A Personal Testimony
I intended to add this chapter as an appendix, but I feel led to include it first. This section describes my personal experience with God. The following chapters, following the outline I got from the wording of Romans 1:16-17, provide a personalized theology that I have built from my study and experience. The two go together. If you don’t want to read the story, you can go to the next chapter. But in my understanding of theology, the story is the key. That’s why I believe this story needs to come first.
As you read it here, this testimony includes the bulk of the material from the testimony as posted on my web site, (http://energion.com/rpp/drawn.shtml), and included as an appendix to my study guide on the book of Hebrews (To the Hebrews: A Participatory Study Guide, ISBN: 1-893729-23-0), where it formed a substantial part of my explanation for my understanding of Hebrews 6, falling away, and grieving the Holy Spirit.
I grew up as the son of Seventh-day Adventist missionary parents. I don't intend to tell the entire story of my life, but I want to lay a foundation for what happens later. My parents have great faith, and they demonstrated that faith in their daily lives and in the way they conducted mission work. My father was a medical doctor and my mother a registered nurse. My father prayed with every patient he treated.
Some missionaries felt it was alright to smuggle things through borders in order to carry out their work (and in some cases I believe they are right), but my parents did not work that way. They would load medical supplies for which they had no import license right in the open. Before approaching the border control point we would stop and pray, and then proceed through. Inevitably the inspector would notice the material we were carrying and would ask what it was. My father would always say, "Medical supplies" or whatever it was we were transporting for our work. The inspector would then ask for the import license, and my father would indicate he didn't have one. Every time this happened we were simply waved on through the border. We were never detained nor were any of the supplies confiscated.
In 1971 we traveled to Guyana, South America, where my father underwent emergency surgery soon after our arrival. We were told that he was unlikely to work again or to live more than 25 years. My parents called for the elders of the church, as indicated in James 5, who anointed him and prayed for his healing. Within two weeks he had taken over as the sole physician for a 54 bed hospital. (This story is available in the booklet Directed Paths, ISBN: 1-893729-22-2, available from Energion Publications.)
I was very firm about my faith and about its Biblical base. I felt the call of God to teaching ministry during registration for my second year of college. This came as clearly as a voice, though I didn’t think I was hearing it from outside. It simply came to me as though I had heard it. I was enrolled in the pre-Law program of the college, and had collected all the computer cards for the classes in that program. I went back, cancelled them all, and started the Biblical languages program.
I pursued the program in Biblical languages with enthusiasm. I thought that if the Bible was my guide to life, it would be best to know as much as possible about it. Looking back at it, I believe some try for righteousness by works, some by faith, but that I pursued righteousness by Biblical languages. After completing my Bachelor of Arts degree, I went on to graduate school and took a Master of Arts in Religion, still concentrating in Biblical languages. I was learning more and more about the Bible, but my spiritual life was deteriorating at the same time. During four quarters of graduate school I attended church three times. My prayer life was practically non-existent.
Shortly after completing my MA program I decided not to enter teaching ministry and instead went into the U. S. Air Force. Within another year, I broke officially from the Seventh-day Adventist Church and from any church. My problems were not with specific Seventh-day Adventist doctrines, though I would now dispute some of those. I regard Seventh-day Adventists as fellow-Christians despite any doctrinal disagreements. My rejection of the church and the faith was for reasons that applied equally well to most varieties of Christianity. In particular I could not find an anchor for my faith in an understanding of scripture alone, and I couldn't accept the idea of a total surrender to God without such an anchor. I was unwilling to make Christianity a total surrender, which seemed to me a one-way street. Some Christians argued with me that such a total surrender as I described was not required, but I could not see a partial surrender to God at the time, and I still can't do so. (I will discuss my view of scripture more in the chapter entitled It has been Written.)
I stayed out of the church entirely for approximately 12 years. I emphasize the totality of my rejection of the faith. I did not pray, even in some instances when I felt I was about to lose my life. I read the Bible only to keep up my language skills. I refused to attend any church services, except for a brief time at a Unitarian-Universalist congregation. While I did not write anything against the church, I was quite vocal in conversations with friends, and generally less tolerant of Christianity and Christians than those who had grown up with little religion.
In 1993, I was a partner in a small corporation working on developing game software. I was working 15 or 16 hours daily seven days a week. My work was my life at the time. My business partner was concerned that I was going to burn out, and as I was the sole developer for our small company, this was a matter of serious concern to him. He began to suggest various forms of diversion. I would shoot down each idea as he brought it up. Finally, in desperation, he suggested that since I had "all those Bible degrees" I should try attending church. As a matter of entertainment, I thought that would be interesting. I had grown up in church, but had attended Seventh-day Adventist churches almost exclusively. I had very little knowledge of how any other denominations conducted church services or what they believed.
With a true software engineering approach I made a list of denominations I wanted to check out, then went to the phone book and looked for churches of that denomination to attend. I programmed my search, and knew where I would be going some time in advance.
After a few weeks of this I came to "United Methodist" on my list of denominations. I already had a church selected for that, but the Sunday morning I had planned to attend it found me with a software delivery for the Monday morning following, and the work incomplete. I decided that I had better work Sunday morning until it was finished rather than attend church and count on being able to complete the work in the afternoon. It was probably a good decision, because it was 4:00 PM before the work was done and ready for delivery. I then decided that perhaps I should try an evening service at the church of my choice, but the United Methodist church I had selected did not have an evening service. I went back to the yellow pages and found one that both listed an evening service and had directions I could understand. That church was Pine Forest United Methodist Church.
I truly hated that first evening service. The contemporary style of music annoyed me. Three youth gave testimonies that got on my nerves, about things I would never do. I left pretty much assuming that I would never return there again. Then I got an attack of fairness. I had planned to attend morning services in the various churches I had on my list, but I had given this church only an evening service. (I had done this with one other church and it didn't bother me at all!) I decided I should attend Pine Forest UMC once more for a day time service. I did this the following Sunday.
This started an interesting pattern. I determined each Sunday that I would not continue attending the services, and then each Sunday would find me back. There was a fine group of people in my Sunday School class who took me in immediately and made me feel welcome. They also conducted some interesting free-wheeling discussions which were very enjoyable.
In a few weeks I called the pastor and asked for an official statement of what United Methodists believed. He had some difficulty figuring out what to give me, but finally suggested the United Methodist Discipline.