[Cal]

So I'll repeat. Contrary to our friend Indiana, I do not think any blessing on the LC movement had anything to do with the ground of locality doctrine. I believe it came, at least partly, because of the genuine desire to achieve a testimony of oneness.

Oneness was the right goal. But the local ground was the wrong approach, the wrong emphasis. This is a subtle, but important, distinction. And as we know Satan is the king of subtlety. We desired oneness, but we chose the wrong tool. Oneness appeared in localities in the first century because of oneness, not because of locality.

Trying to use locality to enforce oneness is like trying to use a rooster to make the sun rise. It's getting things backwards. If we are for oneness, we don't need to worry about the boundaries of our churches. But declaring that the boundary of our church is the city does not make us any more one than we were before we made the declaration. In fact, it may make us less one, because once we make the declaration, we are stating at some level that we are more legitimate than other gatherings.

So I'll repeat again, all we need is an attitude of oneness with all other Christians based on our common faith. We do not need to declare we are standing on the ground of locality. There is not one instance in the NT of any church making such a declaration.