my distress on account of sin was nothing like theirs. I did not understand my own state of mind and heart. It troubled me, for by this time I really wanted to have an experience like theirs.

When evening came I was ready for Church service and was glad to go. It required no urging. Another large crowd was present and the preacher was as earnest as ever. I did not give much heed to the sermon. In fact, I do not recall a word of it. I was anxious for him to conclude and give me a chance to go to the altar. I had gotten it into my head that there was some real virtue in the mourner's bench; and when the time came I was one of the first to prostrate myself before the altar in prayer. Many others did likewise. Two or three good people at intervals knelt by me and spoke encouragingly to me, but they did not help me. Their talks were mere exhortations to earnestness and faith, but there was no explanation of faith, neither was there any light thrown upon my mind and heart. I wrought myself up into tears and cries for help, but the whole situation was dark and I hardly knew why I cried, or what was the trouble with me. Now and then others would arise from the altar in an ecstasy of joy, but there was no joy for me. When the service closed I was discouraged and felt that maybe I was too hardhearted and the good Spirit could do nothing for me.

After we went home I tossed on the bed before going to sleep and wondered why God did not do for me what he had done for mother and what he was doing in that meeting for those young people at the altar. I could not understand it. But I resolved to keep on trying, and so dropped off to sleep. The next day I had about the same experience and at night saw no change in my condition. And so for several nights I repeated the same distressing experience. The meeting took on such interest that a day service was adopted along with the night exercises, and we attended that also. And one morning while I bowed at the altar in a very disturbed state of mind Brother Tyson, a good local preacher and the father of Rev. J. F. Tyson, now of the Central Conference, sat down by me and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said to me: "Now I want you to sit up awhile and let's talk this matter over quietly. I am sure that you are in earnest, for you have been coming to this altar night after night for several days. I want to ask you a few simple questions." And the following questions were asked and answered:

"My son, do you not love God?"

"I cannot remember when I did not love him."

"Do you believe on his Son, Jesus Christ?"

"I have always believed on Christ. My mother taught me that from my earliest recollection."

"Do you accept him as your Savior?"

"I certainly do, and have always done so."

"Can you think of any sin that is between you and the Savior?"

"No, sir; for I have never committed any bad sins."

"Do you love everybody?"

"Well, I love nearly everybody, but I have no ill-will toward any one. An old man did me a wrong not long ago and I acted ugly toward him, but I do not care to injure him."

"Can you forgive him?"

"Yes, if he wanted me to."

"But, down in your heart, can you wish him well?"

"Yes, sir; I can do that."

"Well, now let me say to you that if you love God, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and if you love your fellowmen and intend by God's help to lead a religious life, that's all there is to religion. In fact, that is all I know about it."

Then he repeated several passages of Scriptures to me proving his assertions. I thought a moment and said to him: "But I do not feel like these young people who have been getting religion night after night. I cannot get happy like them. I do not feel like shouting."

The good man looked at me and smiled and said: "Ah, that's your trouble. You have been trying to feel like them. Now you are not them; you are yourself. You have your own quiet disposition and you are not turned like them. They are excitable and blustery like they are. They give way to their feelings. That's all right, but feeling is not religion. Religion is faith and life. If you have violent feeling with it, all good and well, but if you have faith and not much feeling, why the feeling will take care of itself. To love God and accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, turning away from all sin, and living a godly life, is the substance of true religion."

That was new to me, yet it had been my state of mind from childhood. For I remembered that away back in my early life, when the old preacher held services in my grandmother's house one day and opened the door of the Church, I went forward and gave him my hand. He was to receive me into full membership at the end of six months' probation, but he let it pass out of his mind and failed to attend to it.

As I sat there that morning listening to the earnest exhortation of the good man my tears ceased, my distress left me, light broke in upon my mind, my heart grew joyous, and before I knew just what I was doing I was going all around shaking hands with everybody, and my confusion and darkness disappeared and a great burden rolled off my spirit. I felt exactly like I did when I was a little boy around my mother's knee when she told of Jesus and God and Heaven. It made my heart thrill then, and the same old experience returned to me in that old country Church that beautiful September morning down in old North Georgia.

I at once gave my name to the preacher for membership in the Church, and the following Sunday morning, along with many others, he received me into full membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It was one of the most delightful days in my recollection. It was the third Sunday in September, 1866, and those Church vows became a living principle in my heart and life. During these forty-five long years, with their alternations of sunshine and shadow, daylight and darkness, success and failure, rejoicing and weeping, fears within and fightings without, I have never ceased to thank God for that autumnal day in the long ago when my name was registered in the Lamb's Book of Life.

.../Quote...
Camp Meeting in Virginia around the old, Methodist Episcopal Church South mourners bench! Dear to me is this chapter of the book because I experienced so much of the wonderful things the author talks about in this work!
clap.gif
The Life of George Clark Rankin and beginning on page 239...

I passed my examinations and that year I was sent to the Wytheville Station and Circuit. That was adjoining my former charge. We reached the old parsonage on the pike just out of Wytheville as Rev. B. W. S. Bishop moved out. Charley Bishop was then a little tow-headed boy. He is now the learned Regent of Southwestern University. The parsonage was an old two-and-a-half-story structure with nine rooms and it looked a little like Hawthorne's house with the seven gables. It was the lonesomest-looking old house I ever saw. There was no one there to meet us, for we had not notified anybody of the time we would arrive.

Think of taking a young bride to that sort of a mansion! But she was brave and showed no sign of disappointment. That first night we felt like two whortleberries in a Virginia tobacco wagonbed. We had room and to spare, but it was scantily furnished with specimens as antique as those in Noah's ark. But in a week or so we were invited out to spend the day with a good family, and when we went back we found the doors fastened just as we had left them, but when we entered a bedroom was elegantly furnished with everything modern and the parlor was in fine shape. The ladies had been there and done the work. How much does the preacher owe to the good women of the Church!

The circuit was a large one, comprising seventeen appointments. They were practically scattered all over the county. I preached every other day, and never less than twice and generally three times on Sunday.

I had associated with me that year a young collegemate, Rev. W. B. Stradley. He was a bright, popular fellow, and we managed to give Wytheville regular Sunday preaching. Stradley became a great preacher and died a few years ago while pastor of Trinity Church, Atlanta, Georgia. We were true yokefellows and did a great work on that charge, held fine revivals and had large ingatherings.

The famous Cripple Creek Campground was on that work. They have kept up campmeetings there for more than a hundred years. It is still the great rallying point for the Methodists of all that section. I have never heard such singing and preaching and shouting anywhere else in my life. I met the Rev. John Boring there and heard him preach. He was a well-known preacher in the conference; original, peculiar, strikingly odd, but a great revival preacher.

One morning in the beginning of the service he was to preach and he called the people to prayer. He prayed loud and long and told the Lord just what sort of a meeting we were expecting and really exhorted the people as to their conduct on the grounds. Among other things, he said we wanted no horse- trading and then related that just before kneeling he had seen a man just outside the encampment looking into the mouth of a horse and he made such a peculiar sound as he described the incident that I lifted up my head to look at him, and he was holding his mouth open with his hands just as the man had done in looking into the horse's mouth! But he was a man of power and wrought well for the Church and for humanity.

The rarest character I ever met in my life I met at that campmeeting in the person of Rev. Robert Sheffy, known as "Bob" Sheffy. He was recognized all over Southwest Virginia as the most eccentric preacher of that country. He was a local preacher; crude, illiterate, queer and the oddest specimen known among preachers. But he was saintly in his life, devout in his experience and a man of unbounded faith. He wandered hither and thither over that section attending meetings, holding revivals and living among the people. He was great in prayer, and Cripple Creek campground was not complete without "Bob" Sheffy. They wanted him there to pray and work in the altar.

He was wonderful with penitents. And he was great in following up the sermon with his exhortations and appeals. He would sometimes spend nearly the whole night in the straw with mourners; and now and then if the meeting lagged he would go out on the mountain and spend the entire night in prayer, and the next morning he would come rushing into the service with his face all aglow shouting at the top of his voice. And then the meeting always broke loose with a floodtide.

He could say the oddest things, hold the most unique interviews with God, break forth in the most unexpected spasms of praise, use the homeliest illustrations, do the funniest things and go through with the most grotesque performances of any man born of woman.

It was just "Bob" Sheffy, and nobody thought anything of what he did and said, except to let him have his own way and do exactly as he pleased. In anybody else it would not have been tolerated for a moment. In fact, he acted more like a crazy man than otherwise, but he was wonderful in a meeting. He would stir the people, crowd the mourner's bench with crying penitents and have genuine conversions by the score. I doubt if any man in all that conference has as many souls to his credit in the Lamb's Book of Life as old "Bob" Sheffy.

At the close of that year in casting up my accounts I found that I had received three hundred and ninety dollars for my year's work, and the most of this had been contributed in everything except money. It required about the amount of cash contributed to pay my associate and the Presiding Elder. I got the chickens, the eggs, the butter, the ribs and backbones, the corn, the meat, and the Presiding Elder and Brother Stradley had helped us to eat our part of the quarterage. Well, we kept open house and had a royal time, even if we did not get much ready cash. We lived and had money enough to get a good suit of clothes and to pay our way to conference. What more does a young Methodist preacher need or want? We were satisfied and happy, and these experiences are not to be counted as unimportant assets in the life and work of a Methodist circuit rider.
 

rockytopva

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I can't believe I said 'Alter Call.' Altar call.... Apologies
 

kjw47

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Brother James said:
Here is one that I find to be harmful.

"With every head bowed and every eye closed, if you want to invite Jesus into your heart right now just raise you hand. Yes, I see you. Yes. Yes. Anymore? Yes, yes. Okay, now, right there in your seat just repeat this prayer: Dear Jesus, I know I'm a sinner and the you died for me. I invite you into my heart right now to be my savior and I trust in you to guide me from here on out. I know that my home is in heaven because you've saved me. Amen. If you just prayed that prayer then God has saved you and heaven is your eternal home."

Even the whole altar call I grew up with does not strike me as being in any way biblical. And I certainly don't see any example of "repeate after me" salvation in the Bible.
Teachers of darkness like Mr Joel Osteen--use those 3 lines of prayer to tell others they are born again( saved) ---he knows he is lying. He tells those walking the broad and spacious path that as well--he doesn't have a clue as to who will be saved.
He is after the tithe( unbiblical now) any churches teachers requiring the tithe know they are lying.
 

Arnie Manitoba

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The altar call may have the appearance of being too quick and too easy and a bit frivolous.

But it can be the first step of repentance followed by a lifetime of change

Have to start somewhere.
 

StanJ

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rockytopva said:
1. The bad doctrine (one at a time please)
2. Your analysis on why it is bad

"Touch not My anointed." Chances are you’ve heard this weird doctrine based on 1 Chronicles 16:22. In an attempt to discourage any form of disagreement in the church, insecure leaders tell their members that if they ever question church authority, they are “touching the Lord’s anointed” and in danger of God’s judgment. Let’s call this what it is: spiritual manipulation. It creates worse problems by ruling out healthy discussion and mutual respect. Church members end up being abused or controlled—or even blacklisted because they dare to ask a question.
Hey Rocky!
Are you the same Rocky that is on CF.com?

OK bad doctrine is OSAS (Once Saved Always Saved)
Because it takes away the basic message of discipleship, which is; "pickup your cross daily and follow Jesus".
 

rockytopva

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StanJ said:
Hey Rocky!
Are you the same Rocky that is on CF.com?

OK bad doctrine is OSAS (Once Saved Always Saved)
Because it takes away the basic message of discipleship, which is; "pickup your cross daily and follow Jesus".
Yea... I am the guy...And I do agree with you on the OSAS doctrine. And I believe also that it takes away from the fear of the Lord (IF we are OSAS what is the use?)