An Encounter With A Legalist

My wife owns her own business. A small number of the of the people in our former xCOG congregation frequented her business. One of them stopped in last night. This person was unaware that we have discontinued attendance with our former affiliation. A long conversation ensued.

My wife is smart. She knows what she was taught, she knows what she believes now, and she knows how I feel. She just doesn't have the Bible verses in her head like some people do. That doesn't make her argument any less valid; only less effective in the short term. I'm not the kind of person who can hold book/chapter/verse in my head either.

Well, this person kept referring to Herbert Armstrong's booklets. My wife kept trying to tell her that we must prove things from the Bible without referring to HWA's material. It didn't sink in. This person knew about the charges of plagiarism, and gave HWA a pass because "he's just a man and makes mistakes". My wife believes that a mistake is one thing, but repeatedly plagiarizing someone else's material and calling it your own, in addition to falsifying information, is not just a "mistake". Nothing phased her. My wife noted to me how, twice now, from two different people, she has gotten the same words, the same arguments, the same responses. This is directly in line with what I got.

The same words: "I fear...", "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...", "no one has the whole truth", etc. The same arguments: "Did the truth/Spirit come through HWA or not?", "We should immitate Christ and the Apostles", "The Holy Days are God's plan." Everyone we speak to appear to be programmed with what to believe and programmed with how to respond. Is this surprising to me? Yes! Why? I don't know; it shouldn't be. I know what brain washing is. I know how it works. One way is to sit a captive audience before a repetitive message and eventually they will believe it. The old addage "A lie told often enough becomes the truth" applies here. I'm just surprised that I was brainwashed and it's hard to believe my old friends were too. Now I see. And because I see, I am surprised at what I see.

Well, it eventually came down to how this person couldn't answer my wife's questions without referring to HWA, and my wife couldn't get this person to realize their dependance on HWA. This is what I see from everyone I talk to - circular reasoning and partial facts.

For instance, here is a highly abbreviated conversation I usually have:
[COG] "We have to keep the law."
[me] "Then why don't you keep the whole law?"
[COG] "Without the law, how will we know what is sin?"
[me] "By reading the New Testament and having the Spirit work from within us, rather than trying to keep a law that can't change our hearts."
[COG] "Jesus said the law will not pass away."
[me] "Then why are circumcision, sacrifice, the Levitical Priesthood, legal distinctions between Jew and Gentile, Passover, etc, etc. all magnified, but not those things you hold to?"
[COG] "How can the Holy Days be done away with; those are God's plan?"
[me] "I believe the whole Old Covenant was revoked at Christ's death and a New Covenant made in His blood."
[COG] "But then you believe the 10 Commandments were done away with! And those were written in stone."
[me] "So do you, as Deuteronomy 4: 13 says the 10 Commandments were the Old Covenant, stone or no stone, and everything else was added later. According to the law, when Jesus died, the whole agreement was rendered obsolete."
[COG] "But the Apostles were zealous for the law."
[me] "James also regarded the Talmud, do you? The Apostles were Jews, and they preferred the Jewish converts to be zealous for the law; there was no such requirement for the Gentile converts. Those Jewish converts who falsely taught the Gentiles to be Jews were the ones Paul wished would emasculate themselves.
[COG] "But there will be Sabbaths and Holy Days in the Millennium."
[me] "Yes. There will also be animal sacrifices, a temple, the Levitical priesthood complete with required garb and rituals, and probably circumcision too. That doesn't mean I need those things now."
[COG] "You should read the booklet about..."
[me] "I'm not going to refer to any booklet when I have the Bible. I don't follow HWA."
[COG] "Neither do I. I disagree with him on some things."
[me] "Then why do you always refer to him and his teachings?"
[COG] "Well, we need to keep the law."
... and round it goes.

This person referred my wife to her spouse who was better versed in the law. (Second verse, same as the first.) My wife did the right thing. She said "Listen, I can't go discussing this with everyone. Either they will ignore me or they will leave the congregation. Neither option is good for me." My wife and I agreed at the outset that we are not going to spread dissent, we are not going to try and convert anyone, we are not going to cause division, etc. We just left quietly out the back one day. That places a burden on the shoulder of the Minister, not that I want him burdened, but better he who will handle it as he wants it handled than we who will certainly cause even bigger problems. Even if everyone has to believe my wife and I are confused, so be it. We didn't cause division.

If anyone has any similar stories to share, please do. I'd love to hear what you've gone through and how you've handled it.