Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Thanks for you reply!
I certainly am aware of its use this way. Believe it or not my friend, I was part of this organization in my youth many moons ago. So, if you have any questions about them, you may ask me as well. Ask away, as they say!
Are you associated with, or were in the past associated with the UPCI?
Haha. Now I understand why I was trying to be diplomatic, Windy. You know me, I'll chat about Oneness 'till the cows come home and then make you breakfast.I certainly am aware of its use this way. Believe it or not my friend, I was part of this organization in my youth many moons ago. So, if you have any questions about them, you may ask me as well. Ask away, as they say!
To start with, "Oneness" to them has to do with a theological view on nature of the Godhead. It doesn't have to do with the nature of Godhead and creation. It doesn't have to do with Unity, outside a definition of God. It's used strictly in an anti-Trinitarian sense.
So what I get from this nunaced version of oneness is a pure monotheisim? Would that be correct? @Stan Hallett is welcome to respond too.
I think if you and I were to meet in person and have a conversation, both of us would become quite hoarse.Haha. Now I understand why I was trying to be diplomatic, Windy. You know me, I'll chat about Oneness 'till the cows come home and then make you breakfast.
Yes. Historically in the early church you had points of view at play in questions over the nature of Godhead. Of those groups you have Tertullian who taught a form of early Trinitarian thought, Arian who taught what the modern-day Jehovah's Witnesses picked up that Jesus was "a god", in a created being sense of the word. And you have Sabellius which in the 3rd century weighing in the question countering that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were simply modes or manifestations of the One God. A number of the early modern-day Pentecostals in 1913 were going through questions of doctrinal beliefs and practices as the movement was gaining in size, and one of them had a revelation that they should baptize in Jesus' name, instead of saying the words, "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" spoken over the heads of the baptized. This lead to the revelation that "Jesus is the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost", and that's so because Jesus is the Father. Jesus in The Father incarnated. They have a saying that Jesus is "Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Ghost in emmenation (or in the church)". They most resemble the Modalism of Sabellius.
I'm not sure what the distinction would be calling it a "ministerial organization". I don't see the difference, especially since they had put into place some years ago the requirement that pastors sign statements annually that they were to teach certain "holiness teachings" (what you seem to be referring to as "false extra-biblical teachings"). That's far more than a loose association of ministers, but rather stringent requirements imposed upon ministers who are part of this organization.
I assume you are referring to their "holiness standards", such as women not cutting their hair, wearing jewelry or makeup, pants or slacks, not listening to secular music, going to theaters, owning a television, and those sorts of standards? What does your church teach regarding those?
Haha. Now I understand why I was trying to be diplomatic, Windy. You know me, I'll chat about Oneness 'till the cows come home and then make you breakfast.
That's interesting. It seems somewhat a matter of semantics, but in effect it's the same thing as anyone being a member of any church or denomination. If you come in teaching something other than what they want you to, they'll kick you out of their church or denomination just the same as anywhere else.
Saying it's not the same thing doesn't make it not the same thing.Yes, that is interesting about them. When they sent out this edict that all their churches must sign an agreement annually they would hold and teach these standards for their women particularly, many ministers turned in their UPC membership cards, so to speak. There was quite the outcry amongst them over how it was rammed down their throats while they were not included as part of the conversation. It made me smile how all the talk about themselves being the church "restored" in the end is the same as anything else they think they are somehow different from and immune to. That all came down years after I had left them.
It's rampant everywhere, expressed in many forms and beliefs.
There was this one man whom I knew in their church who, like all of us were taught that was what the Bible taught, and as a result believed that without speaking in tongues God had not saved him yet. This man came faithfully to the church every week, and each Sunday night would come up to the altar praying with all his heart to get the "gift of tongues" so he knew he was saved. Week after week, for three straight years he came, often weeping in despair that God was not accepting him because he wouldn't "give him the holy spirit", which he believed tongues was the evidence of that he had it. Since he hadn't spoken in tongues, he believed he was outside of God's acceptance of him. It was my experience of watching this man's despondency growing that in no small part led me in my youth to realize something was amiss with their understanding of God and what they read in scripture. To me, that was itself a legalistic form of doctrine, that there was a "formula" for salvation, which they specifically call it.
This part perked my interest in that it has always amazed me the lengths that human animals will go to prove their worth. Psychologically, they are on pretty thing ice, as the idea is predicated on the notion that they are just not good enough. The psychological damage that this kind of thinking can produce is disturbing in an of itself and is hardly something I could ever recommend. I understand that people have a need for a framework. That much I get, but to slavishly follow a framework is never wise. The map is NEVER the territory, as it were. It's such a pity that we (collectively) simply don't foster or nurture a sense, a relationship, with something that is buried deep within oneself and that aspect of being is perfectly happy with us as we are. Those less savory aspects of our characters become obsolete as understanding grows and, put simply, good people become better people.
I'd quietly suggest that they are simply misinformed and there is no reason to beat themselves up over a fabricated vision of reality. Reality already exists within and without them. Isn't it more reasonable to abandon something that is not working and to realize the salvation is in realization, not revelation, however "revealing" that realization may be?
I quite like the bolded part... and that is coming from an atheist. Granted, I'm not your garden variety atheist, but still... In spirit, pun intended, it mirrors my own thinking of what I term the larger identity.
Oddly, I also have no problems with the concept of the Trinity either.... but hey... one has to remain flexible. Both are attempts to describe our unknown reality.
Since this thread is about a Q&A about this type of Christian belief and practices referred to as Oneness Pentecostalism, and in that I am for all intents and purposes an expert in it, having not only experience with them as one of them, but having a degree in theology from one of their more prominent Bible colleges (at that time, anyway), I certainly can respond in my understanding of them from the inside, now speaking from a perspective in the larger context of religion in general.
Oh yes, and it wasn't just in that case but in many areas to many people. He mentioned legalism, and I would say the entire theology itself is inherently legalistic. The letter of the law, a system of "do this and you'll be accepted, do that and you'll be lost", taken to the extreme where the Spirit of the Law is not heard. It's when religion moves from being helpful, a tool, a framework for faith, into something hindering and harmful to seekers of God, in all that represents.
To dig a little deep here (something I rarely do around here
), I respect that people do take the maps, the symbols, the metaphors literally. Understanding the difference between metaphors as pointers, versus descriptors of the thing itself, is something that comes with growth. It's like what the Apostle Paul said that, "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known." The "face to face" part of course is the mystical Realization, when you suddenly realize that the fingers which were pointing at the moon are not the moon itself. Honestly, that's not just a problem with legalist forms of religion. I think that is symptomatic of our culture at large. Legalistic forms of religion are not too different than "where's your evidence!" form of Scientisim. It's two-sides of the same coin which is a lack of interior awareness. It's all externalized "authorities" telling what the "truth" is. It says anything subjective is unreliable, untrustworthy, dangerous, and the like.
In an ideal system the literal imagination matures into more nuanced and subtle understandings. But if you cannot hear with your own heart, subtleties will be hard to see!
One can academically recognize things like this through cognitive means, but that is itself just another "model" of reality, like postmodernism. Knowing with the heart is an entirely different reality. Reading about God, is not knowing God. Reading about the world is not being part of the world. Reading about the ocean is not swimming in the ocean. But how that reality unfolds into their awareness is a matter of growth and development - in all lines, mental, spiritual, emotional, psychological, social, etc. There are legitimate, and necessary stages one must go through in order to build upon, further it to higher and deeper levels of awareness of "what is". It gets quite nuanced at this point...... Black and white seems so much simpler, until such a point as the heart sees what the mind does not.
The realization of this unfolds in stages. One cannot simply jump from rung 5 on the ladder to rung 20 without hitting rung 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc, first.
I respect the man's framework in regard to the question about what is Oneness Pentecostalism, and am adding my perspective of what I was part of actively in support of, from my understanding of it now. For good and not so good. There is some value to it, and what I am pointing out is in regard to the questions you asked about what I saw in that man's despondency as a result of their teaching.
I would say the interpretation of the mythic-literal framework can become flawed in how you see it manifesting as in my friend (a former boss of mine) was. If there are those who can take the literal framework and make it work where love is grown, then I'd say it has merit. There are lots of different systems that function that way for the good of its membership.
Hi I am oneness apostolic as well. I would like to have your views on Matthew 28:36-kjv and how that is interpreted in the concept of oneness
Hopefully you will get a reply. However, it should be noted that Mr. Hallett has not posted on the forum in 3 1/2 years.