anyone know about church of christ?

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BMCD said:
My congregation has never disfellowshiped anyone either. They did publicly humiliate someone one time for having an affair and that really didn’t sit well with me. Your step-mother’s actions did not sit well with me either. In my most devout days as a member of the C of C I did not have a problem with divorced people coming to my congregation, however your step mom was basically trying to force you to adopt the beliefs of this group while she was not practicing them herself.

Andrewstx, I hope that someday you can find peace if you haven’t already. What happened to you was terrible. I am happy that you were able to find Orthodoxy because I have seen people raised in environments like that who give up Christianity altogether.
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My parents and step parents have all been dead for some years now. All I have left is memories both good and bad, and a few nightmares. I miss the family non Christmas gatherings, but not the jealousy. SM was neurotic, and SF was schizophrenic, the broke my left leg with his bare hands when I was just 9 years old.

But I am trying to gain peace with my orthodox faith, and I think of the Theotokos as my mother now, she does love me.

Life is geetimg better slowly, just wish I could fix things, and of course everything will be good in heaven. Perhaps I will be there before too long. I have had a stroke already bwhen I was 49 and have a history of heart disease from both sides. I think Dad would have lived longer if not for SMs awful hissy throwing temper.
 
I’ve been witness to disfellowshipping before in my congregation, but Andrew’s circumstances I find alarming. For one, I’m surprised they didn’t try to find out if you understood what you were doing when you got baptized. Your whole “I allowed them to dunk me” is very passive and makes it sound like they sort of forced you into it rather than tried to teach you. Furthermore, I’m having trouble following your story because you say you graduated high school and then weren’t allowed to stay home, but you don’t mention exactly how you went about leaving the church or why you left. I’d be interested to know, although if your story is any indication that might have been a weak congregation with members that were not good examples to you.

Disfellowship is a hard matter, but it is biblical. However, I think some people are quick to rush through it and forget that the bible lays out how these matters are supposed to take place.

Matthew 18:15-18
"If your brother sins , go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
"But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.
"If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
"Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

I think it’s important that any church try to reach out to its members and find out what’s wrong, not dismiss them without a word.
 
Ah, Traverse, there’s the rub! I, too, was disfellowshipped. Not because I refused to listen to them – I didn’t refuse. I asked questions they could not or would not answer.

Unless asking the question in the first place was the refusing to listen part.

I didn’t question to rabble rouse, I questioned because I did not understand. And then I was disfellowshipped. And it was not hard for them at all. They SMILED at me when they did it.

And thank God they did!

Because I went looking for the answers. And here I am, on the far side of the Tiber. But please do not assume that those who are disfellowshipped automatically deserve it. Sometimes we are the gnats discarded for camels within the Body.

😉
summer
 
Traverse said:
I’ve been witness to disfellowshipping before in my congregation, but Andrew’s circumstances I find alarming. For one, I’m surprised they didn’t try to find out if you understood what you were doing when you got baptized. Your whole “I allowed them to dunk me” is very passive and makes it sound like they sort of forced you into it rather than tried to teach you. Furthermore, I’m having trouble following your story because you say you graduated high school and then weren’t allowed to stay home, but you don’t mention exactly how you went about leaving the church or why you left. I’d be interested to know, although if your story is any indication that might have been a weak congregation with members that were not good examples to you.

Disfellowship is a hard matter, but it is biblical. However, I think some people are quick to rush through it and forget that the bible lays out how these matters are supposed to take place.

Matthew 18:15-18
"If your brother sins , go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
"But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.
"If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
"Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

I think it’s important that any church try to reach out to its members and find out what’s wrong, not dismiss them without a word.
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I left ver easily, and was not disfellowshipped. The moment I was free of parents thumb I left the campbellites and joined a different denomination, easy as pie.

I knew from my studies that I had to be baptised. Other demnoninations teach that as well.

I should have been baptised as a baby, but of course with cofC parents that wasn’t about to happen.

As far as teaching goes parents set me down with a KJV bible and lecturred to me.

Their were some cofC things that appealed to me, such as unity I always like ecumenical studies, and did not know yet the cofC take on ecumenism, which ammounted to everyone join us and we will have one united church.

Basically I was just making the best of a bad situation.

Sorry if you don’t understand whaT I’m saying, again I had a stroke, and my cognitive abillities are not so greatnow.
 
Traverse said:
I’ve been witness to disfellowshipping before in my congregation, but Andrew’s circumstances I find alarming. For one, I’m surprised they didn’t try to find out if you understood what you were doing when you got baptized. Your whole “I allowed them to dunk me” is very passive and makes it sound like they sort of forced you into it rather than tried to teach you. Furthermore, I’m having trouble following your story because you say you graduated high school and then weren’t allowed to stay home, but you don’t mention exactly how you went about leaving the church or why you left. I’d be interested to know, although if your story is any indication that might have been a weak congregation with members that were not good examples to you.

Disfellowship is a hard matter, but it is biblical. However, I think some people are quick to rush through it and forget that the bible lays out how these matters are supposed to take place.

Matthew 18:15-18
"If your brother sins , go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother.
"But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that BY THE MOUTH OF TWO OR THREE WITNESSES EVERY FACT MAY BE CONFIRMED.
"If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
"Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

I think it’s important that any church try to reach out to its members and find out what’s wrong, not dismiss them without a word.
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As far as the why goes, I tired of worshipping a paper and ink idol, and strarted to worship God instead.

I dissagree with CENI as well, more bible worship.

And the ignoring history, and the wierd idea that you can "restore"something that never existed.
 
JustaServant said:
Life’s too short to go around “disfellowshipping”.
:cool:
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No kidding and the disfellowship is always about sins of “the flesh”.

If they disfellowshiped for gossiping or sprirtual pride, there would be no–one left in “the church”.
 
Disfellowship is usually the result of someone who has sinned publicly and is unrepentant. Sins of the flesh happen to be made public a lot is the problem. But disfellowship can also occur if someone is simply unruly and refuses to keep their temper in order. We had someone like that who kept interrupting lessons and judging members in front of everyone. He wouldn’t calm down and he wouldn’t apologize so he had to be talked to and it led to him being disfellowshipped. But disfellowship isn’t a one way street really. People can come back. If he repented it wouldn’t be an issue anymore.

Most often disfelowshipping never happens because people leave the church if they disagree with its teaching and it never comes to that. This is what is most often the case for people who want to divorce, I have noticed.
 
Traverse said:
Disfellowship is usually the result of someone who has sinned publicly and is unrepentant. Sins of the flesh happen to be made public a lot is the problem. But disfellowship can also occur if someone is simply unruly and refuses to keep their temper in order. We had someone like that who kept interrupting lessons and judging members in front of everyone. He wouldn’t calm down and he wouldn’t apologize so he had to be talked to and it led to him being disfellowshipped. But disfellowship isn’t a one way street really. People can come back. If he repented it wouldn’t be an issue anymore.

Most often disfelowshipping never happens because people leave the church if they disagree with its teaching and it never comes to that. This is what is most often the case for people who want to divorce, I have noticed.
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I think the reason for the focus on sins of the flesh is it’s just plain etnertainig.

And the death of attention on pride, which is condemend by our Lord is a sign of immaturity.
 
There’s not much left for me to really say. I grew up as part of the Christian Church and Churches of Christ (Instrumental) group. My dad was an elder. My father taught us to be reverent and respectful inside the church because it’s God’s house, he pointed to scripture when it was time for communion–reading where Christ says “This is my Body…This is my Blood” and emphasizing it IS and it is not symbols. There was one minister/preacher when I was very small, he and his wife went into the mission field when I was about 8, he was the only Christian church minister that I ever heard say “Communion is the time we come into contact with the Body and Blood of Christ”. Believing the Bible, our dad, and Brother Bill, my sisters and I all eventually became Catholic 🙂 long story short.

When I became Catholic, the preacher at the time said only one thing “they worship Mary”, I explained the devotion to Mary. He said ok, and he and his family came to Easter services and were there for my Confirmation and First Eucharist.

What I was taught of recent church history is what has already been said, Thomas and Alexander Campbell were Presbyterian (hence our willingness to go Presbyterian if no local Christian Church), started Christian Church. The Disciples of Christ and Church of Christ are all part of that.

They have the National Missionary Convention of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ as well as the North American Christian Convention—so while each church is independent, they got together on that anyway. Locally speaking we always communicated with the other area churches, more so in TN and KY than when we lived in MI–in fact, every fifth Sunday there was a get together of area Christian Churches, we’d have music and scripture, maybe a short message, mostly just everyone getting together and singing the old hymns.
 
andrewstx said:
I think the reason for the focus on sins of the flesh is it’s just plain etnertainig.

And the death of attention on pride, which is condemend by our Lord is a sign of immaturity.
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that came out terribly.I meant darth and not death.

I think the focus on only sins of the flesh is bad, and ignores pride which our Lord mentioned much more often.
 
Andrew, your experience was obviously not positive and I don’t doubt your words. But I remind you that a congregation of the church can be poor and handle things improperly so not all are like that. Just like the Corinthians were up to some crazy stuff and had much to improve upon. Likewise, in the catholic church some parishes might be weaker than others.

Without knowing every detail, but trusting your words on the matter, I can say that congregation was handling itself unjustly and you’d be right if they were ignoring other public sins but focusing on “sins of the flesh” because it’s “more fun.” But this is not a typical example of how the church handles itself and I want you to be aware of that is all.
 
andrewstx said:
No kidding and the disfellowship is always about sins of “the flesh”.

If they disfellowshiped for gossiping or sprirtual pride, there would be no–one left in “the church”.
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That’s what I noticed among fundamentalist Baptists. the “disfellowshipping” happens with rumors circulated during the Wednesday night “prayer” (read news update) meeting.
 
Traverse said:
Andrew, your experience was obviously not positive and I don’t doubt your words. But I remind you that a congregation of the church can be poor and handle things improperly so not all are like that. Just like the Corinthians were up to some crazy stuff and had much to improve upon. Likewise, in the catholic church some parishes might be weaker than others.

Without knowing every detail, but trusting your words on the matter, I can say that congregation was handling itself unjustly and you’d be right if they were ignoring other public sins but focusing on “sins of the flesh” because it’s “more fun.” But this is not a typical example of how the church handles itself and I want you to be aware of that is all.
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Sorry Traverse, I’m not going back to “the church” that never existed before 1906 and had nothing to “restore” becuse the cofC vision of history never existed.

You can call yourself the only “Christains” in the only church, but that does not make it so.

Orthodox Christians and Catholic Christians are just as Christian as yourself.

I don’t intend to be rude, I’m just tired of being prosolytized by cofCers. if my own flesh and blood could not get me back you can’t either.
 
Well to be fair I wasn’t trying to evangelize you. I was just trying to help you understand that some people are jerks and some people aren’t.

Though because you mentioned it I’ll add that “cofCers” as you put it don’t believe it is a church that didn’t exist before 1906. That’d be like saying the catholic church wasn’t established thousands of years ago just because a specific parish wasn’t established until 2007. The church of Christ is a church that follows biblical teaching and believes that that puts them in line with the early church of the first century. Obviously you don’t believe that, and that’s your prerogative, but given that a church of Christ congregation strives to be a continuation of early church doctrine and not a new denomination only recently established I don’t think it’s fair to make claims that the church never existed before 1906. The “church of Christ” with that specific name in America might be a recent development, but members of a chruch of Christ congregation don’t believe it actually matters what the name of a church is called unless it’s a biblical name and the congregation itself teaches sound doctrine. People who meet under a roof that bears a sign as simple as “Christians meet here” would not be seen as unacceptable. If any member of a church of Christ as you know it is saying otherwise then they would not be teaching sound doctrine.
 
Traverse said:
Well to be fair I wasn’t trying to evangelize you. I was just trying to help you understand that some people are jerks and some people aren’t.

Though because you mentioned it I’ll add that “cofCers” as you put it don’t believe it is a church that didn’t exist before 1906. That’d be like saying the catholic church wasn’t established thousands of years ago just because a specific parish wasn’t established until 2007. The church of Christ is a church that follows biblical teaching and believes that that puts them in line with the early church of the first century. Obviously you don’t believe that, and that’s your prerogative, but given that a church of Christ congregation strives to be a continuation of early church doctrine and not a new denomination only recently established I don’t think it’s fair to make claims that the church never existed before 1906. The “church of Christ” with that specific name in America might be a recent development, but members of a chruch of Christ congregation don’t believe it actually matters what the name of a church is called unless it’s a biblical name and the congregation itself teaches sound doctrine. People who meet under a roof that bears a sign as simple as “Christians meet here” would not be seen as unacceptable. If any member of a church of Christ as you know it is saying otherwise then they would not be teaching sound doctrine.
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There lies the rub for me the cofcers exagerating the bible ( a God inspired but human written book) into a paper and ink idol. The church did not follow the bible slavishly originally, before the New Testament was done being written. CENI is nonsense.That is just another hole in the apostacy/restoration theory. How could the NT church have gone “apostate” by not following the bible slavishly before the bible was written and canonised? How could they have “searched the scriptures daily” when all they has was the OT?

I know there are better and worse csofC, but they all worship the bible, and they do most things not to be slaves to their “God”, but to do the opposite from what Orthodox and Catholics do. That is why their churches that they call buildings and worship are severely plain.

Read about the so called “churches of Christ” in any secular site or just Wikipedia and you will learn they are just one more fundamental sect, schismed from another sect that schismed from the Presbyterians originally.

I have no desire for irreverent worship where only the man at the front gets to pray and no-one can participate vocally for fear of witten prayers.

I have no regard for fundamentalism, I did not spend years in Univeristy to unplug my brain and think God instantly zapped everything into existence in 6 24 hour days. We are light years apart in our understanding of theology to keep on futilely arguing.
 
andrewstx said:
Respect for the Catholic church? LOL.
Campbelltites I knew and who raised me considered the CC the end product of “total apostacy”, and view Catholics with utter hatred.

CofC members like to call Catholics idolators for having unworshipped statuary and icons in their churches. While cofC members really worship the bible as a paper and ink idol.

Not to mention they call priests “preachers” in print and sermons.

Respect, you can’t fool me.
:eek:
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Darn strait. My mother used to attend a Church of Christ. They call Catholics a cult and preach half of their sermons about how evil Catholics are. From my experience the Church of Christ is more about attacking Catholicism than it is about Christ. Not to mention its doctrines can be traced back to the Reformation and the Great Awakening in America. I had one of their pastors actually admit to me he was not telling the whole truth about Catholics.

No, they have no respect at all.
 
andrewstx said:
There lies the rub for me the cofcers exagerating the bible ( a God inspired but human written book) into a paper and ink idol. The church did not follow the bible slavishly originally, before the New Testament was done being written. CENI is nonsense.That is just another hole in the apostacy/restoration theory. How could the NT church have gone “apostate” by not following the bible slavishly before the bible was written and canonised? How could they have “searched the scriptures daily” when all they has was the OT?
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This wasn’t anything at all I was talking about, but okay.

I don’t understand how you’re getting this “bible was turned into a paper and ink idol” business. Is it not the word of God? Should it not be adhered to? If you agree in sacred tradition + scripture that’s fine. I’m not arguing for sola scriptura. But claiming a group treats something given to us by God as an idol isn’t making sense to me. I do not understand where you’re coming from on this, not to mention your past mentions of people turning church buildings into idols.

I also don’t discount the fact that it took time for the bible to be written and compiled together and dispersed. I’m not saying the church in the first century HAD a bible to use other than the old testament scriptures, but they were also gifted with spiritual gifts and prophecy that we do not have today. They were aided by the Holy Spirit while they were without the new testament. Now we have the New Testament and now we can study it. Then we did not have it and then we could only study what we knew in light of what we heard. I wouldn’t say otherwise.
 
The “preacher” I had in my high school days actually called the bible “God” over and over he quoted the bible using the phrase “God said in 1st baloneu, chapter 3, verse 58023”. If tha is not worshipping a book as God what is it?

The bible is not “God”. It was not writtten or dictated by God.

CENI is also idolatry, for those unfamiliar with that phrase it means that everything in the so called “chruchofchrist” must have to be COMMANDED by the bible or shown an EXAMPLE in the bible, or have a NECESARY IMPLICATION in the bible.

According to campbellite dogma anything done in church must be explicitly be ordered by the bible or it’s “unauthorised”. thus they hate innocent things like candles organs and etc.

In the so called “churchifchrist” a book takes on a personality and personhood and deity all of its own.

They play “mother may I” with a book, so immature.

Traverse I have said my last word to you.
 
Oh well we only have a few more days until everything collapses May 27 2012
 
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