Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

That is unfortunate. All I'll say is: a few of these men do come to repentance in their last years, as much as they know how anyway.

Lerk wrote: Most of the people I know in the NI-CoC don't think even that is allowed anymore. They say that the divorce has to have been because of adultery. That's what that whole "mental divorce" kerfuffle is all about. It's totally nuts. (Some even go as far as to say that the "innocent party" has to be the one who files for divorce. If the adulterer files and the innocent party doesn't do something proactive, then they didn't do the "putting away" and they aren't free to remarry. So what they're doing is taking the principle (innocent spouse can remarry) and making it procedural (the passage only talks about the innocent party putting away the guilty one, so it must transpire that way).

If there's any justification for what Jesus said about divorce in Matthew 19, it would be that it might have protected women from being abandoned.

You are right about women being abandoned in that era. The one who files for divorce has no relationship to guilt or innocence. The CoC is guilty for calling things sin that are not sin. Move over Lord the CoC will judge! They are unaware of how insulting that is from God's perspective. Jesus is responding to the fact that Jews were allowed to divorce by Moses. The CoC would not catch this because it would weaken their case and their stance on divorce. Jews are allowed to divorce and Christians are not? Sins do not go into one bag called adultery or fornication. Humans are creative. Their are many other common sense reasons for divorce.

ena wrote:They are unaware of how insulting that is from God's perspective.

That was one concept that always bugged me. With 1 Corinthians 6, it seems like they stop in the first third of verse 2 and ignore everything else after that where Paul is calling those judgmental attitudes to shame them. He spends a good amount of time criticizing judging others like that. Yet here we are with overly legalistic codes that can't be written (lest we be seen as a denomination ) but we must still follow them because that's God's will.

So about that idea of following a semi-written code...Orwell wrote about something similar in Animal Farm. It didn't end well. Everyone is equal, some are more equal than others (looking at the elders and preachers who create these messes).

Cootie Brown wrote:
23. That a child under the age of accountability goes straight to heaven if they die, but the poor old native in Africa that hasn't heard of Jesus will go straight to hell? Let me see now, neither one of them had the opportunity to hear about Jesus and learn the 5 steps to get saved, but one is innocent and the other one isn't. That just doesn't seem fair.

To me, the whole concept of eternal damnation for anyone doesn't seem fair. No matter who they are.

Cootie Brown wrote:A few of the things I don't miss about the Church of Christ.

1. The atmosphere of fear & intimidation.

5. The intellectual censorship. Being cautioned not to read anything that wasn't written by a member of The Church, so as not to become confused.

8. To be reminded that our denominational friends were good people, but lost all the same.

13. Fear that you might be forced to take "The dreaded walk of shame" and then confess your sins to the congregation. Some of who were undoubtedly taking notes for later use.

1. Yeah. I feel like everyone has so much fear that they can't even see the grace that is right in front of their faces.

5. BINGO! When my husband and I left, one particular elder (he's the "head hauncho" who always spoke for the others) told us he saw that my husband changed and was affected by reading/studying Crazy Love by Francis Chan a few years ago. (insert ALL the eye rolls here) It's like they all think that my husband just started reading these "outside books" and let himself follow them without comparing what was said in them to scripture. Like he suddenly just became a total moron.

8. Yep!

13. Ridiculous. I've never understood that. Why the "walk of shame"? Why can't we just pray with each other? Why must we walk up and talk awkwardly to an elder on the front pew while the entire congregation sits quietly waiting for us to be done, and then an elder gets up and tells everyone about the conversation we just had?

There are just too many things. Too many things that I don't miss even a teeny tiny bit.

trabucco wrote:

ena wrote:They are unaware of how insulting that is from God's perspective.

That was one concept that always bugged me. With 1 Corinthians 6, it seems like they stop in the first third of verse 2 and ignore everything else after that where Paul is calling those judgmental attitudes to shame them. He spends a good amount of time criticizing judging others like that. Yet here we are with overly legalistic codes that can't be written (lest we be seen as a denomination ) but we must still follow them because that's God's will.

So about that idea of following a semi-written code...Orwell wrote about something similar in Animal Farm. It didn't end well. Everyone is equal, some are more equal than others (looking at the elders and preachers who create these messes).

All a denomination is a group that did not agree with the Pope. I have never heard the Orthodox called a denomination because they were not part of the reformation. Good post!

GraceFaith wrote: 5. BINGO! When my husband and I left, one particular elder (he's the "head hauncho" who always spoke for the others) told us he saw that my husband changed and was affected by reading/studying Crazy Love by Francis Chan a few years ago. (insert ALL the eye rolls here) It's like they all think that my husband just started reading these "outside books" and let himself follow them without comparing what was said in them to scripture. Like he suddenly just became a total moron.

The term you'll hear about "outside reading" is that a person has been "exposed to" such-and-such, as if it were a disease one could catch.

What's amazing is that CoC doctrine is so fragile that just reading or hearing something different will cause a person to [s]come to believe[/s] realize that what they were taught their entire life was obviously wrong.

Lerk wrote: What's amazing is that CoC doctrine is so fragile that just reading or hearing something different will cause a person to [s]come to believe[/s] realize that what they were taught their entire life was obviously wrong.

It took me far too long to realize this. The problem was that I trusted too much. I found a problem with innerrantcy and things unraveled by there. Cherry picking a scripture without gathering the context of the whole passage is dangerous. The CoC has many add on sins that are not provable as sin and real sins that get ignored. Paul talks about the law being nailed to the cross. To the CoC mind this translates that the law is invalid when in fact non Christians will be judged by the law. Paul was making a point not invalidating the law.

Lerk wrote:

GraceFaith wrote:
The term you'll hear about "outside reading" is that a person has been "exposed to" such-and-such, as if it were a disease one could catch.

What's amazing is that CoC doctrine is so fragile that just reading or hearing something different will cause a person to [s]come to believe[/s] realize that what they were taught their entire life was obviously wrong.

Good lord I was bothered by that before I was 15 years old! What was so scary? My parents wouldn't let me hardly even TALK to kids my own age about Baptist, Methodist, whatever - like our 'truth' was so fragile, it couldn't even be EXPOSED to something different, far less actually CHALLENGED.

It didn't make sense then and it doesn't make sense now.

Circular answers -
Me: Can I visit X's church?
Mother: NO, they don't teach the TRUTH. Ask X to visit OUR church.
(my inner thought: Good heavens, no. Our church is incredibly boring and weird). Me: What do they teach?
Mother: You don't need to know except it is wrong.
Me: How is it wrong?
Mother: It's just wrong and that's all you need to know. We have the Truth.

The trouble was, I didn't have a very clear idea of what WE believed, because I had NOTHING TO COMPARE IT TO. I wasn't permitted to even know so little as what we were 'true' ABOUT. I had only a vague idea it involved baptism and the Lord's Supper, but not HOW. Or maybe it was the piano which they had, and we didn't. Was it the piano?

oooh wait - when I was in COLLEGE, Mother relented and told me SOMETHING.
I had been hanging out at the Baptist Student Center because a) it was centrally located and b) they had really cheap lunches (and the coc student center was neither of those).

Mother said she didn't like me hanging around there because......



"BAPTISTS ARE TOO LIBERAL IN THEIR BIBLICAL INTERPRETATIONS."

There you have it.
Baptists are too liberal.