Poor poor Christianity?

[zeek]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

I would agree with citing "the development of hierarchical authority" as an catalyst towards the formation of institutional Christianity. "The work of church fathers" was not institutional per se, but they were certainly influential in the formation of most of the seminal doctrines of the Christian faith. So I guess I would agree with your first proposition, but I would strongly disagree that the work of the church fathers had any negative affect. Even the doctrinal errors of some of the church fathers brought forth the opportunity for clarification and correction, and thus even the errors of some turned into great profit for all concerned.

As a personal observation, I have witnessed a great move in modern Church in general, and in Protestantism specifically, of a turning away from "institutional" Christianity. It's rather hard to define this as a "movement" because it has taken it's form or made it's influence in so many different arenas of the Christian church. All the way from the Catholic Charismatic Renewal and the Jesus Movement, to the resurgence of a decidedly creedal/reformed form of teaching/practice/worship. Much to the chagrin of our dear Local Church brothers and sisters, God has apparently chosen to do a "recovery" among those in "poor, poor Christianity" after all.
-

I would expect that strict Biblical Christians would find their "seminal doctrines" in the Bible without depending on subsequent developments. We'll have to take a closer look at the work of the so-called church fathers to see how true they are to New Testament teachings. Why are they called Church fathers in the first place? The church was already fathered wasn't it? What did they father? Could it be "Christianity"? Why do we ignore Jesus's plain teaching of Matthew 23:9 "do not call anyone on Earth your father; for one is your father, he who is in heaven."?

It's true that Church Christianity got squeezed through much of the 20th century. The mainline churches were criticized by the more conservative Christians as being too worldly on one side and by secular society for being too religious on the other. As a result their numbers declined. I agree with you that there have been vibrant recent developments in Biblical Christianity which Witness Lee's group missed out on because of their centralized top-down authoritarian system.