[Ohio]

Originally Posted by zeek

I'm making a distinction between "Christianity" and the church as it is depicted in the New Testament much like Witness Lee did. According to my hypothesis, Christianity overtakes the church which is why, in the minds of Local Churchers and others who take the New Testament as their model, the church must be recovered.

So, I'm not asserting that the God of the Old Testament or the claims of Jesus are inventions. Indeed, I'm not saying that Christianity was invented in the sense in which to invent can mean to deceive. Rather, I'm saying it was a human response to a problem of cognitive dissonance.

Jesus did not return in glory during the lifetime of the first generation of believers as promised nor in subsequent generations. An explanation needed to be found, religious belief and practice needed to be modified and formalized, a permanent structure of government was instituted. The institution that evolved in place of the original Jesus movement is what I'm referring to as "Christianity" here.

Where was that broken promise?