Doctrine

Times and Seasons

109 Comments

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

(Anybody who tells you that you have to be only one thing all the time apparently hasn’t read his Bible. )

109 thoughts on “Times and Seasons”

      1. Yeah yeah yeah. Move on! Forget the past. I’m even hearing this from my husband as we are transitioning from the hyles worshipping pastor fundy church to our new church. I keep making comparisons between them with the new church coming up so much better of course. But it’s a transition period and I told him it will take time. In a few months we will probably not be remembering the old church that much anymore. 🙂

        1. You will remember it. But it will be preceeded with, “Ohmygosh, I can’t believe we used to…”

        2. I’ll be honest, a lot of my oldest wounds from my past are still painful because they were never addressed, and never will be. My ex-family will never in a million years admit that they contributed to the problems and subsequent breakup. I’ve come to grips with that, but remembering some of this stuff will help ensure that I’ll not make the same mistake twice. At least I hope not! The fundy red flags have become part of my life filtering process, so I think of them as tools.

        3. I was told the other day (By someone in my non-fundy church) that I was the most jaded person they knew. I guess I never considered myself jaded, but I am SUPER careful who I trust and I NEVER just jump into anything without caution. But after I told her just a LITTLE bit about my church history in fundy-land she did admit that I was not nearly jaded enough considering what I had been through.

        4. Not the old “forgive and forget”! You don’t say… Seriously, there is no time for mourning lost trust as a fundy child. Just “let the joy of Jesus put a smile upon your face” and everything will be ok!

      2. What a powerful thought PS. I just finished reading “The Help” and I can’t help but think that Darrell is kind of like ” Miss Skeeter” writing and sharing the other side of life in fundamentalism even though it dare not be talked about. I am truly grateful to have a place to go to and know I am not alone in my struggles, thoughts and wounds that Jesus is healing in me. Thanks Darrell.

        2. What a great analogy, IAHB! Darrell is our Miss Skeeter. (Only not with long curly red hair and freckles). 🙂

        3. Saw that photo, IAHB, and then saw the ‘report abuse’ button under it – I suspect that is more appropriate than I would know.

    1. Wait – they decided that you (or whoever received the letter) was no longer a christian???!!!

      What arrogance.

      I’m so sad 🙁

    3. LOL! WTF?! Frame it!! That’s your freedom certificate of achievement! :mrgreen:

      I wish I had one of those to put up on my wall! 🙄

    4. How dare they declare someone no longer a Christian? That’s the height of arrogance, and it’s totally unscriptural!

    5. That is a load of crock. The letter does not indicate that you are no longer a believer or that you are worshipping satan or anything. They just assume you are out killing baby kittens and playing Dungeons & Dragons.

      You should have showed up on Sunday just to be part of your ex-communication ceremony. Ask if you could take pictures.

    6. If they had just dropped you from the rolls for non-attendence that would have been one thing… but to kick you out of Christianity as well!

      Why… You must have been sacrificing puppies, over a burning American Flag, to the DNC while listening to Marilyn Manson in the nude with your gay lover at a local Occupiers movement down at the pool hall. You must have graduated to beer from a bottle and be involved in creating all sorts of mass-teria. I’ll bet you’re an undercover agent for the FBI, you may look dumb but that’s just a disguise I hear that you’re a mastermind in the ways of Saul Alinski’s espionage. Yep, you’re a friend of them long haired, hippy-type, pinko fags!
      I betchya even got a commie flag tacked up on the wall inside of your garage.

      It’s no wonder they kicked you to the curb. You’re the devil incarnate. I’ll bet the pew where you last sat is still smoldering. Yep, they could see your heart and see what a sinner you are so it was easy for them to strip away your Membership at Bushwood Christian Country Club. I hear Judge Smails was livid! 😯 😆 😆 😆

      2. Don, I’ve always admired you, but right now I just sit in awe. The only themes you didn’t hit was mary-ja-wana and por-no-graphy.

        That, my friend, was a work of art.

        Christopher, the air out here is not poison like they said it was.

        2. … but the man did say:
          “Preacher man talkin’ on TV
          puttin’ down the rock and roll
          He wants me to send a donation
          cause he’s worried about my soul
          He said “Jesus walked on the water”
          and I know that it’s true
          But sometimes I think that preacher man
          might do a little walkin’ too

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPjhakaK-yI

    7. This qualifies for a post of it’s own Darrell!
      I wonder if anyone else has recieved anything similar?

      1. Does a letter of censure from our current CRC church count? Still working on that one… we’ve written a “book” back to them, asking for them to justify their judgments and punishment. Now taken it to the next level. Still confused and hurting about this one…

        But I need somewhere safe and secure to vent!!! 😐

    8. Christopher,

      If you want me to declare you back as a True Christian ™ kindly send a check to the address I will be posting shortly. 😛

      Pay no attention to those other people who would want to declare you a Christian without any qualifications.

      I’m the REAL deal.

    9. You stopped going to THEIR church and they declare you to no longer be a Christian? How DARE they!! 👿 I can’t believe how arrogant they are to even assume something like that; they have NO place to say what they did!

      1. @ Christopher, Is this really a response to the sole act of not attending church or talking to them about it? Have you told them you no longer worship Christ? It is none of our business if there is something else nor do I think the resposnse is appropriate since they can’t play God.

    10. If I had not read this with my own eyes, I would not have believed that any church body was capable of such a thing. How entirely and totally gruesome. 👿

    12. Somebody must have pissed off the pope!

      I’m glad my Jesus loves me even though I haven’t gone to church in a year. This–this is all about control. Nothing more. These are mentally and emotionally warped human beings drunk on the illusion of power, exulting in the rush of pronouncing another Christian anathema. There is no godly love in this, even if they invoke its name.

    14. Holy cow Christopher, I am speechless, dumbfounded and utterly amazed at the audacity of this display of god-power. What nerve… no doubt a cult there, whoever the person was that was ex-communicated sure has a great deal of work to overcome the spiritual abuse from that church, ugh.

    15. Any church can drop someone from membership for non-attendance. In fact, churches have a duty to keep their membership rolls current.

      But no church can “hand you over to Satan and his kingdom of darkness.” That is hardly in the church’s power.

    16. Christopher, I busted up when I read that! I remember my parents being so grave when they gave my sister “up to satan” because she moved out and wasn’t following orders. A few years later she got pregnant out of wedlock and my mother prophetically pointed it out that it was because she was handed over to Satan. Like he’s the bad cop when it comes to child rearing in the IFB. It’s always the last lever to pull when someone is disappointing the IFB. “Ok, you insist on your rebellion against what we tell you is right. We’re now going to give your leash to Satan and see how you like that!! Prepare to feel our we-told-you-so wrath via Satan!” 🙄

      1. Also, I hadn’t read your letter yet Christopher! That is horrible! I can just feel the arrogance and aggression on this page. I’m so sorry! 👿

    17. WTH?!? Really? I would have written reverend shady and told him to go pound sand. Hand you over to satan? Seriously? Pompous jerks.

      The whole “church discipline” thing makes me twitch. The fill in at my old church preached on that this summer. I was like “you cannot be serious. Church discipline. Really??”

    18. Nothing much to add to what everyone else has already said. These people really take the cake. Do they really think they can declare you unsaved simply because you left their church? Honest to pete…

      And I thought it would be bad if our former church were to put our names down on the restoration list in the Wednesday night prayer bulletin. They have a column for sick people, those needing to be saved and those needing restoration. In spite of the fact that I’m sure it’s gotten around that we have become members of another Baptist church in town we think at some point our names will be on that list as needing to be restored, not to the Lord but to that church. But it will be taken as though we are backslidden simply because we left that church. It’s not like we’re out of church, only out of that church. And to take that attitude would mean that that pastor thinks he’s superior to every other pastor in our city, and his church is superior to the others, and the other churches and pastors are worthless.

      But we are not yet on that list as far as I know.

      This former church of yours must take the prize. I have said this before in other situations but I sure would hate to be that pastor on judgment day. To think he has the authority to declare someone unsaved simply because they left his church is arrogance beyond measure. God help him. And those who are still there being fed this crock of garbage. 👿

    19. I hate to sound like I am in defense of fundys but this doesn’t appear to be a fundy crazy thing, but rather reformed craziness with Presbyterian PCA roots. There is plenty for which to accuse IFB without attributing others craziness to their account.

  5. Oh now I am going to hear this song in my mind all day long! That’s ok, I like that song. Have a great day everyone! :mrgreen:

  6. Pretty much everything reminds me of song lyrics, and this brings to mind another set of opposite couplets (slightly rearranged):

    A warning to the people,
    The Good and the Evil,
    The Soldier, the Civilian,
    The Martyr, the Victim,
    The Prophet, the Liar, the Honest,
    The Leader, the Pariah,
    The Victim, the Messiah:
    It’s the moment of truth and the moment to lie,
    The moment to live and the moment to die.

  7. I like this post very much. I don’t really have anything exciting to add, but I find it very comforting.

    2011 was a time to weep. Please can I laugh in 2012?

    4. Tiarali, your post made me think how 1994, 2005, and 2009 were times to weep in my life. I am here to say, I have had so very very many times to laugh, rejoice, sing, dance, and love life in between, and since those times! Yes, Lord, please give Tiarali lots of laughter, starting today. We serve a gracious God, Who loves us, and wants what is best for us. Blessings of laughter on you TODAY! 😀

      2. Ok, NOW I’m crying. I love Stuff Fundies Like. I mean, I hate the stuff that fundies like, but I LOVE Stuff Fundies Like 😆

  9. “a time to pluck up what is planted”…that’s what this phase of my life is. Plucking up what the IFB has planted into me and my family. The more I remove, the more healthy I feel spiritually. Isn’t that amazing? 😀

    2. Me too. This site is very therapeutic for me. It helps to know others have been through the same things. 🙂

  10. A TIME TO DANCE!?! Surely that’s not in the KJV! Clearly Quoheleth was a depressed prodigal fundy who had lost his way! He needed revival! 😛

    1. don’t you know? the greek word there is actually the word for “leap” or “skip”, just as King David did. Think about it. Would God put something in the Bible that the Independent Baptist Church thinks is wrong? 😆

      1. Would the Independent Baptist Church allow God to put something in the bible that they didn’t agree with?

        Whoops… think I took that one too far 😈

      2. I questioned stuff like this for a long time. I’d ask, “Why does the Bible talk about dancing?” They’d say, “Well, times were different back then.” So, they could have fun under the Old Covenant, but now that Jesus came with the New Covenant we had to be stiff and serious about everything? The Jesus who said He came to bring us abundant life and joy and freedom?

        And if as they said that dancing was OK for David but wrong for us BECAUSE TIME CHANGED, then who’s to say that time hasn’t changed again? Maybe it’s now OK to wear pants, listen to music with drum beats, and even dance? Because it’s not 1955 anymore.

        1. Jesus came to bring an end to fun?
          No wonder so many people want nothing to do with Christianity.

      3. King David’s wife was a fundy. She yelled at him for pulling a Risky Business and dancing in his underwear.

        2. Nah it was ok for David to dance in his underwear because he was a MAN. Not ok for a woman because only women have to worry about modesty and that thing about tempting our brother to sin in his thought life… yada dada dada blah blah blah. David even indicated that he knew he looked good to all the women when he spoke with his wife Michal later on about it. But women don’t have those kinds of thoughts.

          Like heck we don’t! :mrgreen: 😉 😈

  11. I remember a LONG time ago, when the song was popular and on radio stations all the time, our pastor or one of my teachers in school said that wasn’t a “Christian” song. One of the other inmates (I mean, classmates) asked how it could not be considered Christian since it is just scripture and was answered that the song was done by non-Christians trying to use the Bible out of context and therefore we should not listen to or sing this particular song. (or any songs on the radio now that I think about it.) Wow. Now that I think about that, I didn’t do a whole lot of critical thinking in my youth. In my defense, I was probably only 10 or 11 at the time. 🙁

    1. I would go crazy if I had to limit my music-listening to what is fundy-approved. I am a music LOVER who likes everything from Beethoven to (some!) rap.

      I think fundies would be happy if your entire CD collection was made up of home-made recordings from family groups and evangelist’s wives. I would die.

      1. Oh my gosh, Pearl you are absolutely right! Our *preacher* had a wife with a voice that could take paint off the walls. She sang every time there was church and even made tapes to sell of her squalking. It was so very awful. When my dad was dying he had only one request. DON’T let her sing at my funeral. It was difficult to stop her since that was her THING and she sang (for free) at every event. She was very hurt that my mom decided to go with pre-recorded music and her husband even mentioned it in his eulogy something about the “Pre-recorded” music as an apology sort of. It is sad when the thing that qualifies you as a musical talent is who you married twenty five years before.

        1. Ugh. At my church, we always had to listen to the preacher’s daughters. When they tried to hit a high note, it sounded like Ringwraiths (some of you reprobates know Lord of the Rings, I hope),and the piano playing was typical of fundy musical technique: too loud, plodding, and unemotional. If someone else volunteered to perform, the preacher always had an excuse to turn them down. I was once denied because “the guitar isn’t a ladylike instrument,” which is kind of ridiculous even by fundy standards.

    2. And…I’ve always thought it was pretty cool when secular singers recorded something scriptural. God’s Word is getting out to the masses, and God uses some unlikely instruments sometimes!

      I also loved it when Cat Stevens recorded “Morning Has Broken.” What a beautiful hymn! Steven Curtis Chapman and his son sing it on SCC’s newest CD, “Re-creation.”

      1. Yes, and without a doubt the songs are so beautiful and the Scripture appeals to something inside of every person and it is lovely when the Word of God is “Stuck in your head” in the form of a song. I knew a guy in college who wrote a couple praise/worship songs and then sold them to Chicago and they became very popular (back in the day) I am now trying to remember the name of the songs and can’t.

        1. OH! One of them was (I will sing it for you) I don’t have musical notes on my keyboard, so I will use a little singing guy 🙂 ) Wait, I had it all typed out and then I realized I could probably find it on YouTube and put the link here… If not, then I will go back to the original plan of torturing you with my sing-typing.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM-XhQeFzW4

    3. Ooh wee. Adapted by that pinko commie atheist Pete Seeger. I’m surprised that King James himself didn’t come down and rip that page right out of every bible on earth! 😆

    4. In one sense, he was right that it isn’t Christian: The Scripture is from the Old Testament, so it’s pre-Christian. That won’t stop me from reading or singing it, though.

    5. Professional jealousy is rampant in Cindy land. I’m convinced that’s why the hated and still hate the Beatles so much.

    6. Professional jealousy is rampant in fundy land. I’m convinced that’s why the hated and still hate the Beatles so much.

  13. I don’t get this latest post. So the host of this site puts up a post that is very similar to Bible verses. And now we’re supposed to mock and scorn because he’s not making fun of the Bible and actually thinks it might make a good point? Darryl, are you slipping in your mockery?

    1. I think you’ve made some false assumptions about this blog and perhaps about me personally as well.

    2. What, you mean we’re supposed to mock the Bible on this site?
      Why didn’t anybody tell me?

      1. Big Garyman and Darryl, I am totally confused. Yes, I thought this site was about mocking the Bible and Christianity. Now you put up some verses and people actually are making sporadic comments that the verses make sense and seem to be in favor of them. Isn’t this site supposed to mock the Bible and not actually endorse it???? I am flummoxed.

        1. This site is for people who have been part of a very small extremist group of christianity, who have been very hurt by them, and who have come out of it. We make fun of the traditions that small group of christians hold to – those traditions that hurt us so much. But most people here are christians, we love the bible and we love God. We do NOT love people misusing scripture to cause harm to innocent people.

          The lines above are meaningful because in fundydom, you are always supposed to be joyful. You are always supposed to be silent on matters of abuse. Women are to be silent full stop. You are never supposed to dance – that’s just plain sinful. But the reality is that life has different seasons in it, and God recognises that. The world outside of fundydom is wonderfully diverse, and it is good to experience it all, instead of stifling all our emotions to fit a fake picture of what a christian should look like.

        2. I guess I should also mention that when we were being hurt by that small group of christians we were actually in there – so when we poke fun, we’re actually kind of poking fun at our own past selves. It’s a healing process 🙂

        3. That was a really well written answer, Tiareli. I was all set to say something really similar and then read yours. I would like to also add that while I was a Christian back when I used to be in fundy-land, I had NO IDEA the true nature of God or most of what the Bible actually taught. Now that I am being allowed to truly learn the Bible, ALL of it, not just the pet verses that are twisted beyond recognition for the purpose of control and manipulation I am LOVING the Bible and the Lord and this site does NOTHING to interfere with that. (Unlike the Independent Fundamental Baptist past that I was brought up with.) 🙄

        6. Fair enough, Green Eggs and Ham. I come from the Aussie branch, and they are small here. I honestly don’t know what the US branch is like first-hand.

        7. Tiarali;

          I see. I wasn’t aware that the Aussie’s had limited the fundy beach head. Here in Canada their influence is somewhat muted too. I suspect less than your’s though; as there are no oceans between us and the US.

          Canadians have a natural aversion to public displays of Christianity. Heck, we have a natural aversion to public displays of anything that should be private.

          We are very proud of our country, but we also find American flag waving unseemly. So American/fundy patriotism (a special brand) just doesn’t translate as well as they would like.

          American fundies just assume that if they substitute a Canadian flag for an American flag that we will be satisfied. They feel to realize that we do not view our own flag the same way that they view theirs.

  15. To everything turn, turn, turn…

    One year for my birthday, my husband gave me one of those newspapers that said what was currently popular and the current trends on the day you were born. That song was #1 on the charts that week. 😀

  17. That’s one song I don’t mind having in my head. Something so powerful about a simple set of bible verses that transcends the cultural environment of their original writer, or any expectation.

    Try as the they might, even the more virulent fundies can’t ruin those verse for me.

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