What denominations does CF belong to?

[rockytopva]

I believe in the seven churches as ages...

Ephesus - Messianic - Beginning with the Apostle to the Circumcision, Peter
Smyrna - Martyr - Beginning with the Apostle to the Un-Circumcision, Paul
Pergamos - Orthodoxy formed in this time... Pergos is a tower... Needed in the dark ages
Thyatira - Catholicism formed in this time - The spirit of Jezebel is to control and to dominate.
Sardis - Protestantism formed in this time- A sardius is a gem - elegant yet hard and rigid
Philadelphia - Wesleyism formed in this time - To be sanctioned is to acquire it with love.
Laodicea - Charismatic movement formed in this time - Beginning with DL Moody, the first to make money off of ministry

I really not am into denominations. Chaucer said, "When the mastery cometh the God of love anon beateth his wings... And farewell! He is gone!" Give any one group denominational superiority and it is like the Holy Spirit tilts his hat, and says, "See ya!"

 

[Godlovesmetwo]

Give any one group denominational superiority and it is like the Holy Spirit tilts his hat, and says, "See ya!"

I agree with that. Makes sense to me.

 

[DeerGlow]

I agree with that. Makes sense to me.

Not to me. One group thinking they're better doesn't mean they can't have the HS, of course it doesn't gauruntee they do either.

 

[DeerGlow]

I'm all alone....

 

[rockytopva]

When we had a plating department in our facility I worked under a chemist. This chemist was very smart and very good at math. When he laid out equations he did so in very neat handwriting and there would be much activity as he turned the results of an analysis into an addition. I would take his calculations and put them in the form of visual basic functions and sub procedures.

Of all the years I worked with this man I had one opportunity to witness to him. I made my presentation while he was analyzing adhesion under a microscope in which you could hear the sounds... Scratch, scratch, scratch! Scratch scratch, scratch! After my presentation he just continued to look under the microscope as if ignored everything I said so I just continued in my work. Then... The scratch scratch, scratching stopped! And he speaks!

"You know what I think it is?" He says while continuing to look under the microscope... "I think it is arrogance!"

And then, without taking his eyes off the microscope, he continues his work... Scratch, scratch, scratch! Scratch scratch, scratch! I did not reply but went about my work. If I had a sick feeling in my stomach, it was that he never did witness the true spiritual light and energies, and those religious folk that he met in his life were arrogant... Which is not the light and energy God would have us present.

If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: - 1 John 1:6
But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. - James 3:14

1. The anointing of God is not human ego (arrogance)
2. If you do not love everyone you dwell in darkness
3. Our gospel truth is not to hold others in bondage
4. There is no denominational superiority... We are all in the flesh and subject to our faults and failures.
5, Even though you feel you may have truth, if it is not accompanied with the appropriate spiritual light, you do not.

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. - 1 John 4:1

we are encouraged in scripture to try the spirits and weigh them to see if they are of God. If you are in the position where you have people over you, and the Spirit is raising red flags, react to that as God would have you to. I remember I use to follow a certain evangelist and I would be warned by a little voice inside of me that there was something wrong with the guy. And sure enough, I would learn of his fall years later.

For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. - Isaiah 66:2

26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29 That no flesh should glory in his presence. - 1 Corinthians 1

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. - Proverbs 16:18

Finally it is not the high and the esteemed that God looks to but to the poor and the lowly. If people get overboard in their ego know that a fall is on the way! And to so many who think their denomination has the superiority, I can only try to get this one point over, that their ego is not the unction of the Holy Spirit!

 

[Daniel9v9]

Born and raised in a largely Pentecostal/Charismatic and non-denominational environment, I found my home in Orthodox Lutheranism. Needless to say, I fundamentally believe in one holy catholic Church! Though people's views are somewhat diverse, it's possible to be united through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[DolphinsDream]

I am basically pentacostal. I grew up Lutheran and my dad was an elder in the church. For a year and a half, though, I attended a Catholic school so was attending Mass during school hours. Grew up, didn't want much to do with church for awhile... then went non-denominational. When I moved to a new city in 2007, the first church I went to was pentacostal. I loved it and stayed there until I moved away recently.

 

[mcarmichael]

I am obviously new here and I am just trying to get into the groove of things. I just wanted to conduct a little survey on what theologies people on CF hold to. I know I probably missed a few, if I did, just tell us in the thread. (Note: Groups not holding to the Nicene Trinity are not consider Christians in this section and thus have not been listed).

Yeah, why not take a poll? (I didn't participate.)
Perhaps by forming a consensus, we'll be able to resolve our petty theological issues. Who knows?

 

[mcarmichael]

I get paid to be surveyed.

 

[SnowyMacie]

As a former Churches of Christ member, the CoC should be listed separately than Non-Denominational/Evangelical. It's not even remotely Evangelical or Non-Denominational. There is also only about 4,000,000 in the world anyway, and so I'm fairly sure I've gone through periods on here as the only active CFer that was also was an active member of the Churches of Christ.

 

[ChristIsSovereign]

I would lean Baptist more than anything, myself. Theologically I am a mix of Calvinism, Arminianism, and... well, I can't even describe it. Molinism? I'd be home in a Southern Baptist Church.

 

[Hank77]

The stranger replied, "Well, that depends: we've got 2 kinds--the respectable kind and the Junping-Jesus kind. Which kind do you want?" Uncle Larry's friend smiled and replied, "I guess that would the Junping-Jesus kind!"

I love this story, Jumping-Jesus, lol.
I used to go to the Pentecostal Holiness church, there was a little old man, he's passed on now, by the name of Uncle Raulie. That's what everyone called him. Boy did he love the Lord and lived an exemplary Christian life. Anyway he'd get excited and dance a little jigg in the aisle way. Makes me smile just to think about him.

Raised in a secular home, baptisted RCC at age 18, left, a couple years later I received Christ as born again, went to a SBC where they said men shouldn't wear beards... but Jesus had a beard..., no He didn't. Huh, what? Then Pentecostal, now non-denominational. I like a lot of what I hear from the Eastern Orthodox though; missing traditions I guess.

 

[AlexDTX]

My parents were atheists by choice and raised my family on evolution, science (my father was a scientist) and socialism. I had no childhood church experience except onetime when they brought us to a Unitarian church. The only thing I remember was finger painting. My father was raised Congregationalist and my mother was raised Presbyterian. As a child I had a Catholic neighbor who was the first to mention the name of Jesus to me. I asked him who he was and he said that he was God. I knew Jesus was a man so it seemed absurd to my 5 year old mind that a man could become God. Nonetheless I remember crying out to Jesus in the field behind my home.

As a 10 year old my father looked directly at me and said that there is no God. In my mind I heard the thought, Yes there is. In hindsight I realize that it was God speaking to me. I also had brief experiences of speaking spontaneously in tongues as a 10 year old. My parents divorced when I was 10.

At the age of 19 I decided to find out what was in the Bible with the reasoning that if this book is believed by millions of people for thousands of years, I should at least know what is inside it. When reading the Gospels I had rhema experiences (although I did not know what that meant at the time) in the Beatitudes and the parable of the Sower and the seed: blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God; and, the good soil bore fruit 100 fold, respectively.

Not until I was 32 did the realization of who Jesus Christ come to me through the evangelism of a Messianic Jew who got me to realize that a man did not become God, but God became a man. I saw my need for salvation and prayed with him on Friday night. Sunday morning I had an overwhelming desire to join him at church, which was 32 years ago. He attended the Assemblies of God. I had no idea what the message was about, but when the invitation came to accept Christ into my heart I ran to the front and cried out to Jesus for salvation in front of 500 people. I began crying which lasted 3 hours. On Wednesday he shared with me the baptism of the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues, of which I received. For the next week I was in eternity and lost track of time. I had taken drugs in my youth and knew that would wear off, but I became frightened that this would not wear off. It did, of course, but the sense of the anointing has never left me.

I shared my testimony because I was not raised Assemblies of God. That was the denomination that I truly experienced the new birth and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I did not remain in that denomination. That lasted about 5 years. The congregation I attended was Pastored by Marvin Gorman in Metarie, LA. His wife had an affair with Jimmy Swaggart in Baton Rouge. A huge scandal broke out which was followed by the scandal of Swaggart visiting the prostitutes in Metarie on Airline Highway.

I moved to Texas to attend Christ for the Nations, which is also AOG/Pentecostal/Charismatic with an international student body. Dallas is mostly Baptist so I attended various Baptist congregations with my wife who I met after graduating CFNI.

I became disillusioned with denominations, seeing them as business franchises, and as non biblical institutions. We switched to various house churches and found the same tendency for the leadership to try and control what people thought and how they behaved. We have a fellowship that comes to my home and we let the Lord direct how and what we do to the best of our ability.

In summation, I don't believe in house churches, either, even though we host a fellowship. I believe the Church is organic. How we meet and love one another are merely a means to and end. I meet with Christians on the job, in the grocery store, in my neighborhood, and where ever I am, even online.

 

[Colter]

I am obviously new here and I am just trying to get into the groove of things. I just wanted to conduct a little survey on what theologies people on CF hold to. I know I probably missed a few, if I did, just tell us in the thread. (Note: Groups not holding to the Nicene Trinity are not consider Christians in this section and thus have not been listed).

Raised in a Meathodist church. Born again outside of religion. Took the 12 steps of AA. Found the Urantia revelation where I settled on simply stating that my religion is being a disciple of Jesus, of his original gospel.

 

[PloverWing]

I grew up Southern Baptist, and for my K-12 schooling I attended a school run by an Evangelical nondenominational church. The college I attended for my bachelor's degree was also Evangelical. My college experience transformed my faith, in a number of complicated ways. In my mid-20s, I was confirmed as an Episcopalian, and the Episcopal church has been a good home to me ever since: Liturgical, with deep roots in history, but also able to embrace questions and disagreements.

 

[S.O.J.I.A.]

Presbyterian free church of Scotland. Formerly at an RPCNA congregation. .

 

[bbbbbbb]

As a former Churches of Christ member, the CoC should be listed separately than Non-Denominational/Evangelical. It's not even remotely Evangelical or Non-Denominational. There is also only about 4,000,000 in the world anyway, and so I'm fairly sure I've gone through periods on here as the only active CFer that was also was an active member of the Churches of Christ.

I agree with you completely and was quite perplexed when I saw that. My only observation is that very few CoC folks participate at CF.

 

[anna ~ grace]

Theologically, I reject Sola Fide, am learning to love and venerate Mary, accept that it truly is the Body and Blood of Christ, and love learning about and approaching Christ through art; like statues, paintings, and icons.

 

[Mountainmike]

Born into Anglican, and stayed there till teenage, drifted into evangelical groups.

The story of bernadette heard early in life always did have a profound impact on me that never left me, I also had a fascination for the unexplained like the shroud of turin, the incorruptibles, eucharistic miracles and less celebrated but no less mysterious - like the certified inedia of Alexandrina da Costa - certified by atheist medics, who were determined to prove her a fraud, but could not!

But like most , I was a "sucker" for the soundbites of anti catholic rhetoric, it would be years before I even tried to analyze the objections and see how silly most of them are. I even started to use them!

As a post grad scientist For a while I thought science explained all till I got to the boundaries of science and saw it was all an illusion, a tool not an explanation. Then drifted and never stopped searching.

I couldnt understand how the same tradition (anglican) could embrace so many different beliefs on fundamental things like eucharist, or the fact that those who shouted "scripture alone" loudest had so many different views on what it meant, but they couldnt seem to understand the logical contradiction their position poses.

History also posed a conundrum "Bible Christians" so called, can only be a recent thing. Because till comparatively recent times few could afford to own a bible or were able to read it, even in their native tongue! So that could never be what Jesus intended as the way his church was passed on....he gave us apostles not a book. And if these bible christians were the rediscovery of an early church - then how did they fall out and schism so frequently? How could they even trace a line back to the early church?

How was it that so called bible christians had so little bible in their gatherings, and left it to a pastor to decide what the bible meant? And why were their rituals so unbiblical? I could find baptism in the bible...no altar calls or "asking jesus into your life"

So I went back, way back...to discover the early history of christianity - what the first fathers believed, and how the faith was handed down early on and how the early church resolved disputes on doctrine - to discover the new testament didnt drop out of the sky, nor was it even available even to those who could read for several centuries. Some of the early writings had a profound impact - take for example the letter of ignatius to smyrneans, he and polycarp disciples of john the apostle and taught by him, to discover a liturgical sacramental church that believed in real presence in a eucharist only validly performed by a bishop or his appointee in succession... this only decades after christ.

Small details such as the fact the word Jesus used of "eat my body" meant "gnaw" as of meat. Not consume. And then you have to question: after his sermon at Capernaum about "eat my body, drink my blood" - all his followers began to leave in disgust.....Did Jesus let them off the hook and say "Dont leave, my message was only spiritual" -. Not a bit of it - he just asked his disciples would they leave too?

I then realised that most of the modern day denominations already fail to meet the test of compatibility with early church The ones with true apostolic succession and real presence are only two.- a straight choice between catholic and orthodox: and even orthodox recognised the "Primacy of honour" of Successors of Peter and Rome at councils, at least to begin with.

Slowly it fell into place. Sola scriptura revealed as it was as a a latter day myth, that the correct interpretation of scripture was tradition, handed down, decided by church authority. There are indeed scriptural justifications

I had always loved the writings of saints, their love of God and the eucharist, and I wondered - how is it protestants deny the validity of the beliefs of such clearly godly people? How is it protestants accept the validity of the new testament, yet reformation beliefs are wholly at odds, with what those who chose that canon thought the scripture meant. Such inconsistency could not be right, or what Jesus intended.


I then saw verses I never had before - scripture says the "pillar of truth is the Church!" not scripture! That the intercession of a mother of a davidic king, and was titled queen, was right there in the old testament if you knew where to look , that there was scriptural justification for such as confession and even the pope.

History mattered too. Such as the very location of Jesus's statement naming Peter as the rock on which he would build his church - turned out to be a rock platform at caesarea philippi on which a pagan temple was built, thought of as the entry to the underworld. So Jesus was distinguishing his rock - Peter from that of the Pagan church. Also that the conversation would have been in Aramaic, which does not recognise gender, so the protestant sophistry distinguishing Peter from the rock of the church, was a distinction that did not make grammatical or any other sense.


A journey that led inexorably back to Rome. For sure I had remaining questions. But all the essentials had fallen inot place.

So fifteen years ago, I entered RCIA, but it was swift when I dived in. My search had already equipped me with the answers to all the essential questions. So here I am...happy in my choice.

I am Disappointed in how much disiniformation is routinely used against catholics!
I know the answers to all of the anticatholic myth playbook - and I also know that like a hydra, the moment you chop one head away, the other myths will follow shortly after, then back to the begining again.

Why do you worship mary. We don't. We venerate her. But then so too did an angel....
Only god forgives sins. True. The priest acts as a channel for christ. He has no power to forgive of his own.
You worship statues. er no. Have any of you actually BEEN in a catholic church? most of the statues are of Christ, outnumbering others 10:1 there to remind us of him. So simple question ...do you think we worship Christ, or the statue of wood that represents him...
Your liturgy is full of Mary. Actually no, it is almost wall to wall scripture quotation beginning to end, far more scripture than ANY biblical sect (strange that heh!)..and references to Mary are few, far betweeen and always in the context of asking her to "pray for us". Whose prayers are likely more potent? Your friends who you ask to pray for you, or Mary, whose powers of intercession are seen in the bible eve

Your pope tells you not to read scripture. Actually no.....you can list endless references of popes exhorting the faithful to read scripture!

**Streuth**
**yawn**


And if you do read scripture, you will see that Jesus says his church will be one , that the powers of hell will not prevail against it. So which church has endured from early times, almost unaltered in beliefs? In present times, which have kept to their moral standpoints, and which have allowed popularity to water down on contracpetion, abortion, remarriage , LGBT and so on.

The mark of Jesus' true church is its beliefs will remain unchanged, since truth itself does not change.

So which qualifies by longevity? Sure the oak tree looks different to the acorn. But when things grow it does not make them different in identity!

I am happy for others to believe differently to me. I am not out here to persuade them otherwise. The only time I enter the fray is to correct misunderstandings, or oppose flagrant untruths about catholics.

Catholics don't go out looking for intellectual punchups against others who believe other things. But for some reason evangelicals particularly think they serve a purpose in being rude to catholics, rather than in demonstrating the true mark of christianity, love of God and Neighbour.

 

[seeking.IAM]

I am a refugee from the United Methodist Church, now an Anglican worshipping in The Episcopal Church (U.S.A.)