Dennis On: "You Know You've SOLD OUT When..."

As Apostle, Evangelist, Priest, Watcher, Witness, Member or Minister,

You Know You've SOLD OUT When...

No one belongs to or works for any human organization or movement and follows the beliefs, perspectives and goals of those above them 100%.  We trade our loyalty to and idea or a goal for the security that "belonging" gives us.   Under all the suits, lies the basic human need to survive and thrive and make it skidding into home plate fat, sassy and happy.

I remember when a minister having an Elder that built M-1 Abrams Tanks for a living.  As a young minister, that struck me as an odd thing for an Elder but I think he just said he only worked there and in an office.  Since it was obvious he was not about to look for another line of work, it never came up much. (HQ in Pasadena once told me to tell a member to shut down his grocery store over Unleavened Bread, but when even knowing this Elder, never seemed to bring that up.  I told the member with the store to keep it open and UB was an at home thing.)

I'm ending a stint teaching at a "For Profit College" first because they are closing the program I teach but have left early giving up whatever severance they had to offer months from now because  such colleges, once you see it from the inside , are and educational rip off.  They put those least able to pay in the most debt you can imagine.  Actually it began to feel very much like my church pastor experience and I wasn't going to make the same, "if your head says yes and your stomach says no, the stomach is telling you the truth" mistake I made by staying too long in WCG.  I am going to make my decisions this time just for the sake of taking charge of them.

When I debated a former WCG higher up minister in Dallas a couple years ago, and after it was over, a minister went out of his way to tell me what I had to say was right on etc.  I said, "so you'll be teaching this next Sabbath?"  Got a polite smile and we both knew what that meant.

I can't tell you how many minister types I have met in this town through hospital work and such that , when we talk religion, have said  "I know that is right, we studied that in seminary.  But if I teach that, I'll lose my job."  This intellectual and belief sell out is very common among ministers who work for organizations that think they can tell everyone what one thing to believe.  People don't really work like that but they do stay put out of security needs.  Most do.  The topic that touches the most nerves among and educated clergy is that old, "just why did Paul never quote Jesus," issue.  They all know the answer and won't tell their members. Holiday origins come next as do the mysteries of the Trinity and the sheer awfulness of the Old Testament God and Father of Jesus.

Selling out is what one does to stay a part of an organized group of any kind.  You go by their rules, not yours.  You give lip service to ALL their beliefs no matter what your private perspectives are.  You say yes when you mean no and you sit down on the outside when you are really standing up on the inside.

So how does a minister know when he has sold out?

You may have sold out when:

1.  You have quietly studied and read truly well written and researched by credibly credentialed  books on biblical issues and history and what you now see does not match what you are supposed to see, but "oh well."

2.  When you still are telling people to trust God for healing and then trust God and your doctor without telling the brethren yourself.  Saying, "Well, this is just reparative surgery," as if that is different from removing a diseased tissue, comes to mind.

(I recall a kid asking me what's the difference between a root canal and taking your gall bladder out?  All I could think of was that in one , the opening is already there to get to the problem. We both laughed.)

3.  When you live way beyond the means of the vast majority of your members, being able to do so because they give you money for the church.

4.  When you tell someone in your care to do something you really don't care much about yourself but tell them to do it because if you don't, they will tell others and it might get back to those who control your income or future what you said.

5.  When you treat someone who did something one way and someone who is not as close a friend to you another when both did or are doing the same thing you think is inappropriate.

6.  When you stand up and read directives, missives, letters, actions,  to do's or to don'ts to your congregation that in your mind you keep hearing yourself say, "this is bullshit," and yet keep on reading.

7.  When you think you have invested way too much, way too long and paid way too high a price to be where you are now and simply can't step out of line on those issues that are meaningful or real to you but not your church because, "I will lose my retirement."   (I have heard, "I am hanging on to retirement," more times than you can imagine.)  Do I understand that?  Of course I do.  WCG and all US Churches don't have to either take Social Security out of ministerial pay if they can get you young boy to believe it is "not trusting God," and "we will take care of you," or pay any retirement if they don't want to.  I call it the " Jesus Performed a Miracle and We Have No Money to Give You,"  two shots to the head theory.  (That was a Ron Kelly quote to me personally)  Sorry, obviously this is still a personal issue  lol  #7 stirred up the pain body :)  (Breathe Dennis).

Members sell out too in various ways to stay a part of their respective Churches in the good graces of the minister.  It's what humans do to gain respect, place and power.  People do it at work all the time.

It is not easy being one's authentic self no matter what.  I have met some who do it with ease but that is not the way of most.  But it is way ahead of selling out.

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.  I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory.  I was naïve.  I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.  It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with:  that I am nobody but myself.  ~Ralph Ellison, "Battle Royal"

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.  ~William Shakespeare

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.  ~Raymond Hull

Most people are other people.  Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.  ~Oscar Wilde, De Profundis, 1905

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.  ~Judy Garland

The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity.  Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.  ~Boris Pasternak

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.  ~Homer   (Not Simpson:)

Amen.....Now brethren let's all take our hymnals , rise and sing..."We are not divided, all one body we, one in hope and doctrine, one in chariteeeeee."  like it's true!

Dennis
DenniscDiehl@aol.com