Which denomination is the right one?

[2PhiloVoid]

In your opinion, whose fault is that?

In my opinion, the various "faults" involved in this are everyone's.

 

[AV1611VET]

In my opinion, the various "faults" involved in this are everyone's.

I don't think that's what God had in mind when He said ...

Ephesians 4:4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Unfortunately, we have an adversary who is a master at divide-and-conquer tactics.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I don't think that's what God had in mind when He said ...

Ephesians 4:4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Unfortunately, we have an adversary who is a master at divide-and-conquer tactics.

And was it the Adversary who split Paul and Barnabas?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I don't think that's what God had in mind when He said ...

Ephesians 4:4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Unfortunately, we have an adversary who is a master at divide-and-conquer tactics.

Also, to add to my post above, I think you've missed the point of what I was referring to. In fact, you don't seem to give an indication that you've understood my point and instead jump to some other trope that you think insinuates the superiority of your own denomination.

 

[AV1611VET]

And was it the Adversary who split Paul and Barnabas?

I would say YES to that.

But if I'm wrong, it certainly wasn't because Paul was one [denomination] and Barnabas another.

 

[AV1611VET]

Also, to add to my post above, I think you've missed the point of what I was referring to. In fact, you don't seem to give an indication that you've understood my point and instead jump to some other trope that you think insinuates the superiority of your own denomination.

Ya --

I'm being real superior, aren't I?

What with claiming I'm not even a denomination.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I don't think that's what God had in mind when He said ...

Ephesians 4:4 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling;
5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

Unfortunately, we have an adversary who is a master at divide-and-conquer tactics.

Moreover, my answer two posts above indicates "everyone" is involved. That would include both Satan and God, along with us, but for for various, different reasons.

But of course, there is only ONE Christianity being that there was only ONE Jesus of Nazareth; but there is a historical ship load of various epistemological problems, varying perspectives on all sorts of minute details and ideas, as well as competing interpretations of these same problems, details and ideas.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Ya --

I'm being real superior, aren't I?

What with claiming I'm not even a denomination.

Frankly, I don't care what your church "claims" about its own identity as it sits as one option among a large number of other Christian options.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I would say YES to that.

But if I'm wrong, it certainly wasn't because Paul was one [denomination] and Barnabas another.

 

[CoreyD]

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Be blessed!

Which denomination is the right one?​

I understand that there are many denominations today, but based on the definition of denomination, none of them could be correct. Allow me to explain please.

Spoiler: Definition of Denomination

Denomination
A large group of religious congregations united under a common faith and name, usually organized under a single administrative and legal hierarchy., I don't think

Denomination
A Christian denomination is a distinct religious body within Christianity that comprises all church congregations of the same kind, identifiable by traits such as a name, particular history, organization, leadership, theological doctrine, worship style and, sometimes, a founder. It is a secular and neutral term, generally used to denote any established Christian church. Unlike a cult or sect, a denomination is usually seen as part of the Christian religious mainstream.

First. The definition is not scripturally based, and is really determined, not by Christ, but by ______?
Second. What exists today as Christianity has not been a monolithic faith since the first century or Apostolic Age - Constituting or acting as a single, often rigid, uniform whole.
Hence, this is not the Christianity that Jesus started, and directed during the first century, but is what was described by Jesus and the first century Christians.

Spoiler: Jesus an his followers description

The words of Jesus
Matthew 7:15
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

The words of the apostle Paul
Acts 20:29, 30
29 For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.

2 Thessalonians 2:3
No one should deceive you in any way, because it is not until the apostasy shall have come first, and the man of lawlessness shall have been revealed--the son of destruction,

2 Peter 2:1
But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.

1 John 2:18, 19
18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the[a] Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.

If we go by these scriptures, we realize that the first century Christian congregation was overrun by vicious wolves - a rebellious lot who were bent on teaching "destructive heresies".
Paul said,
9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, 10 and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, 12 that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12

What we are looking at today, then can be described as a big tree with many branches, all bearing some kind of fruit... but what kind - the fruit Jesus described at Matthew 7:15-20?
Or, if we want to look at it as a field, overrun with weeds. Matthew 13:24-30
So difficult it is to identify the wheat that Jesus planted, Jesus himself has to send angels to gather the wheat, and collect them into his storehouse.

One of the fruits we can examine, is the denomination's view of Jesus' command to be no part of the world.
Jesus said, My kingdom is not of this world. John 18:36, and his followers were no part of the world. John 15:19; John 17:14-19

If a major war took place between nations, would members of the various denominations not take part, even encouraged by their pastors and priests to "defend their nation" at the expense of killing their own "brothers" who are fighting on the other side?
Does anyone consider this good fruit? Bang.
Sorry I had to kill you my brother, but nation comes first. See you when I get to heaven.
What about Jesus command to love one another? Is that how one loves his brother... by shooting and killing him?

If we were to do a process of elimination, which denominations would we put an x next to or cross through, as those producing rotten fruit, and how many denominations would that leave us?
Christianity in both Europe and the United States served to unite fellow soldiers of the same denomination and motivated them to fight.

Spoiler: Church of England - Anglican lust for war

The Church of England
For national churches, such as The Church of England, war was heavily supported. They felt that it was their duty to pray for soldiers because they needed the grace of God. They believed that soldiers would pass through purgatory because violence was opposed to the church's belief in peace. Despite these conflicting beliefs, church leaders supported the war. Bishop Gore, a bishop of the Church of England, was one that fantasized and downplayed the realities of war in his attempt to support it.

International Encyclopedia of the First World War
The Churches
When war finally broke out in 1914, the majority of church officials and prominent clerics in the public sphere devoted themselves to the interests of the state. Underpinning this mindset was the belief shared by all sides that they were fighting a just war of defense against aggression. This war of civilization included religious rationales, with official churches as a key element in heightening ideological hatreds during the conflict. In the interwar period, official religion easily blended into political religion.[7] During the war, this resulted in a hateful theology of sanctimoniousness. Perhaps the most infamous formulation was by the Anglican Bishop of London, Arthur Winnington-Ingram (1858-1946), who proclaimed to his congregation in 1915:

Everyone that loves freedom and honour…are banded in a great crusade - we cannot deny it - to kill Germans: to kill them not for the sake of killing, but to save the world; to kill the good as well as the bad, to kill the young men as well as the old, to kill those who have shown kindness to our wounded as well as those fiends who crucified the Canadian sergeant, who supervised the Armenian massacres, who sank the Lusitania, and who turned the machine guns on the civilians of Aerschott and Louvain - and to kill them lest the civilization of the world should itself be killed.​

Spoiler: Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox soldiers

English-speaking Protestant denominations such as Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians were much stronger supporters of U.S. intervention.

The American churches’ involvement in the Great War also highlighted the complexities of religiosity in multi-ethnic societies adjusting to industrial warfare.

Jonathan Ebel has argued, the American religious experience of the Great War showed that religion was a necessary but not wholly sufficient cause of American involvement in the war

Clerics’ blessing of weapons was a highly charged symbolic issue related to just war debates.

In the military, courses in “Patriotic Instruction” were often led by clerics and military officers, stressing the need for obedience to the state.

As codified in 1917, Canon Law prohibited ordained Catholic clergy from bearing arms, but some clerics took up arms and killed enemy soldiers, either through lack of church-state agreement, such as in the French case, or else in eagerness to fit in with soldiers at the front. At one of the spectrum was the republican French state, where the separation of church and state occurred in 1905. Consequently, no French priests, ministers, or rabbis were exempt from active military service. Around 79,000 Catholic clergy served as soldiers, with France alone providing 45,000: of those French clergy, 3,101 priests and seminarians, and 1,517 members of religious orders died on active duty.

As state-sponsored clerics, military chaplains were an extremely visible symbol of church-state alliance. Chaplains were assigned to military units, usually at the division level. However, some units, such as Tyrolean formations of the Austro-Hungarian army, had chaplains at the battalion level. Because of the complicated politics of ethno-nationalism, the Austro-Hungarian Army represented religious-military bureaucracy in its most complex form, managing military chaplains of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christianity as well as Jewish and Muslim chaplains.

In contrast to pre-war norms, where a Bavarian Catholic priest ministered to around 665 lay parishioners, in wartime, this meant that a Catholic chaplain was responsible for around 1,600 Catholic soldiers. This increased the number of group confessions and mass burials at the front. Growing battlefront and home front needs also created a shortage of religious personnel, both male and female

With this method, of using the Bible to check which denominations meet the mark of Christianity approved by Jesus, soon enough, we would realize that we are down to a handful, if so many.

...chances for success were greater in recognized sects such as the Society of Friends (Quakers) and the Christadelphians. These groups drew on early church pacifist traditions or adopted millenarian beliefs about the Kingdom of God being at hand, and relished the roles of martyrdom (bearing witness) for their beliefs in face of state persecution. Few Anglicans or Catholics, by contrast, became objectors. State traditions and context mattered: not a single German Mennonite was recorded as a conscientious objector.

World War I and the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific
While almost all other religious groups actively promoted the war and the enlistment of their young men, the denomination walked a largely successful but very fine line between loyalty to the government and opposition to a worldly war that conflicted with the Church’s global mission and vision. Church leaders managed ultimately successful negotiations with governments to ensure that military service requirements accommodated Adventist positions on non-combatancy and the Sabbath. As far as possible, the Church remained firmly fixed on its mission, which by global standards was relatively unaffected by the war or by government policies.

This is just one fruit, we have considered.

 

[AV1611VET]

But of course, there is only ONE Christianity being that there was only ONE Jesus of Nazareth; but there is a historical ship load of various epistemological problems, varying perspectives on all sorts of minute details and ideas, as well as competing interpretations of these same problems, details and ideas.

As I understand it, we have a Heinz 57 variety of Christian denominations today.

This is because people tend to put their emphases on different doctrines of the Bible.

And it all started in Paul's time.

1 Corinthians 1:10 Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11 For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.
12 Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
13 Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?

Paul chastises them for this.

1 Corinthians 3:4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

Satan laughs all the way to the bank when he sees us all fighting and bickering.

 

[AV1611VET]

Frankly, I don't care what your church "claims" about its own identity as it sits as one option among a large number of other Christian options.

You're a reader, aren't you?

This is the definitive writing on our churches:

 

[2PhiloVoid]

You're a reader, aren't you?

This is the definitive writing on our churches:

View attachment 348546

I think I scanned through Carroll's book at the local Christian bookstore back in '86. Somehow though, it didn't quite pull the money out of my pocket for purchase.

 

[AV1611VET]

I think I scanned through Carroll's book at the local Christian bookstore back in '86. Somehow though, it didn't quite pull the money out of my pocket for purchase.

Thus Post 28?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Thus Post 28?

What Post 28 "means" is that I can read about your denomination and its supposed story about itself, AND at the same time, simply let you know that it isn't something I can invest myself in in the same way or to the same degree that you do.

Does this also "mean" that I think your Independent Baptist Church is wrong through and through. No. I can appreciate the focus and commitment that Independent Baptists like yourself aspire to, but even so, I see still your church as but one option among many within the pail of orthodoxy and I choose not to commit to expressing my Christian faith via that option, just like I don't choose to hitch my wagon up to any of the other denominations. Much of this is mainly due to the fact that I have too many questions that all too many other Christians can't or don't answer.

... Thus, Post 28

 

[2PhiloVoid]

You're a reader, aren't you?

This is the definitive writing on our churches:

View attachment 348546

Also, since we're sharing books that are somehow centrally placed in our respective thinking, if you were to by chance read this book, then you'd have a better idea about what I'm attempting to communicate:

 

[AV1611VET]

What Post 28 "means" is that I can read about your denomination and its supposed story about itself, AND at the same time, simply let you know that it isn't something I can invest myself in in the same way or to the same degree that you do.

Does this also "mean" that I think your Independent Baptist Church is wrong through and through. No. I can appreciate the focus and commitment that Independent Baptists like yourself aspire to, but even so, I see still your church as but one option among many within the pail of orthodoxy and I choose not to commit to expressing my Christian faith via that option, just like I don't choose to hitch my wagon up to any of the other denominations. Much of this is mainly due to the fact that I have too many questions that all too many other Christians can't or don't answer.

... Thus, Post 28

Then I'm sorry, Philo.

But the more you post, the more you make it sound like this thread title is not a legitimate question.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Then I'm sorry, Philo.

But the more you post, the more you make it sound like this thread title is not a legitimate question.

I think you and I have different definitions of what a "legitimate" question actually is. And from your semantic angle, you're correct. But from my other historically inclined, epistemological and ethical angle, it is very much a legitimate question.

For me, an example of an illegitimate question would be one like this: "Are Jews even human?"

That would be, for me, a clear example of an utterly illegitimate question.

 

[AV1611VET]

Also, since we're sharing books that are somehow centrally placed in our respective thinking, if you were to by chance read this book, then you'd have a better idea about what I'm attempting to communicate:

Frankly, all I hear you telling me is what denomination/church is either wrong, or does not apply to the OP.

With respect to the thread title, quit telling me what answers are wrong, and give me the right one.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Frankly, all I hear you telling me is what denomination/church is either wrong, or does not apply to the OP.

With respect to the thread title, quit telling me what answers are wrong, and give me the right one.

Not all legitimate questions have clear answers. Some questions are outside of our reach to acquire an answer and know.