2023-10-13 16:04:38
The leader of the Bethesda Church, Ricardo Gondim, used his Instagram page to say that he is in a time of honesty about his stances and beliefs, reiterated his abandonment “to the premises of the doctrines of the evangelical movement” and, again, rejected the vision he describes the sovereignty of God.
“The time has come to be candid. I have abandoned the premises of the doctrines of the evangelical movement,” he wrote, bluntly. Gondim, who was once one of the most eloquent Pentecostal preachers in Brazil in the late 1990s and early 2000s, now sets out to combat the theology that confronts his ideas.
With each publication he makes, in a tone of outburst, the leader of Bethesda explains that his nonconformity arises from a worldview that sees the human being as the center of the reason for existence, saying that he does not agree with the “anthropological pessimism” of evangelicals , a term he coined to refer to the doctrine of the fall: “I do not believe that humanity is the heir and guilty of the sin of Adam and Eve.”
Next, Gondim describes that his rejection of God’s sovereignty is the result of understandings that portray human beings as independent and self-sufficient: “It does not fit in my ethical sense that the world depends on specific interventions from God – or that it should expect private rescues . I do not share the eschatology that gears the world to God’s purposes and says that he manages everything that happens.”
In other publications, Gondim had already expressed his antipathy to Calvinist thoughtthe system that most emphasizes the concept of God’s sovereignty among the different theological lines of Protestantism.
Now, the former pastor makes it clear that he is not concerned with expressing coherence: “I anticipate the defenders of the faith. I’m not interested in fencing in defense of certainties; I don’t care if I’m demolished in my arguments. The truth that I embrace does not need explanation.”
After expressing his sadness at the disapproval he received regarding his positions, Ricardo Gondim summarizes his choices: “More introspective, milder and more contemplative, I prefer to free my soul from this false life before it is too late”.
Check out the full text:
The time has come to be candid. I did abandon the premises of the doctrines of the evangelical movement.
I don’t share your anthropological pessimism – I mean, I don’t believe that humanity is heir to and guilty of the sin of Adam and Eve.
It is not in my ethical sense that the world depends on specific interventions from God – or that it should expect private rescues. I do not share the eschatology that gears the world to God’s purposes and says that he manages everything that happens.
I anticipate the defenders of the faith. I’m not interested in fencing in defense of certainties; I don’t care if I’m demolished in my arguments. The truth that I embrace does not need explanation.
My youthful ideals were also shaken and with them collapsed concepts of friendship that I naively preserved. I spent years deluded by people who ripped silk from me while harboring resentment. Little did I know that they were not friends, but parasites that fed on my foolish notoriety. The day it was announced that I was in decline, as fast as rats abandoning a ship, those friends hurried to disappear.
I don’t hold grudges against anyone. But, I confess, there is no pain more atrocious than feeling abandoned when the stones multiply. I waited for outstretched hands and received nails. Today I’m looking for friends; I know that they exist and that they do not depend on doctrine. I will offer myself to those who do not make companionship a game of interests.
I’m nothing more than a boy who doesn’t give up, but I’m also an adult who cultivates silence as a sacred gift. I seek the prophet’s cave of refuge; I need the monks’ cell; I hope that some Samaritan will take me to the inn that Jesus mentioned in the parable.
I am tenacious and I refuse the limbo of those who don’t take sides in anything.
I repeat Álvaro de Campos:
“We all have two lives: the real one, which is the one we dreamed of in childhood,
And that we continue dreaming, adults in a substratum of fog;
The false one, which is what we live in coexistence with others,
Which is practical, useful,
The one where they end up putting us in a coffin.”
More introspective, softer and more contemplative, I prefer to free my soul from this false life before it is too late.
Glory to God alone
Post about contempt for doctrines, on Instagram, on October 9, 2023
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