All Doves:
Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits gave the Catholic world a maxim, "Give me a child for his first seven years and I'll give you the man." Since 1548, when the Jesuits began their first school, the Jesuits have believed this axiom without wavering whatsoever or even so much as a flinch.
The significance of this statement is in what Loyola was really saying in that Jesuit maxim. Jesuits couch their teachings in typical Masonic jargon and doublespeak. I'll keep this as simple as I can in order that the reader get the point less all of the details. Loyola was really saying, give me a child for his first seven years and you will have a Catholic for life.
One cannot argue the issue that a Jesuit education is anything less than the very best, far from it, it goes without debate, Jesuit education is on a par with the best of private school education. But like everything in life, where being the best is important, or where there is good in life, there is always down sides that go along with the better attributes of the system.
I have discovered that when a child is subjected to "spiritual abuse", through education or religious training, they carry the wounds of that upbringing throughout their entire adult life. I grew up in a working class Catholic community of Pittsburgh, PA. I delivered groceries to the local Sacred Heart Catholic Church rectory and nun's quarters, on the third floor of the elementary and girl's high school; Being polite and reverent, at the nun's request, I carried out the their bags of garbage for them to be placed in the outside garbage cans. I played stick ball, baseball, games of Monopoly, Parcheesi, bike riding, etc. with my Catholic friends. Even one of my teen friends grew up to be an Auxiliary Bishop of a neighboring diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in an adjoining county. I even got my first sex lesson from the nuns, indirectly that is.
Three times a week I delivered groceries to the rectory and kitchen quarters. I worked as a stock boy and delivered groceries in my Radio Flyer wagon. I enjoyed making deliveries to the nuns because there was a huge, block-long Pennsylvania Army National Guard armory across the street. In those days the armory's big doors were always open during the day and I could peak inside, even venture inside and see all the trucks and artillery and equipment. Such things captured the imagination of us teenage boys. When I said I got my first sex lesson from the nuns, it came as a result of them asking me to take their bags of garbage down to the trash cans. This one day they had so much to take out, I struggled to get it all onto the delivery/service elevator. When I got to the street entrance, I dropped two of the bags, and what all spilled out of the bags was not just food containers, cans, or empty bottles, or wasted food. When I got back to the little mom and pop grocery market where I worked, a block away, I asked the owner's son what those balloons were that I had to pick up that fell out of the paper bags, I had never seen a condom before. My boss broke out into a bout of laughing like nothing I had ever seen. He later took me aside and explained, but why so many was my thought, there were dozens of these used condoms in the rectory/kitchen trash.
One of the biggest problems former members of abused churches face is that of "triggers". A trigger is something that brings back memory, emotions, or experiences of cult life back with vividness. So intense and real are these experiences that some people instantly revert to their former cultic persona for a short while. In spiritual abuse this is known as "floating". Life in the cults and Roman Catholic education training as well, is deeply stressful, even to the point where an individual can exhibit altered states of consciousness. Hymns, loaded language, colors, smells, even verses from the Bible can be triggers. The human psyche experiences a flooding of emotion and terror can return in an instant, and the person can in that instant, experience being re-abused in that memory event.
In my courses on pastoral counseling, I was trained to watch for a loss of sense of reality, of personal identity or motor-behavior resulting from a "trigger" moment. It is like the rape victim who smells the cologne of her rapist and is immediately translated back in that crime scene emotionally. Holding that thought for a moment, this relates to those that have come out of Jesuit or Catholic school training / brainwashing of Jesuit training is slanted toward instilling a "fear" of God into the child. Jesuit and Catholic education, indisputably is "fear-based".
The down side to a "fear-based" learning system is that those individuals are condemned to walk in the shadow for the rest of their lives. There are too many issues to deal with that I have not touched upon, nor have the space and time to deal with, but all are healable. Patience is the hardest thing for recovery, it takes time, and there will be cycles of seemingly regression as more and more of the pain leeches out of the soul.
People that have come out of Catholicism are plagued with the idea that everyone should be or think like, act like, and be like them. They live with what I stated above, living in and walking in the shadows of their "legalistic" religious belief system for the rest of their lives. What this means is that such individuals really never find freedom in understanding God's grace. They rarely ever find peace of mind in the tension held between Law and Grace in their lives. They go from church to church to church, never finding a place to call home. As believers in Christ Jesus, we are not under the spirit of fear, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." -(2nd Timothy 1:7).
Being afraid of the unknown is not a new concept. The dangers of modern life have a stranglehold on people's imagination. Sociologists refer to it as a "risk" society, where everyday is lived with threats to safety, both real and perceived. This why wars are fought, why we have massive health institutions as well as others. We are immersed in a culture of "fear". Neurolinguisitic programming, emulating psychosis, television, advertising, the illusion of terrorism, affect every facet of our live and our world at the expense of our health, safety, and security.
If there is a disease, we must develop a vaccine or drug. If there is a terrorist, we must develop anti-terrorist measures. If there are criminals, we must create laws. People are scared everywhere and scared of everything. So they criticize, argue, belittle, antagonize and resort to endless attacks that focus on what others believe, they cannot fathom a truth which is not their own. It's a protective measure to guard against the unknown.
Fear keeps us focused on the past and constantly worried about the future. It creates desperation and indecision that paralyzes our logic, thinking, and our actions. When people retain negative attitudes about anything that disagrees with their own version of reality, they are more likely to experience a continued sense of fear that people whose attitudes are less negative than theirs.
The characteristic rants and ravings of John Little, author of 'The Omega Shock Letter' and others like those of the "Pre-Wrath-Rapture-Babble" site that attack the doctrine of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture reflect a logic and reasoning that is deeply rooted in what I believe comes from a cultural background of deeply rooted "legalism". This is easily spotted in those within the more common cults such as the Mormons, the JW's, the SDA's, the Armstrongites, or the British-Israelism heresy; and all of those insisting on Sabbath observance despite what Jesus said about the Sabbath. For those brought up Catholic by the Jesuit-educational system of inculcating fear there is a double bind of legalism and licenses versus Grace and Liberty in Christ.
This is a key in understanding why they refuse to recognize the Dispensational understanding of the Bible. They are either unwilling or unable to accept the fullness of God's Grace. I've noted the question previously, given all the evidence that I have put forth for the reader, why would God go to such elaborate detail in painting the larger picture of His Love and Master Plan of Redemption for us; and why would God take human form to take our sins upon his back, to save us, and redeem us from what is reserved for those that chose to deny Him, and then subject us to Tribulation of a nature unheard of in all of human history? They are more willing to torture the text to support their perception as to how God is dealing with humanity in the Age of Grace. The following contrast helps to define and contrast the difference:
LAW:
1. Prohibits - Exodus 20:7-17; Galatians 3:10
2. Condemns - Romans 7:9
3. Says "do" - Exodus 20:7-17
4. Curses - Galatians 3:10
5. Slays Sinners - Romans 8:2
6. Says, "continue to be holy" - 1 Peter 1:15-16
7. Condemns best man - James 2:10;Galatians 3:10; John 3:3
8. Says, "pay what you owe" - Matthew 18:34
9. "Wages of sin is death" - Romans 6:23
10. Reveal sin - Romans 7:7
11. Given by Moses - John 1:17
12. Demands obedience - Romans 6:11-13; Exodus 20:7-17
13. Done away in Christ - 2nd Corinthians 3:14
14. Shuts every mouth before God - Romans 3:19
15. Written in stone - Exodus 24:12; 31:18
16. Puts us under bondage - Romans 8:15; Galatians 2:4; 5:1
17. Gives knowledge of sin - Romans 3:20
18. Says "the soul that sinneth it shall die" - Ezekiel 18:20
19. Death - Romans 8:2
GRACE:
1. Invites and gives - Matthew 11:28
2. Redeems - Romans 8:1
3. Says "It is done" - John 17:4
4. Blesses - Galatians 3:14
5. Makes sinners alive - Romans 8:2
6. Says, "It is finished" - John 19:30
7. Saves the worst man - 1st Timothy 1:15
8. Says, "I freely forgive all" - Romans 3:24
9. "The gift of God is eternal life" - Romans 6:23
10. Reconciles sin - 2nd Corinthians 5:19
11. Came by Jesus Christ - John 1:17
12. Bestows and gives power to obey - Romans 8:11-13
13. Abides forever - John 6:47
14. Opens the mouth to praise God - Colossians 3:16; Psalms 100:4
15. Written in the tables of the heart - 2nd Corinthians 3:3
16. Set us free in liberty of the sons of God - Romans 8:2; Galatians 5:1
17. Gives redemption from sin - Titus 2:11
18. Believe and they shall live - John 3:16
19. Life - Romans 8:2
1st Corinthians says, "And now abideth faith, hope, love: these three" The opposite of faith is fear; of hope, despair; and of love, indifference. Fear is the "default mode" of the soul that dwells in darkness. This is because the "fallen" soul regards the empirical world and its flux as ultimately real - and therefore "sees in order to believe". The life of faith, on the other hand looks beyond the realm of appearances to behold an abiding glory - and therefore "believe in order to see." How we choose to see is ultimately a spiritual decision for which we are each responsible. Someone once said, "FEAR" is "False Education Appearing Real".
Jesus Christ addressed this when the disciples woke him in the back of the boat; He napped while they were overwhelmed by their fear. He said to them, "Why are you afraid, you men of little faith?" Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm." -"Matthew 8:26.
When a child comes into the world, it has only two fears (falling and loud noises), yet by the time they are five they are burdened with additional fears of abandonment, strangers, spanking and retribution. As adults we find ourselves a bundle of nerves and fears. Radio personalities tell us that our world is falling apart, politicians by their actions tell us there is no hope, we are afraid of saying or doing the wrong think at work or in social situations, we worry that we will not be able to pay the bills this month, and we are afraid we have not instilled the right values in our children, and we are afraid of people who are different from us. Faith is the antidote to every fear that lives in your mind or in your heart. In another post I stated that "fear" will shut down the mind faster than anything known to man. The stock markets are driven by two emotions: "fear and greed". There are web sites out there that exploit these two emotions. Some are driven by patriotism, others by religion, others by politics, others to part you of your money. Whether it is Jim Bakker's survival "food buckets" from the boonies of Arkansas or the "Pre-Wrath-Rapture-Babble" Energizer-bunny drum-beats of sensational headlines, or The Omega Shock Letter, all they have to sell is "FEAR". "Fear tactics" are used by the media, television programming, every advertiser, every political speech, anything that hangs its hat on scare tactics rely on such to boost their ratings somewhere.
As you learn to discern people's motives, remember, there are those that have been raised (educated) as a child to believe in fear, i.e., fear of their teachers, their priests, their God, their church, their employers, their pastors, their fellow co-workers, their existence. They function on a tread mill that says I have to perform, to please, to strive for something, to earn God's love. They cannot deal with God's grace; it's so repugnant to their mindset so they have to attack those that embrace it. In a previous post I noted a quote by Eric Hoffer: "You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you." This is evident by the fact that, even presented with the evidence of their error, they continue to believe in their errant understanding of God's Word.
They hate God's Grace because they were victims of 'Spiritual Abuse' as children where they were prodigies of Jesuit-education and Ignatius Loyola's statement, "Give me a child for his first seven years and I'll give you (a Catholic for life) the man." I find it interesting how so many that came out of Catholicism, even from secular atheistic Judaism, have become fans of the cult "fear" mongers. They hate God's Grace, much like in the days of Jesus, they could not accept a Savior that humbly rode a donkey foal, when they were looking for a Savior on a white steed.
Keep your eyes and focus on the Lord, remembering my note above of Matthew 8:26. I will close with Paul's words to the Romans, "For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." -(Romans 8:15).
Let your life be lifted up by God's Grace.
Pastor Bob