Justification for One City-One Church dogma?

Jake · 05-30-2017, 10:41 AM

As far as I can tell, the entire concept of having one church per city seems to be an almost childishly simplistic reading of Paul's letters which refer to the church in some particular city. If we really want to be semantically strict, the only true "church" is the body of Christ, the universal church consisting of all believers. I think most Christians understand the distinction that when we say "church" in reference to a building, it's really just shorthand for "a meeting place for members of the Church", it doesn't mean that the Body of Christ is actually contained within that physical place. The idea that there is one church per city, and each of these city-based churches is somehow distinct and separate as an entity, seems to directly contradict the idea of the universal corporate Church.

It also seems strange that we would tie something divine to a man-made secular structure--cities, after all, are just arbitrary geographic boundaries created for political reasons. What happens when two cities merge? Does the decision of politicians miraculously result in the Body of Christ being rearranged? Merging several cities to create large mega-cities has been popular practice in urban development over the last few decades, how have LCs actually responded when this occurs?

Other denominations often name their churches after cities, neighborhoods or streets, but they don't make any claims about the city being some kind of divine basis for the unique expression of the Church, it's simply used to identify the location of the building...

05-30-2017, 10:41 AM	#1
Jake Member Join Date: May 2017 Posts: 11	Justification for One City-One Church dogma? As far as I can tell, the entire concept of having one church per city seems to be an almost childishly simplistic reading of Paul's letters which refer to the church in some particular city. If we really want to be semantically strict, the only true "church" is the body of Christ, the universal church consisting of all believers. I think most Christians understand the distinction that when we say "church" in reference to a building, it's really just shorthand for "a meeting place for members of the Church", it doesn't mean that the Body of Christ is actually contained within that physical place. The idea that there is one church per city, and each of these city-based churches is somehow distinct and separate as an entity, seems to directly contradict the idea of the universal corporate Church. It also seems strange that we would tie something divine to a man-made secular structure--cities, after all, are just arbitrary geographic boundaries created for political reasons. What happens when two cities merge? Does the decision of politicians miraculously result in the Body of Christ being rearranged? Merging several cities to create large mega-cities has been popular practice in urban development over the last few decades, how have LCs actually responded when this occurs? Other denominations often name their churches after cities, neighborhoods or streets, but they don't make any claims about the city being some kind of divine basis for the unique expression of the Church, it's simply used to identify the location of the building...