The Evangelical Universalist Forum

I Lost My Precious Mother On Mother's Day

Hi Rachel,

Life can sure be painful and challenging. I address your dilemma in my attached paper on how Jesus seems to change traditional Biblical views: How Jesus Changed Some Traditional Beliefs. The most relevant section is the first on the Bible’s approach to “External Prosperity.” I’d be interested in any questions or reactions it raises for you. Grace be with you, Bob Wilson

Thanks Steve, Cindy, Bob and Rachel for bringing these issues to light. Having had an awful year recovering (I hope?!!!) from hi grade lymphoma which has left me with very weak reflexes and somewhat locked in at home and has affected my dear wife, I think sometimes to the point of lost faith, I can relate to what has been posted. There is a story which appears In all of the synoptic gospels which has a bearing on this. To be in all three is perhaps an indication of its importance. It concerned the rich young ruler who came to Jesus asking “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Not a bad question and we know the challenge Jesus gave him. It concerned the Law and any rabbi of Jesus time would have said the same. Keep the law! The man knows the stock answer but pushes because he feels there is more. Of course that is where the wheels fall off. It is where they fall off for all of us in one way or another. But it is not with the young man that I want to explore so much as the reaction of the disciples. Who then can be saved? Who can get through the eye of the needle? Remember to be rich in those days was generally to be considered blessed by God above ones fellows (OT prosperity doctrine). Not the tax collectors of course and others in receipt of ill gotten gain- sinners! This man was high up in the religious sense. Given this prevailing understanding of everyone it’s natural for them to ask “who then can be saved”. Jesus answered “with man it is impossible but with God all things are possible!” Man,we, us - we grade on the curve, winners and losers - that is mans thinking and the Law is given graciously by God, not as the be all and end all but as a minder to bring us to Christ. Just about all that Jesus said in reference to the law was to highlight that keeping it was impossible. We needed a saviour! With God all things are possible. So we come to the end scenario that finds its yea and amen in Jesus the saviour. This is why I came to understand that God is good and his love endures forever. It is why I am a Universalist. We believe the Gospel and so live in its assurance and in the light that enlightens everyone John 1 vs 9 - eventually.

I know I’m going to sound cold-hearted, Rachel, but I’m surprised someone who has spent so much of her life in Bible study (to the extent of sleeping with a Bible under your pillow at night) would write such a highly detailed and lengthy post without even once slightly acknowledging that the topic of ‘Why do faithful Jews and Christians suffer unjustly and accidentally despite God’s frequent promises of salvation, while evildoers often live long lives, even in comfort and health?’ isn’t exactly a foreign topic in either the Old or New Testaments.

The complaint may show up a lot more often in the OT (including many of the books you quoted from) than in the NT, but even when NT Christians don’t register as many complaints about the situation they still acknowledge it with some frequency. That guy nailed to death up on the giant plus-sign after being torn to shreds within an inch of his life, stands as the chief possible example of bad things happening to good people, and he even prayed for it not to happen if God’s will for saving sinners could still be fulfilled without it.

That doesn’t mean I’m making light of the complaint – even if I wanted to make light of it, the Bible doesn’t make light of the complaint, nor of the horrible situations when people manage to soldier on anyway. And I could understand if the juxtoposition of the Bible’s own recognition of the problems along with the promises wasn’t sufficient for you. But to treat the Bible, in great detail, as though it never acknowledges the problems at all? – in order to ask “Doesn’t the Bible lose credibility in this way? Isn’t this part of the reason why many people don’t take God, His commandments or the Bible seriously?”

Combined with coming to a forum primarily dedicated to discussing universal salvation of sinners from sin (a rather different main topic), and posting this first out of the gate (albeit in the more general “Biblical Theology” category, where it does properly belong)… well, I’m being an overly protective administrator, who has been on the internet a lonnnng time, but maybe entirely by accident (I want to emphasize that to be fair) this seems suspicious.

But, leaving aside my suspicions: the overly short answer, is that the Bible would only lose credibility along this line if the authors didn’t often address the problem in light of those same promises. It may not strictly be a solution that “the Bible” is just as critical about those promises as you (if not even moreso), but “the Bible” cannot be fairly faulted for sailing blithely along on those promises as though the harsh and horrifying reality didn’t also exist. Christians for a few thousand years (back to Christ Himself), and Jews for a few thousand years before Christ (arguably, via the Book of Job, before there even were any Hebrews or Jews), not even counting after Christ (sometimes thanks to Christians, I’m sorry to say), have suffered and lived and died and wished they were dead, in no surprise at all that these things happen – and knowing that our forebears in “the Bible” knew these things happened, too. We often read their complaints in solidarity with them, when we’re being shattered by life; if we have some knowledge of the writing of Christians after them, down to today, we may read those cries in solidarity with them, too.

That solidarity, of God Himself voluntarily suffering with us, is also what Christianity is largely about (disputes about Christology aside). Even in the OT, God suffers along with the innocent – and to some extent (moreso in the NT) even with the guilty.

When I have been lying in bed in so much pain I just wanted to stop breathing, begging God to let me die so it would be over with (or dealing with any more minor suffering – and I am fully aware that even my worst suffering is still better off than 99% of humanity throughout history, and 3/4 of humanity today), that isn’t something that catches me by surprise, nor something I ever thought “the Bible” had let me down on (having studied the Bible since before I was six). Do I complain to God when that happens? Sure! Am I serious about those complaints? Absolutely! Does it affect my Christian beliefs? Not one jot – my beliefs, like those of most Christians, have never depended on everything always or even ever turning out all right. Does it affect my trust in God? Sure it does, often not for the better. Does my belief in God Most High suffering with me on the cross affect my trust in God, too?

Yes. It sure does.

And I know that belief doesn’t always help everyone continue to trust in God. I have nothing at all, less than nothing at all, against anyone who in great tragedy suffers a shattering of faith that they not only cannot repair but maybe don’t even want to repair. I also don’t have anything against anyone who can’t bring themselves to trust God in the teeth of natural accident and moral evil either.

But treating the Bible as though it doesn’t even remark on the disparity between the promises and the true horrors of reality, in order to ask “Doesn’t the Bible lose credibility in this way? Isn’t this part of the reason why many people don’t take God, His commandments or the Bible seriously?”

That, so far as it goes, isn’t a valid critique.

So don’t be surprised if vastly many Jews and Christians in all of human history (including those in the Bible) somehow aren’t impressed about that kind of critique.

(I wouldn’t be impressed about that kind of critique if I was an atheist either: I know the biblical authors address the disparity a lot, they don’t only make a lot of idealistic promises like the actual reality of universal human experience doesn’t exist.)

Very well put, my dear fellow! :smiley:

Hi Rachel. I know you are hurting, and want answers. I pray God’s comfort and revelation for you. Your heavenly Father wants you to know and experience that He is only good, all the time. He sent Jesus that we may have abundant life.

Rachel, Satan is the one who kills, steals, and destroys*—not God* (John 10:10).

Here are two brief, related teachings from Pastor Joseph Prince of Singapore that have brought revelation to me.

“One finger at a time,” Sister Rachel.

I have struggled with overwhelming health and financial issues. Here are some verses that I personalized and say aloud:

-I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the LORD has done. Ps. 118:17.
*
-By His stripes I am healed.* Is. 53:5, 1 Peter 2:24.

-Yes, we will be enriched in every way so that we can be generous on every occasion, and our generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 2 Cor 9:11.

Blessings.

Thanks Hermano.

Rachael said:

Sorry about your lost, Rachael. I lost my mom in October 2013, at 92.5 years old.

Let me comment on your article. I did give a detailed response to someone, regarding gifts of the spirit.

Gifts of the Spirit

If these “miracle workers” are saying to ignore modern and ancient medicine…or that gifts of the spirit “always heals”, then they are wrong. Luke was a physician and witnessed all the miracles. But he never renounced being a physician.

I have been hanging around someone I call Father A. He is a Roman Catholic priest, with the gift of healing and hearing the voice of God. But in his healing services, some are:

Completely healed.
Partially healed
Not healed at all
Healed at a later time

And when he is ill, he uses:

Spiritual healing and prayer
Conventional medicine
Herbal medicine

These things don’t work, like you see on TV - like Benny Hinn. Where a lady comes in a wheelchair and the next thing - she is playing football. And all are completely healed in seconds. :laughing:

Once Father A. shared a story. He wanted a person to be healed (and this person was also receiving conventional medical treatment). But she died. And he asked God “why”. God answered with a question:

“Son, have you ever known me to make a mistake?”

He heard that question a couple of times. And Father A. had to say “no”.

What’s interesting is what I’ve learned, from hanging out with the Lakota, Ojibwe and Ute tribes - especially their medicine men and women. They use the term Medicine, to encompass all that heals. So I can expand on this, outside its Red Road or Native American context. Medicine could mean modern medicine (with all its tests, surgeries, etc.), ancient medicine (i.e. homeopathy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda), prayer, gifts of the Spirit, spiritual healing, Native American ceremonies, etc. It’s all medicine.

Yep, good follow up posts. Also much nicer than mine. :slight_smile:

(I have to be suspicious, it’s my job. :mrgreen: )

I have to be suspicious, it’s my job. :mrgreen: )

It is an interesting post from Rachel, in that it was emotional yet also listed tons of specific scriptures so i’m curious about a response from her.

I’m sure one way or another it’s a form-letter so to speak. “Rachel” might have written it over some period of time and then started shopping it around (for whatever reason, which might have changed to other reasons along the way, who knows). Or she might have copy-pasted it from various internet sources, maybe before her mother died, but still originally wrote the framing narrative parts. There are several options.

Being the suspicious admin, I have to say it also looks like a sceptic pretending to be “Rachel” in order to troll Christian forums with a sort of sceptical counter-evangelism. I’ve seen hardcore anti-Christians do this sort of thing before.

If I was less lazy, I’d do a google search for key phrases and see if I could trace the history of the post in other forums. I reaaaaallllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy doubt that we’re the first forum Rachel has ever posted this to: that wouldn’t make sense as a conscious choice; nothing in her letter even slightly connects to our forum; and the level of improbability for randomly choosing us first is ludicrously high.

Still, just because I’m suspicious from detecting similarities to patterns from experience doesn’t mean Rachel is faking or otherwise trolling. I think it’s perfectly fine to reply as though she’s real, because even if she happens not to be the type of problem she’s talking about does happen!

Which, I mean, we’re all aware of, if we’ve been Christians longer than one or two months. :wink: But people can and do often reach a breaking point with it. That’s a normal part of human experience, too.

Understood! :smiley:

If you do a search for “I Lost My Precious Mother On Mother’s Day: Overwhelmed With Grief And Sorrow” on Google. The same letter appears, in a couple grief support groups. Since these appear to be secular sites, devoted to grief - I would guess that the grief is genuine. It’s not uncommon for a event to trigger a grief memory (such as the Christmas and New Years holiday).

I would guess that this person cut and pasted the entry. Perhaps from a journal. Keeping a journal is really a good exercise, in working things out. Perhaps this person can join a Christian, grief support group? I recommend Grief Share at griefshare.org/. They are really sponsored, by many local churches. I also recommend their daily emails - for a year. For the record, I did go though them - via a local church.

I found the phrasing to match several posts going back at least as far as September 16th last year, but mostly in December. (Not suspicious.)

One of the fourms was Tentmaker, which may be how she got here. (Not suspicious.)

In the first post I’ve found, Sept 16th, she’s “Tamara White”, does not claim to be a Christian (aside from a “God bless you” at the end) and has no framing story about losing her precious mother etc., no Bible verse list, and is necro’ing a thread already over 4 years old. Somewhat suspicious but not decisively so: giving two completely different but otherwise normal names sounds like the author wants people to think those are her real names not pseudonyms. This comment was picked up and reposted somehow by an ex-Christian newsfeed a day later, possibly but not certainly by “Tamara”. Otherwise, I haven’t found an equally early version of this post.

This post is interesting and brief enough that I’ll quote it in full. “Tamara” is replying to a doctor who tells people to “cut the crap” about living after death and that Christians die young all the time (in response to the original post or possibly subsequent comments). The link can be found here (bible-knowledge.com/does-god … ent-516011), and I’ll be appending it to “Rachel”'s first post.

Dec 2: Tamara White, who loves to speak the truth, is now “Rachel Henderson”, at the Talk Jesus forum, Bible Forum category, Bible Chat subcategory. This is an interesting transition: most of the Bible list and quotes are missing (and not in KJV), but a lot of the dead-Christian / long-live-atheist material remains. The mother story seems full (minus the bad stepsister paragraph). The thread title is “BIBLE PROMISES”, and this stays constant until Tamara/Rachel starts visiting grief management boards. Since this is a major variation and development in form here’s the link for anyone interested. (talkjesus.com/threads/bible-promises.57203/)

Dec 8: King James Bible Forums (Christian site), “Rachel Henderson”, almost the full epic post but missing the paragraph about her stepsister being asshatty. Tamara/Rachel splits the post into two threads (evidently due to the character limit), not a followup comment on the same thread. She posts then leaves despite some comments. (Minor variation of saying the Bible quotes are from the KJV. The verses do seem to be KJV, which means Rachel or someone retyped or recopy-pasted them all for us and other posts!)

Dec 10: Sam Harris.org forum, “Christianity (Specific Issues)” category. Three threads to post the full article (for want of a better word), no followups to comments. No bad stepsister paragraph. (Comments are highly sarcastic anti-Christian, fwiw; not sure I’d follow up there either if I was Tamara White. I mean Rachel. :wink: )

Dec 12: Her comment in Tentmaker seems to be gone although Google still lists it and the quote I was searching for. I don’t have a Tentmaker account, so I can’t search for a shorter version of the quote, “Can you tell me please”. If anyone with a membership there wants to try, let me know the result! Google only reports enough of the paragraph to show it’s a source, not enough to show the form of the post nor what name is being used.

Dec 13th, “Rachel Henderson” at a Christian News subforum of Topix.com. Evidently full article broken into multiple threads, but I haven’t checked the other threads (due to high number of thread posts).

Dec 14th, "“Rachel Henderson” at the (Christian) Jude 2 forum. Usual form, minus bad sister.

Dec 16th, “Rachel Henderson” at the “religion and ethics” forum (possibly a sceptic-founded forum, but not necessarily). The full epic post is there (minus the bad stepsister). She never responds to four pages of discussion (including by supportive sceptics, supportive anti-Christians, and supportive Christians. And a few Christians sceptical of how genuine her post is based on its form. The anti-Christian mod on the thread warns that speculating about Rachel’s identity is off-topic.)

Dec 17th, “Rachel Henderson” at the “Rapture Forum”. Full post minus stepsister. No further comments from her despite some replies.

Dec 20th, “Rachel Henderson” at Legacy Connect, an open blog for grief. Title has upgraded from “Bible Promises” to “I Lost My Precious Mother On Mother’s Day: Overwhelmed With Grief and Sorrow”. Full post minus bad stepsister. Can’t tell if there are comments. The new title is also used as a topic header for the brief narrative shift to losing mother which starts about halfway through. (Our version doesn’t have the title reused as a topic header.)

Dec 20th, name unknown, thread evidently removed from the “Much Loved” grief management forum, category “Dealing with the loss of a family member”. Google archived enough to show the typical start of the article. This is also the first and so far only occurrence I can find of the bad stepsister paragraph. (Other than here, I mean.)

Conclusions: well, I have no conclusions other than that “Rachel Henderson” who loves to speak the truth either lies about her name in one place (the first time she posts this article, in a short draft comment) or “Tamara White” who loves to speak the truth lies about her name in a bunch of other places. It is not very likely, but still possible, that Rachel picked up Tamara’s post (as two different people) sometime after Sept and started building an epic extension to it, adding the lost mother early in this process starting early this past December (2016). Consequently it is possible Rachel is a distinct person who did lose her mother, that part of the story being true (the evil stepsister being also possibly true though a recent addition), and is just using material from other people, starting with Tamara’s original post, to build her article around her personal experiences.

Past personal experience however suggests to me that Tamara and Rachel are the same person lying about her (or his) name one way or another; which casts some serious (but not decisive) doubt on the precious mother story being real.

Source criticism yo! :mrgreen:

If not Redaktionsgeschichte, Kompositionsgeschichte or Redaktionstheologie to boot!! :laughing:

But it still reminds me, of a TV murder mystery. “Rachel Henderson” and “Tamara White”, might be one and the same, etc. What are is the motive (i.e. posting here, elsewhere, and anywhere in-between) :question:

I do know that if I receive a Nigerian email, regarding a lottery prize, etc., it’s easy to deduct the motive. And if you don’t deduct the motive, they will soon deduct your bank account. :laughing:

:laughing: DaveB!

Randy, I don’t know if I’ve got enough information yet to speculate about motives, whether good or bad motives. Since neither name is obvious to the reader as a pseudonym, there must be some kind of deception involved if they’re the same person – the author expects the reader to treat her (or him) as being actually named Tamara White and Rachel Henderson. If one is real and the narrative parts are true, my guess would be that Tamara White is her actual name but once she decided to start including biographical information she chose a real-sounding pseudonymn to disguise herself. An abusive father could be a good reason for that, if he’s still around and in reach! – also just not wanting her previous Christian group to see her apostasizing (and the group itself could be abusive somehow.) On that theory I’ve done her a disservice by uncovering her real name, although I seriously doubt the person or people she’s concerned about will be hunting the internet for Tamara White’s de-Christianization.

However, even assuming this theory is true, there’s a pretty strong disjunction between her switching deceptively to a new name and also leading out as someone who loves speaking the truth. That seems more like the action of someone mimicking a particular kind of devotional ‘style’ that he or she thinks we’ll relate to and accept, combined with an impression that we can trust ‘her’ to not be a liar about ‘herself’. It does call into question how far we should trust the biographical details.

On the theory of active deception, the author might still have ‘good’ motives from ‘her’ own standpoint: lying to Christians about some things for emotional effect could be considered excusable to help Christians get out of what the author perceives to be a false belief system and (from the shape of the article, and how its so-far-earliest discovered form was used) a harmful belief system at that. A rather notorious anti-Christian of my acquaintance (I have no evidence this is him, btw, and some evidence from technical data stats that it isn’t – this person is posting from an Australian node) once created an entire false website pretending to be someone else to drum up sock-puppet support for his campaign against a Christian apologist acquaintance of mine. He flatly refused to repent of lying to his own readers about finding this new website, and essentially defended himself on the ground of pragmatic ethics: if it helped de-Christianize someone, lying to them was worth it.

The internet is a pretty messed up place. :wink:

Having pointed that out, allow me to poke some fun at myself and conspiracy theories:

https://cdn.meme.am/cache/instances/folder627/500x/74500627.jpg

My sister, Rachel,

I know the reality of loss to death…death of a mother.
What was it like to know your mother?
You have memories.
I always wondered what it was like for most every kid I knew…who was growing up, just like me, but they all had a living mom, unlike me.

My mother died on Thanksgiving Day when I was 1.
I luv Him, still. I will meet her one fine day because He is alive.
I hate death on any day.
I luv Jesus every day.

For anyone who’s wondering, I have a lot of evidence (though I suppose not decisive!) that Laurie isn’t “Rachel/Tamara” sock-puppeting again. :wink: Their internet trace is quite different, and Laurie showed up first a few weeks ago on completely different topics. She’s just being nice. :slight_smile:

Actually Jason, it is kind of cool knowing someone is watching the gate so to speak. :smiley:

Thank you, Jason, for saying I am who I am…and not someone else.
I will always be who I am…
regardless of any man’s rules on theology boards, personal lives, or any *thing.
Jesus luvs me & I am freakin crazy in luv with Him.
It’s just that this two gospel thing among brethren is making me crazy.
I have studied it now, this past year.
I think it is more a doctrine of two destinations…grace/Paul/nations=uncircumcized to minister to the celestials
Circumcized= to minister on earth

So little to nothing in scripture…i see about a ministry in celestials.

And frankly…I luv people here. I don’t want to leave here. I want to be here and take care of all loved.