I have been exposed to a different religion. This happened through a series of videos that I have been watching that a friend turned me on too. The video series is called, "The Confidence in Jesus Seminar". This seminar took place a couple years ago in Oxford Maine, at a 7th-Day Adventist Church, over 21 nights I believe, and it is on YouTube.
Kudos to the people who made it through the entire thing. I watched nine of them and decided that I had seen enough. There was a lot of repetitiveness, and a lot of interpretation that I found interesting but simply don't agree with.
It was like Bible ADHD the way he bounced around from verse to verse coming to all of these conclusions. They were mostly based on single passages that are taken out of context, and used to interpret the end time prophecies, which these people seem to be a little too fixated on.
From there, I went on and did a little bit of research and learned what I needed to know.
I don't have much nice to say honestly. I mean, I'm sure these are all good people. We're all looking for meaning in a chaotic and sinful world, and apparently these people find it there. We're all looking for our connection to God. And if this church brings people closer to Jesus and ultimately to Heaven, then all the power to them.
One warning that he gives repeatedly in these videos is this: "Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived. Don't be deceived!" It was a way of claiming that every other religion missed the mark.
Another phrase that he uses repeatedly is this, "95% of Christians believe this, but that's not what the Bible says...". And of course, he's going to tell you what it does say because he has the real answer.
Okay!
I decided that I had heard enough after he claimed that the Catholic Church was the beast that was prophesized in the book of Revelations, and that the Pope is the Antichrist. He went on to criticize the sacrament of reconciliation, which the Catholics often refer to as confession, which was also the path that started me down my own personal spiritual journey into the church. And he claimed that the Catholics changed the ten commandments in the Bible. Then he says that they're not bashing the Catholics.
As for the changing of the wording in regard to the 10 Commandments, it is true that there are variations in wording between the Catholic Bible and the King James version, but it wasn't the Catholics who changed anything. It was the fact that the King James version of the bible which these people use comes from a different source, a different set of ancient Greek texts, and was put together by people who were involved in the Protestant Reformation during the 16th Century AD. The Catholic Bible was translated by Saint Jerome in the 4th Century AD.
There is one other thing that really concerned me. And that is he says is something like, we need to know what's in the heart of Satan, so that we can know how to resist him, and I guarantee you he has no clue what he is talking about.
I have seen enough. Honestly. They're very anti-Catholic. It is clear that whoever founded this Seventh-Day Adventist religion back around 1863, lacks any realistic understanding of Catholics or the Catholic Church. That's common among the Protestant religions, but these people take it to a whole new level. It's like they hate what they believe about the Catholic Church, not what they know about the Catholic Church, which isn't much because if they did have an understanding of the Catholic Church, what it teaches, and what it offers, they'd be much more likely to be drawn toward Catholicism than this.
I'm not going to claim that the Catholic Church is perfect in any way. It's run by imperfect humans. The church has had her controversies, and even priests need to go to confession every now and then because we all fall short. But the teachings of the Catholic Church are much more hopeful and joyful, I guess you can say.
When done right, meaning that you make a heartfelt confession, the sacrament of reconciliation is powerful way to help yourself heal by experiencing Jesus. It helped me to deal with mistakes I've made, the regrets I have, and the sins that I have committed in my life. As I stated earlier, this was the beginning of my spiritual journey into the church. Thank God I had it available to me when I did. That's all I can say. Without it, who knows where I would be now?
So, if this works for you, than have at it. I will pray for you.
The saddest thing of all is that if you tried to explain anything to any of these people, they will probably have canned responses to anything that you say.
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