I have some questions concerning churches that have been at the forefront of my mind for some time now, and I would like to hear what people think. First, it would perhaps be of benefit to those who try to answer that I give some background of my own spiritual journey (or feel free to skip straight to the numbered questions).
I rejected my parents attempts to get me to accept Christianity at a young age because I saw great hypocrisy in the church they belonged to and at the time I saw the Bible as simply an old book with no basis. I assumed that this was what Christianity IS, a bunch of hypocrites who claim to base their lives on a book that is not any more true than The Lord of the Rings. I became an intellectual rebel, you might say, and turned to politics, humanitarian causes, philosophy, and debauchery in a search for meaning. I always considered the big questions like the meaning of life, the nature of reality, etc. to be front-burner issues in my life and I would spend literally hours each day pondering them and reading what others had to say about them. These questions consumed me, and I never understood why most people did not take them seriously. I went through various phases of agnosticism, atheism, and spiritualism but never felt complete, never felt that the questions were really being adequately answered, never felt that any of the many philosophers I had read were totally right, and never felt that my life had real meaning or purpose nor that these things were supplying any. I recently realized that no matter how many smaller meanings (such as political, social, or humanitarian causes, pleasure-seeking, scientific inquiry, wealth accumulation, etc.) one piles up, if there is no higher Meaning outside of this world or this life that if over and above those smaller meanings, then the whole thing would collapse like a skyscraper without a foundation. I very slowly began to look more into Christianity. Initially, this was to disprove it and assure myself that meaning could not be found there so I could move on, but the opposite happened and I began to see that if Christianity is true, if Jesus was the Son of God sent to save us and teach the Good News, then life has meaning, life has purpose, and life has joy. Further, I finally began to accept Christianity itself. Apologetics has really helped me here, and many of my initial qualms have been settled by listening to the likes of Peter Kreeft, Lee Strobel, and C.S. Lewis. In some ways, I am glad I went though some of the phases I did, because I now have an understanding of logic and philosophy and have read the writings of philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre. I also have a fairly thorough firsthand knowledge of Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and New Age religions and what their pitfalls are, and I know what arguments work and which ones dont work for and against agnostics and atheists.
So this is where I am today. But where is that? I am reading and pondering the Bible every day, and I have attended various churches in my community. The problem is I have never felt right in any of them, and in most of them I have noticed that some things are taught that are contradicted in scripture, yet the congregation either does not notice this or chooses to overlook it. So this is my problem, and my questions are:
1) Is membership in a church NECESSARY for salvation and a Christian Life, or can these things be attained and lived without a church? What is the justification for this?
2) If church membership is necessary, is there any indication that picking the RIGHT church is necessary? Is it the case that it is different strokes for different folks, that diversity in churches is okay and certain churches fit certain people, or is it that case that there is ONE church that ALL true Christians are to belong to? What is the justification for this?
3) If there is a right church (or a type of right church), what SIGNS do I look for to find that right one? Is SOLA SCRIPTURA (scripture alone, the doctrine that all religious teaching and doctrine is to be found in the Scriptures) a necessary teaching in a church, or is additional reliance on TRADITION necessary to fill apparent gaps? Are SPIRITUAL GIFTS a sign that a church is true, or is that something that ended long ago? What is the justification for this?
I think the issue of the right church can be made easier if it is determined whether the church was supposed to be unchanging and universal or if it is supposed to change with the time and place it occupies to more efficiently conduct ministry and fellowship. If the former is true, we should model churches off how churches were in the earliest times of Christianity, but that is a hard task today as some information from that time period is missing. If the latter is true, then it may make the task easier, but some sort of boundary would have to be established where a church is definitively no longer Christian, or else we could easily fall into religious pluralism. It seems that these are questions all Christians should consider.
I rejected my parents attempts to get me to accept Christianity at a young age because I saw great hypocrisy in the church they belonged to and at the time I saw the Bible as simply an old book with no basis. I assumed that this was what Christianity IS, a bunch of hypocrites who claim to base their lives on a book that is not any more true than The Lord of the Rings. I became an intellectual rebel, you might say, and turned to politics, humanitarian causes, philosophy, and debauchery in a search for meaning. I always considered the big questions like the meaning of life, the nature of reality, etc. to be front-burner issues in my life and I would spend literally hours each day pondering them and reading what others had to say about them. These questions consumed me, and I never understood why most people did not take them seriously. I went through various phases of agnosticism, atheism, and spiritualism but never felt complete, never felt that the questions were really being adequately answered, never felt that any of the many philosophers I had read were totally right, and never felt that my life had real meaning or purpose nor that these things were supplying any. I recently realized that no matter how many smaller meanings (such as political, social, or humanitarian causes, pleasure-seeking, scientific inquiry, wealth accumulation, etc.) one piles up, if there is no higher Meaning outside of this world or this life that if over and above those smaller meanings, then the whole thing would collapse like a skyscraper without a foundation. I very slowly began to look more into Christianity. Initially, this was to disprove it and assure myself that meaning could not be found there so I could move on, but the opposite happened and I began to see that if Christianity is true, if Jesus was the Son of God sent to save us and teach the Good News, then life has meaning, life has purpose, and life has joy. Further, I finally began to accept Christianity itself. Apologetics has really helped me here, and many of my initial qualms have been settled by listening to the likes of Peter Kreeft, Lee Strobel, and C.S. Lewis. In some ways, I am glad I went though some of the phases I did, because I now have an understanding of logic and philosophy and have read the writings of philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Camus, and Sartre. I also have a fairly thorough firsthand knowledge of Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and New Age religions and what their pitfalls are, and I know what arguments work and which ones dont work for and against agnostics and atheists.
So this is where I am today. But where is that? I am reading and pondering the Bible every day, and I have attended various churches in my community. The problem is I have never felt right in any of them, and in most of them I have noticed that some things are taught that are contradicted in scripture, yet the congregation either does not notice this or chooses to overlook it. So this is my problem, and my questions are:
1) Is membership in a church NECESSARY for salvation and a Christian Life, or can these things be attained and lived without a church? What is the justification for this?
2) If church membership is necessary, is there any indication that picking the RIGHT church is necessary? Is it the case that it is different strokes for different folks, that diversity in churches is okay and certain churches fit certain people, or is it that case that there is ONE church that ALL true Christians are to belong to? What is the justification for this?
3) If there is a right church (or a type of right church), what SIGNS do I look for to find that right one? Is SOLA SCRIPTURA (scripture alone, the doctrine that all religious teaching and doctrine is to be found in the Scriptures) a necessary teaching in a church, or is additional reliance on TRADITION necessary to fill apparent gaps? Are SPIRITUAL GIFTS a sign that a church is true, or is that something that ended long ago? What is the justification for this?
I think the issue of the right church can be made easier if it is determined whether the church was supposed to be unchanging and universal or if it is supposed to change with the time and place it occupies to more efficiently conduct ministry and fellowship. If the former is true, we should model churches off how churches were in the earliest times of Christianity, but that is a hard task today as some information from that time period is missing. If the latter is true, then it may make the task easier, but some sort of boundary would have to be established where a church is definitively no longer Christian, or else we could easily fall into religious pluralism. It seems that these are questions all Christians should consider.