RobWood wrote:
When you're wallowing in self-loathing and guilt, common sense and reasoning are no match for hard-line religious programming. I've always likened hardcore Christianity to a game, wherein if you play well, you get health, happiness, prosperity, salvation and baptism in the Holy Spirit, but if you play badly, you chronically suffer from "ailments" such as addiction or abuse or homosexuality (using your example). You can ask for deliverance, but if it doesn't "take," there are only two possible explanations:

1. That's not how life actually works.
2. You are a failure.

Yeah, definitely that's not how life actually works. It's been my experience though, having been involved with and part of three different subcultures within Christianity (Catholicism, Mainline Protestant and Fundamentalist Baptist, at different times) and having only...granted close...peripheral involvement with Pentecostalism...in those other groups there was always a general sense that life didn't always work the way that the leadership said it did or should. It's always been like, seriously scary-obvious to me how much the "game" of Pentecostalism is rigged in favor of the leadership...that was one of the reasons I never bit one of their baited hooks and got sucked in...but I am always amazed...and can't help but wonder how so many others do not see this? Maybe its just that I already had a decent religious education...but even knowing next to nothing about Pentecostalism I had some of their doctrines pegged as being pure fantasy right from the beginning...what really scares me is those doctrines are only getting worse...yet the number of people that get sucked in isn't getting any smaller. I've heard Pentecostalism is the fastest growing group in Christianity...how so many people don't spot all the bullsh!t is something I will never figure out.