RagingRev

Bad Parenting tips (click for more)

For Fathers Day this year my wife and I went down to Rhine to spend some time with her family….the close knit nature of my wife’s family is something foreign to me, I was raised by a single mother whos only family was a state away and for the most part avoided my paternal family once my grandmother died. My wife’s family, as many faults as I may find with them (and them me), sticks together for the most part, Monica’s great-grandmother died a few years ago at the age of 94 and her grandparents are still solid foundations for the family. Everyone lives within half a mile of one another….everyone but us.

Monica’s grandfather is down on his health right now though, he was in bed all day today and that is something very uncommon for this man, who still works 7 days a week with his logging company. His being sick is scary for the family, at one point today my mother-in-law went in to see him and fought back tears when she came back out. She said that I should call or go see my dad and I didn’t know what to say at the time.

Now that my wife and I are home though, I have thought about it a bit. I understand my mother-in-law’s position, she was raised in a loving home by loving parents and had grandparents that were there until just recently. Both of her parents are strong willed, kind hearted folks that put their family first. They have always been there to help when someone needs it, so I can understand celebrating the sacrifices of people like that.

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Save Me From Myself - courtesy Amazon

About two years ago Brian “Head” Welch , former guitarist of Korn, made headlines when he turned from the “Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll” lifestyle to accepting Jesus and becoming a Christian. Since then Head has released a Christian album  and book called Save Me From Myself.

More recently Korn’s bassist Reggie “Fieldy” Arvizu has given his life to Christ as well. He, like Head,  has a book that just released on March 10th called Got The Life to tell about the kind of person he used to be before he made the decision to follow his own understanding of God.

Got The Life~courtesy Amazon

These types of conversions, from a life of extremes and drugs, happen every day among peoplethat are not nearly as well known. In fact there are multiple nation wide ministries dedicated to inducing this sort of addiction intervention – you’ve probably seen the guys from Teen Challenge at your local Wal-Mart asking for donations. The question regarding these events for me though is whether or not accepting the drug of Jesus  (or insert religion here) is an improvement on an addiction to methamphetamine (or insert drug here).

Is it?

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A few months ago at ex-christian.net a man named Dan Silverman started posting on his experiences as he was leaving his faith, his church, his ministry, and breaking this news to his wife and family. All the details of this struggle can be seen on his website and blog–but to make a lengthy story short-Dan has been accused of a crime that I do not believe he committed, it is believed that his former pastor – possibly in collusion with his wife have influenced the accuser to make the accusation. Dan is awaiting trial currently and during this time can’t see any of his children or his wife.

Dan was a minister at Heritage Baptist Church in Vinton, Virginia-a few months ago he stepped down because he didn’t want to mislead the church since he had lost his faith—he didn’t believe the things he was teaching any longer. The pastor seems to have been angered by this and it looks as if he is trying to dismantle this man to a state of desperation, just to get him back into the fold. This is religious, spiritual, and emotional abuse.

This is my challenge to ALL of my readers–ESPECIALLY the Christian ones–because controlling a man’s family and causing turmoil in his life is not the job of the Church and I expect better—My challenge is for you to 1: Blog about this and LINK TO HIS SITE, 2: Put him on your blogroll or something like that 3: READ his site—this story goes much farther than I have talked about here and we need people to be aware of what is happening, and 4: tell other people about it and as a bonus 5: Digg, Fav, Stumble—whatever you can this story, we just want to get the story out there to show how dangerous a Jim Jones type church can be—and this church is heading that way.

I just want to help this guy out…I’m not asking anyone to determine guilt or anything like that—we just want people to know the dangers of a fundamentalist extremist mentality and what happens if you ever question that establishment. Dan, nor myself, are out to harm Christianity or the Church—Dan just wants his family and life back. Please help

Dan is found at the following website: http://allforfreedom.blogspot.com

Please do this. Everyone that reads this blog. No prizes, no pats on the back–just do it for the sake of helping someone out.

Edit notes: Changed name of church to Heritage Baptist