Interactions with Evangelicals?

[Cat]

Thanks for your post, Cat. If it’s not too personal a question–does your younger daughter still believe in Christianity, although she doesn’t go to any church? I’ve wondered about that before, so I hope you don’t mind my asking. It’s hard to avoid wondering if there was some actual sexual abuse perpetrated by someone in that church. In my area, it seems almost weekly some authority figure–teachers, policemen, ministers, priests, etc—is revealed to be involved in some sexual abuse scandal. It’s hard to know who to trust. At the same time, I’m sad for all these people who lead hidden, double lives.

Yes, she’s still a believer in Jesus. She was baptized when she was in 6th grade, so the Holy Spirit has sealed her. Her husband was also baptized a few months before they got married. He was dating her at the time of our “ousting,” and he knows whatever happened to her. While we were still going to that church, she wouldn’t go into the building unless we, her sister, or her boyfriend was with her.

Her “church” at this time is her daddy and mother. She trusts US, and we do our best to fulfil our responsibilities to point her to Jesus and heaven.

 

[AbideWithMe]

God bless you and your family, Cat.

 

[CalCatholic]

As a matter of fact, I have a “work friend” who is Evangelical and we get along perfectly well. We work closely together, discuss our families, current events, and are supportive of one another. Once in a while a matter of religion comes up in conversation. We don’t delve into it too deeply, but there’s never been any friction over it.

To tell you the truth, I’m not sure if Evangelicalism is a Protestant denomination or a description of some Protestants.

I have the same experience at work, he respects my faith and I respect his.

 

[andrewstx]

I was raised in an anti-Catholic evangelical denomination, the southern accapella “churches of Christ”. They never used the word sacrament since they considered that word to be ‘unbiblical’ but they did teach that adult baptism by submersion only forgave sin. I think they are the only Evangelical church to teach that. and they also ‘observed’ the Lord’s Supper as symbolic every Sunday and no other day.

Their main rival for souls in the area was the Southern Baptist church. The CofC and the Southern Baptists were continually prosyletising each other’s members, not evangelizing. The main impression I get of the Evangelicals is they think they are the only Christians to exist, every one who does not “get saved” often by the ‘sinner’s prayer’ is not a Christian. This puzzles me a lot. No one believed in ‘getting saved’ without baptism until the 16th century. Does mean that to evangelicals that everyone born before the ‘getting saved’ doctrine was invented in the 16th century is in hell?

I was converted in the 70s and in 1983 I went to live in a Friary in Central Illinois. I was happy to see only one small Southern Baptist and one church of Christ in that medium sized city. At last I was normal and fit in.

I kind of feel that the ‘getting saved, accepting Jesus as personal Saviour’ idea is largely regional, and present much less outside the south where if you are not a Baptist or Campbellite something obviously has to be very wrong with you.

 

[AbideWithMe]

Hey Andrewstx—Hmm, I think maybe the idea of being the “only Christians” may be a Church of Christ thing? I know Max Lucado grew up in the town where you now live, and he was CofC and if I remember rightly, he said that was a belief among some CofC although he does not believe that now. There’s just a small handful of CofC in my area, so I have no familiarity with them.

 

[andrewstx]

Hey Andrewstx—Hmm, I think maybe the idea of being the “only Christians” may be a Church of Christ thing? I know Max Lucado grew up in the town where you now live, and he was CofC and if I remember rightly, he said that was a belief among some CofC although he does not believe that now. There’s just a small handful of CofC in my area, so I have no familiarity with them.

That is a CofC idea indeed. Others in the Campbell tradition are more reasonable and more diplomatic. The Disciples claim to be Christians only, but not the only Christians. Yes Mr Lucado was the preacher at Andrews CofC, but he had come and gone before I moved here and I had been out of the CofC for years.

Mr. Lucado was disfellowshipped from the Andrews church for being a ‘liberal innovator’. He has now moved to San Antonio where he pastors a “non-denominational” church.

The history of these people is kind of interesting. They started out as members of a splinter Presbyterian church, and decided that baptism by submersion of adult beleivers was key and became Baptists for a short time. And then decided that all denominations were a bad thing and became independent, calling them selves just Christian.

The civil war played a huge part of the Disciples of Christ, churches of Christ split. After the war the North was more succesfull while the South was beaten down and poor. The Disciples could afford pipe organs and seminary educated ministers while the South could not afford those things and called them ‘apostacy’ and ‘unscriptural’. As well the Northern Disciples began to organize beyond the local congregation and formed missionary societies. The South called those things ‘unscriptural innovations’.

The big break came in 1906 when the Southern churches of Christ broke communion with the Disciples and became a separate denomination which continues to this day. Of course the churches of Christ do not think of themselves as a denomination at all. They call themselves “undenominational”.

But I am not being completely accurate. In my former city there are two Christian Churches (Disciples of Christ) and about 15 churches of Christ. So it is a generalization somewhat. There are Disciples in the South, just few and far between.

Being from the South the churches of Christ are much more conservative, they still have segregated churches, blacks, whites, and Hispanic all have different congregations. Andrews has all three.

 

[AbideWithMe]

Thanks for the interesting post, Andrewstx.