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Originally Posted by zeek
I agree. Cahn was wrong about American history. His misreading of American history suggests that his view is incompatible with our democratic history. I remember being in Local Church prayer meetings where we prayed against the US Congress. Local church values were only compatible with democracy insofar as it favored the interests of the Local Churches which of course we viewed as the interests of God. This is by no means always the case among Christians. Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Hong Kong in the past two weeks, demanding democracy and grabbing global attention. Many of the leaders are Christian, and some cite faith as an inspiration. When Hong Kong's Occupy Central group first announced last year it was planning pro-democracy demonstrations, it did so in a church. The group's full name is Occupy Central with Love and Peace, in the Christian spirit, and its top leaders include a minister and a law professor who is also Christian. Of course, in this case, democracy would be more favorable to Christian interests than communism which is generally anti-religion.
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You bring up a very interesting thought. In the Cambridge Platform of 1648 (frequently cited in congregational churches even today) which was both a declaration of independence and an ecclesiastical constitution, adopted well over a century before the corresponding political documents that marked the founding of the US. The Platform established a non-hierarchical congregational polity, meaning that churches would be independent both of outside authority and of each other. The framers of the Platform continuously referenced the Bible as their authority, which makes the Bible a foundational document of the polity of many congregational faiths shaped by Puritanism. English Puritans had tried for decades before the "Great Migration" in 1620 to the US to reform the Church of England in the direction of a more personally experienced spirituality. It didn't work and they were persecuted and that is why they came to the states (New England) in 1620.
Without providing any further background regarding the Platform it is well to note that congregational Puritan churches were democratic in function. Their leaders were elected by the congregations and the congregations established a covenant with one another to "walk together".
A large part of the problem with the local churches was/is the process of establishing elders and the fact that essentially LCs eschewed the idea of democracy within their churches and they are not covenantal. I think this is bleeding over into the reason for some of those who have left, looking for a "leader" (e.g. Lee and now Cahn) who can tell them what to do rather than look to others for shared responsibilities within their churches. Those who continue in the LC have the same problem and, thus, the emergence of the Blended Brothers etc. Most churches today are not "democratic" and don't follow the Platform's outline of congregational processes e.g. Catholic, Anglicans, Local Churches of Witness Lee etc. Also, part of the reason that some people/churches don't like "democracy" is because it is messy and requires accountability and responsibility. Of course, it is not for everyone but I prefer it to a theocracy or a totalitarian form of government in our churches and in our country.
I thought in the beginning that the "local" churches were just that, local, but in fact they were tied into a controlling network and we were never "local".