Non-demoninational Churches-Where has the doctrine gone?!

[cascherman]

I have just been thinking, as an RCIA Catholic with a brother who has joined a non-denom. protestant evangelical church, I have been noticing a dire circumstance.

I visited his church one sunday a few years ago before I started my conversion and what the service consisted of – no joke – songs and a sermon. No communion, no creed, no tradition (small t). Apparently he says communion is practiced every 4th (!!!) wednesday of the month.

What has happened to the practice of Christ’s instructions in these religions? Was one of Christ’s last instructions to the apostles before he died not ‘do this in remembrance of me’? Why has it been pushed to the back of the room? One Wednesday a month? Hardly important. My brother has admitted he doesn’t even attend that service. Rock music and preaching has been brought in front of communion! Essentially 4 times more important.

It seems to me that non-demoninational churches are called that because they don’t stand for anything except what they all can agree on. Preaching their version of the gospel. Fine we disagree in doctrine, but in Acts it says the believers got together every day TO break bread. Now in the non-denom churches its once a month!? and not even on Sunday when majority of the followers are there?

These churches in my eyes have thrown away 2000 years of tradition in order to not offend people. They go by no name, they push tradition to the back, communion to the back. Oh, and they told my brother that his infant baptism didn’t count and it would be good for him to redo it (like its confirmation or something!).

Ahhhh, just trying to vent. What does everyone else think about this?

 

[DJgang]

There is no doctrine in those churches. Majority of the people don’t even know about 2000 years of Tradition…they are not educated about Christian history at all. They have no Tradition to push back to begin with…

Why are you so surprised?

In most Baptist churches, the Lord’s Supper (not communion) is done only once every three months.

What the preacher says is the Faith. I know, I’ve been there.

aaww…I better stop.

 

[nobeerinheaven]

I don’t know why this surprises anyone. Non-denom churches are just upbeat Baptists, with a new name. There *is *doctrine, certainly, though it is heretical: fundamentalism with a heaping dose of dispensationalism, mixed with a bit of Calvinism (if you’re lucky). Emphasis on the sermon is common not just with non-denom churches, but with most every Protestant church. It is uncommon for Protestant churches to celebrate communion more than once a month, as they subscribe to a memorial view of its importance, and they feel that doing it too frequently lessens the impact of the memorial.

 

[cascherman]

you are all right, it should not be surprising to me. But, it is sad as my brother is a follower, and has been re-baptized… baptism as far as I can see has been made just a public confirmation.

As a previous protestant I can tell you that I had not even explored a little but of the ECFs, when I explored the Catholic Church and found there was a whole new branch of evidence for Christianity and Catholicism in the ECFs I was amazed.

Wow, I love the Catholic faith’s view on the Eucharist. It is central, absolute, and necessary for our faith. It is one of the few set in stone traditions that Christ explicitly left for us to practice while in worship. How can that be ignored or sent to the back of the mind!?

 

[on_fire]

welcome home cascherman.and pray for your brother as well as all our seperated brothers and sisters in Christ!!be there for him if he has any questions and if you dont know the answers tell him you will find out and get back to him as soon as possible.good luck…

 

[Gerry_Hunter]

This lack of doctrine is the sad result of the rejection of Magisterium. I don’t just mean disagreement with the Pope and the Bishops of the Catholic Church, but rejection of the whole idea that teaching authority, vested in the Church (or anywhere else) exists at all.

You really can’t have much doctrine in that circumstance. And if you have too little, you become nondescript, and evaporate. Add some doctrine, and you risk reaching a tipping point, where, in the absence of authority, disagreements arise among members, and fission results because there’s no one to say what’s what with authority.

There’s a non-denominational “gospel assembly” a few blocks from us. Some time ago, they went through a spell where they could not keep a mninister. He’d preach something, there’d be disagreement, and he’d be history. No one lasted over a few months. This went on for a number of years. Finally they did get a bit of stability, but by that time, most of the congregation had turned over.

This phenomenon has given rise to the erroneous and dangerous assertion that doctrine divides. No, it doesn’t. Division is inevitable in the absence of authority, unless all one wants is some kind of social confederation of the likeminded.

Blessings,

Gerry