The true Church is...?

[TruelightUK]

Is there a place in the Church for those who are weak in faith, who stumble and sin, who are not obviously growing in sanctity and spirituality? What constitues the 'legitimacy' of the Church - orthodox belief? ..stablished structures? ..spiritual vitality? 

Traditionally, the Church has been seen as a place where 'wheat and tares' grow up together, posessing a unity derived from a common creed and bond of fellowship in allegiance to Christ, but embracing a breadth of experience, doctrine and practice.  

Yet there are those who see things differently;  dubious of traditional structures, they see the true Church as

 A closed group, the gathering of the spiritually-minded (dropping) all thought of the continuity of the Church and seeing her as a body which crop(s) up here and there whenever groups of real Christians might emerge ... (a) spiritual church...which alone can exercise apostolic power... 'The Church is properly and fundementally spirit... It is the Spirit who gathers together the Church which the Lord made to consist in (the Trinity)'

 Such folk are characterised by their zeal and fervour, accompanied by manifestations of spiritual gifts such as prophesy and tongues, and

(Shake) from their feet the dust of a Church reckoned unworthy of their presence.  (Bulloch, 1981)

Any thoughts on this one? (And anyone care to guess which specific group or groupings the author was refering to  and quoting from?)

Anthony

 

[niwde]

practically all of us know who or what is the true church
this is a extremely sensitive issue and can cause a flair up
no point fighting over it
like jesus said "those who are not for me are agaist me"

 

[ZiSunka]

I am growing very concrened about you Truelight, because you have being working very hard to thwart orthodoxy in the faith.

I'm being to think of you as a wolf in sheep's clothing, or rather, a cultist who has come to us to try to get us to accept unorthodox beliefs.

Who are you and what church do you belong to?

 

[9-iron]

He is just against the institutionalization of the church. There is a very strong movement of people coming out of institutionalized churches. What they are going into I am not sure. It seems the church, especially here in America has become another institution of society that is being run by a corporate system. In other words, the church has taken on an existence of itself apart from Christ. It has become to exist for itself institutionally. Yes we preach the gospel and do many good things, but we do it through the church. It has become institutionalized, incorporated and regulated to the point where God has little room to operate anymore.  For example I saw that some ministry was asking for 250,000 people to pledge $30 a month so they could build this 7,000-8,000 seat super domes......that is 90 million a year.......which is just one example of church becoming a Big Corporate Enterprise....

I believe this is where Truelight is coming from..

 

[TruelightUK]

Originally posted by lambslove
I am growing very concrened about you Truelight, because you have being working very hard to thwart orthodoxy in the faith.

I'm being to think of you as a wolf in sheep's clothing, or rather, a cultist who has come to us to try to get us to accept unorthodox beliefs.

Who are you and what church do you belong to?

Just which of my beliefs do you see as so 'anti-orthodox'?  In particular I'd be interested to know what you find 'cultish' about this current thread (which actually deals with the 'orthodox' Church's response to sectarianism!). 

If you look carefully at most of my more controversial posts, they actually appeal to 'orthodoxy', either from Scripture or from the established teaching of the Church - often refering back to the early Church Fathers and Apologists in an effort to gain perspective on some of the accepted (and 'acceptable'!) teachings of today's denominations.  The aim of many of my posts is to question comfortable assumptions, and try to tease out the true voice of God - in some cases asking questions of you guys which I am asking myself in the hope of together getting a deeper and firmer grasp on the Truth. (I guess in reality you take offense at my questioning of conservative evangelical orthodoxy, which I can appreciate could be somewhat 'threatening' to some.) Through all my posts, however, I believe their runs a very clear committment to the basic truths of the Faith - that in Christ, God took flesh; that he died for our sins and rose again to bring us new life in union with the Father, through the power of the Holy Spirit; that he will one day return to judge all humanity, who will face the eternal consequences of the choices they made in this life.

If you really wish to know who I am etc., you could look up my profile and/or check out my website which are perfectly open (nay explicit!) about both my background and my current allegiances and beliefs.  Briefly though, my name is Anthony, I live in Northern England and have been a Christian for over 30 years. I have attended several mainline denominations in that time, and spent a period in a 'non-denominational' 'New Church', which I now consider to have been verging on the cultish - hence my concern with Truth rather than received opinion!  I have been a 'member in good standing' of a local Elim Pentecostal assembly for some 3 years, but have recently also begun attending a local Anglican congregation - actually, 9Iron, I guess that actually represents a return to the institutional Church!?!

Hopefully that answers some of your questions, and perhaps sets your mind at rest as to my intentions - or maybe it just rings more alarm bells!

Anthony

 

[9-iron]

   MY BAD,,,,,,I guess I need to stop trying to speed read through these forums.........