Looking4truth wrote:
I have been more open than she has. I have had to pull and pry with her in order to get to to express almost anything emotional with me. But, despite this, I have no doubt that she loves me. Now that you mention it, yes...pentecostals are quite shifty and do not say what they mean most of the time...this could explain why she "didn't think about religion" when she told me that she loved me and wanted to spend the rest of her life with me. Then, a few days ago, while she was informing me that she had been invited by her mother to a pentecostal ladies conference and was going to attend...she throws in (casually), "I told you that I was one day returning to pentecost". I was floored, as this is NOT what she had told me...matter of fact she had made many comments over months that led me to believe that while she may always believe in god, she would NEVER return to that brand of christianity! I have NO problem with her believing in god, I do however have a HUGE problem with her returning to pentecost or any brand of christianity that would split us up!

I agree with your saying that as ex-pentes our skill of expression is quite crude. I know that mine is...I say things in the most awful ways some times. And that is making my situation harder, because I'm being roughly honest with her, and she getting defensive...and we are getting nowhere in conversation.

She is a hard person to get to be 110% honest (not meaning she lies, she doesn't...not intentionally--she just...like you said...acts like a typical pentecostal in presenting half-truths and also deluding herself in order to delude others, etc)....it has always been a struggle with us...I have to sweat blood just about in order to get her to open up to me...completely.

It's hard...and I do not think she has the desire to leave that brand of pentecost...despite what it is going to cost us as a family.
Something else occurred to me as we discuss this.

The crude way of Pentecostal expression often causes other people to be dishonest with us. In expressing certain ideas, a Pentecostal is implicitly expecting no disagreement. Thus, in the overbearing expression, the person listening feels intimidated by the expression, and the fear that expression of a disagreement will lead to an emotional outburst. So, to avoid the inevitable dramatic outburst, the listener will agree to almost anything to avoid a nasty confrontation. This is why all the people we invited to church would come just to please us, and never return again, and even avoid us in the future because they were intimidated into agreeing with the witnessing pitch.

I think we have to work hard at undoing some of this leftover baggage. We often unconsciously use these same techniques with our dealings with others, forgetting that a functional (as opposed to dysfunctional) way of dealing with people is to work-through and walk-through the issues, expecting disagreements, and even welcoming disagreements, and expecting that our disagreements are a chance to clarify an opposing point of view so that we learn how the other thinks and thereby enriching our understanding.

If we approach people as doing a sales pitch as we were trained to do in witnessing, we are setting them up to be dishonest with us and saying that they agree with us just to avoid the unpleasantness of a dramatic blow-up.


Lutherius, Ex-Pentecostal Godfather

"Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment."
"Just when I thought I was out... they pull me back in."
"When they come... they come at what you love."
"He'd better be careful. It's dangerous to be a honest man."
Michael Corleone

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