The Invisible Sign

What Mitigated All of This?

Let’s step back in time for a bit…

You may recall that, in an earlier chapter, I mentioned “my best friend” from grade school. As it turned out, he was living in Florida when my family and I were transferred from Rhode Island to Jacksonville, FL.

This fact, as it turned out, was another turning point, not just in my life, but the life of my entire family!

—

After arriving in Jacksonville and settling in, I took the opportunity to call my old friend to catch up.

During a lengthy phone conversation, we discussed religion and how I was with the Church of Christ. In turn, he explained that he found a new religion and said that I should look into it.

“It’s totally different than anything you will learn in the churches.” He told me.

As our phone conversation wrapped up, he suggested that I bring the family to Panama City to visit, and I agreed.

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

“Why should we pack up and drive all that way, pay for a hotel and meals, when he could come here and stay with us?” My wife asked?

What could I say? It was always that way between us. Whereas he had other friends, I did not. So I always went to him. There’s no sense in changing that now.

His invitation was not without intent. He had embraced and joined Jehovah’s Witnesses, a religion that many erroneously deem to be a cult, and his invitation to us was not merely reacquaintance, but an opportunity for proselytising.

As a consequence, he and I spent an entire 24 hours in rigorous religious discussion. It wasn’t until after sunrise the following morning that he left our hotel room, and we, immediately thereafter, had breakfast and returned to Jacksonville.

I’m Not a Pushover, But I Can Be Persuaded!

Having “studied” the Bible for the past few years with the Church of Christ, still, I found that the points my old friend made were not without merit.

Deserving deeper investigation — i.e., needing to be refuted or confirmed —I took the list to our Church of Christ minister, Jimmy H.

Jimmy was a long-time, old-time preacher man, college-trained in his convictions, and steeped in his faith; he viewed everything we discussed from that perspective.

We sat in the Church library for hours. To every question of “why do they say this about that,” the answer was the same:

“It’s traditionally understood doctrine, and most biblical scholars agree with that interpretation.”

He essentially told me that the Bible is understood differently by different religions because one must draw on various ‘other‘ parts of the Bible to affirm suppositions that align with traditional beliefs.

He sealed our time together with: “To the lay-person, it can become very confusing…You just have to accept it.”

(Ironically, this, as it turned out, was not the last time I was to be told:

“Don’t try to intellectualize it, just accept it.“

To begin with, he said that our beliefs are based on traditions and suppositions that align with “traditional” doctrine followed by, “you just have to accept it.”

That statement laid the foundation for questioning everything about “religion” in general. I am not one to “just accept” anything.

So I asked:

“By what or whose authority did the “early church fathers” or anyone for that matter, use to establish and declare themselves the supreme authority over the interpretation of what our Creator thinks, says, or requires? If there is a “truth,” why does there seem to be so many? Can any religion prove itself to be supported by The Creator?

I’m Coming There In Christian Love

As I continued studying with local Witnesses, one of the elders said that I had studied long enough to make a choice, and he showed me a scripture that said something like, “How long will you continue limping along on two opinions?”

So, then Pastor Jimmy asked to meet with the Witness elders.

“Tell them I am coming in the spirit of Christian love, to discuss matters.”

There were two Witness men, me, and Jimmy H., gathered in my living room.

The meeting remained a congenial repartee of scriptural references being thrown back and forth in tit-for-tat fashion for more than an hour.

Suddenly, Jimmy H. began pacing the room when, without warning, he suddenly exploded into a sermon about cults and false prophets, condemning us all to hellfire, having no right to question the Lord, and blah blah blah!

We just stared at him until he paused and said, I have to leave, and he stormed out of the apartment, and that was the last time I ever spoke to him.

—

I did not know it then, but I was about to entrust my life to people who seemed to possess everything I believed I lacked.

They appeared confident where I was uncertain, certain where I was confused, and convinced they possessed the answers I had spent my entire life, up to that point, seeking.

“Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…” (Philippians 3:13-14)

A situation began to build as I studied with this local group of Witnesses. Although they did not press it, I was military, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are a very anti-war, anti-killing type of people.

My entire outlook on life suddenly turned a corner.

Every so-called Christian Religion, despite their differences, always stuck to the code! “Father, Son, Holy Ghost!” (Although I always considered the “ghost” part to be a bit ludicrous. There had to be a better word!)

The crux of the issue was one that, at the time, never occurred to me.

EVERY organization believes that God directs them through some group or individual.

In turn, that group or individual claims that God (The Creator) gives them unique and true understanding, and expects others to follow?

The Battle Is Over, But The War Just Began

Having witnessed these two “believers” wrangle one another mentally, emotionally, and spiritually helped me eliminate one or the other.

The JW men sat there, almost stoic, smug in their training, their knowledge of how to torment the church minister.

Each side assembled its own group of scriptures:

He essentially told me that the Bible is understood differently by different religions because one must draw on various ‘other‘ parts of the Bible to affirm suppositions that align with traditional beliefs.

The Witnesses’ assemblage, being the more powerful, collapsed the other, destroyed it, causing a total loss of control and a final surrender.

Did “The Truth” win? Or was it merely a better assemblage of Biblical passages making one doctrine incapable of overcoming the other?

It was left to me, now, to either prove it, or simply accept it.