A place to snark and vent about CoC doctrine and/or our experiences in the CoC. This is a place for SUPPORT and AGREEMENT only, not a place to tell someone their experience and feelings are wrong, or why we disagree with them.
Cootie Brown wrote:My wife will not admit that we were ever in the Church of Christ. When she placed membership in the Methodist Church and was asked when she previously worshipped she told them honestly that she’d been raised Baptist. She still refuses to tell anyone we were ever part of the Church of Christ. But she proudly claims her Baptist history.
Good for her. That's because she knows that even the Baptists are more reasonable than the cofc.
Cootie Brown wrote:My wife and I left the c of C in 2005. One of the things we discovered, after separating from the c of C is how other believers view c of C folk.
The c of C is often viewed as a cult or at least cultish. They are often seen as an overly legalistic sect of Christianity. We have also discovered they are often the butt of jokes.
True, but there has been an ever-growing evangelical subculture here in the United States over the past 20 years or so. It includes many other Christian denominations. I think C of C has been eclipsed in it's weirdness.
faithfyl wrote:True, but there has been an ever-growing evangelical subculture here in the United States over the past 20 years or so. It includes many other Christian denominations. I think C of C has been eclipsed in it's weirdness.
Yeah, at least I haven't (yet) heard of CoC people thinking that their god is talking to them. "God put in on my heart to tell you..." -- sheesh.
faithfyl wrote:True, but there has been an ever-growing evangelical subculture here in the United States over the past 20 years or so. It includes many other Christian denominations. I think C of C has been eclipsed in it's weirdness.
Yeah, at least I haven't (yet) heard of CoC people thinking that their god is talking to them. "God put in on my heart to tell you..." -- sheesh.
Oh, no you won't!! That would definitely get them the side eye from the brethren.
Cootie Brown wrote:My wife will not admit that we were ever in the Church of Christ. When she placed membership in the Methodist Church and was asked when she previously worshipped she told them honestly that she’d been raised Baptist. She still refuses to tell anyone we were ever part of the Church of Christ. But she proudly claims her Baptist history.
Good for her. That's because she knows that even the Baptists are more reasonable than the cofc.
If I were jesus and the church of christ my bride, I'd divorce it and marry the Baptist church instead.
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.----Karl Marx
I'd quote everyone here, but I think basically, yeah.
It is so embarrassing to admit what church you go to while growing up.
Also, I am actually convinced it's a cult. At least the one I was in was. It seems like all of them are the same, but in different degrees. when I was first getting out of the church I was in a support group, and some people argued that it's not a cult, but cultish. other people were "yes it's absolutely a cult".
But anyway...
The city I grew up in, that church was NOTORIOUS in town. They have this sign out front, and it always has either extremely smug stuff on it, or something completely full of cringe. LOL It was "omg you're in that church with the sign?" And members were so hated in the community. SO embarrassing. I ended up just saying "I go to the first baptist church on ____street" and it was "Oh! those people are so nice!"
Yeah - cultish. Generally, the CoC would LIKE to be a cult, but it would involve way too much work and they can't decide who the cult leader should be.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
agricola wrote:Yeah - cultish. Generally, the CoC would LIKE to be a cult, but it would involve way too much work and they can't decide who the cult leader should be.
I believe control is the primary identifying characteristic of a cult. I don’t believe a single charismatic person is necessary. A cult may have multiple leaders that place and enforce laws, rules, and commands on the group. They also punish and discipline members. And the group obeys it’s leaders with little or no pushback.
The Church of Christ, IMO, meets this criteria. The Bible is the authority and the Elders are the leaders. Religious cults do not require a single charismatic individual, although the lead minister/preacher often fills that position. Cults require indoctrination to achieve obedience to their laws, rules, and commands. That is an absolute necessity.
Secular historical scholars routinely refer to Christianity as a cult because it meets many of the criteria necessary to meet the broad definition of a cult. Christians reject the idea their religion is a cult because they don’t want to admit they’ve been indoctrinated and are voluntarily part of a cult.
The Church has to be admired for being able to survive for thousands of years against a mountain of evidence that their teachings and traditions are simply not true. That is no small achievement.
Secular historians refer to cults in a totally neutral way, Cootie. It is a technical term referring to any identifiable religious oriented group, small or large, and in scholarly circles does not include any of the popular attributes most people apply to 'cult'.
Christianity was a 'cult' until it was a majority religion. Islam was a cult until it was a majority religion. Every religion and every denomination is or was a 'cult' until it was well established.
The way sociologists define 'cult' and the way historians of religion define 'cult' is very different.
I run into that sort of confusion in my own work world quite often - different disciplines in a single broader field, using the SAME terms to mean different 'things' - in my world, it is geologists versus engineers.
Both say 'fault' - but don't mean the same thing.
Both say 'joint' - but don't mean the same thing.
and these are COMMON terms used by both groups all the time.
It is really frustrating sometimes, because we talk to each other a LOT and our work is interdependent, but there is sometimes some serious misconceptions happening - and neither side is seeing it until too late.
But really and truly - except for some smaller individual congregations, the CoC as a denomination, as a whole, is not a 'cult' as popularly described (a super controlling group). I think the BOSTON movement was a cult though, and it was very nearly just a rather extreme CoC.
The CoC in my experience of it, in Tennessee and elsewhere, has only SOME of the chief characteristics of a sociological cult. It certainly has cult TENDENCIES and I wouldn't doubt that some congregations go full on cultish in places. But there is really not enough of an organization for it to be a real cult. Congregational autonomy works against it, no matter how lockstep they can seem to be. True cults wouldn't really be allowing so much splitting!
I think it does a real disservice to people who have REALLY been in an actual cult, to call the CoC (as a denomination) a cult.
Some congregations might be. The denomination as a whole is merely a fundamentalist (and actually rather heretical) Christian denomination.
History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices.
