29 Nov 18
@fmf saidA lot of people claim to know Jesus, but in reality are only religious and belong to a particular denomination and question the veracity of the Bible when it conflicts with their preconceived ideological belief system.
As for this issue, the piece in the OP suggests that a person's "salvation" is riding on it. You'd say that such a thing is a "small disagreement"?
I'm sure you can relate to that.
29 Nov 18
@secondson saidYou should start a thread on this point as it is quite interesting, but what about the content of this thread, of this OP?
A lot of people claim to know Jesus, but in reality are only religious and belong to a particular denomination and question the veracity of the Bible when it conflicts with their preconceived ideological belief system.
I'm sure you can relate to that.
30 Nov 18
@divegeester saidDodging the answer, as usual.
Sonship, do you agree with the statement of belief from your church’s website which I’ve posted in my OP?
30 Nov 18
@divegeester saidDodging the answer, again, as usual.
Sonship, do you agree with the statement of belief from your church’s website which I’ve posted in my OP?
30 Nov 18
@divegeester saidAGAIN, dodging the answer, as usual.
Simple question Sonship, do you agree with the statement of belief from your church’s website which I’ve posted in my OP?
30 Nov 18
@divegeester saidYet again, even more dodging the answer.
Sonship, I have a very simple question for you.
Do you agree with your church’s statement of belief in regards to salvation depending on a belief in the Trinity?
Why won’t you say that you do?
It’s so weird.
30 Nov 18
@fmf saidNot at all.
As for this issue, the piece in the OP suggests that a person's "salvation" is riding on it. You'd say that such a thing is a "small disagreement"?
The small disagreement is whether or not Sonship believes such a thing needs to be in a statement of Faith for the Church, not whether or not it is relevant to personal salvation.
A statement of Faith does not have to literally be a manifesto on the Trinity, and what the relevance is...
... And believing that God's mercy is generally extended to non-Trinitarian Christians, I think, is perhaps a theologically significant difference, but I do not think that it is enough to suggest that he needs to find a new church, or that he is breaking some big thing with his church.
Do you?
@secondson saidI haven't labelled anyone "homophobes, bigots and hate mongers" due to the fact that they are Christians, so I am not sure what that has to do with me. I think sonship's group or sect or denomination may well qualify as a cult. I did not use the word as "innuendo". I used it because of exactly what it means.
So, Mr. Innuendo the atheists has decided to label sonship's church a cult.
Nothing new there. If one is a Bible believing Christian, then they are labeled homophobes, bigots and hate mongers.
Guess who's doing the labeling. Simple issue.
There was a thread where it was discussed here several months ago. It caused me to look into it. There seems to be a cult of personality thing going on with Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. And sonship's intellectual and interpersonal behaviour smacks of cult membership sometimes. I mean, he's sometimes even stranger than robbie carrobie was, and robbie carrobie was certainly in a cult.
I posted a video once by someone making very specific and detailed points about Local Church and Living Stream Ministry several months ago and sonship absolutely blanked it out. Seemed odd. And there have been a couple of occasions when some mysterious non-chess-player with a strange name popped in like some kind of supervisor and made comments on sonship's monologues. So, just a bit of hunch by me. You are perfectly entitled to disagree.
Some resources:
https://www.gotquestions.org/Witness-Lee-local-church.html
"There are many people, some of them formerly involved in the Local Church, who are absolutely convinced that the Local Church is a cult, or at least a non-biblical and non-evangelical movement."
"The concerns raised by counter-cult organizations about Lee’s teachings center primarily on four areas: the nature of God, the nature of man, the legitimacy of evangelical churches and denominations, and the lawsuits brought against Evangelical churches, publishers and individuals by the Local Church."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Church_controversies
I think the Jehovah's Witnesses are a cult. Do you?
If I am wrong about this, I am sure that sonship will dismiss my ideas as "faeces" as he has done before. Both he and I can live with that, I'm sure.
30 Nov 18
1 edit
@philokalia saidWhy don't you ask him? He has been stonewalling this kind of thing for years and years.
The small disagreement is whether or not Sonship believes such a thing needs to be in a statement of Faith for the Church, not whether or not it is relevant to personal salvation.
30 Nov 18
@philokalia saidWhat is it that sonship believes?
And believing that God's mercy is generally extended to non-Trinitarian Christians, I think, is perhaps a theologically significant difference, but I do not think that it is enough to suggest that he needs to find a new church, or that he is breaking some big thing with his church.
Do you?
As for perhaps removing a threat of torture for eternity for thoughtcrimes and ideological impurities from some portion of fellow religionists, it's still morally incoherent and it's still dredging up the most grotesque and demented ideology that the human imagination has ever sunk to.
So, the tiny mundane increments in amongst all that "divine" and ghastly attempted coercion is a bit moot, isn't it? What has been interesting is sonship's behaviour over this issue for years and years here. It's the kind of debilitating impact of religiosity that I find fascinating.
30 Nov 18
I do not understand what is debilitating.
Sonship is one of the best posters here, and he does it at a very high volume while being attacked & nit picked. I have no idea how he does it because, even now, we are seeing the 'torture' card pulled out -- a trope that has been red hot in this forum for months, and largely one of the reasons why my volume cut down.