The Kingdom Praise Church is located on Tiger Mountain. It is a House Church (meaning it is located inside of a room set aside in the house for worship) and in a area with no lighting, well that is Tiger Mountain for you. I had tried getting there once before but to no avail, luckily this time I was successful.
This Church was a great exploration of what I see as the pros and cons within the Evangelical tradition as well as the blind spots in Conservative Christianity as a whole, the greatest blind spot which is its view of homosexuality. I noticed this when the old man leading the service referred to his married brother as living the homosexual lifestyle, because the Bible was literal truth (and the reading was from the Old Testament) it didn't matter if God's laws were unethical and wrong in regards to the matter, because it was God's Law it was good by default. I think this nails why I prefer philosophy to religion as well when it comes to ethics...if someone said God did it and there is evidence in a book inspired by God, anything is permissible no matter how it may hurt others.
The pros I noticed in the service were how each time there was an attempt to call back to not judge, that each persons experience and knowledge of God was personal and from their own exploration of the Bible, the man leading it even said that quickly after his judgement on his brother...which honestly gives me hope for him seeing the love in his brother's relationship someday. There was also passion and kindness, I was a complete stranger who only two of the people had met once at the Healing Rooms of Issaquah that I did in one of my past visits, but they respected me and the fact that I said I'd just come to listen and observe.
The talk was mostly focused on Genesis and the ark and it was there some of the mystic tradition came out too. With Ego being man before the flood and enlightened man escaping on the ark, Jesus being the ark was not as much of the service until later in the service...before that time there was emphasis on God almost being metaphor of our greater selves, God living within us and us escaping our base nature. It would later take a turn of being read as an historical narrative, which changed that metaphorical view though...
It was a fascinating experience, but one I don't plan on repeating. The places I plan to visit multiple times are those that line up with my humanistic values which I see as much closer to whatever the Good is (and are closer to Jesus lived) than the condemnation of innocent groups and allowing of wrong by God because the Word is seen as literal.
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