Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

Found a baggie hanging on my entry gate today with the first lesson of a Bible correspondence course in it from the hardline congregation just up the road from my subdivision. It looked so familiar I just had to check it out. (just an FYI: This CoC is on a heavily travelled road and regularly posts hate messages and "hellfire and damnation" verses on their sign board. )

The first clue of what to expect was the Roman numeral copyright of 1963 on the inside cover. Oh yeah, the same ones we used to get conned into help door hang as kids in the congregation I grew up in. 1963! Nothing like staying up with the times.

A quick perusal of the content found the typical barely veiled references to the CoC being the ONLY church where salvation is possible.

Then, found on the final page before the standard quiz you are supposed to take and send back to them, was the "Helpful Hints for Effective Bible Study" ...including this gem listed first:

Study with an open mind. Try to find what the Bible actually teaches instead of trying to make it prove what you already believe. Remember, the Gospel is God's power to save and not our opinions.

An open mind? Um...isn't that exactly the opposite of what you are taught once they get in their clutches?

Haha, I always have to laugh when I see COCers say that they urge people to study the bible with an open mind. They're among the most closed minded people to ever open their bibles. It reminds me of when they condemn other denominations for "twisting the scriptures to fit their beliefs" when that's exactly what the COC does. Oh, but no, they're not twisting the scriptures to fit their beliefs. They just happen to be the only people in history to actually get the bible right, everyone else just needs to open their minds so they can see that...

"But, but that's not what that verse is actually saying. You see, when you take part A of that verse then combine it with part B of this other verse, then go to this third verse and extrapolate a general principle then put it all together, you can CLEARLY see that this scripture ACTUALLY means . . ." Open mind my a$$. Minds so open their brains done fell out.

7315_360305567425528_72797234_n by David Foyt, on Flickr

Surely this is a twisted graphic; every staunch CoC member knows their church is the one-and-only viable church, and has an unbroken succession to the original first century church ... except for the 1500 years or so it floundered in the wilderness waiting for the Restoration Movement to revive it.

Caves, guys. I keep telling you, we were hiding in caves.

agricola wrote:Caves, guys. I keep telling you, we were hiding in caves.

I bet they got nekkid in the caves too.

B.H. wrote:

agricola wrote:Caves, guys. I keep telling you, we were hiding in caves.

I bet they got nekkid in the caves too.

As long as they weren't dancing...

Still, having an open mind is a good thing. But yes I agree that most people are not very open minded, particularly when it comes to a discussion of right/wrong in terms of sin and accountability. That is a message and path that is very unpopular in the current culture.

klp wrote:Still, having an open mind is a good thing. But yes I agree that most people are not very open minded, particularly when it comes to a discussion of right/wrong in terms of sin and accountability. That is a message and path that is very unpopular in the current culture.

I think the real problem there isn't so much about sin and accountability being an unpopular discussion topic as it's the issue of those with the loudest voices and wagging their fingers the hardest are usually "Cafeteria Christians" that ignore every single Biblical verse that applies to them while cherry picking and proof-texting the hell out of the rest of the scriptures.

It's kinda hard to take "the uber righteous" seriously when you have Kim "Married & Divorced four times' Davis as the poster child for the anti-equal marriage gang, and Donald 'Two Corinthians' Trump held up as a religious politician.

I have no problem discussing sin and accountability but prefer to do it with people that don't live in glass houses without mirrors.