"The Certainty of the Unexpected" by Pamela Ruth Stewart

[irvinegrey]

Jan 9, 2014 11:51:27 GMT -5 Pamela Ruth Stewart said:

Dec 30, 2013 16:05:53 GMT -5 irvinegrey said:

I have just finished reading this book for a second time and I am deeply moved by a story that is told with sensitivity and without rancour. This book deserves a wide audience and it is only a very obscurantist 2x2 who would accuse Pamela of being a bitter ex.

Hello Irvine,

Thank you for your comments.  I am so pleased that you can see there is no bitterness or rancour.   My heart's prayer continues to be the release of the captives into the wonder of God's grace through Jesus Christ.    

I have a supply of Pamela's book and I will make it available to anyone who wants a copy. To cover postage and packaging all you need do is go to my website www.irvinegrey.com and press the donate button and enter £5 and I will mail it anywhere in the world. In plain packaging, of course!

[Dubious Disciple (xdc)]

Jan 9, 2014 11:42:07 GMT -5 Pamela Ruth Stewart said:

i there, thank you very much for doing a review on my book. I have read through the article and found your comments very interesting. Particularly the "conservative belief" comments! I was surprised to read that you had be B&R in the 2x2s but it sounds like your experience was more positive then most and I was pleased to hear that not everyone has suffered in the same way. Thanks again.

I think most experiences are quite positive, Pamela. Everybody I left behind seems quite happy. But the f&w way is more intense than most, so it is going to churn out more problem situations.

[Lee]

Pamela's book can be borrowed through the lending library. I finished reading it last night. The thing that struck me the most about her story was the adversity she experienced during her redemption from the spiritual nexus presented to her in the 2x2. Whatever your theory of spiritual warfare may be, surely our victories come where joy and peace may be found.

[thenorthwindsblow]

I saw a documentary the other day about Pope John Paul I. As you will all recall, he was only in the papacy for approximately one month. Like others, according to the documentary, I was fooled into believing that the man died unexpectedly of a heart attack. The documentary pointed out that what really happened was that the man was murdered by the Italian Mafia, and it explains why. It also shared that some other church leaders in the past have died of suspicious circumstances. This causes me to wonder if there is a church out there that really is right. It seems to me that all religions are man-made and full of the failings and errors man brings with him. I know some workers have made mistakes, as have some priests, and on both of these sides some have been arrested even. The same can be said of all other religions I can think of. Everybody in prison has a religion, who is Christian I suppose. Where, though, does the element of forgiveness enter in? How much is acceptable and forgivable? At what level do we forgive? I wonder what the greatest sin is; the greatest mistake made ever; on the part of the workers in the truth? Does anyone know? What is the right church any way? Thanks for telling us about Pam Stewart's book Cherie. Will have to give it a read one of these days soon. [I published a book, too, on parenting awhile back, but the publisher seems to be pretty crooked, so I want to do a second edition. I have made about $13.10 in total royalties since the book first came out in 2011. Just like selecting churches, a person has to be careful who they publish with.

[Mary]

There are plenty of good churches out there. But remember if you are looking for the perfect church then once you (or I) go it will no longer be perfect. of course there are some real bad ones too as there are bad people but I have found that there are far more good churches than bad. Providing you stick to main stream churches you should find a good one - if a church is what you are looking for.

[faune]

Sept 25, 2013 17:28:02 GMT -5 uker260702 said:

Cherie, thanks for the info. Hope to order in the next few days.

She also has some of her story (audio)on her website. Mainly about her faith but she touches on her time in the meetings and the difficulties of leaving.

www.prsministries.com/Alpha%203%202007%20-%20assurance.mp3

Uker ~ Thanks for bringing this link to our attention! I really enjoyed listening to what she shared and could relate to the feeling she described in leaving the 2x2's, even when I knew within it was with my best interest at heart.   The shedding of the "legalistic mindset" takes years in adjustment afterwards.  I also found this to be my case after 30 years within the group before I departed out of burn-out.   I also wondered when the hammer was going to fall on me for leaving the 2x2's, as the workers often warned you about in the meetings.

[Lee]

The church is an ideal that transcends and extends from its membership.

[faune]

I enjoyed what Pamela Stewart shared in her story on Cherie's TLC's public site.  It surely brings back memories of my own regarding my first days within the 2x2's when I was and Outsider and 14 years old when I first professed in one of their gospel meetings around Thanksgiving Day weekend in November 1965.

Fellowship Meetings

But it was very different in our fellowship meetings. The stiff atmosphere seemed to inhibit me and send me scurrying back into my shell.

The meetings took place on Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening. The first meeting that I could participate in was on Wednesday evening. The book of Psalms was currently being read, and Psalm 23 was the one that everyone was studying for on that night. Even though the meetings were organized in different homes, it was extremely formal and stiff. The format for the meeting was that people would come in through the unlocked front door, walk into the room with a nod of greeting and sit in silence until everyone else had arrived. It was normal practice for people to always sit in the same seat for each meeting. Once you sat in a seat no one else would sit there again. We were like homing pigeons - always returning to the same place or seat.

Usually the man of the house presided over the meeting. He was appointed as a ‘Bishop’ by the preachers. His role was to make sure everything and everyone was kept in order. He would choose a hymn out of our book, and someone would start the singing since we only ever sang a cappella (unaccompanied); then the rest of us would join in.

This used to cause me a great deal of amusement because if the person who had started the hymn pitched it too low then as we progressed through the verses the pitch would slide even lower so that everyone would be straining their vocal chords to try to reach the bottom notes. The opposite would happen if it was pitched too high; then people had to just shout or squeak to reach the top notes, and this was even more hysterically funny. Once I just burst out laughing, and everyone looked at me disapprovingly as if I had committed a terrible sin. In most homes there was a piano or keyboard, but they were not allowed to be used. When I queried why we couldn’t use an instrument to help us, I was told it simply wasn’t done and that we didn’t want to be getting “like the world”. It just didn’t make sense to me, and as I loved music and playing the piano, it really frustrated and annoyed me. I thought it was nonsense.

After the first hymn chosen by the Bishop of the meeting, there was a time of prayer. Everyone took part, and usually we would kneel to pray. After this there was another hymn which anyone could choose, and then it was time for each person to speak, in no particular order, about the chapter we had all read. Finally, there was an opportunity to choose another closing hymn. When the meeting finished, there was some general chit-chat and occasionally a cup of tea before we all went home.

I had problems sleeping at night before my very first participation because I was so worried about what I should say. Psalm 23 started with “The Lord’s my shepherd; I shall not want.” When my time came in the meeting to speak, I just managed to blurt out that I was a lamb who loved Jesus. Jesus was now my loving shepherd, and I believed He would always care for me like a shepherd cares for and loves his lambs. That was all I could manage!

As for praying, I just listened carefully to the others and then copied in a parrot-like fashion. We prayed using the old King James style language. It felt strange and unnatural using the words ‘thee’, ‘thou’ and ‘thy’ as if I were an actor putting on a stage performance.

I was relieved to get my first meeting over, but I still had a great deal of questions, worries and concerns about things that I had read in the Bible. I was much too scared to ask any of the preachers; I didn’t find them easy to approach. Even though we had many of the preachers living with us during a series of missionary meetings, they never offered to read or explain the Bible on an individual basis. It simply wasn’t done.

Once, when I did become brave enough to ask questions, I was told that I needed to ask God for a revelation and that I should make sure I attended all the meetings as that was the best way to learn. It made me feel very inferior - as if I wasn’t good enough yet for God to reveal anything to me. I wished that I had never asked.

One True Way

I also began to think about others who didn’t belong to the true church. It seemed an awesome privilege to be brought up in a group that was the only true way left on the earth. We did not have a name to identify ourselves; we didn’t need one. We were the continuation of the church that Jesus had set up in the Bible days. We referred to ourselves as the ‘one true way’.

I felt sad that so many people didn’t know about this and began to wonder if God wanted me to go out as one of the preachers when I was older. It seemed terrible to think that so many people were worshipping God in vain all over the world in buildings and congregations that our preachers condemned as heretical.

I had never been in a church building except through school when we visited the local church to sing some Christmas carols. The ‘true church’ (or ‘body of people’) always met in homes as they did in Bible days. I felt extremely guilty when I went inside the building and was glad when it was finished.

Our preachers had warned us never to get involved with any other church, group, denomination, organization, minister, pastor, theology or Bible training college. They were all condemned as false, and involvement might lead us astray from the true way that we followed, but I felt sad that if I ever got married it would not be in a church building. This church had been really impressive inside. I day-dreamed about it; it would be so special to walk down that beautiful aisle in a flowing bridal gown to a wonderful man waiting for me at the end, but that kind of thought was sinful. I rebuked myself for even thinking that way.

Homeless Unmarried Preacher

I thought about becoming a preacher. I thought about what I would have to renounce. I wanted to help others, and I wanted to give my best to God, but I knew that it was a very high standard that I would need to maintain. I would have to give up any thought of getting married.

Our preachers had to remain single. Preachers who met someone they fell in love with and wanted to marry had to leave the mission field. The leaders were very strict about this. I knew someone who offered himself to be a homeless preacher, but when they found out that he had a girlfriend he had to finish the relationship. It seemed a really hard and unloving attitude to me, particularly when God had ordained marriage in the first place. It was also confusing. Most of the disciples and apostles of Jesus had been married.

When I queried the fact that the apostle Paul had written that “forbidding marriage is among the doctrine of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1-3), I was told by a senior preacher that they did not actually forbid marriage. Instead he said that being single was something they felt worked better. When prospective preachers thought about it, they came to the same conclusion. I was now totally confused and perplexed - they had a rule in practice but not in theory; how contradictory was that!

I would also have had to give up the right to have my own home, income or possessions. We claimed to follow the way Jesus sent His Apostles out to preach:

Matthew 10:5-15 - Don’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but only to the people of Israel – God’s lost sheep. Go and announce to them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received. Don’t take any money in your money belts, no gold, silver, or even copper coins. Don’t carry a traveller’s bag with a change of clothes and sandals or even a walking stick. Don’t hesitate to accept hospitality, because those who work deserve to be fed.

Similar verses are found in Luke 10:1-10. No-one in the whole world was prepared to follow this criterion the way we did. I thought it was very impressive. However, I didn’t understand why no one prayed for the sick or cast out demons.

It was only later on that I discovered that the ‘one true way’ religion had been started by a Scotsman named William Irvine (1863-1947). He was born in Newtown, Kilsyth, Scotland and died in Jerusalem. He was converted to Christ through the preaching of Presbyterian evangelist Rev. John McNeil in Motherwell and in 1895 joined the Faith Mission as an evangelical pilgrim. In 1896 he was sent to Southern Ireland as a pilgrim preacher to work at Nenagh, County Tipperary. Whilst working there, Irvine claimed to have received a special revelation of Matthew 10:5-15. He claimed that ‘true’ preachers should renounce all possessions, marriage, job, income or wage and become homeless - although they could live in members’ homes. He failed to identify that this specific message was for the 12 Jewish Apostles at that time in Israel’s history and that some of them were also married and had homes! Nor did he realise that these instructions were reversed by Christ just before his crucifixion in Luke 22:35-36.

In 1901, when Irvine resigned officially from the Faith Mission, a warning was placed in ‘Bright Words’ (the official periodical of the Faith Mission at that time) concerning a new sect that was being formed by Irvine.