Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
This is a very interesting point. I imagine it wasn't always this way. Perhaps Ohio or someone who knows church history very well can explain this. What happened? We know that the Catholic church at the time of Martin Luther made it very difficult to leave, almost impossible. But was it the same for the denominations? What happened to loosen their grip?
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I grew up in the Catholic church 50 years ago. I remember the assumption was if your weren't Catholic you couldn't "go to heaven." I'm not sure what the official stance was, but that was a general assumption. But I think most people in their hearts knew there was someone wrong with such a idea. I had protestant friends. One time I went to my friend's Baptist church. It was strange and different, but I still felt it was valid. But in general there was more separation and less fellowship between denominations.
All that has changed. What changed? I think the Lord has just been working. Also, people are smarter and biblical knowledge has much improved. Tolerance is much more appreciated these days, and snobbery is more looked down on. both culturally and spiritually. I think it has just reached a critical mass where if you push your flavor of Christianity too much you are seen as sectarian. In short people just want Jesus Christ now, they want a theology that teaches them how to walk with God and they want a community which is loving and supportive.
The LCM, for all its superficial talk about oneness, is behind the times. This is due to several factors: (1) an intransigent ecclesiology they can't question, (2) a need to feel special and (3) a realization that if they ever admit it's okay to leave their little enclave that people will flock away in droves.
So they continue to employ the wiles of Jezebel to cajole and scare people into staying. It's the only way they can keep the numbers up.