I usually judge a church by whether or not it is a biblical church. There are some churches that believe the bible is just an anecdotal starting point but their own modernized view of morality is far superior, therefore they are now the ones speaking for God.
The human heart is corrupt and these churches predictably embrace a worldly view of sinful behavior as being natural and therefore of God. This puts them in stark contrast to the bible which they view as being more or less primitive and uneducated.
I will confess that I am personally broken in such a way that a church like that would justify my brokenness and if I didn't know better I could easily fall for it, confusing acceptance for love. But God is love and God is truth, therefore the truth is love. So lying about the human condition is not love. It leads to death. It is cruel and evil to give a dead person a false sense of salvation rather than leading them to it.
The bible therefore gives us a way to measure our course and help keep us on track. Our interpretations may at times be wrong but at least we have a compass that we can trust. Being fallible our interpretations can be questionable so I agree that it is good to converse and exercise these ideas with fellow Christians for the good of the whole body.
I say these things knowing that I am a dead man. I am here in search of hope and the way.
Before even going further let me please tell you something, there are two sins I want to point out. These are serious Theological sins:
1. Presumption on God's Mercy. (Believing that it doesn't matter what you do in life, so long as you love Jesus it is okay to go on sinning because God is ever merciful)
2. Despair of God's Mercy. (Believing that it doesn't matter what you do to make reparation and correction of your past sins because God will not forgive you.)
These two sins are a rejection of Gods Justice and Mercy, respectively.
I do not claim to know if you do despair of Gods Mercy - it seems to me all of humanity has done it from time to time in their hearts - but just that your name is "unsavable" and thought to address it.
Moving on...
"I usually judge a church by whether or not it is a biblical church."
Let me tell you something and think about this slowly please... I will go back to 0 and point out that again this was something that the earliest Christians could not do. The earliest Christians had no New Testament in their possession to decipher which groups of so called "Christians" were practicing that same version of the Gospel that the Apostles were. You ever notice how St. John in his epistles says things like - and I am paraphrasing - "I thought to write you more in this letter but I saw fit to just come see you in person and discuss these matters then." So you see how even the Scripture itself points to the fact that it was being written by an already fully formed, fully functioning Church?
You say to base whichever Churches off the Bible but the fact is that there are many examples that many ecclesiastical matters, theological matters, even Christological matters are not in our Bible because they were being orally taught in the Church...
Next.
"There are some churches that believe the bible is just an anecdotal starting point but their own modernized view of morality is far superior, therefore they are now the ones speaking for God.
The human heart is corrupt and these churches predictably embrace a worldly view of sinful behavior as being natural and therefore of God. This puts them in stark contrast to the bible which they view as being more or less primitive and uneducated."
I couldn't agree more. This is one of the many - more minor - reasons I left protestantism.
Next.
"Our interpretations may at times be wrong but at least we have a compass that we can trust."
When we doubt our own interpretation of a biblical passage - if we are honest with ourselves we know that it happens from time to time - what trusted compass do you suggest we have to find out the truth of the passage in question?
