Name This Religion

[Publisher]

Perhaps I didn’t phrase it correctly, it isn’t that they claim to be the actual church, but that they claim not to be a distinct group. The non-denominational claim is that they are base Christians, and an independent umbrella group. This claim is of course contradicted by the fact that they tend to be quite strict that everyone conform to the beliefs of their pastor (though not all non-denominational churches) and they are quite quick to kick people out (I know one individual who was kicked out of a non-denom church held in his own living room).

I suspect this is hard to describe to someone from a feelgood church such as the Quakers. My basic issue with them, however, is that they are baptists who claim to not be Baptists.

I never knew the Society of Friends was considered “feel good”…I always felt the deep personal burden of seeking to conform myself to His will and seek a life of personal holiness through allowing my “life to speak” my beliefs before this world.

I have always feelt a deep responsibility to the community of faith of which I belong and a deep personal sense of service to “the least of these”…There certainly is joy…“joy unspeakable and full of glory”…but “feel good”??? I must be doing something wrong…never thought of the Society of Friends as “feel good” religion.

Something for me to ponder I guess.

 

[svid]

Plymouth Brethren?

 

[agapewarrior]

I never knew the Society of Friends was considered “feel good”…I always felt the deep personal burden of seeking to conform myself to His will and seek a life of personal holiness through allowing my “life to speak” my beliefs before this world.

I have always feelt a deep responsibility to the community of faith of which I belong and a deep personal sense of service to “the least of these”…There certainly is joy…“joy unspeakable and full of glory”…but “feel good”??? I must be doing something wrong…never thought of the Society of Friends as “feel good” religion.

Something for me to ponder I guess.

Burden? Yeah, I used to have that 'til I realized that the red letters in the Bible are right. “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” I hope we all participate in such a “feel good religion”, cause God is most definitely a good god!

The Bible Way I know of declares Pentacostal denomination, but I would definitely take her at her word on the non-denominational. Doctrinally they sound very similar to many churches, but as long as their faith revolves around Jesus, there’s no cause for concern. “For who is not against me, is for me”

 

[Contarini]

They sound like some kind of holiness group. The female ministers are the giveaway. Only holiness/Pentecostal folks combine the generally conservative/fundamentalist traits you describe with an egalitarian approach to women’s ministry. Conservative Baptists certainly don’t; neither do Anabaptist groups including the Brethren (confusion note: there’s a denomination called “United Brethren” which is not an Anabaptist group and is generically evangelical–I teach at a college historically affiliated with this group). Also, any kind of conservative Anabaptist group would have head coverings. Long hair but no “cap” is another Holiness/Pentecostal giveaway.

Edwin

 

[3DOCTORS]

They sound like some kind of holiness group. The female ministers are the giveaway. Only holiness/Pentecostal folks combine the generally conservative/fundamentalist traits you describe with an egalitarian approach to women’s ministry. Conservative Baptists certainly don’t; neither do Anabaptist groups including the Brethren (confusion note: there’s a denomination called “United Brethren” which is not an Anabaptist group and is generically evangelical–I teach at a college historically affiliated with this group). Also, any kind of conservative Anabaptist group would have head coverings. Long hair but no “cap” is another Holiness/Pentecostal giveaway.

Edwin

Thanks - this sounds like we are “closing in on” the mystery so to speak. The conservatism but with female ministers was a puzzle to me.

 

[Contarini]

Thanks - this sounds like we are “closing in on” the mystery so to speak. The conservatism but with female ministers was a puzzle to me.

I come from a holiness background myself. This may be one of the reasons I have as much trouble with the Catholic position on women’s ordination as I do (compared to folks who come either from conservative backgrounds where women aren’t ordained, or liberal backgrounds where women’s ordination is linked with other questionable things, as it is in the Episcopal Church to which I presently belong)–although actually my family believed that women shouldn’t normally be “senior pastors.”

Edwin

 

[RedDawgMCM]

They are 2 by 2’s. My mother-in-law’s family is involved with it. Not sure if that is their official name but they get it from the scripture about sending people out 2 by 2.

 

[Contarini]

They are 2 by 2’s. My mother-in-law’s family is involved with it. Not sure if that is their official name but they get it from the scripture about sending people out 2 by 2.

I wondered if the OP might be talking about the 2 by 2s, but I thought that the description wasn’t precise enough to be sure. I encountered them once at my parents’ house in Tennessee (they had made contact with my parents because they rightly recognized certain affinities with my family–however, my parents were not inclined to join them and I don’t think there has been any further contact!).

I don’t think they have an official name, because they consider labels incompatible with the simplicity of the Gospel, as far as I can tell. This is a common approach in primitivist Protestantism, but the 2 by 2s take it about as far as anyone.

I was very frustrated by their complete lack of knowledge of or interest in history. Again, this is an extreme case of a tendency you find among many radical Protestants, but most such groups have some kind of account of where they came from, however revisionist and historically suspect it may be. Not these folks, at least the two ladies I talked to. They had never heard of either the Waldensians or the Anabaptists–groups that I expected them to claim as some kind of spiritual ancestors.
And they just didn’t seem to be interested.

Apparently their origins are in a British Holiness group called the Faith Mission (which my family had some contact with in Europe and greatly respected). This timeline, while polemical, more or less fits what I’ve read elsewhere (see Gordon Melton’s Encyclopedia of Religion in America, for one thing).

 

[thequeen]

sounds like a oneness pentecostal group those are the ones that do not accept the trinity i grew up in a pentecostal Church Of God but we believed in the trinity