Why Doesn't Anything FIll the Mainline Void in the Northeast US?

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Dude653 said:
I have no idea. One of the big mega churches are still thriving. You would think people would figure out that the preacher doesn't really need a private jet and a $3,000 suits
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The pastor being obviously wealthy does create questions about the efficient use of church funds. However, my problem with these churches is not the wealth. It's the false gospel, lack of discipline, and compromise that goes on in them. But they're really just a flashier version of the mainline churches.
 
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ZNP said:
Well we are not baptized into the name of a denomination. We are baptized into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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Which is why churches that share significant overlap in theology share communion. This is some kind of hobby horse of yours, I'm pretty sure I have enough differences with you in Covenant theology that this is going nowhere, so I'm ending this conversation now.
 
ParticularWife said:
Which is why churches that share significant overlap in theology share communion. This is some kind of hobby horse of yours, I'm pretty sure I have enough differences with you in Covenant theology that this is going nowhere, so I'm ending this conversation now.
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You said that "non denomination was a nonsense claim" and yet your response has proven that it is not nonsense.

What was nonsense was your equating "non denominational" with "non doctrinal" that was nonsense.

The question is why these denominational churches are drying up withering away. The answer is simple, people had legitimate issues based on the fellowship of the Apostles and they refused to listen. Jesus speaks through the least of these and if you despise them then you will be despised.

With what measure you measure it will be measured to you.
 
Your first post describes the churches as "mainline". What does that mean? I visit churches that are worldwide denominations and they are essentially empty. Perhaps 200 people in a hall that easily seats 600. Mainly you have families that have been with this church for several generations. The young people are their children, but little or no new members.

Go to an evangelical church that can seat 600 and they have to have several meetings because they don' t have room for everyone in one service.

I'm not talking about the mega churches with the millionaire pastor preaching the prosperity gospel. I'm talking about fundamental Christians preaching fundamental truths.
 
ParticularWife said:
Open communion is itself a denominational issue that churches have split over. My church doesn't allow it, and I agree with their reasoning.
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Depends on what you are calling open communion. I do agree that you cannot let everybody that enters your church take communion. Being an OPC church, I would agree that the table should be guarded. However, if an active member of a RCUS or other reformed church visits yours, are you saying they would be denied the Lord's Supper? In my view, that would not be the correct way to guard.
 
ParticularWife said:
Open communion is itself a denominational issue that churches have split over. My church doesn't allow it, and I agree with their reasoning.
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Sounds like a good way to make sure a guest never visits your church again
Imagine the audacity of telling a guest that this represents the body of Christ, but you can't have any because you're not a church member
 
You can see church history in the book of 1 Samuel. Eli and his sons were corrupt. They were involved in fornication, adultery, and they were taking the Lord's offerings for themselves. This was known as the indulgences and other forms of corruption of the Catholic church. They then went to war with the Philistines and brought out the ark of the covenant and were defeated and the Philistines took the ark. The crusades went from a little after 1,000 AD to 1300 AD, they went forth with the cross of Christ and the name of Christ and they were defeated. This defeat resulted in a great loss of prestige and a widening split in the Catholic church, and in the story of Eli he is depicted as an old man who falls from his chair and breaks his neck. His two sons both die in this battle. This is when Ichabod was born, meaning "the glory has departed". The ark of the covenant was returned to Israel on a cart pulled by two oxen. This could be seen as a reference to Martin Luther, his 95 thesis that expose the illegitimacy of indulgences. It was men from a city called "The city of the forests" which sounds like Germany, and they put it in the house of Abinadab, "my father is willing" and Eleazar was the priest "God has helped". They demanded a king from Samuel after this and he anointed Saul. This was the beginning of the State churches like the church of England. Many of these denominations were defacto state churches.

But then they wanted to bring the ark up and Uzzah put up his hand to keep it from falling and God struck him dead. The ark is the testimony of God. The testimony of God is to be carried on the shoulders of priests, not on an ox cart used to transport goods to market. This is the issue with much of organized religion, they think that using the things they have learned from business and commerce will help with the move of the Lord. One problem is that the ark could topple and fall. You can have phony believers who were not genuinely saved taking the table. Uzzah keeping the ark from falling was similar to the denominations having a closed table and requiring people to be baptized into the name of their denomination. Paul said that we are to examine ourselves, he never examined others to see if they were worthy nor did he ever instruct pastors to examine others. Yes, if the denominations had tried to bring the ark to Jerusalem on an ox cart it would have toppled to the ground. The solution is not putting your hand up to keep it from falling the answer is to obey God's ordination that the ark is to be carried on the shoulders of the priests. Because of this the ark was placed in a weird house. The guy's name means "servant of Edom", not servant of God, or of Israel. He was a Gittite, that means a resident of Gath. That is a Philistine city. This is the non denominational churches and the Jesus movement. They are often a weird collection of people that it is hard to believe they are Christians. But, God blessed them. That is what has happened recently with the denominational churches being struck dead for the arrogance that they are to protect the ark from falling while these weird people become the ones to keep the ark of testimony, the ark of the covenant.
 
ParticularWife said:
The PCA has been a mixed bag for decades - they had R. C. Sproul but also some very PCUSA-like liberals. There are still good PCA churches, but the ones near me had simply collapsed on catechism and discipline. I did not want to change churches in the first place, but since I went to the OPC a lot of people I knew there have left the church, sometimes for Fundamentalist churches.

"Non-denominational" is a nonsense claim (most of them are General Baptist Churches in reality), though some of them are Gospel churches. I'll append some short videos at the end that explain some of these points. Although I am a Baptist in a very high church Baptist.

I understand this, but I don't agree for a variety of reasons. One is because I'm postMil (and frankly think AMil collapses into the same thing in practice). I don't know when Jesus will return, but I see no reason to think that hypocrisy and apostasy are anything new, in the world or the church.
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I don't really see the problem with non-denominational. It's just the church that teaches from the Bible but doesn't feel the need to attach themselves to any label like Baptist, Pentecostal, etc
 
Dude653 said:
I don't really see the problem with non-denominational. It's just the church that teaches from the Bible but doesn't feel the need to attach themselves to any label like Baptist, Pentecostal, etc
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I don't necessarily have a problem with the churches, aside from the fact that I believe in organized polity to a greater extent than them, I just think the ND label is false and not helpful. They have distinctives and become de facto Denominations, it's like claiming to be an apolitical party.
 
Dude653 said:
Sounds like a good way to make sure a guest never visits your church again
Imagine the audacity of telling a guest that this represents the body of Christ, but you can't have any because you're not a church member
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People who are not baptized into Christ should not be taking communion. Someone who cannot affirm our doctrines and church membership shouldn't anyway. Church discipline itself is tied into communion.
No one is preventing them from taking communion with a church that does agree with them.
Do people have no idea what church discipline is?
The purpose of church is not getting people to show up. It's to Minister to the faithful and preach the gospel.
Again, we don't have the same basic Covenant theology and you'll need to argue with someone who has more time about it, because I'm not interested.
 
BillyBob said:
Depends on what you are calling open communion. I do agree that you cannot let everybody that enters your church take communion. Being an OPC church, I would agree that the table should be guarded. However, if an active member of a RCUS or other reformed church visits yours, are you saying they would be denied the Lord's Supper? In my view, that would not be the correct way to guard.
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The RCUS and OPC share communion. We use denomination in the original sense, not the corporate business sense it's used in today (a formal organization registered with the government).
Initially, denomination referred to theological distinctions within Christianity. The term was used to identify groups within the faith that adhered to specific interpretations of scripture and theology.
Over time, especially with the growth of non-Continental Protestantism, denomination came to refer not only to theological distinctions but also to the institutional structures that arose to support these groups.
Today, denomination typically refers to a recognized organizational body within Christianity.
 
Dude653 said:
I don't really see the problem with non-denominational. It's just the church that teaches from the Bible but doesn't feel the need to attach themselves to any label like Baptist, Pentecostal, etc
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The point ParticularWife was making was not that Non Denominational churches might not be nice churches, or that they might not have good doctrine, or good intentions. Her point was merely that the Non Denominational label is, in itself, an illogical label - as any set of beliefs you have either align with a denomination, or constitute a new denomination.
Therefore, no matter how you slice it, you still have denominational beliefs of some kind; so a label claiming the opposite is irrational.

However, I know lots of lovely Christians who say a few irrational things.
Jesus still loves them.

BTW Dude, why are you in here lighting the fires of contention about Christian doctrine, when you aren't a christian, and you quite literally don't believe in any Christian doctrine at all?
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maxwel said:
. Her point was merely that the Non Denominational label is, in itself, an illogical label - as any set of beliefs you have either align with a denomination, or constitute a new denomination.
Therefore, no matter how you slice it, you still have denominational beliefs of some kind; so a label claiming the opposite is irrational.
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It's not even an original point 😂 NDs have been pointed out as a bad label for decades. And, as I said, most of them are actually Baptists.
 
maxwel said:
The point ParticularWife was making was not that Non Denominational churches might not be nice churches, or that they might not have good doctrine, or good intentions. Her point was merely that the Non Denominational label is, in itself, an illogical label - as any set of beliefs you have either align with a denomination, or constitute a new denomination.
Therefore, no matter how you slice it, you still have denominational beliefs of some kind; so a label claiming the opposite is irrational.

However, I know lots of lovely Christians who say a few irrational things.
Jesus still loves them.

BTW Dude, why are you in here lighting the fires of contention about Christian doctrine, when you aren't a christian, and you quite literally don't believe in any Christian doctrine at all?
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.
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I'm not.
That wasn't my intention.
The problem you run into with denominations is that many of them can't agree on what the Bible actually says.
Some of them think they're right and everyone else is wrong, as people have different interpretations about what the Bible says and what it means
 
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