Have you or your kids been to Soul Survivor?

[Coffeeandcards]

You might want to read this if so:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/12/mike-pilavachi-soul-survivor-charity-watchdog/

'A bit questionable'?
There's lots of things forbidden in the Bible that these churches ignore.

Jesus said rather little about sex in his teachings. And what he did say emphasised the compassion rather than condemnation. For example ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone’.
It feels like it was Paul who had the real hang up about sex.

Paul seemed to have a lot of issues, especially with women, all the anti-women leading stuff seemed to come from Paul's writings. I was not a fan of him even when I was a very religious teenager.

I just recently have been really enjoying Bart Ehrmann’s podcast ‘misquoting Jesus’. It was recommended on the I was a Teenage Fundamentalist podcast which is also great if you’re struggling with all this and trying to make sense of your experiences and what you believed/believe.

Bart Ehrmann is a university bible scholar, no longer a Christian, and he aims to make things which are widely known and accepted about the history of the bible accessible to a wider audience. The reason I thought of it is that I just heard an interesting episode about Paul and his letters. Which ones are widely accepted to probably have been written by him, and which are accepted almost certainly were someone else.

also about all the transcription errors that occurred over the centuries and the differences and in some cases contradictions that exist between the various historical texts that we have.

a real eye opener. I remember being curious about when the bible was written etc when I was a fervent Christian in my youth but never found the proper academic answers. Also whilst I think objectively the bible includes some good writings and moral code it’s so scary how people build their lives around it and take parts of it so literally when its origins are by no means black and white!

I think quite a bit of Paul's teaching looks sexist because it has been interpreted by a patriarchal culture. He was fairly revolutionarily feminist for his time.

One of his "co-workers" that he praises was called Junia, a woman. It got changed to Junius in later translations/transcriptions because "a women could not possibly be in leadership". I think he would be horrified if he knew how certain areas of the church had interpreted what he had written.
https://margmowczko.com/
I have found this website really helpful in looking at some of these issues.

@User63847484848 - sounds like an interesting podcast, DH is a massive consumer of 'Great Courses' lecture series on many topics and we've got two of Ehrmann’s.

I remember being curious about when the bible was written etc when I was a fervent Christian in my youth but never found the proper academic answers.

We didn't have the web when I was at that stage, and 'Bible study' in churches didn't actually study the Bible as a document. We were aware of the odd phenomenon whereby doing a degree in theology was liable to cause loss of faith though.

Ah yes I remember being warned about "studying theology" and too much head knowledge....!!!

I was thinking about church plants earlier. People were always "called " to church plant in a nice populous area. Usually ywith a student or professional population. It didn't matter if there were churches already there.

Then I think it was "confirmation bias" as suppose P wants to go to Nice Town. Soon they'd interpret any thing about Nice Town as A Sign. And then when they visit the town they'd get a "feeling"... and lo and behold gods calling them. And how can we argue with God?!

It didn't matter if there were churches already there.

Of course not, they'd be dismissed as 'dead' or even heretical.

Paul was writing to very specific contexts and situations...I reckon he'd be astounded if he knew how literally his writing has been taken "for all time"

On a lighter note can I thank those of you on the thread who said introduced me to Rev! I don’t know how I had never heard of it. Just watched the first two episodes and loved it. And can very much identify with it - my father is a retired vicar very much in the Adam mould - whilst in my misspend youth I think I went to Darren’s evangelical charismatic church!!!

Rev is great - I rewatched it recently.

Rev is one of my favourite programmes of all time. It was just so beautifully observed.

I was at Greenbelt the year the writer did a talk on the programme and the audience was at least 70% vicars and their partners.

Ontological angst 😄

I studied Theology at uni, and while it didn't make me lose my faith, it definitely opened my eyes and made me more critical, and gave me answers to some of the questions I'd been asking as a teenager (and got unsatisfactory answers to back then). It probably was the start of my journey away from charismatic evangelical churches, though I didn't realise that at the time.

I’m watching the first episode of Rev. and loving it:

‘It’s a small sin for the greater good!’ 😁

Episode 2, which I think was mentioned upthread - the trendy evangelical priest gradually pushing Adam off-screen and mentioning that they accept all major credit cards! 😂

Rev is SO good. Glad to have shared the love ❤️. And before Olivia coleman became quite so super famous.

So there's a current youth festival youth leaders take youth groups to called Limitless.. (saw online that a friends kids were going)

I've been all over the website and it wouldn't give me their values or background other than "excellence, family, fun..." etc

I realised their church was a modern evolution charis and didn't know what flavour that was...

It's taken me clicking on the the links to find an email/web address was "limitless elim" or I wouldn't have known!

The church they go to has a website with a standard evolution charis statement of beliefs... followed by a "statement" saying they don't accept any

"we hold to the teachings of the bible on extra marital and forbidden secual practices."

Clicking through forbidden sexual practices mean homosexuality (surely that's within marriage now...)

And that although they'd welcome people they wouldn't condone or celebrate, promote or assist these practices.

It's so sad.

That’s Elim alliance of churches and the one that I have concerns about due to my relative being involved. Teaching around homosexuality and pre-marital sex is exactly what you might expect.

They previously described in their annual report the number of young people ‘coming to the faith’ (can’t remember exact wording) at this event. So it would be a case of coming up to the front I am sure. 😕

Interesting how you had to click through a lot to get to their views on that.

I think now, even more than in the 90s. so many young people would find those views abhorrent. I would suspect many many of the young people going to that festival don’t know that the church behind it holds those views, as I’m sure it’s still like it was back in the day that lots of young people go because friends are going and aren’t that into it before they go then ‘give their lives’ to Jesus whilst they’re there.

Yeah, lots of churches with particularly strong no-sex-before-marriage and gay-sex-is-wrong views go to great lengths to keep that quiet to outsiders, because they know it's a view that most people find abhorrent these days.

Yes the festival doesn't have the bits about sex on it but the church one did.

Evolution meant evo as evangelical sorry. Can't believe I made the same typo twice!

https://www.limitlessfestival.co.uk/

I'm so out of it these days I'd never heard of it... they do also offer a BA in youth ministry. Their "ethical framework" is based around the 3 Ss of Youth ministru - sex salvation and spiritual experience 🙄. All degrees are not equal.

Oh don't get me started! I have been looking E4SquareGAlliance (writing obscurely to avoid search) for a long time:

*Almost entirely male national leadership. A woman has finally broken through onto the national leadership group (elected 2022), but I am pretty sure they were the first. The other eleven are men, the majority of whom are white.

*They run a theological college which also happens to be the HQ of the church. Convenient! Lovely refurbished building up on the hills in Malvern. All the training of ministers (of course they encourage ministers to go to their own college rather than another university) etc means a nice little flow of income: £9,000 per year x 3 years for classroom-based degrees. Plus conferences, room hire and accommodation.

*They got £50m last year in donations and legacies (Source: Charity Commission).

*One of their four key strategic aims is 'planting churches'. 🙄(Source: 2022 Annual report). They seem more enthusiastic about growth than the Ottoman Empire...

*They took furlough grants during Covid and don't seem to have made any attempt to pay them back, which, although unusual, is an option and a number of large companies have done so. Note the £50m donations, again.

*The L!m!tless Pioneers scheme actively tries to set up engagement in schools. There was a paragraph in their 2017 annual report (no longer on their website, but might be on the Charity Commission site) describing this programme's activities. This describes a youth leader who 'made connections with the high school’s pastoral team and got involved in one-to-one mentoring with students. This eventually led to us launching a mid-week youth group, building trust, and out of the overflow of that, making spiritual progress with some attending on a Sunday.' I would not be happy with an evangelical church providing 'one-to-one mentoring' if I were a parent at that school. Training and professionalism is one factor; coming with an ulterior motive is another!

*Oh and finally, they seem to have taken a leaf out of the soul survivor handbook, here's the description of the Pioneers gap year programme - yours for the bargain price of £2,500: 'You will be working in schools, doing detached work and helping to start and establish a new evangelistic youth work in and through a church.' They live with 'a family', presumably a member of the congregation. So could those one-to-one mentors working in schools actually be unqualified gap year students? https://www.elim.org.uk/Articles/607834/Limitless_Pioneers_Gap.aspx

Thanks to the poster up thread who mentioned the ‘I was a teenage fundamentalist’ podcast, I am on episode 4 now and finding a lot chimes with me. It’s carefully done and as balanced as they can be given their experiences.