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Localism is an extremely divisive and superb religious system, which has a "biblical" garment, which comes at a time of decadence and maximum degradation of the Protestant Reformation and the Denominational Movement (recommend the book "Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola in Annex ).
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This was very early in the lengthy post.
I have come to be very suspect of this kind of talk. It is almost always part of the mantra of people who want to lure the naïve (like many of us once were) by creating a boogeyman — a strawman to beat up. I will admit that there was an undercurrent of change beginning in people. And it changed the whole Protestant landscape. It seems that this has been going on for centuries. A period of changes followed by a period of relative calm.
But every new and novel idea needs people to have a reason to change. So the declaration that what currently exists is seriously flawed.
We have seen through Lee's version. And Dong's version. But we believe that the underlying need for something else was correctly stated.
In effect we are still buying half of their lie.
I am not saying that everything is perfect. There was no "perfect" in the letters in Revelation (even though some like to declare Philadelphia as perfect) yet they were all churches. Thyatira was not the Whore of Babylon. And the others (excluding Philadelphia) were not her daughters. They were all churches.
The question is whether we have been conditioned to see the existing church through the muddy glasses of someone else, including people like Frank Viola. I see Frank as one of those guys that you listen to for a horrible war story that results in only the need for some minor tune-ups. Not the same as a Brian McLaren in "out-there-ness." But close at times.
And I read a lot of good Evangelical and other thinkers who opine that we are not entirely on mark. But none of them think it is as wrong as the likes of Lee or even Viola or McLaren. (And McLaren has finally proven himself to be a little too far off the mark himself to be of real value anymore.) Surely things could be better. But "
decadence and maximum degradation"?
Give me a break.