tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33818852.post2937603095383372843..comments2023-10-21T23:57:46.155-04:00Comments on Wheat Among Tares: Working Out My Theologyterrihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12399706958844399216noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33818852.post-69099638898966404792009-11-05T12:54:16.540-05:002009-11-05T12:54:16.540-05:00I grew up in an offshoot of the Worldwide Church o...I grew up in an offshoot of the Worldwide Church of God, but I was with the Adventists for about fifteen years of my adult life. Both of them rest on the Sabbath and don't eat pork, and they can also be pretty apocalyptic. I follow some of their practices but not others. I'm also not entirely a believer in "soul sleep"---though I understand why some may go with that position: the Bible calls death a sleep, and there are passages about the dead not knowing anything. Some of it, as we've discussed before, has to do with Jesus' parable of Lazarus, in which the rich man is conscious in Hades while his brothers are still alive on earth. And then I see all these shows about ghosts. Even my great grandmother, when she was on her deathbed, was talking to an invisible man who was on her bed, whom she thought was about to take her to the afterlife. "What's taking you so long?", she asked him. And she wasn't senile in her final days. So I have problems saying that everyone dies and sleeps unconsciously until the resurrection. I'm not even sure if there are hard and fast rules about what happens after we die.James Patehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14247799389009268470noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33818852.post-6154651656469761002009-11-05T09:01:59.566-05:002009-11-05T09:01:59.566-05:00James,
Geez...people are so tactless sometimes.
...James,<br /><br />Geez...people are so tactless sometimes.<br /><br />I'm assuming you grew up Adventist?<br /><br />How was that experience for you? Other than thinking that they might be right on with the life after death thing....I don't think I could really go Adventist. <br /><br />Don't they still hold to some forms of dietary and Sabbath laws? My knowledge of the denomination is only very general.terrihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12399706958844399216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33818852.post-48658203970255911632009-11-04T14:46:51.441-05:002009-11-04T14:46:51.441-05:00I grew up in a denomination that believed in "...I grew up in a denomination that believed in "soul sleep," and I visited it about a decade ago. One guy was bragging about something he said at a funeral. Someone said to him, "Won't it be great to go to heaven?" He replied, "You may be going there, but I'm not!"James Patehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14247799389009268470noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33818852.post-37256998669031875222009-11-04T06:07:36.184-05:002009-11-04T06:07:36.184-05:00Terri,
I read through your posts on annihilationi...Terri,<br /><br />I read through your posts on annihilationism and would have to say that, for the most part I tend to agree with you. I have much difficulty in reconciling a loving God with the typical perception of an everlasting damnation in the fiery pits of Hell. <br /><br />Although I have yet to do an in depth study of this subject, I have read that most of the early Church Fathers had some sort of conception of eternal damnation, and there are also a number of scriptures that I have not yet to be able to reconcile with annihilationism. <br /><br />My present conception of Hell probably lies somewhere between the one that you stated of N.T. Wright and the view that C.S. Lewis so elonquently painted in "The Great Divorce." Not that those views can be scripturally validated either.<br /><br />I do believe that you are probably dead on in your reckoning of "soul sleep" in contrast with the popular opinion that we immediately go "up there" or "down there" at death. It seems to me from the way I read my Bible that we are more than likely in some form or another in an intermediate state until the resurrection and final judgement. "Soul-sleep" seems to be the most likely explanation, but there could be others.<br /><br />Like you, I am still working out my own theology, and am by no means any sort of an expert on the subject. I plan on doing a series of posts on the subject of annihilationism sometime in the future, but it will more than likely be a number of months. <br /><br />RandyRandyhttp://randyolds.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.com