Two Rivers Drops "Baptist" from name!!

[Tim Bonney]

[Gene Scarborough]

The proof is in the pudding!!!!

[Sandy]

And yet, in the Catholic church, a Protestant is considered an apostate heretic, and is not allowed to take communion.

[Tim Bonney]

[Gene Scarborough]

Gentlemen--

It's all about spiritual arrogance!!

I grew up in an era where Catholics were thought of as "idol worshipers" due to their veneration of Mary and other Saints. The man at the HMB who was the liason was a former Irish Catholic priest. He told horror stories of what happened to him upon wanting to leave the Catholic Priesthood. It all made me want to hate them more!

THEN---I took the course at SEBTS on Church History!!!

Guess what---When you read the writings of the Church Fathers on the Trinity / Scripture / etc.---It's the same as BF&M!!!!!

Now, when the Catholic Church fought a battle over transubstantion and consubstantiation is when they started acting like Baptists = a little word representing an etherial concept became the basis of a church schism! R-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S!!! Plus it made sense only to clergy and hierarchy. The average person could care less!!!!! You now had 2 Popes!

So was it really about theology or--more likely--egos which could not get along and wanted all the money???

[johnfariss]

[Sandy]

[Jim]

I’m no scholar but I think Christ mentioned the church on only a couple of occasions, both recorded in Matthew 16 and 18, the first time to perhaps establish the universal church and the second to indicate the need for a local congregation of sorts. Church polity, if any, for him seemed to be left to the participants. Paul or Peter would have been expected, it seems, to establish the structure of the local church but aside from naming such leaders as elders and deacons, preachers, etc., didn’t seem to say much about how all of it fitted together. Folks disagreed over matters of doctrine even then, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they banded their congregations into various groupings for whatever purpose, such as Paul’s lifting of an offering from some churches to help others. Denominations were bound to arise if only because of the disagreements…same as today.

Institutionalizing the faith seems understandable on both the abstract (theological) and tangible (organizational) bases, each probably always impacting the other. People who don’t get along are not as likely to do “good works” as people who do. Churches that are gung-ho on local autonomy can find a denomination amenable to that approach, while churches feeling safer within a hierarchical system can find a home in which they are agreeable to being told what’s what. There are advantages both ways. It seems that Christ was willing to leave the nuts-and-bolts to the believers, since if he had wanted he could have established a one-fits-all pattern. In a way, I wish he had. Perhaps he didn’t because freedom of choice was inherent in mankind from the beginning, put there by God. Or…perhaps he just wasn’t aware of what would happen down the line, sort of bringing up the question of what God knows and when he knows it.

[Gene Scarborough]

The church, like most things in society, is a by-product of people getting together and organizing. To a point it is natural. As things grow bigger and people naturally begin to fuss and fight, there are rules to control behaviour and places designated in a power structure putting certain people above others in the pecking order.

Compare this with Jesus' simple organization of himself and 12 followers officially designated "disciples." Along came women, but they got no designation according to the written accounts. Now, does it make sense that Jesus excluded women as official disciples?

I think we have here a story recorded with hindsight. It is far more likely when Jesus said, "Whosoever will take up his cross and follow me," was the core invitation and all people of all kinds took up with early followers. As things got bigger and more organized we have what the Bible records. I don't take the organization story as totally accurate because the 12 wanted to rule and exclude women from equal places of importance in the church.

[johnfariss]

[Sandy]

I wouldn't say that the way the early church did things necessarily lines up with a traditional "Baptist" polity, though I think things that Baptists and others in the congregational tradition practice with regard to church polity are lifted from these examples of the early church. But I don't think the selection process is an argument from silence. I think the precedent was set when the apostles asked the whole body to "choose from among you" and that was the familiar way of doing things. It appears, from the record of scripture, that congregations depended on their elders for preaching and teaching, and on their deacons for the day to day business of the church, but the whole body was involved.

The introduction of a separation between "clergy" and "laity" isn't a Biblical concept. It is a practice which turned the church into an institution rather than a body. The "church" is no longer the entire group, but it is the heirarchy, and the congregation becomes "the mass." I think that makes it difficult for a church to function as the early church did, described in the book of Acts.

Some of those early groups of Christians who did not submit to the ecclesiastical authority of the church at Rome aren't really connected to the Protestant reformation in any way except their lack of submission to Rome. But they were there.

I'm perhaps not as committed to the traditional Baptist way of doing things as you might think. I'm "officially" no longer Baptist, but a member of a Christian and Missionary Alliance congregation.

[Tim Bonney]

[Gene Scarborough]

Any organization has a simple beginning and gets more compex over time.

It appears the two determiners are: size / time.

We seem never to be content with "things as they were." Then it gets so complicated we don't know where we are and start searching for "original form." It is true in politics as the "founding fathers" are sought and the "meaning of the Constitution" is supposedly enforced by the Supreme Court.

I think "beginnings" is somewhat an etherial concept. Different people try to "go back" but not hurt themselves and their current position in the process. No "overseer" wants to resign as that would mean giving up power and position they worked hard to "earn."

With following Christ, it becomes another matter. He called them out of their working world to become "fishers of men." Early on he had problems with the egos of the Disciples. He purposely picked "men of the street" rather than trained men of the religious day. From this I infer that it was a simple matter of "follow me." Later it became "follow who." This was left to the Disciples to direct. Peter and Paul could not get along and Paul considered himself an Apostle when the 11 were not so open to him in that position.

Has it really changed since that day??? Human nature is human nature prone to "sin" in the sense of separation from God / one another. Ah well!!!

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

[Tim Bonney]

[Gene Scarborough]

Timothy--

I base my assumption on the strong-willed nature of both men. Peter was always the first to brag and speak up--unlike the others.

Paul was the worst of the prosecutors of Jesus' followers and the "chiefest of sinners" in his own view.

Having my major in Psychology, I see in them Obsessive-Compulsive tendencies and great difficulty with self-control since they view themselves as "leaders of men."

A lot more humility was Jesus' request and example, but he had to choose men of all kinds---or rather, they chose him along with as many women and children.

[Tim Bonney]

Sorry Gene, I have a degree in Behavioral Science myself. That and $4 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I don't think there is enough information for a diagnosis.

[Gene Scarborough]

No "diagnosis"---just indicators!!!!!

I also use the current stuff knowing mankind has not changed that much since the Garden of Eden = don't bother telling the whole truth---especially to your own ego.

[Sandy]

[Tim Bonney]

Sandy we obviously aren't getting anywhere with this. We each have our own perspectives. I see the beginnings of a church episcopal structure as early as the writings of Paul and you want to make it a holdover of the Roman empire.

It appears to me the visible possible church governance systems that have seeds in the New Testament are an episcopal or presbyterial system. I see very little that points to autonomous congregations. Paul certain believed the congregations under his leadership should be expected to listen to him. The Jerusalem Council certainly expected the churches to listen to them.

I have come to believe that congregationalism is a reaction to problems and excesses of connectional systems and not really a New Testament model of church.

But I don't think we are going to come to agreement on this. I've chosen a connectional system because that is what I now believe is the most Biblical system. You've chosen to remain in churches with a congregational polity. So I'll just drop it from here. We are at a theological impasse.

[Dave Roberts]

The truth is that we see organizational systems in the NT through the glasses with which we choose to read them. There are hints, but the fleshing out of church organization is just not there. Where we do have mention of elders, overseers, deacons, apostles and prophets, we still don't have much of a job description. (Of course, if deacons did what is biblical, they would be serving tables .

[Gene Scarborough]

I discovered something interesting when I took Sociology at Emory = EVERY society known to mankind has basic structures:

(1) Diety
(2) Rules
(3) Social structure
(4) Classes of people
(5) Structures in which to live / work /worship
(6) Territoriality

I'm sure there could be more things in the list, but these are the most common to every social structure. When I read Church History is was also obvious church and social order reflect one another. The whole of society is fluid and in a constant state of flux. The more people there are, the more conflict and struggle exists and most of this is motivated by ideas of ownership and control. The early religious societies and colonies, dreamed to be a perfect theocracy, failed miserably and sometimes degenerated into things like the Salem Witch Trials.

Much of the above is a by-product of man's psyche which is not always clear to the individuals involved. The more most religions talk about service and sacrifice, the more they are prone to be the opposite at times. Mankind is just "wierd" and religion can be crazy! Too many times, anything "new" is just a re-do of something already there and not really new at all.

The best description of "Baptist" was "anything Catholics are not. Strangely, the basic theology is one and the same. It's the church structure and social order which differs radically---and we will kill you to prove we are right and you are wrong!

[Tim Bonney]

Gene,

I agree that in some cases polity of denominations is more visibly different than theology. But also their is an overlap between polity and theology. Churches often have the polity they have because of certain views of the theology of their theology of the church, their theology of ordained ministry, and their theology of responsibilities of both clergy and laity. So you can't really separate out the two.