Questions to ask before joining Pastor John's House.com

Perhaps you’ve been introduced to the ministry at Pastor John’s House (www.pastorjohnshouse.com), via the internet or otherwise.  If you’ve attended a few of their meetings, you’ve probably been treated with kindness and respect (not uncommon as this generally is a loving group of people).  On the surface, things may appear normal and healthy enough in this ministry.

If you are considering joining them, you might want to first ask some questions (preferably of the leadership).  This group requires much from its members (both in terms of time and financial resources), so it may be a good idea to ask some questions now, before you find yourself in a situation that you later find regrettable.

Here are a few questions you might ask:

- Apparently, many families have broken up while involved with your ministry.  How many families would you say have split here, and can you share with me the circumstances surrounding these break ups?

- You all have treated me with love, kindness and respect - is there anything that could possibly change that in the future?

- Is there a possibility that you will ever ask me to leave?  Under what circumstances have you asked people to leave in the past?

- Am I free to come and go to church meetings as I please?  Is there an attendance expectation that I should be aware of?

- Am I free to contribute my financial resources if and when I want?  If I don’t feel led to give at any time, am I permitted to continue attending your services and/or participate in other church-related activities?

- Should I ever expect to feel any kind of pressure from your members or the leadership?

- Must I agree with everything that is taught here?  If no, in what areas can we differ in our opinions/interpretations of things?

- Does this group communicate much with or have many quality relationships with "outsiders"?  If no, why not? 

- Do you preach fear in your ministry?  Do you ever use it as a tool to control and/or manipulate others?

- The incidence of people under your care who have gone clinically insane is alarmingly high. Can you please share the circumstances surrounding each of those cases?

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

A teacher who points to himself rather than within [you] only wants followers.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

Love has no desire to be worshiped.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Most religion is an over-analytical, unnecessarily-complicated (either fear-based or comfort-based) alternative to the absolute simplicity and undeniable nakedness of nature and reality." - Ken Dahl

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Love is simple.  Religion is complicated as hell." - Bruce Harbert 

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"I never consider a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend." - Thomas Jefferson

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

When a child is told to love and obey his father with the threat of torture for not complying, it's called abuse.

When the same is told to masses of people, it's called religion.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

Most religious folk want to convince you their god knows best, while they spend their time praying that it changes its mind.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

If you really love someone, you won't let them follow you.

Meditations for a Christian Fundamentalist

Listen to the wind, it talks.
Listen to the silence, it speaks.
Listen to your heart, it knows.

- Native American Proverb

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

Let's feed the hungry.  House the homeless.  Give healthcare to the sick.  Empower the weak.  Once we've accomplished this, then we can sit around and argue about religion.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"If the "God" you've heard about demands your worship while he tortures your loved ones forever, you've heard about a bogus god." - Charlie Slagle

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

People are the least lovable when they need love the most.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

Some people will only love you as long as you fit into their box. 

Go ahead, disappoint them.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"You cannot save people, you can only love them." - Anais Nin

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

We have been lied to since birth - by our government, our churches, our media, our history books, and our schools.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want." - Lao Tzu

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Thinking is difficult, that's why most people judge." - Carl Jung

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"If you don't love me, I'll make sure you burn forever."

If it's creepy when your boyfriend says it, why is it beautiful when God says it?

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

Be wary of any belief or ideology that promotes division between you and your fellow human beings.  

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." - Mark Twain

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

The only thing sadder than an adult with an imaginary friend is an adult with an imaginary enemy.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those that cannot read or write but those who cannot unlearn the many lies they have been taught to believe.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"They came with a Bible and their religion stole our land, crushed our spirit . . . and now tell us we should be thankful to the 'Lord' for being saved." - Chief Pontiac (d. 1769)

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

Sometimes when people make me angry, I ask myself, "What would God do?"

Then I try to drown them.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"During his 3.5 years or so of ministry on this planet, Jesus had no issues with social outcasts like tax collectors, drunkards, prostitutes and eunuchs.  He used to be friends with them.  After his resurrection and ascension to heaven, he became a member of the Christian religion, accepting only those who are sinless and pure." - Tomsan Kattackal

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

We all place ourselves in danger to one degree or another when we stand up, but we place our children and grandchildren in even greater danger when we don't.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"If you lose a friend over a disagreement, you didn't have a friend in the first place." - Luis Fernando Mises

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all this is wrong with the world." - Dr. Paul Farmer

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

God is angry at David for having Uriah killed.  As a punishment, he will have David's wives raped by his neighbor while everyone else watches.

"I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto they neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun." (Samuel 12:11-12)

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

If you still believe what you've been taught without doing your research, then your brainwashing was a success.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

The New Testament, the writings of Josephus and the church fathers were all orchestrated by imperial Rome.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

There's a big problem with religions that have all the answers.  They don't allow questions.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"One person's theology is another's belly laugh." - Robert Heinlein

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Christians, the LORD has told me to tell you that He is infinitely grateful to you for having given him your consent to save you." - Tomsan Kattackal

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness." - Alejandre Jodorowsky

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Despairing people cannot find comfort in a "Savior of the world" who has actually planned to only save a few wise, fortunate souls." - Charlie Slagle

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"If I could stop a person from raping a child, I would. That's the difference between me and your god." - Tracie Harris

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Your beliefs will separate you from others . . . but your love never will." - Bruce Harbert

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

If your religion teaches you not to question, your religion is hiding something from you.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.  It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Christian logic: I can't prove anything, so I'll just threaten you with eternal torture in a supernatural place that only the dead can see." - Angel Ripper

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"All war is a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal." - John Steinbeck

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"There is no hell quite as torturous as that of a life lived in the shadow of the sort of "god" who would create one." - Jeff Turner

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

When children play together, they don't ask each other what they believe.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

There are almost 5,000 gods being worshipped by humanity. But don't worry...only yours is right.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Jesus was a reckless lover of people,
and He refused to bow down...
to the religious expectation...
of loving from a distance.
He was up close, real, and embracing.
He touched the lepers,
He drew close to the prostitutes,
He invited the scoundrels of society to dinner.
He was hated by the religious, not for his theology,
but for his love,
for His love was not made up by words he spoke,
but by the life he lived.
Be like Jesus.
Love so much it makes religious people uncomfortable." - Mick Mooney

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Ego says, 'Once everything falls into place, I'll find peace.'  Spirit says, 'Find your peace, and then everything will fall into place.'" - Marianne Williamson

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

It's been my experience . . . that those who preach fire and brimstone . . . are living it.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

Become friends with people who aren't your age.  Hang out with people whose first language isn't the same as yours.  Get to know someone who doesn't share your social or religious upbringing.  This is how you see the world.  This is one way you grow.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

You can safely assume you have created a god in your own image when it turns out God hates all the same people you do.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Paul, having received his Commission and Revelation directly from Jesus Christ, never spoke about hell.  Did he miss something, or?" - Dan Shaffer

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.  Without them, humanity cannot survive." - Dalai Lama

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"To win friends and influence people, terrify them with threats of torture and destruction, and command them to love you!" - Charlie Slagle

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"The goal of the secret teachings of Jesus was to rewire and liberate our consciousness so that we could see past the illusions of Earth life and connect with the God Head, the means by which is already hidden within us.  According to Gnostic teaching, the purpose of mortal existence is to reclaim the skin of light, re-enter the gate of Eden and dwell in the Garden of Life.  All else is death.  Find that gate and we shall live forever in bliss.  Concerning the Garden, the Gnostics taught that in the Garden stands the holy Tree of Life.  High in its branches sings a bird.  Listen for the voice of the bird, for when you are properly aligned with Heaven and Earth, she will tell you all things.

The bird (usually a dove) is a symbol for Sophia, the Holy Spirit, or the Wisdom.  When this Wisdom comes, she will lead one into all Truth.

The reason why modern Christians may not have heard of this Way is because, like the Cathars who attempted to revive the pure teachings of Jesus in the 13th century, its teachers were brutally murdered or driven into exile.  Its books were condemned, destroyed or vanished from sight.  Simply, appallingly, as a result of a cover-up of the actual teachings of Jesus begun more than seventeen hundred years ago the real Jesus is considered the greatest heretic to modern Christians.  We must also recognize that today's dictionaries and accepted translations of Greek words, and even thesauruses, also reflect the impostor Judaeo-Christian worldview, which is a product of the same council.  As history shows, if the meanings of words (such as the word Christ) are changed a people can be conquered, enslaved." - William Henry

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Stephen Hawking

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

“Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.” - Ben Okri

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Religion says, 'Be like me.'  Love says, 'Be like you.'" - Barbara Symons

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"All great truths begin as blasphemies." - George Bernard Shaw

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"The fundamentalists of every faith remain blind to the truth that the 'sigh within the prayer is the same in the heart of the Christian, the Muslim, and the Jew.'" - David James Duncan

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

“Similarly, it does not matter what the mind is doing once you identify it as a fool. If there is somebody very stupid around you who goes on blabbering, do you not learn to simply ignore him and carry on with your work? That is all you need to do.” - Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudevuru

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

“God created mankind in His image and likeness, remember? For some reason, you people always forget your divinity.” - Stefan Emunds

Meditations of a Christian fundamentalist

“Intuition is not a different dimension of perception, as people usually try to make out. Intuition is just a quicker way of arriving at the same answer. Intuition is just a way of making use of the data and jumping the steps.” - Sadhguru

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

“Don't be so loyal to your mind; the mind is not loyal to you.” - Bert McCoy

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

 “Keep in mind my friend, if an answer is not rational, then it is not an answer, but a delusion.” - Abhijit Naskar

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"The soul that walks in love neither tires others nor grows tired." - John of the Cross

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"What you're looking for is where you're looking from." - St. Francis of Assisi

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"If you could be silent from all willing and thinking for one hour, you would hear God's inexpressible words." - Jakob Bohme

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"To me, spirituality is about two things: The liberation of consciousness from all illusion, so that the true nature can shine and an embodiment in life that is an alternative to the patterns of manipulation and greed that dominate our current culture." - John Bund

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"You cannot have what you seek
Until you seek what you have
Then you realize
That you cannot have anything
But that you are everything."
- Lonnie Lockett

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"When you love, love as if the person is a god, not less than that.  Never love a woman as a woman and never love a man as a man." - Osho Rajneesh

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"In Rabbinic Judaism, there is no developed doctrine of eternal torment.  Which raises the question: Why is it that when the "good news" is announced by Jesus, hell comes with it?  How is that "good?"  Perhaps we should call it the "mixed news" of Christ?  Or the "good, the bad and the ugly news."  But not simply the "good news." - Matthew Distefano

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Church is where you go to buy and sell...what was freely given at birth." - Bruce Harbert

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." - Voltaire

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Decades of painstaking labor to be "pleasing in His sight" completely dissolved in that one moment of awakening." - Sharon Palmer Tucker

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Love is a message of peace and goodwill toward all men...not just a few." - Dean Dosher

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Earthly dads who endlessly hurt their kids go to jail.  Yet Christians bid us to worship a 'heavenly father' who does exactly that." - Charles Slagle

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"There are many ways of saying the same thing.  Don't discount it just because it isn't your way." - Origen

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"My two worst addictions were religion and cocaine.  One stole my heart, blurred my mind, took my family, depleted my funds, destroyed my dreams, made me paranoid, taught me to hide and ruined my life.  The other was a white powdery substance." - Robert Rutherford

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"The institution(s) does not have your answers...does not protect you...does not know what's best for you and/or your children.  You don't need the institution(s).  The institution(s) does not tell you truth.  People are not your enemy.

Everything for your life originates from your own within.  Why?  Because mankind was created with wisdom because he is spirit, which simply means he is part of the Whole that we call God.

But we are taught, from birth, to disengage from our within and handle life from without.  That's cutting our own lifeline.

Reconnect.  Turn off the issues screaming at you from this 3D reality.  Turn off the news.  Stop giving your energy to the propaganda of life, of the world around you.  Engage with your within and your life changes." - Judy Schrader

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Why am I no longer a Christian?  I wasn't allowed to love God's enemies." - Bruce Harbert

Meditations for a Christian fundamentalist

"Ultimate reality is that which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it." - Phillip K. Dick