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What is your religion?
ednbarby:
Beautiful posts, everyone. Chris, I'm in that group of people who believes everything is a miracle. I do believe in a higher power in a sense - I worship the sun. And I don't mean I'm working on a tan. I mean I worship the fact that we are where we are in relation to that sun in the first place - it's what has made all things possible on this planet. Nature is my God. And Science is what I use to talk to her. I loved what you said about the text not having to be true in order to impart its lessons, too. And I think I know why some people have to believe it's true in order to make sense of their world. Because they are afraid. To die. So afraid of it that they've forgotten how to live. That's how organized religion gets its followers - by dangling the promise of immortality in front of the masses. I find fundamentalist Christians to be using their religion as a justification for judging others. And I think they need to judge others because it makes them feel better about their sorry-ass existences. There's a line in a Linkin Park song that goes like this: "You think having the upper hand means you gotta keep putting me down." That pretty much nails it.
TJ:
Because of I know the "official" history of those who "believe in the Pentecost" like Jack Twist's mother did and the fact that Roberta Maxwell, who portrayed her in the movie, said that Mrs. John C. Twist, Sr. was Pentecostal, I chose an alternate answer which was "Non-organized Christian."
Pentecostal churches, independent congregations, semi-non-denomination and denominational ones, are not historically speaking Protestant churches.
According to Catholic and Protestant denominational histories, for a church to be officially a Protestant Church, it has to have split from the Roman Catholic Church AND have Martin Luther in its official history.
None of the Pentecostal Churches, referred to either as denominations or fellowships which began 100 years ago, are a split from any particular denomination, not the RCC nor any Protestant Church.
The United Pentecostal Church, an non-trinitarian doctrine denomination, does have in its history people who split from the Assemblies of God Fellowship which is Trinitarian in doctrine.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the Azusa Street revivals which took place in Los Angeles.
You can read some about it here at this link. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week935/cover.html
The offical website is here: http://www.azusastreet100.net/
The General Council of the Assemblies of God (AG) which has the Azusa Street meetings in its history can be found here. http://ag.org/top/
Annie Proulx does not have Jack Twist even discuss "The Pentecost" in her original story. Unlike what is said in the movie, and using my own experiences here and if he were an actual person, Jack Twist more than likely told Ennis Del Mar what the Pentecost was if his mother was actually Pentecostal, even if his father did not attend church regularly.
Since the movie's Ennis Del Mar stated that his "folks were Methodist," I believe that Ennis might have known a little bit about what "the Pentecost" meant, too; because the Methodists, like most Protestant denominations, have a "Pentecost Sunday" every year.
In the book, what is in the following quote is the only thing connected with any kind of religious belief.
--- Quote ---Ennis rode easy, sleeping with his eyes open, but the hours he was away from the sheep stretched out and out. Jack pulled a squalling burr out of the harmonica, flattened a little from a fall off the skittish bay mare, and Ennis had a good raspy voice; a few nights they mangled their way through some songs. Ennis knew the salty words to "Strawberry Roan." Jack tried a Carl Perkins song, bawling "what I say-ay-ay," but he favored a sad hymn, "Water-Walking Jesus," learned from his mother who believed in the Pentecost, that he sang at dirge slowness, setting off distant coyote yips.
--- End quote ---
I know that I made this a little long here. Although I am Pentecostal by experience and my basic doctrinal beliefs are very much like the Assemblies of God's "16 Fundamental Truths," and I grew up attending regular church services and special services, I prefer to say that "I was raised AT home and not in a church." The only people that I have known who were raised in a church were those who actually lived in one while growing up. My Parents were Pentecostal by experience, too. But, they did not demand that their children believe just like them. They taught us to make our own choices and believe according to what we felt the Holy Spirit wanted us to believe.
TJ:
From my previous posting:
--- Quote ---Annie Proulx does not have Jack Twist even discuss "The Pentecost" in her original story. Unlike what is said in the movie, and using my own experiences here and if he were an actual person, Jack Twist more than likely told Ennis Del Mar what the Pentecost was if his mother was actually Pentecostal, even if his father did not attend church regularly.
--- End quote ---
When I was in the 4th and 5th grades, my father pastored Washington Community Assemby of God in rural Rogers County to the NE of Claremore, Oklahoma. His younger brother attended a "Free Holiness Church," which was not quite a denominational church but loosely connected with other Free Holiness Churches. Uncle Raymond's brother-in-law was the pastor of that church. Many of those who attended a Free Holiness Church in rural Oklahoma believed that one only had to go to school as required by the law which said school attendance until age 16. Some of them even thought the King James Version of the Bible was the only one God authorized for Christians to read.
In those Pentecostal churches, even when the husband did not attend church, except maybe on special occasions, his wife attended almost every service and if they had children, their children went to Sunday morning church which was both Sunday School and congregational worship afterwards. One learned about the Pentecost and what it meant to be Pentecostal in Sunday School.
delalluvia:
--- Quote ---Anni Many of those who attended a Free Holiness Church in rural Oklahoma believed that one only had to go to school as required by the law which said school attendance until age 16. Some of them even thought the King James Version of the Bible was the only one God authorized for Christians to read.
--- End quote ---
The Amish also do not believe in higher education. Their children are only educated to the age of what is required by law.
TJ:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on April 29, 2006, 01:59:38 pm ---
--- Quote ---Anni Many of those who attended a Free Holiness Church in rural Oklahoma believed that one only had to go to school as required by the law which said school attendance until age 16. Some of them even thought the King James Version of the Bible was the only one God authorized for Christians to read.
--- End quote ---
The Amish also do not believe in higher education. Their children are only educated to the age of what is required by law.
--- End quote ---
I know about the Amish because we have them in Oklahoma. Mixed among the Amish are people who are Mennonites who have a similar doctrine but, Mennonites are not anti-education. I went to college with Mennoites whom I had known in grade school, too.
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