Quotations and Experience

[Papa Bear]

(02-26-2012 10:47 PM)Recovering Wrote:  

(02-26-2012 08:36 PM)Papa Bear Wrote:  There's that, too, but I was thinking more along the lines of those times in Fundieland when I saw something wrong and wanted to speak out against it, but people around me persuaded me to keep quiet.

Yeah. I still don't know how to handle this with my parents. I think they treat my siblings so poorly, but I'm not sure how to say anything. I guess I don't really believe anything I could say would help, and I'm also so glad to be finally on speaking terms with my parents that I don't want to jeopardize that relationship. Have you figured out a way to handle this with relationships you don't want to lose (obviously, a lot of old fundy relationships have to be simply walked away from, but you all seem to have managed to keep some of them)

I grew up GARBC, which some people don't consider Fundy, but I found quite a bit of variation within the GARBC, with churches ranging from evangelical Baptist similar to say, the BGC, to Fundy-lite, to crazy IFBx.
From age 4 to 16, I was in a GARB church I would consider Fundy-lite. Our pastor was a BJU grad, but no one pushed our kids toward a particular college. We had the usual Fundy cultural quirks, but HAC was ten minutes down the road, and we tried very hard not to be like them. (Of course, that kept us from recognizing our own brand of legalism.)

My junior year of high school, we moved to another state, and ended up at another GARBC church, one where the IFBx crazies were clearly in charge. It was the worst two years of my life. My parents left that church right after I graduated and found a church that is about as relaxed as you can get and still be GARBC. I left for college, and have never been GARBC since.

I was the first of six kids. Two of them still attend the same church as my parents, one is married to a student at Grace Seminary in Winona Lake, IN, one is non-denominational, one is Lutheran, and I'm Anglican. My parents still believe that their church is the right one for everybody, but they're in a more relaxed church, they can now look back and admit some things were wrong at the IFBx church, and they're coming to terms with the idea that we make our own decisions now. Since I've been out of the GARBC for over twenty years, I really don't have any contact with them except family, and we've gradually come to the point where we mostly agree to disagree on certain subjects.