Unregistered

Thanks for the invitation. I prefer not to get an account or receive PM's.

My impression from reading your posts is that you are very self-deprecating, but actually you stand apart from belonging to any Christian group, and prefer an individual walk with the Lord that answers to no one. That's why I brought up communion. When was the last time you took the bread and the wine, and with what group? You can pontificate all you want, but to me that's where the "rubber meets the road." And I don't think Jesus meant that you take communion with one group, and then with another group, and perhaps later with another group, floating around analyzing everything without ever actually belonging to a particular group. I do believe Jesus expected the Christian life to be anti-individualistic. Yes, we have individual lives before the Lord, but they are to be lived in communion with other Christians. Do this in remembrance of Me - take My body and My blood with other people who I died for, and live your life among them. (This does NOT mean take the route of the Local Church where you have no individuality or personality at all.)

You say that you've heard numerous Christians respond to your own arguments with the "rogue Christian" response or the "floating spiritually" response, and maybe they were not responding to a straw man. Maybe they knew exactly what you meant, and had an instinctive reaction to it. Maybe the Lord was warning you through the members of His Body that your way is not as healthy as you think, and your questions are not as good as you think. That's all. I don't know you so I don't mean to sound critical. It's just that I know many who left the LC who still seem trapped in LC thinking (while at the same time reacting to it). So they look down on all of Christianity, and no Christian group is ever good enough, and they will never belong to anything larger than a tiny self-selection of people who think the same way they do. If that's not you, I don't mean to paint you with the same brush. But you come across as having an attitude of pride masked with self-deprecation. No Christian group will ever be able to contain you, because you see through them all. Yet you will be the one who misses out on the Christian community that can help you grow past your own perspective. (Again that sounds critical, but I'll just let it be and you can take issue with it if you want to. Actually I'm reacting against people you remind me of, not you personally.)