Personal convictions?

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Soloist
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Personal convictions?

Post by Soloist »

How does the church/individual need to handle personal convictions?

I'll give a few examples but I'm sure there are others...

Homeopathy being witchcraft

Defilement theory of D/R and reconciliation theory

Refusal to wear hats (primarily directed at old order/eastern) or mandating hats

Opaque caps

CCM (contemporary Christian music)

jewelry aka the wedding ring and or Gold wrist watches

Sunday school or not

Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Harry potter...


Thoughts?
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lesterb
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Re: Personal convictions?

Post by lesterb »

Maybe you should also ask how to tell the difference between conviction and personal opinion or preference. When is it proper to give up a personal preference to be part of a group? Especially, when the alternative is standing alone as a family.

Or am I misunderstanding your question?
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Sudsy
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Re: Personal convictions?

Post by Sudsy »

Soloist wrote:How does the church/individual need to handle personal convictions?

Thoughts?
Romans 14. Personal convictions should be just that, 'personal', to how you serve the Lord. When the local church gets involved in dictating what to do and what not to do (which primarily is on what not to do), I believe this can be interfering with how the Holy Spirit works in His way and in His timing in our sanctification. Basically, that is how our Anabaptist church operates.
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Soloist
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Re: Personal convictions?

Post by Soloist »

lesterb wrote:Maybe you should also ask how to tell the difference between conviction and personal opinion or preference. When is it proper to give up a personal preference to be part of a group? Especially, when the alternative is standing alone as a family.

Or am I misunderstanding your question?
I'm specifically talking about convictions here. All of these I know people or would hold to some of these as convictions myself. Easiest one without looking at my list again would be hats. I have a conviction against wearing hats as mandated by the church. Its one thing to cover for sun protection or when doing surgery in an operating room... its another thing to mandate that you must wear hats. I'd be okay with a rule of, if you wear a hat it must be this one.
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Hats Off
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Re: Personal convictions?

Post by Hats Off »

Soloist wrote:How does the church/individual need to handle personal convictions?

I'll give a few examples but I'm sure there are others...

Homeopathy being witchcraft some times we need to develop conviction - we do not expressly forbid homeopathy but in my opinion we should. I try to educate but also to be patient.

Defilement theory of D/R and reconciliation theory I am not familiar with the terms you use. I would suggest we should look to Mark 10 for our guidance on this and develop conviction.

Refusal to wear hats (primarily directed at old order/eastern) or mandating hats I have struggled some with this but there are always glib or convincing arguments that 1 Cor 11 does not apply to our hat.

Opaque caps

CCM (contemporary Christian music)

jewelry aka the wedding ring and or Gold wrist watches

Sunday school or not My personal experience with SS has been that too often the time would be better spent with teaching/preaching. I would suggest that if you are with a group that does not have SS and you are convicted,
they should, it might be better to move if you have that option.


Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Harry potter... Personally, I wish everyone had convictions against this type of "literature."


Thoughts?
The whole premise behind church is that we become a body of believers, ready to leave some things for the sake of unity in the body. Sometimes we need to develop conviction - sometimes it may be good to question our personal convictions. Sometimes it is possible to keep your convictions without upsetting the rest of the body.
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Neto
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Re: Personal convictions?

Post by Neto »

When we became a part of our congregation, there were some things that I didn't completely agree with, but I felt that it was worth it to give up something in order to be a part of the group (like wearing a straight cut suit instead of the laydowns I already had). (I suspect that this is what Lester is referring to as well.)

But I think that it is very important how these guidelines are expressed. If, for instance, a congregation claims that their particular style of hat is mandated by Scripture, then I'd know that they are severely messed up, and that I would not want to belong there. But if they can lay out a Scriptural principle, and then state that it has been agreed to express obedience to this Biblical principle in this certain way, then I'd ask myself if I can honestly say that I will follow it, and without resentment. If not, then I simply do not belong there. (I do not appreciate people coming in with the determination to change the congregation already solidified in their mind. They should just go some place where it is already to their liking.)

Reading back over this now, I must say that I do not remember how the straight cut was justified. Certainly there is no remotely valid Biblical reason that I can think of, any more than for a particular style of hat. But it was worth it to me to comply, and I never fudged on it, even when I was out of state visiting back in the Mennonite Brethren setting in which I grew up.)
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Re: Personal convictions?

Post by Hats Off »

As has been noted elsewhere, old order people do not normally make official statements that their way of doing things is mandated in scripture (other than issues like D/R). I will apologize to a seeker for the way we do things even while continuing to explain that "this is the way we do this." If you want to be part of our body, you will want to do this the way we do.

The one reason I like to continue with the plain suit is that it stops us from going down the road of unchecked fashion.
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Neto
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Re: Personal convictions?

Post by Neto »

Hats Off wrote: The one reason I like to continue with the plain suit is that it stops us from going down the road of unchecked fashion.
True that. And it would not bother me to go back to it. (Our congregation dropped it some years back already, but I do still have mine - the only one I've ever owned, remade from a laydown I had been given used at a "clothes closet" for missionaries a few years before we moved to the more conservative congregation.)

I do think that it is helpful to articulate (& write down) the why of what we do and do not do. Not just for the sake of outsiders, but for the sake of our children, so they are not confused in thinking that it is what it means to be a follower of Jesus. I also think it is important to separate what is doctrine from what is practice, so that the two are not confused.
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Josh
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Re: Personal convictions?

Post by Josh »

An open question is how it’s possible for the Holy Spirit to give conflicting “personal convictions” to different people.
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Wayne in Maine
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Re: Personal convictions?

Post by Wayne in Maine »

Josh wrote:An open question is how it’s possible for the Holy Spirit to give conflicting “personal convictions” to different people.
This is another case, I believe, where we deceive ourselves and where Christians as a group (groups) are simply content with this deception. How can we believe that God expects you to wear a wide rimmed black had and that I should be bareheaded? How can we believe that the Holy Spirit expects me to wear a beard with no moustache, and you to be clean shaven? Quite frankly I suspect that God is pretty indifferent to a lot of our "personal convictions".

I believe most personal conviction is just that - personal. And by the same token I think that many of the regulations of plain groups have nothing to do with what Jesus and His apostles actually taught, rather they are rules and customs such and any group setting boundaries will and should have.

We should
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