Quote:
Originally Posted by Igzy
The fact is, Evangelical, you are way out of touch both with the Church and yourself.
Presbyterians, Baptists, Anglicans and most of the rest receive each other a whole lot better that you receive any of them. So I think it's a bit humorous that you talk about their not receiving each other in light of your attitude.
A lot has changed. Just about everyone these days realizes the basis for fellowship is Christ. I have met a lot of Christians. I rarely meet any who think the basis of fellowship is some doctrine. I recall, years ago, playing golf with a couple of guys who turned out to be staunch Calvinists. When they found out I didn't quite share their view of predestination they started treating me with suspicion. It was quite odd. But I experienced firsthand being around someone whose basis of fellowship was not Christ but a doctrine. And I can tell you that rarely happens to me. Almost always the Christians I meet receive me as brother in Christ and send me the message that our commonality is Christ.
I just think you simply don't know what you are talking about. You really need to get out more. You talk as if you are still locked into the view of a Witness Lee book written fifty years ago. Your suspicion of other Christians reflects poorly on you, not them.
Also, locality is most definitely not a basis of fellowship. Locality is just a reflection of the fact that we should receive and fellowship with any Christian we come in contact with. And in ancient times that was almost exclusively those in geographic proximity. We should fellowship with any Christians we meet, whether they are near or far. In this day and age, with communication and the Internet, geography plays less of an important role. And guess what, here we are in a situation where we should receive each other and who is it among us who seems most hung up on doctrines? Well, I'm afraid that would be you, my friend. And that tells me a lot.
Yes, but you are just making my point. There is general agreement about regeneration. There is very little agreement with the LCM proprietary vision of locality. That alone should tell you something.
Well, I'm sure it gets your blood pumping to think about another excuse to judge other Christians, but just settle down a little, hotshot.
If your only reason for calling a group a "sect" is that they don't meet with you anymore that is not a good enough reason. God doesn't give one group the right to call another group a sect just because the other group doesn't meet with the first group anymore. God has called us to peace, and we need to respect the consciences of others. If someone chooses not to meet with you it may just be because you have a problem that bothers their conscience. What you should do is respect them and continue to reach out. Perhaps through that the Lord might teach you something.
Certainly some groups are sectarian. But just because a group doesn't meet with the LCM and comply to your view of locality does not make them sectarian. Locality as taught and practiced by the LCM is a tenuous and most likely unbiblical practice. As I've said there is not enough biblical ground for insisting on it and so doing so is actually divisive.
Again, a sect is a group with such an attitude of superiority that they think everyone needs to join them, and that no other groups are legitimate. Ironically, that describes the LCM to a "T." Claiming to be on the local ground means nothing if you don't truly embrace genuine oneness. And to my observation the LCM doesn't.
|
You have some very practical and useful suggestions for reaching out. Of course we could all do reaching out a lot better than we do. However the fact is we have nothing against reaching out, we reach out to other Christians in our daily lives and invite them to have fellowship with us. Through such encounters I have fellowshipped with people from a number of different denominations. However I do not see this personal interaction to be the same thing as oneness. It is a kind of oneness but not at the corporate level.
If the fellowship between them is one of receiving each other and oneness in Christ, then we should see that expressed in the communion service. Afterall the Lord's Table is the primary fellowshipping thing to do between Christians. It's the thing which Christ told his disciples to do on a regular basis when they meet together. So, you tell me, can an Anglican priest, being only ordained in the Anglican church, host a communion service in a baptist church? Can a baptist pastor host an Anglican communion service? If you cannot answer "yes" to that, then the fellowship you speak of is not as real as you think it is, and things have not changed much since the 50's.