Whoa, that ain’t kosher.
Did you know that in the late 1700’s-early 1800’s, Methodism was the main group of ecstatic C’nity? John Wesley himself was rather reserved, but boy did people cut loose in the meetings!
I’m Assembly of God, and I’ve seen very mild forms of what START’s described. Sometimes I’m right in the middle of it, sometimes I’m kinda detached & thinking “Boy, if I were an outsider, this would just look insane!”
We’ve had certain individuals who were more demonstrative than others, occasionally to the extent of being disruptive, and when that occurs, while rare. the pastor & elders have taken them aside for counseling.
One of the best comments I heard was from the Pensacola Revival pastor whose name I can’t recall immediately. He spoke at our church & said that in one service (at another church), a women just sat down in the aisle & kept screaming & weeping. He was getting really concerned & started to intervene when someone stopped him & explained that this woman had been frequently molested by her father when she was little & had not let herself cry or show much emotion for years. This was a necessary part of her emotional healing.
Btw, in many of these churches, once the crying & shaking stops, the people do get active in helping the community, which is a factor in why these are often the fastest growing churches in America.
I’d have to actually visit START’s church to assess the situation. So far, I see no real cause for alarm, tho if such a service were a regular thing & it became obvious that the pastor was working the room to provoke these outbursts, I’d then be looking for some other fellowship that could balance exuberance with reason.
Wordplay? On what words?
I was raised Catholic.
Now if you don’t know the Catholic mass is fairly regimented. Very little room for improv so to speak.
Anyway, at one part of the mass is everystands and says the Lord’s Prayer.
Well everyone stands and bows their and mumbles the Lord’s prayer.
So when I was about 9 these new people to our church stood up and turned their head up and held their arms out to the side like they were on the cross. This sent a wave of shock and a little bit of panic through me. I mean, someone was doing something different!!!
As for a the service in the OP, well, that is par for the course there so I would expect it. I would be suprised that I was seeing it as I avoid Church or getting up early on Sunday at all costs.
Intentionally misconstruing “atheist” as using the suffix “-est” and therefore being the superlative version of the (falsely back-constructed) adjective “athie” or “athy.”
I sincerely doubt the OP intended any such wordplay when he wrote the thread title.
… Am I being whooshed?
<Gidget, the Materialist> “Oh, Daddy! He’s the athiest!” </Gidget>
Math/Statistics at a Community College…and have you ever seen a statistics textbook? You have to be pretty darn smart to understand it and I’d a imagine a genius to teach it, so all that stuff about being below average intelligence that people might think about pentecostals doesn’t apply here. 
I don’t know, I think your thinking I’m in some type of cult. We don’t believe that anyone has to “go crazy” as some might put it to be “saved” and my church is no different than 1000’s of others so if I’m being damaged then so are a lot of people.
Well, considering I was a member in a church that appears to be very similar to yours (not only in the actions you described of the congregation, but in those of the pastor), I doubt I would change my opinion were I to attend your services. In the Pentecostal church I attended, no one ever said that one had to “go crazy” in order to receive salvation, but it seemed as though such behavior was expected of a good Christian. I imagine the attitude in your church is probably similar, especially given the manner in which your pastor brought the youth to the front in order to get them more “excited”, as you put it.
As to whether or not I think you’re in a cult, I can tell you that I think I was involved in something very similar to a cult. I certainly wouldn’t have said so when I thought of myself as a Christian, either. However, I now consider fundamentalist Christianity to be a very vile thing, so I’m biased.
Where are you seeing this wordplay happening? I was just bitching about the OP’s blatant misspelling in the thread title.
Ecstatic religions are something outside my experience, except for what I’ve seen on television. I’d sort of like to see it firsthand, but I’d need to be behind a two-way mirror; I certainly wouldn’t want to be in the middle of the action. I find it unsettling.
What constitutes spirituality for me is the exact opposite of ecstatic religion. It consists of people sitting still for 45 minutes, then walking slowly back and forth for 45 minutes, then sitting, then walking, all the while not saying a word. I imagine a lot of people might find that pretty weird.
Pity, mostly. When I was a Presbyterian I had mixed feelings about “inspired displays,” being partly impressed and partly repulsed, but when I left the church, I found myself saddened by this and other extreme displays of faith. The public preacher, the man who’s turned his truck into a cross on wheels, and the ecstatic are all wasting their time and energy on illusions. In my more misanthropic moments, of course, I just feel contempt, and am apt to dismiss all religious folk as liars, fools, or madmen.
Apologies. I assumed that you had missed MrO’s joke here
A search finds 672 threads with “athiest”. I don’t ake it too seriously, I’m just a hobbiest.
I’ve seen this sort of thing rarely. Catholics are pretty sedate. But, I visited a different religion’s service, and I found it weird. I can’t shake the feeling that the person was just playing to an audience, just like the distant relative who screams and throws themselves across the deceased at a funeral. Attention whores maybe? Flame away.
It’s usually context that makes something funny or not, but yeah, I probably would have busted out laughing if I’d seen this. Especially if it went on long enough.
I would find that a lot less weird.
Tentacle Monster, I suppose I shouldn’t laugh, but it is a very amusing thought, isn’t it? This one church was much more involved than the other Pentecostal churches I’ve been to. I’d never seen such a sight. (And of course, I wasn’t warned beforehand and that was my first time in a Pentecostal church.)
jayjay, I imagine the converse is the common reaction, but if one thought it through a bit more. . . I mean, I’m sure that the Pentecostal church-goers also pray in solitude at home without speaking in tongues and twitching. (Errm, right??) Do they not feel a bond with God unless they are in a group? If they do pray in solitude and feel a connection to God, can it not be that other church members do so in their group?
Different strokes for different folks but I must admit, nice or not, that I see this as a rather irrational belief system.
Compared to most things Christians do/say/believe, that seems pretty tame.