Oh yes, another forum dealing with Sex and the Cult

OK, OK—the picture from the cast of The Sex and City movie was there to get your attention—so if anyone thought I was promoting the new flick, sorry I’m not! By the way, me and Joe  will definately skip this movie when we hit the theatres Saturday night! By the way, my three to see movies right now would be Speed Racer, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and definately Ironman! Great guy movies!

 

Now here’s what I want to really discuss: more message boards for  former W/XCG members! I say more choice, the better! This time this forum is of unique speciality. It will discuss how the sex-negative religious ideology of Armstrongism affected one’s life personally. Thanks again to I Survived Armstrongism’s AS—I told him it was about time. Former W/XCG members who were and are married seem(or seemed) insensitive or oblivious to those who grew up in Armstrongism or who were came in as single adults. Trust me, it was no picnic. I never seen such neurotic and fanatical people who wasted time, effort and energy  to make the underlings—or the bottom of the heap in the Armstrong cults—to be sexless—or to be blunt, violently deny their own sexuality which I believe is an evil in itself. In my mid-20’s, I had faced a deacon who enjoyed telling me, “Sex ain’t cracked up what it supposed to be!” Another manipulative tactic for celibacy counselling. Times like that I wish God Almighty IS Joe Pesci and He has steel baseball bat in the sky to get things done efficiently. Frankly, it is my wish sometime before year-end to have a blog post about the historic WCG and sex myself. It’s a topic that needs senstitivity in all areas but needs to be discussed. Right now, you have from AS a forum called herbversion.com at http://www.herbversion.com/. Please carefully read the rules and AS has some strict strong suggestions (actually he enforces) such as entering the forum under a pseudonym—one which you never used on other forums. It’s a good idea,  you might be spared from potential embrassment or conflict that you don’t need. Otherwise, log in, participate, shed a few tears, I’m sure you can make a few laughs, make a difference and of course, enjoy the show! 

Also my support for J’s request and a comment to Robert Taylor

On Gavin Rumney’s Ambassador Watch blog, J of Shadows of WCG blog made a request to Robert Taylor, who became the focus of a post on Ambassador Watch because of his posting of old shows of The World Tomorrow under Herbert W. Armstrong:

J said…

Robert,

I am going to make a request to you just once.

Please remove the “Shadows of the Worldwide Church of God” from the upper left of your YouTube account. That is unusually and blatantly close to my website “Shadows of WCG”, which has been in existence now for well over a year. I don’t want people thinking your youtube account is related to my sites, as the purposes are entirely different.

If you refuse to do so, at the least, make a clarification that your youtube account is NOT related to “Shadows of WCG”, the quoted words linked to my site.

My word to Robert is that you must do the honourable and dignified thing to do. Follow J’s request. Yes, J does not have a copyright to the title but I believe credibility and trust are VERY IMPORTANT!  In my relationship with J, he is a decent man in every sense of the word. He is a very cheerful person (maybe a little clap-happy for me) but I think he has the Bible on his side for his cheeriness (the fruits of The Spirit in Galatians). Oh yes, I also hope you have followed Aggie’s advice to log on to As The Bereans Did blogsite for a heart-wrenching article about one members coping with an abusive dysfunctional family in every sense of the word. I have the link to the blogsite right here, so you can’t miss it!  Aggie wants you to know there was a dark side of the force in the historic Worldwide Church of God.  I was glad that one of the bloggists, Seeker of Truth firmly supported my strong words in J’s blog for those who gloss over these dark moments and times when they “excuse their idol HWA but would blame the evangelists or members for going to far.” I even strongly concluded “that reasoning is truly a form of patholigical sickness.” Now I am not saying that you Robert have pathological sickness—but what I am saying that you (whether consciously or subsconsciously that is strictly irrelevant to the issue anyway) have touched on some nerves with a lot of people who have lived under the experience and seen it for what it was and are feeling in some way violated and feel like they are repeating the experience. These people on Gavin’s site have thoroughly explained their experiences and thoroughly discussed the leadership of Herbert Armstrong in unflattering terms. Not because they are bitter apostates loving the hedonism of the world—they were on continual perpetual basis were funnelled a lot of lies and propaganda from the top down and they have every constitutional and divine right to have righteous indignation (or a good anger). To accuse them of whining is simply an misadventure (and perverse delight) of missing the point.

It is my understanding that you are a Torah Oberservant Messianic Believer. I applaud and respect your belief. I, too have a few times early this decade attend a Torah Observant Messianic Jewish congregation right here in Toronto. In fact, I know a couple who were also former Worldwiders who are now members of that same congregation and have been happy, healthy and productive members of that group. It is evidence that there is life after the Worldwide Church of God and having it more abundantly DOES INCLUDE LIFE in a Torah Observant Messianic Jewish congregation—among many OTHER positive options available out there.  You may be surprised that the Messianic Rabbi of the congregation is not complimentary on Herbert Armstrong and I firmly support his position that the Worldwide Church of God was born in sin. Not my words but Rabbi Jack’s. In a nutsell, the syncrenation of Armstrong and Messianic Judaism is a disturbing thought to say the least and not a very well thought out idea to put it politely.

You say that Herbert Armstrong led you to the truth.  I believe it was Jospeh W.Tkach Sr.  who led me to the truth (yes—that apostate!). At my baptism in Worldwide in ’97, I made a testimony and declared that if it wasn’t for him I would have never known Jesus and Him crucified. Of course,  I made one person whom I invited to my baptism extremely uncomfortable with that statement (he eventually went to UCG a year later) but in 2008 I stand by that statement. Yes, Joe Sr. was not exactly an “angel” at times (trust me I have an earful of people loudly testifying about that!)—but it was him who introduced me to  a truth in a person—Jesus Christ. In the historic WCG the truth was about things: what days you observed, what food you ate, how you dressed–these things are NOT wrong in and of themselves but they are NOT TRUTH. Truth is in a person (Jesus)—not things. How is Jesus the Truth? His life, his death and ressurection is truth—ULTIMATE truth! Everything is else is secondary.

It is my hope and pray that you would take what was written here under advisement.

PS—I must apologize to those in the comments in Gavin’s blog. Robert asked me in my posts why I used “theology” —not “philosophy” when reasoning about Christmas. We may disagree with Robert but I believe in fairness and being accurate (as possible).

Why I support the blog, Survivor of Armstrongism

“Why do you support such vitrolic blog, Felix? This person is soo bitter, he has so much unforgiveness. The author is too angry. This person needs to let Jesus help him. Christ forgave those who hurted him on the cross, why can’t he be just as forgiving if he’s to receive God’s blessing of eternal life?”

These typically said words of course from, those who are currently in the XCG’s—or believe it or not former XCGers who just want to shut anybody up expressing their feelings about their XCG experience because they still have some kind of emotional attachment to an XCG.  They may deny it—but deep down they do.  Some of them may think they are trying to help but they are actually being condescending and trying to make themselves feel good at someone else’s expense. I have complained to Douglas Becker, a visitor on this blog here that XCG ministers are not the greatest listeners. For the members, I would say that they are “selective” listeners. Trust me, this is no improvement. in fact, I think it is worse than right out non-listening in which “selective-listeners” DELIBERATELY pick and choose what to hear and totally distort the original context of what anybody meant to say, but that is another story. What I have in common with the blog’s editor who’s pseudonym is Armstrong Survivor (he recently gave out his secret identity, go to his blog to find out) in the sense that we both grew up Worldwide. Believe you me, for those who have grown up in the Worldwide Church of God, we got stories and his story in particular will make you either be very angry and/or make you cry. To feel neither emotion, I am just going to say to you that are simply not human and probably very narcissistic. Strong words, but needed to be said. This young man growing up had to deal with many types of phobias and mental illness which the church systematically brought upon him and his parents in the process, were not making matters any better. Dealt with the sexual frustration and repression that the organization also brought upon him (and I have related to that VERY well). Dealt with loneliness, switching from job to job (and the emotional toll) dealt with those who called themselves “New Covenant Christians” and was intelligent enough to see through the clap-happy shallow PR they presented and so on.

It’s amazing that Armstrongite ministers preached of how anger is a sin. That one should be angry at a minimum and always strive to be happy. Doesn’t work that way. Life is NOT a one big Disneyworld and all must deal with a variety of emotions that are confronted with in everyday situations. Forget that silly semantical phrase “righteous indignation”. It is the same thing: anger. In Worldwide, all emotions were supressed and if any lowly member stood up for him or herself got a real good kicking between the legs. Yes, there are problems with uncontrollable anger in which somebody lashes out at somebody who is not deserving of that anger, let’s say an innocent bystander. That is wrong and is picking on somebody who can’t fight back.  In a positive sense, anger can be empowering—that we are going to decide a different course of direction, a firm unshakable resolution to make  and we are going to fight vigourously against any injustice and cruelty that was inflicted on ourselves and others. But XCG leadership HATED that! They preferred it’s members to be weak, docile and easily kicked around. They preferred members to be very dependent (and even co-dependent) and dis-empowered.

An authoritarian personality and (or) a bully likes “nice” people. Thus they inflict a tyranny. Which is called “The Tyranny of Niceness”. There is a book by that exact name by Evelyn Sommers. I  would highly recommend that you purchase it at amazon.com .  I hope to write a book review about it here. Nice people don’t make waves, they prefer security over liberty but in fact, they are repressed with contradictory feelings and emotions that they were trained NOT to do.

Armstrong Survivor is not “nice”. He is authentic. He is original. The language may offend some (but I say some people need to get pass that and see the message behind it, remember my talk about Tony Campolo?), his emotions and feelings are raw but at least he is honest. He is not going to sweeten things up. Like Buckley’s medicine, it tastes awful but it works.

I will in no way, like some other people trapped in their self-righteousness determine the spiritually destiny of Armstrong Survivor. This is strictly and uniquely the jurisdiction of God. Yeah, of course he’s angry at God (well duh! I get very angry at God myself too! Wasn’t King David angry and please do not condescend to me and say, “Felix, that was the Old Testament!”. I ask a lot of theologically incorrect “whys”) and of course he’s questioning the existence of God.  Actually we both hate the
“g”od of Armstrong, IMHO he is sure nothing like the merciful God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Armstrong Survivor is just simply on a course himself to ask many questions “why”—because he never had the opportunity to ask why before. His post WCG life,like mine is and adventure with all it’s ups and downs—event things turning sidedways but the adventure is worth it because it is to recapture one’s sanity

Those who are worried that he has influenced other blogs (this one no exception) to be a bit more edgier, I say, “Tough!”  Probably Gavin, Aggie,Seeker of Truth, Stan, James Pate, (maybe the cheeful J too),myself and others have been tired of being “nice” to everybody. That is simply not possible. I will try to treat everyone with respect and courtesy and always will –I guess the same goes for my brothers in sisters in the cause  but those who just want to be difficult for the sheer joy of it whether they are XCG or a non XCG, your free ride is over. I have been the Dick Cheney pre-9/11 in general and for those who want to play games I will be Dick Cheney POST 9/11. Go ahead trolls, laugh it off, may your arrogant laughter bite you both in the ass and the balls—excruciatingly! Like Billy Joel said,” I hate bullies.” Also I will follow his advice once in awhile, “Take no shit from anybody.” Again, those who take offence: grow up. Thank you Armstrong Survivor—you have become an emerging leader against the tyranny of niceness, you are taking away the shame and stigma of expressing one’s feelings, now matter how blunt and direct they are. You have said that the purpose of your blog was for therepeutic healing and I am hoping it has been doing that in the process. May your blog be around for sometime to come to help those young people like us who are trapped in all the XCG’s.  To paraphrase Senator Barack Obama, “Their time has come!”

For those who haven’t looked, Survivor of Armstrongism is under my links but I will give you it here.

Word to Mr.Meeker and the UCG Council of Elders

I am NOT going to go in depth about the latest debacle in the United Church of God and Mr.Joel Meeker’s complaint. Read Gavin Rumney’s blog and J’s blog. They have all the details about it.  About a year ago, I crafted some solutions to get this organization out of a rut and stop going into circles as they have (and seem to perversely enjoy) for over 13 years!

I am giving this Mr. Meeker and the UCG Council of Elders ONE MORE (and LAST) chance to shake up the organization. All they gotta do is read this here at: http://xcg.kingary.net/index.php?id=882 (Gary Scott’s defunct XCG blog). Yeah, yeah, it was posted over a year but it is still damn relevant in 2008! As I have said before, XCG ministers are well known for their non-listening skills as a virtue, never vice. If this attitude remains, it is high time it’s congregants wake up and GET OUT!!! If this was a time for an exodus in UCG, the time is NOW! To waste a minute more is simply tragic!  I seriously pray for that day to happen and soon! May the congregants of the UCG find true spiritual freedom and have a real chance to say, “This our house and we will serve the Lord!”

Welcome to Armstrongland, Aticus’ perspective

A very brief but an all too true assesment from Shadows of WCG message board participant Aticus about the frightening unimaginable thought of a state or province runned by Armstrongists!

It would be: agrarian society no free-thinking no technological innovations no scientific discoveries no medical discoveries in essense, it would be the Dark Ages all over again

Can I hear an Amen?!!!

 

 

From the blog ‘Til He Comes” at http://www.tillhecomes.org/blog/2007/12/27/would-jesus-be-a-christian/.

Intelligent quote of the day

Other churches also operate homeless shelters, food banks, hospices and hospitals. They organize bookdrives and Thanksgiving dinners for the needy. In other words, they do things similar to what I imagine that guy Jesus would be doing were he living in the 21st century.

In my last days associating with a COG, the realization that this as an insular, heartless, paranoid group of people eager for their neighbors to suffer the tribulation sickened me. Of all the things that damn WCG and its offshoots, their treatment (or lack thereof) of the needy stands out to me the most.

Robin, who commented on the new blog I Survived Armstrongism describing her disturbance of the XCG’s lack of a social conscience to the less fortunate where as non-XCG had a much greater social conscience to the marginalized of society.

Nancy Grace takes on splinter leader—hurrah!!!

 

Thanks to Rogers Cable up here in Toronto, Canada—they took away CNN’s Headline News from my basic cable line up and have to pay extra to get it back. Thus, making me miss Nancy Grace and Glen Beck—two people who make sense in a sea of emotional, touchy-feely leftist nonsense which pervades North American media tody.  Nancy Grace offends some people but does not offend me one bit—because she hates scum. Those offended would prefer her to simply forgive and forget the most heinous criminals. In actual fact they prefer her to excuse and deny the evil of these people and to let it go.  I have believed (and still do) that there can be no forgiveness (without repentence) but my pastor would scream at me for that belief. Let him scream. I am not the only one who believes that. A lot Jewish and Christian thinkers are in alignment with me on this one. I never was comfortable with easy and automatic forgivism in the first place. It is a form of pure evil and wickedness to begin with and it seems Armstrongism seems to thrive on that perverse philosophy when they compel members and ex-members to stop “whinning” about the atrocious behaviour they place(d) on their congregants and scream at their opponents just to roll over and play dead or sit there and be pretty.  Purely wicked!

Tomorrow on Tuesday on CNN Headline News, Nancy takes on a splinter leader called Yisrael Hawkins of the House of Yahweh—which is one of the most extremist, bizzare, eccentric ultra-conservative splinters imaginable. Yes, it is safe to say that this leader is embroiled in some kind of controversy and it is my hope that Nancy exposes the controversy and this man’s motives as she bravely and boldly confronts confronts him as she did other controversial people before this man.

Go get ’em Nancy!!!

Those who plan to watch the program tomorrow, please tell me what you thought about it.

Here website is at http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/nancy.grace/.

Special thanks to Pasedena Guy10 of WCG Alumni who brought this up!

My Thoughts on the Boyne Article, Grace: Evangelicalism 1; Armstrongism 0

 

 

 

 

 

 

(While I’m on the roll on the topic of The Unevangelized Dead, Divine Perseverence,Restrictivism and the like, I am posting my post about my thoughts about it from Gary Scott’s old blog XCG from June 28th, 2005—The Editor, Felix Taylor)

Like everyone else in cyberspace a few months ago, I looked at the new column from the Ambassador Watch website from Gavin Rumney called Third Thoughts featuring Jamaican journalist, Ian Boyne who is a proud and dedicated member of the Church of God, International which was founded by the late Garner Ted Armstrong. I commend Gavin, of course, for bringing to the table a whole range of religious perspectives in order to broaden ones understanding. Ian Boyne, had a lot of comments which I felt where very stimulating and lightened up a lot of sparks in my brain. I knew I had to express my thoughts in words and I am very glad that I have that particular opportunity! Some people saw Ian Boyne’s article as threat to their post-Armstrongite beliefs, I see this as an opportunity to articulate MY post-Armstrongite beliefs and why I believe them.

Does evangelical Christianity have problems? You bet it does! Do I believe Evangelicals have a corner on truth? No I don’t! Is Armstrongism superior to Evangelicalism? No way buddy! Ian Boyne’s declaration that it is, misses the mark in doing so! I will take Evangelicalism’s view on grace on the believer ANYDAY! I will take any day a God who is so in love with me, he will NEVER leave me nor forsake me in his offer of salvation. His grace is not fickle which means that if I keep do not keep pleasing him every five minutes, I will be automatically on His bad side. Imagine in a marriage the husband will say to his wife, “I love if you will cook for me tonight and I will love you again if you make love to me tonight, I will even love you again if you clean the house tomorrow morning” and so on and so on! That marriage is just performance-based; there is no real relationship, a getting to know you. The husband says he “loves” his wife but it is only conditional upon a performance. I am sure any wife in that position is going to have a miserable marriage wondering whether she will measure up to her husband, was she a good and faithful wife. The longer in that performance-based marriage, she will be tormented and will experience a mental breakdown because of her restlessness of trying to be that perfect wife.

Contrast that to a husband who passionate in knowing about his wife. I mean what goes on in her mind, her innermost feelings and desires. She may not be the finest cook and she is like Jessica Simpson when it comes to cleaning her bedroom but her husband is still in love with his wife, wanting to see her come through these things. He wants an active dialogue in understanding and appreciating his wife, always desiring the best for her and seeing her through this wonderful relationship. I pray in the not too distant future I will be in a marriage relationship (and may God lead me to an extremely beautiful and extremely intelligent woman soon!) and I pray that I will have a relationship in the latter scenario and definitely not the former scenario! I can only liken Evangelical view of grace (which really is the Reformation view on grace, if you really want to go way, way back!) is like a marriage relationship based on unconditional love and trust between each other. Armstrongism, is performance based religion in which God must be pleased every time with you doing something. Does anyone remember Herbert Armstrong talk about qualifying for the Kingdom? If I can only completely forget it but I can’t and I remember a pastor from the United Church of God trying to reinterpret the meaning but I’m sorry, you can say HWA meant something different by qualifying for the kingdom but everyone took it to mean that you had to perform for God in order that you will be suitable to enter His Kingdom. If you didn’t pray for an hour a day, God didn’t love you. If you didn’t go to church on Saturday regularly, God didn’t love you. If you didn’t go to Bible Study regularly, God didn’t love you, so on and so on!

Why does then Ian Boyne conclude that the “God of Evangelicalism, Adventism and Orthodox Christianity is not worthy to be worshipped”? The reason is that most of evangelical Christianity takes an Augustinian-Calvinistic approach to Exclusivism. For the layperson who’ll say, “Felix, what did you just say a minute ago?” Let me explain. In the 4th Century A.D., a theologian (who is called a church father) called Augustine, concluded that there is no salvation outside the Church. All unbelievers go to hell and thus you have the theological school of exclusivism. Enter the Reformation and one of its theologians, John Calvin who believed in predestination, God predestines both who are saved and lost. He also believed that Christ’s death was of all classes of men, not all men in general which formed the basis of Calvin’s doctrine of Limited Atonement, thus compounding this doctrinal school of exclusivism.
Most of Evangelical Christianity today accepts the exclusivist (or sometimes called the restricitvist) position.

I, like Ian thoroughly reject the Augustinian-Calvinistic view of exclusivism but I am still exclusivist. I believe that Jesus Christ IS the ONLY WAY to salvation. Your works or efforts have nothing to do with salvation. Every human being must respond to the gift of grace or be eternally separated from God. I, like British scholar, John Stott who said, “I have never able to conjure up (as some great Evangelical missionaries have) the appalling vision of the millions who are not only perishing but will inevitably perish. On the other hand…I am not and cannot be a universalist. Between these extremes I cherish and hope that the majority of the human race will be saved. And I have solid biblical basis for this belief.” Yes, I believe a righteous provision for the unevangelized dead is necessary for a moral God of grace. Some of those in the evangelical community will sadly misrepresent my belief as a “second chance”. Martin Luther believed at one point in divine perseverance but believed that those who spurned their opportunity in this life will not be having ANY second chances.

Also like Ian, I have a very strong interest in the Hebraic roots of the Christian faith. As late former Canadian WCG member Jesse Ancona would say about describing herself, “A Christian with a Judaic perspective.” I have those sentiments too. At the end of her life she was associated with the Messianic Jewish movement and the Church of God (Seventh Day), she saw no need to become a “Reformed Armstrongist”. Neither do I see the need too. I am also a strong stubborn pre-millenialist meaning that Jesus Christ will come before the millennium to establish His reign on earth for 1000 years to led the whole earth into an unprecedented time of peace, prosperity, health, wealth, a greener earth and freedom of the individual and unimagined freedom of worship of an ethical monotheistic God, unlike Herbert Armstrong’s sick totalitarian perverted fantasy called, “The World Tomorrow”. Armstrongism is a selfish religion and one of the wicked religions to ever walk the face of the earth. It cannot in anyway be reformed, repackaged or be made good. It must be exposed as a brew of witchcraft and manipulation on people’s minds. “Reformed Armstrongism”, “Armstrongism Lite”, and “Moderate Armstrongism” is ALL the same, it is like calling somebody a “moderate Nazi”. It is an ALL or nothing proposition because Armstrongism is really a religious ideology, not a theology and ideologies leave little room for the middle ground and refuse to see grey areas (if so, they are a disturbance and hindrance to the cause). There are many beliefs (and I am talking about non-essential doctrines) in the historic WCG, which one can believe without being an Armstrongite, for example one can still believe in the Sabbath (which the Seventh Day Baptists, Adventists and Messianic Jews believe) the Holy Days, dietary laws (which Messianic Jews believe) and even exclusive reckoning (Jesus Christ was dead and resurrected literally three days and three nights) which many scholars of various Christian denominations believe! You don’t need to belong to an XCG splinter to hold on these beliefs if one wishes to!

Ian does make legitimate criticism of those who radically embrace anything and everything of evangelical Christianity without any questions but I think the rush to evangelical Christianity is all about their view about and grace and salvation which again is far, far superior to Herbert Armstrong’s perverse idea of “qualifying for the kingdom” any day. May many more people in the bondage of Armstrongism experience the liberation of the true grace of God!

Another Editor’s note: It is 2008 and still looking, hoping and praying for that extremely beautiful and intelligent woman (who ever it is) to be my wife!!! LOL!!! 🙂

Mark Tabladillo’s survey on the unevengelized dead

Editor’s note: Byker Bob, Pasedena Guy10 and James Pate, yes there was a post here but the contrast and comparison chart was simply not working and unfortunately wordpress was not flexible enough to shrink it to size so I had to rearranged something different. To the greater audience, this is a piece that Mark Tabladillo of Jesus Loves Fellowship message board wrote in 2001 about his thoughts about the unevangelized dead and his own survey of the many theories of the destinies of such. Mark has always something interesting to say and I thought this one was absolutely no exception. May all have good read of his post!

Hi all

Classically, WCG would produce booklets which asked questions, and through the text went ahead and showed the answers to those questions. IMHO, they could have saved money by printing simple booklets with a new question on the cover, and put the answer “Jesus Christ” on the inside.

I brought up this postmortem evangelization question with my girlfriend Stefanie, and she did not recall that we had talked about the question before. At first look, she said there is no way God was going to give people a chance to live at the judgment, because that was the essence of the strong message which she had been taught about what the judgment is. In many minds, the judgment is all about opening up the book of life, and if your name is in there, you’re in, and if not, you’re out. With such a simple story, it does not seem like a time to call people.

And yet, it’s also interesting that at the same time, the “books” are opened too. The books are clearly a record of all which has happened. Some people keep scrapbooks and diaries, but these books appear to have a written record of all which has been done, as if a stenographer were watching us at all times — it makes sense, for how could we be guaranteed justice if we did not know the Lord was always paying attention?

Rev 20:14 clearly says that the lake of fire represents the “second death”, and if so, the question is what the “second life” is all about. It is my personal belief (and I will contrast it with competing beliefs) that it is possible for the Lord to call someone at the judgment. This belief is called “postmortem evangelization”. I’m not saying that this is a prophetic event or even a likely occurence, but a definite possibility.

However, the belief does not start with an assumption on Revelation or a creative attempt to fill in the blanks. The assumption starts instead with the question of whether God will present himself to all people and give them a chance for salvation.

Those of the strong Calvinist bend believe that “Limited Atonement” applies — namely that Jesus Christ died ONLY for those who would ultimately accept him. Therefore, by the strict interpretation of this belief, Jesus did not die for any who would reject him. Quickly we get into the debate of whether or not God knew beforehand who would accept and who would not.

Perhaps someone of that thought would draw a distinction between forgiveness and atonement. After all, the Lord Jesus asked for forgiveness for all those who chose to kill him at his crucifixion. Could it be that he was prophesying that all those present would be saved? And if so then we could say that forgiveness and atonement were the same thing. More simply, the counterargument would be that Jesus could forgive an unrepentant sinner, and that unrepentance would also mean that the person had no covering atonement.

However, I believe that forgiveness by God (as in the case with the women caught in adultery) amounts essentially to atonement. Granted, what the words mean are different, but IMHO they require one another.

And even in a practical sense, I find it hard to forgive someone who does not have covering blood. In that sense, I don’t have to ask the question of whether someone is a Christian or not before I forgive them — and that question does not bother me when someone cuts me off on the highway.

But again, the core question is about whether God will present salvation to all. Perhaps largely influenced by the WCG teaching, I believe the “Day of Atonement” is for all Israel, and it is clear in the historical Jewish tradition that everyone was covered, even the stranger in the gates. Even Ruth the gentile (and ancestor of the Lord) was covered too. The covering during Atonement was different from the other ongoing sacrifices — this sacrifice was not offered by the WORKS of the Israelites, but instead was offered by the High Priest. It was an act of faith and trust in the High Priest which extended the ceremony to the rest of Israel.

Therefore, the conditions today are quite similar — those who believe by faith that they will be covered will be.

At the end of the day, however, the debate will still remain whether God did know in advance who will accept him and who will not.

That issue aside, the core question on “postmortem evangelization” is less about the what the Lord could possibly do in the time between a human birth and the time of final judgment (just before the second death, literally at the last moment of “second life”), and more about what God’s intention is about saving all mankind.

I personally challenge people to think about how little we know about what happens at the point of death. Many stories and testimonies are around about “near death” experience, and we simply do not know what the process is of the spirit leaving the body, and the mechanics and specifics of what happens. Could your whole life “flash before your eyes”? Is there communication with God? Does God speak between the first death and second life?

Further, as I started this message, we don’t know what the “second life” will consist of. Historically, WCG speculated that the “White Throne Judgment” would be a period of 100 years. Some jokingly said that since many who died were babies (as in abortion), would not many be resurrected as babies? And who would want to change those diapers? On the other hand, perhaps the second life resurrection is like the creation of Adam and Eve, fully grown adults. Others speculate that the time is much shorter, being made like waiting in line for court where a sentence would be handed out.

My core belief is based on the idea that as in Adam all die, and so in Christ shall all be made alive. Some qualify the second “all” to mean all who accept Christ, but who ever asked me if I accepted Adam? Inherently, IMHO we all accepted Adam’s way, namely the way of man, which today is called humanism.

What is above is enough background to perhaps solve the question, or provide a basis for your own investigation. To help this process, what appears below is a chart from a book called “What about those who have never heard?” — three views on the destiny of the unevangelized (authors Gabriel Fackre, Ronald Nash, and John Sanders).

This book presents a comparative study of this question, and while three viewpoints are well discussed in the text, the authors acknowledge five identifiable viewpoints which all fall within (and this is important) historical and non-heretical Christianity (the footnote on the chart says “The listed adherents of all these views agree that Jesus is the ONLY Savior”).

Granted, there are aspects of these five viewpoints below which some may have already considered “heresy”, but what is important is having not only the viewpoints summarized, but also scriptures to look at (there are a few listed to get started), and also some names of prolific authors to look up. Thus, if you really wanted to know (for example) Origen’s beliefs on this topic, you would know that you could find them.

Views on the Destiny of the Unevangelized 

Restricitivism

Definition:God does not provide salvation to those who fail to hear of Jesus and come to faith in him before they die.

Key Texts:John 14:6, Acts 4:12, 1 John 5:11-12

Adherents: Augustine, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Carl Henry, R.C. Sproul, Ronald Nash

Universal Opportunity before Death

Definition: All people are given opportunity to be saved by God’s sending the gospel (even by angels or dreams) or at the moment of death or by “middle knowledge”.

Key Texts: Daniel 2, Acts 8

Adherents: Thomas Aquinas, James Arminius, John Henry Newman, J. Oliver Buswell Jr., Norman Geisler, Robert Lightner

Inclusivism

Definition:The unevangelized may be saved if they respond in faith to God based on the revelation they have.

Key Texts: John 12:32, Acts 10:43,1 Timothy 4:10

Adherents: Justin Martyr, John Wesley, C.S. Lewis, Clark Pinnock, Wolfhart Pannenberg, John Sanders

Divine Perseverence (Post-Mortem Evangelization)

Definition:The unevangelized receive an opportunity to believe in Jesus after death.

Key Texts: John 3:181 Peter 3:18-4:6

Adherents:Clement of Alexandria, George MacDonald, Donald Bloesch, George Lindbeck, Stephen Davis, Gabriel Fackre, (Editor’s note: Felix Taylor is a 21st century adherent!)

Universalism

Definition: All people will be saved by Jesus. No one is damned forever.

Key texts: Romans 5:18, I Corinthians 15:22-28, I John 2:2

Adherents: Origen, F.E. Schleiermacher, G.C. Berkouwer, William Barclay, Jacques Ellul

What about those who have never heard?” Three views on the destiny of the unevangeluzed, Fackre, Gabriel J., editor, Intervarsity Press, 1995, page 20.

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