Quote:
Originally Posted by Evangelical
What many call "church plants" are more correctly "sect plants". Without making this distinction then those who believe in "many churches" in an area, must by default accept LGBT churches as being a genuine church. T
|
Your reasoning is very faulty. It's an example of the fallacy of the appeal to the extreme. You are saying that if we must accept all churches that claim to be churches we must accept LGBT churches. But there are other reasons to question the validity of groups. The Bible plainly tells us to not keep company with fornicators, and gay sex is plainly always fornication according to the Bible. So the reason to question the validity of LGBT churches has nothing to do with their being one of many, but that they are seated in gross sin, and so fellowship with them must be withheld. In this case "fellowship" does not mean that we can never talk to them, but that we do not confer to them the "right hand of fellowship," meaning full receiving of them.
So your argument fails that if there can be many churches that we must accept all who claim to be churches. We don't have to do that if there are aspects of the group (namely gross sin) which the Bible plainly tells us not to receive.
You seem to think that there must be a some cut-and-dried standard of what is a "church" and what isn't. But the Bible does not plainly give us that information. Nee and Lee decided that it should have and so invented standards for which the biblical argument is tenuous to say the least.
Ironically, expecting others to agree with such tenuous arguments is in DIRECT violation of the Bible's mandate to not judge matters that plainly rely on each of us to be "fully persuaded in our own mind."
The local ground, the view of the LCM about God's "unique move" and other sectarian LCM beliefs are not supported enough in the Bible to permit the LCM to expect others to believe them.
Some things in the Bible are plain. Some things are not. Yes, the Bible is plain that we should be "one." But the Bible is not plain about exactly what that looks like. Clearly each of us must decide in our own conscience what oneness means. This is the only way it could be, if you think about it. Because otherwise if what oneness looks could be defined in the superficial way the LCM insists it can, then that would subject the consciences of believers to the whims of leadership about superficial matters. This would clearly tie the Lord's hands, resulting in the sclerosis you see in the LCM.
Yes, in extreme cases the church can decide to cease fellowship with individuals and groups. But plainly it is not the Lord's desire to give us a blank check to reject all those who do not measure up to our proprietary "oneness" standards which cannot be plainly and clearly understood and accepted by most Christians.
A sect is not just a distinctive group. It is a group which
in general feels it should separate itself from other groups because of that distinction. In laymans's terms it is a group that
in general thinks it is too good for others. And THAT is the distinction that matters. By that definition the LCM is definitely a sect, while many of the groups it considers sects are not.