Mormons

I agree Anthony, I have always found it obtrusive, and feel that people should come to god in their own terms - well, i mean, a little help never hurts, but i don’t believe you should shove it down their throat.

(And just by the way, steev.net is looking pretty sweet with the new theme/upgrade you did  : )

I’m not sure what you mean by "contact evangelism," but if it means what it sounds like, then I guess I don’t see how there is such a thing as non-contact evangelism.

I’m certainly not against evangelism; God told us to do it. What I am against is walking around to people’s houses and trying to sell them Christianity.  Inviting yourself into their house, asking them for their phone number, etc.  These are things that push people away from Christianity.

No one, including me, can say for sure whether another person is a true believer... and I’m not claiming to.  What I am saying is that the Mormon church and the Catholic church are both very anti-Christian in that they believe in things that the Bible condemns... and they still claim to believe in the Bible!  They make Christianity weak, they make it look bad, by calling themselves Christians while presenting false doctrines.  They didn’t see God’s Word as good enough, so the made up their own books of faith... the Catechism and the book of Mormon... which severely contradict the Bible.

If you disagree with Methodist doctrine, then why do you attend Methodist church?  Actually... how can you call yourself a Methodist, without believing in everything they teach?  In fact, why subject yourself to an institution that makes up its own doctrine?  Why not just believe in the Bible and go to a church that uses THAT as its doctrine?

The problem is that God gave us the Bible, but then man went and made "religion" out of it.  Catholicism, Methodism (?), Mormonism... they are religions.  They make up their own doctrines.  God didn’t give us religion, he gave us the Bible.  And I personally will not attend a church that feels the need to write their own doctrine, as if the Bible weren’t enough.  Because in almost every case (Catholic, Mormon, Methodist, whatever) the doctrine contradicts the Bible, as you’ve pointed out with the baptism of children, for example.

I am 100% against "denominations" and "religions" and all their false doctrines.  I believe in the Bible and I attend a non-denominational church that preaches it.  Sure, it’s possible to attend a church that teaches false doctrines and still be saved, but then you’re attending/supporting an organization that is spreading false doctrine.  In that case I tend to think of things like "if any one offendeth one of these little ones who believes in me, it were better that a millstone were hung about his neck and he were cast into the sea" and "he that is not with me is against me."  False doctrine is offensive and is hurting Christianity.

> I know the trendy thing these days is to be non-denominational.

I didn’t know that, but I’ll take your word for it. I only know one other person who feels as strongly as I do about this issue.  Regardless of whether there is a trend, my point is not related to that.  My point is about the principle, about the fact that denominations are divisions, and they’re based on doctrines that man has made, not on what God has told us.

> the big controversial issues, like infant vs adult baptism

That’s not controversial, it just depends on where you place your faith.  If you place your faith in churches and in traditions, then you support infant baptism.  If you place your faith in the bible, then you don’t, because in every instance of baptism in the bible, the person was only baptised AFTER they came to faith.  The thing you mentioned about "and all his household" is Acts 16, and if you read it you’ll see that they were only baptized after receiving the gospel.  It’s only controversial if you don’t believe what the bible says about it.

> That’s what he’s going to preach. That’s your church doctrine right there!

You can call it "doctrine" if you want, but preaching the simple truths of the bible as God gave them to us, is not the same as writing down your own set of doctrines like all the large denominations have.  When my pastor says that baptism comes after faith, he says it because that’s what the bible says, and he gives the references.  I’m not believing in his doctrines -- they’re not even "his doctrines" -- I’m believing in God’s word.

> What is the difference between this and a whole bunch 
> of like-minded pastors starting a denomination?

The difference is that every time man tries to write his own doctrines, they end up all screwed up.  God TOLD us not to add anything to his word, so why does man think he should write his own doctrines?  There is no need to, because all the doctrine we need is in the bible.  And the only reason to create a "denomination" is because you’ve come up with your own beliefs that aren’t already stated in the bible.

> Be careful when you condemn "doctrine" because you believe 
> some yourself, whether you call it that or not.

The only doctrine I believe in is God’s word.  I was condemning false doctrine , like infant baptism.  I’m not a Methodist, a Baptist, a Catholic, or a Mormon, I am a Christian.  Therefore I don’t believe in any Methodist or Baptist or Catholic or Mormon doctrines, I believe in Christian doctrines, and those are found in the bible.

> Actually, Lydia’s household is also baptized in Acts 16,
> and it is not mentioned that they are all believers. 

Acts 16:14 And a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, which worshipped God, heard us: whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.
Acts 16:15 And when she was baptized, and her household, 

It says that Lydia believed before she was baptized. Based on that, and based on every other account of baptism in scripture (Acts 2:41, 8:12, 8:13, 8:36, 18:8, Matthew 3:6, etc) where baptism ONLY comes after faith, the only logical conclusion is that Lydia’s household also believed before being baptised.  To claim that this verse allows for infant baptism is to blindly ignore the biblical model for baptism.  You might as well say that the 7 days of creation actually lasted millions of years, because it doesn’t specifically say in Genesis that the days lasted 24 hours.  The only fair way to interpret scripture is with scripture itself.  No person would ever read Acts 16 and say "that means we can baptize infants" because that’s not the natural reading of it, based on everything else the bible says about baptism.  The only reason a person would think to use that verse as supporting infant baptism would be if they were TRYING to find a way to support infant baptism.

> it isn’t impossible to read scripture as supporting
> infant baptism

If you start with the goal of supporting a particular pre-existing doctrine (like infant baptism), then you’re going to find a way to make the scripture "say" what you want it to.  If you ignore enough of the bible, you can read a particular verse to support anything you want.  And that’s exactly what you have to do, you have to ignore every other reference to baptism in the bible in order to say that Acts 16 supports infant baptism.  Just because you take something out of context that doesn’t make it correct.

> would you still disagree with the existence of my 
> denomination if it had written doctrine that was 
> exactly in accordance with the Bible as you read it?

You don’t need to write a doctrine on an issue if the bible already speaks on it.  The bible IS the doctrine.

> New denominations, "divisions of the church" as you 
> would call them,

I call them what they are.  How can you say they are anything but divisions of the church?  You can go on and on about the reasons the denomination was formed, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are, by definition, divisions of the church.

> because the parent denomination had beliefs contrary to 
> the Bible. The new denomination formed because they 
> supported the truth found in the Bible.

And there is the root of the whole problem.  The parent didn’t think the bible itself was good enough to use as doctrine, so they wrote their own.  In the process, as it always happens, corrupt beliefs came about.  Proverbs 30:5-6 says "Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar."  That is exactly what happens: man writes his own doctrine, and it’s found to be inconsistent with God’s word.  Man shouldn’t have been coming up with doctrines in the first place, because we don’t NEED to add anything to God’s word -- God’s word is enough.

> However, you could take that further and say that I 
> shouldn’t read books about apologetics, study a book 
> on Bible history, use devotionals,

The role and responsibility of a church is different from that of a person who happens to write a book on apologetics or bible history or what have you.  It’s not the same thing.  Regardless, you and I as Christians must always challenge everything we hear and test it against scripture.  So yes, you CAN "take that further" because you should be questioning everything.

> why am I going to church and listening to my 
> pastor’s interpretation of the Bible?

If your pastor is giving you "his interpretation" of the bible, then you need to find another church.  99% of the bible needs no interpretation; you read it, and it says what it says.  For the 1% that requires any interpretation, you interpret it based on the rest of the bible.  It’s simple, really, and the pastor is just there to help you out with that.  The pastor isn’t interpreting anything for me, or at least not at my church.  He doesn’t present any concepts that aren’t straight out of the bible -- why should he?  I’m not going to church to hear a man’s ideas, I’m going to church to hear the Word of God preached.

> >You don’t need to write a doctrine on an issue if the
> >bible already speaks on it. The bible IS the doctrine.
>
> Have you ever written up a statement of your beliefs?
> Do you think that is wrong? Have you ever tried to 
> apply for a mission trip or some kind of Christian job?

No, I never have.  But if for some reason I needed to, it would probably just be a list of scripture verses with no commentary of my own.  Do I think it’s necessarily wrong to?  Hmmm... I guess that depends on how you define "statement of beliefs."  I will say that I would be reluctant to dogmatically support anything that I myself wrote, whereas I will never hesitate to say that any given verse of scripture is absolutely correct.

> But if you were Martin Luther, what would you 
> do? Preserve unity? 

If I were to "break away" from some kind of "mother church," I would never call my new church anything except Christian.  Like, maybe I’d call it "The New Christian Church" or "The REAL Christian Church" or "The Christian Church that Believes in the Bible."

This is also a central point in my opinion.  Why does there need to be any "mother church" to break away from?  Why do churches need to be like governments with heirarchies and such?  In the early days of the Christian church, a church was just a local group of believers.  They identified themselves with other churches because they believed in the Bible, or at the earliest, because they believed in the writings they had available... but it wasn’t like "well, we’re this kind of church or that kind of church" and our leader is this person or this ruling body / organization .  It makes no sense to me that churches need to belong to some kind of named organization other than "the body of Christ."  Because the rulebook for the body of Christ is the bible, but other named organizations have other rulebooks or statements or whatever.  I am a Christian, and I don’t want to identify myself any other way, nor do I want to think/worry about any doctrines besides the bible.

> there is probably a bit more than 1% of the Bible 
> that is ambiguous

The exact number is unimportant, but my point is that the vast majority of the bible requires no interpretation, and any "difference of opinion" regarding verses that do require interpretation can generally be eliminated by consulting other books of the bible.  So after all that, I think there is only a very small amount of scripture that confusing or whose meaning is not immediately evident.

> Would you suggest that I should leave the Methodist 
> church because I disagree with infant baptism? I do 
> want to know the answer to this question.

I take issue not so much with that doctrine as with the bigger picture.  If a church is capable of writing a doctrine that’s inconsistent with scripture, then yes I’d be wary of that church.  But more generally, if a church has written their own doctrines that I would need to read and understand and agree to (regardless of what they are), as a Christian I look at that and say "I already have and know my doctrine, it’s the bible, so what is this?"

It took God the entire bible to present man with all the doctrine that he feels is important.  So as a church, if your doctrine is "we follow Christ based on what the bible says," then fine.  But if your doctrine is any longer / more complex than that, then you’re trying to explain your beliefs in a few pages when God himself needed the entire bible to do it.

Argh... maybe this seems ridiculous to your or to most people, I don’t know, but to me it’s the only thing that seems logical.  As I sit here and try to think of what my "statement of beliefs" would be, everything that comes into my head is something refuting a belief of an existing church.  The only reason "Christian" churches even need a statement of belief is because "Christian" churches have so many un-Christian beliefs.  If churches had always stuck to the bible and never wrote their own doctrines, this issue would not exist.  You’d say "oh, me, I go to the church on 9th street" and everybody would know exactly what you believed, because churches are a Christian institution and Christians believe in the bible.

For the sake of argument, I suppose my statement of belief would look like this: 1.) I believe the bible is the inspired inerrant word of God; 2.) I believe I am a sinner, I believe I deserve to be eternally separated from God because of my sin, but God sacrificed his son Jesus to pay the price for my sins, and simply believing in this sacrifice allows me to spend eternity with God; 3.) I believe I have a duty to strive to live like Christ and share these beliefs with others.

I see such a statement as nothing more than a quick summary.  It wouldn’t include anything about baptism just like it wouldn’t include anything about carjacking.  Those are details that are taken care of in the bible.  Now if someone wants to come out and specifically ask me "what do you believe about baptism" then I’d answer the question and give the references, but that is not a part of my "statement of belief."  Jesus told us to be baptized, and he told us not to lie, but neither of those things are essential for salvation, and that is sort of the main idea in my statement of belief.

> And... thanks for playing along with me, I really love good
> good discussions especially about interesting topics like this.

No, thank you... this has been one of the most pleasant semi-disagreements I’ve had.  And any such thing relating to Christ can only help us to learn and grow.  Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. 

> Hope you don’t mind this kind of thing on your message 
> boards, I really should have lurked longer before being so 
> verbose.

Not at all!  I’ve been pretty verbose myself, no problem.

> I was given a handout with some of the statements of 
> the UMC, but not only was I not required to read them,
> I didn’t have to agree to them either!

That is bizarre. See I don’t understand what’s the point, or what it means, to be a member then.  And that’s actually pretty sneaky by them and dangerous for members, because the members don’t even necessarily know the beliefs of the organization they’re supporting or taking part in.

> Have you ever been around the Usenet?

Sure, but not for leisure.  Generally for coding help.  A lot of people in newsgroups tend to be pretty viscious.  I much prefer to code up my own board like this and wait for friendly people like you to show up  : )

> But the new members know that they agree with their 
> local congregation, which for the most part is the only
> important thing. 

That goes back to my contention that the parent church and the whole heirarchy deal is pointless. If the only important thing (whether actually, or just "effectively" as you indicate by saying "for the most part") is agreeing with the local congregation, and you don’t actually have to agree with the denomination’s statement of belief or doctrines, then 1) the system is pointless and 2) this gives support to my previous comment that the early church’s model was better -- independent local churches.

> Count yourself lucky then, because I *hate*
> web-boards and this is the only one I frequent.

I do, I do!  And I dislike most boards too.  Mainly because of their setup... like, any site that uses the phpBB forum just really bugs me.  Like this one.  It has a sort-of nice prettiness about it, but it’s so cluttered and I hate it.  Granted, it serves a different purpose than my board does, but I much prefer the blog-with-comments setup of my site.

> I even use Pine sometimes

Ah, you’re one of them : )  Just kidding, I know what you mean... there is a certain appeal to text interfaces, and of course to Unix in general.  You don’t feel like such a sheep the way you do when you use anything Microsoft.