Quote:
YP0534 responds to Woodrome:
To the extent that your message reflects the peculiar partisanship terminology the Local Church has now developed of "positive" and "negative" in classifying the saints of God...
|
Ya know YP there's nothing new to movements like the LC. Consider the Jehovah's Witnesses. And growth does not validate the LC anymore than it does the JWs.
As I see it there are two basic universal things that validate such new Christian movements to the followers and new ones. And they are : Using the prophesies of the return of Jesus, and new and fresh doctrines.
And of course, the LC has these in spades. In fact they are so prominent in the LC movement that I don't even need to remark about them, or explain them. The preparation of the bride for the return of the groom is the whole foundation of the LC movement. And the new and fresh insightful doctrines provides the appearance of the moving and breakthru of the Holy Spirit. I say appearance only because the doctrines usually aren't new at all, they're just the drudging up of old doctrines, that aren't spoken of in the current mainstream Christian family ; so the Holy Spirit isn't even needed, as wide reading from history will do. Then add a little excitement, and expressions of zeal and enthusiasm, and voilà, you've got the appearance of the Holy Spirit.
There is something else that works well too, like a spice added to the mixture. And that is, to say you are recovering, or restoring, or reforming, from fallen Christianity, or as today, from the corrupt Roman Catholic Church. In the case of the LC movement, they are recovering from all of Christendom, or all of fallen Christianity ; the whore of Babylon, the Catholic Church, and all her daughters, all the rest of Christianity.
In other words, they've got to demonize all the others in order to lift their movement above those others in the eyes of the devoted.
But what does the recovery say about the Lord, and his ability to build His church? It reduces the Lord. It doesn't lift the Lord. It draws a caricature of the Lord as ineffective, and incompetent. It means that the gates of hell has prevailed against the church. It makes the Lord a liar.
And I don't get it anyway. The reformation/restoration/recovery misses the mark. They claim that they seek to go back to the early church ; back to the pre-corruption days, and they fall short by trying to do so. Why not go back to Jesus? Why stop short?
Going back to Jesus will kill such movements. Cuz Jesus wasn't partisan. Jesus accepted the outcasts, and told the religious that even the publicans and harlots would enter the kingdom before them ; and also "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."
It's a good thing that Jesus is the only way to God, because Jesus doesn't reject anyone, accept the religious that think they are special.
And what would jesus say to those in the LC, that are condemning those that He has made members of His body?