Does "Baptist" Mean to a Baptist What "Recovery" Means..

[Cal]

(In the running for the thread with the longest title.)


What am I getting at here?

Simply that every movement (and thus its designations) conjures up positive images in its faithful followers which bespeak the best God has to offer. "Baptist" to a Baptist essentially means God's best, as does "Recovery" to an LCer. So they are more alike than LCers might want to admit.

Certainly there is plenty of difference between the Baptist movement and the Recovery movement. Yet LCers would like to make vivid differences which, when you get right down to it, aren't much differences at all. Why is the name "Baptist" divisive and "The Recovery" is not? Simply put, because in the minds of LCers, the Recovery is something good and genuine and totally of God himself thus it cannot be divisive (no matter how much havoc it wreaks). While to them "Baptist" means something of old dead religion, and so could never be anything but negative. On the other hand, Baptists think the Baptist movement is where God makes his home, so, of course, they like to call themselves Baptists.

But is there really any difference? No, there is not. So, if an LCer says by calling himself a Baptist a person is divisive, he must also say that by calling himself a person in the Lord's Recovery such a person is also divisive. Likewise if calling oneself a Baptist is not divisive, then one can say simply calling oneself a person in the Lord's Recovery is not divisive either.

When a Baptist says "we in the Baptist church" is he really saying anything different than when a LCers says "we in the Lord's Recovery"? In essence, no. One is not necessarily more exclusive or divisive than the other. Designations are necessarily for communication. No matter how much they try to get around it, LCers designate and denominate themselves when they refer to themselves as being in the Lord's Recovery and others as not.

Obviously, then, for communication purposes, denominating is unavoidable. The issue then is not denominating. The issue is what are the implications of the denominating. If a Baptist says, "I'm in the Baptist church because the Baptist beliefs to me represent the best God has to offer right now," then the Baptist is doing no differently than what LCers claim they are doing. Neither should be held at fault for doing this.

But if a Baptist says, "I'm in the Baptist church, and you are not, so you are not in God's move," then that is an exclusive implication of the denominating. This in fact is what many LCers and most staunch LSMers do. It is practically by definition sectarian.

So LC/LSMers in an attempt to claim special status try to draw all kinds of superficial differences between their names and the names of denominations (e.g. saying the name is really a "description"; making an issue of signboards, etc) but fail to see the essential similarities. On the other hand, they do not see the deep and essential exclusivity of claiming that those not in the Lord's Recovery (their movement) are not in God's move, while pointing an accusing finger at the superficial exclusivity of some modern denominations.