At the time of this writing, I am 37-years old. At 25-years old, my wife and I together left the church that we both grew up in, a conservative Mennonite denomination. We have been at a few different churches since then, but have spent the greater part of the past 12 years with our current church, Cornerstone Chapel of Dorchester, Wisconsin.
I think the church one attends has a major impact on his theology. But having left a conservative Mennonite church as we did, it opened up a broad field of new theological possibilities, perhaps too broad.
My main regret is not considering more in-depth the concerns of others, including people from our church. Few people challenged me outright, but a few did express being uncomfortable with some of the books we published and some of the authors that we had here in Abbotsford for speaking engagements. Looking back, I should have taken their considerations a bit more seriously.
So what is some of the questionable theology that I now regret? I think most of it has to do with what I’d term “reckless Pentecostalism.” Examples include the unexpressed idea that it’s ok for “prophets” to be wrong in their prophecy, those who “speak in tongues” to speak gibberish rather than having real words from the Holy Spirit, those who have “gifts of healing” not actually being able to heal, and overall displaying a lack of discernment and power from God. To be clear, I am not a cessationist. I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but it appears that there has been a great perversion and many think they have and are using the gifts of God, but in reality they do not and are not. No doubt the enemy wishes to twist and malign the true things of the Lord, and it perverts the truth and deceives many.
Also, I have not been careful enough with Biblical teaching concerning divorce and remarriage, what the Bible says about men and women’s roles, and the quality of books in general. What I really want now is for our books to be biblical, edifying and encouraging, and leading to the salvation of souls through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
If our books have sent you in a direction that isn’t biblical, I want to tell you that I am very sorry. If you tried to correct me in some way, and I didn’t listen, I am also sorry. I wish I could retract and somehow wipe out everything we ever produced that wasn’t strictly biblical, but that just isn’t possible. All we can do is move forward with what we know now, and trust that the Lord will show us if there is anything else that still isn’t correct.
Thank you for being a friend, and a supporter of our work. I trust that we can move forward and work together as the body of Christ, for God’s glory.
Jeremiah Zeiset
Life Sentence Publishing / Aneko Press