Like a fish

My priest has asked for the following information on Facebook. Facebook. Ugh. So, a blog post instead.  Questions in bold: Anybody should be able to answer these questions! Please describe your former beliefs. Use multiple sheets of paper if necessary.  My beliefs were the apostles creed with a big caveat on the One Apostolic Catholic church part with the redefinition of all that to mean anyone calling themselves Christian. I believed God had wrath on humanity that was poured out on Christ at the cross, and if you didn't believe, that wrath still was on you. I believed that one you were saved you were always saved, and that anyone who claimed to be saved and acted bad wasn't really saved to begin with. I believed in the Great Apostasy, but it was 1500 years not the 1800 years as reported by Joseph Smith. Please describe the good things in your former beliefs. This would involve practices, doctrines and the culture. I was (am) Trinitarian. I believ...

When I was looking for a new church in Texas, I was sick of all the compromises I was seeing all around. Not sin so much, I have sinned and it has always been that men sin. As long as there is repentance things can go on. The thing that bothered me was women clergy. I was raised to be a good feminist so it wasn't that I thought they couldn't do it, it is the question of what changed that now it is ok, when it wasn't before? This brought the most important question,  "who sez?" Who says that this is ok all the sudden?  Who has the right to tell Joel Osteen to shut up? The answer I was always given, and gave, is the Holy Spirit. But who speaks for the Holy Spirit? I have been convinced that I knew what He said but was proven wrong. So it's not me. Many claiming to speak for him said women clergy was just spiffy and 2000 years of Christian practice was wrong. So really,  no kidding, who gets to say? I watch too much YouTube. But I started to notice that the mos...

When you make a big change in life, maybe you should explain to yourself and others why you did it. No one but me cares but if you are reading this I invite you to point out errors in the comments. And by error I don't mean disagreement. My search begins with looking for a new church after moving back to Texas. We visited several of the nearby churches like the kind we normally have attended. There were several threads of thought going through my head like worldliness, authority and authenticity. Historically I come from a family raised in the church of Christ, a very small conservative denomination that doesn't use musical instruments. My parents left that church when I was a child and went to its split off denomination the disciples of Christ. So I was raised in a very liberal church which I loved because of summer camp. We moved a lot so I was always in a new school, but summer camp was always in the same place with the same people. So church was a source of continuity an...