The last few months in Belgium I tried to reconcile two big Christadelphian organisations and create the possibility that the different Christadelphians could meet with each other and having worship services together.
Instead of bringing us out of isolation it brought us deeper in isolation. Several accusations went from one side to the other and I at the end became not only the pingpong ball but the target for both organisations.
At last the man from the North succeeded first to censor some of my sites and got the United Kingdom organisation also against me.
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| Christadelphian Church (St Mark's Presbyterian Church, Queen's Hall), 28 Bath Road, Bournemouth, Dorset (Photo credit: Alwyn Ladell) |
They have created many sleepless nights for me and got me worrying several hours but got me also checking everything from the past and checking the whole Christadelphian community. I contacted people I knew from the days before I became a Christadelphian, who were then Christadelphian but had by now left the community. Several of them gave the same reason of leaving the community as I am facing now.
The last few weeks I sincerely questioned once again my believes and compared them with other faith groups. To my regret there is no other church group which believes on all points the same as I do. I encountered naturally churches were there are people who do believe exactly the same as I do, but were it is also not the general trend. It is the same as with the Christadelphians, in those churches there are several groups with small or bigger differences.
Christadelphianism has very conservative groups, moderates and a very few progressive ones.
Up until now I belonged to the English Central Fellowship and was pleased to receive support from the Christadelphian Bible Mission or CBM. But with all the trouble of the man from the North, the CBM dropped me now, plus accused me of writing unbiblical articles, having links in my articles to others than their Christadelphians and having contacts with non-christadelphian people and organisations.
Like the man from the North, they would like to have everything under control.
I would like everybody to know I am not bounded or chained to any worldly organisation or any worldly person, except my wife because I am married to her. Jesus has come to liberate us from the chains of this world. My preaching is a work for God and not as such a work for a particular Group or Organisation. I am not married to Carelinks nor to CBM. You could say I am figuratively married to Christ.
I invite everybody to look at my writings on my other religious sites, Stepping Toes, my ecclesia site and on my site which was called Broeders in Christus or Brethren in Christ. They now get the "Free" added to their name, to announce I do consider myself like some other Christadelphians a "Free Christadelphian". There you can see what I do write and compare it with your own Bibles, and compare it with other Christadelphian and other Christian websites.
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| John Thomas (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Because I took again a lot of time to consider either changing or not of denomination, I was confronted by several Christadelphians who encouraged me to keep calling myself a Christadelphian, because I myself gave the answer in my questions and in my findings about other denominations and the Christadelphian believes.
There were also two other groups which some consider also to be Christadelphians whilst others look at them as an other denomination who would not mind taking me in their circles. One group would have meant a name change for my church. But at the end I thought, why would I change again of denomination.
I do fear what I have seen happening now with the CBM, I encountered already by the non-trinitarian Baptists in the 1980ies, having the Southern Baptist Union pressing their power onto others. They being trinitarian Baptists, made thousands of Baptist going to the Jehovah Witnesses and the Church of God, whilst others went to the Church of God of Abrahamic Faith, a few hundreds to the bible Students, a few to the Nazarene Friends and some like me to smaller non-trinitarian churches like the Christadelphians.
Those who went into the Jehovah Witnesses came in a severe controlling group but had most of their teachings in common with us, non-trinitarian Baptists. But we could not keep our name anymore because of the television productions where most people saw trinitarian Baptists and would get a wrong idea about our faith.
For that reason I shall keep the name Christadelphian, because it is a very good name, denoting being a Brother in christ, and that is what I want to be, and except the ideas of slavery and some end of day prognoses by John Thomas I adhere all the same ideas as those early Christadelphian writers.
I could not become a Jehovah Witness because there are "the pre-existence of Christ", Christ being the Archangel Michael, "the return of Christ in 1914", and the Faithful Slave or all saying and directing Watchtower Biblestudy and Tract society, in which I do not believe. No human is infallible. As such a pope or a few people in a group can not dictate what all other people do have to accept or leave the organisation. There is too much mind control in the Jehovah Witnesses organisation.
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| Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916). (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I only can hope they would not create such controlling bodies, though it looks like some people are trying to get a good grip on the different communities.
For now I decided to continue my preaching. Though some did many efforts to stop me, I shall continue to preach the Gospel of the good News. Financially and organisational wise I shall be very limited. I apologise to the subscribers of the Dutch magazine "Met open bible" which I shall not be able to distribute any more. Paperwork and posting shall be limited.
Those whom I send Glad Tidings I ask to do a request for the magazine at Glad Tidings themselves, but I can not send it free any more.
The same for the persons who requested literature. Sorry for those who waited already more than three weeks. I do hope they shall understand it is impossible to continue from my own family funds to buy myself and distribute those books of others. I advice my readers and those interested in Christadelphian literature or free Bibles to demand it at the publishers themselves.
This redirecting the last few weeks already to the Jehovah Witnesses to ask for their free Bibles, had upset very much the CBM and some other Christadelphians. But my till is just empty, sorry.
My spirit is not yet extinguished, so I shall try to keep going on. Some websites I shall close down and all links to those who do not want to associate to us shall be taken away by time and by request.
At the moment I shall keep linking in my articles to other articles, be it from trinitarian or non-trinitarian websites, because I strongly believe that everybody should be doing good research and should be able to compare with other writings to form a solid idea.
I do hope my readers can appreciate such linking and quoting. In case it is not appreciated or not worthwhile to put so much time in it, I shall stop doing so, but for the time being, I try to continue it on this Blogger site and on the different WordPress sites.
From March the 14th, 2014 several links will be taken away from the linking pages. I also consider going to link only to other webpages when they also link to my pages. In case we do not want to help each other than we do have to row on our own.
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