Opinion of the Churches of Christ

[Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Christ

Arguably the most conservative and fundamentalist denomination in all American Christianity.  Basically, take the United Church of Christ (with which it is often confused) and invert everything it has ever taught.  No instruments are allowed during worship.  Women cannot hold any leadership positions and some members do not even believe that women's voices should be heard over men's during singing.  The Church traces its roots back to the early church despite having developed out of the Restoration Movement.  Some members believe they are the only true church and oppose members dating Christians from other denominations (although I've also been told they moderated on their "one true church" claim over the years).

Horrible denomination.

[RFayette]

Way too legalistic. 

[Esteemed Jimmy]

Horrible denomination

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

They belong back in the Stone Age.

[Wikipedia delenda est]

Obvious HP, but coming from a non-religious person, I find it somewhat odd that the "one true church" idea isn't considered the norm. For most of history, it seems Christians saw other denominations as schismatics/heretics destined for hell. If you are a true believer and adherent to your denomination, wouldn't you believe that your faith is the only correct one? Because if not, then why not just pick and choose your denomination randomly, since the theology behind it evidently isn't of much concern?

[John Dule]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

[Del Tachi]

Freedom denomination, and this is the religious faith in which I was brought up.

Sure, the Churches of Christ catch a lot of flack for being obscenely conservative on some issues.  However, their congregational polity allows for almost limitless local autonomy on questions of worship and theology.  The small, rural Churches of Christ are obscenely conservative of course, but the Church of Christ I attend in Athens, Georgia (for example) allows women to lead prayers and preside over communion, although there are no formal leadership roles for them (i.e., elder or deaconess).  This supremacy of the local congregation in all matters is one of the biggest selling-points for the Churches of Christ. 

Secondly, I don't think any congregation knows the Bible better.  Quite simply, if it isn't in the Bible these people aren't going to do it.  I think there's a valid theological debate about the appropriateness of extra-Biblical creeds or traditions, but the Churches of Christ definitely practice what they preach in these arena.  When I attend other services, I am almost always thoroughly disappointed in the relative absence of Scripture, which is something I attribute to the sensibilities I developed growing up in the Churches of Christ.  The centrality of Scripture in Church of Christ worship has instilled great Biblical knowledge in the Church's laity.  

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

 
Agree 100%

[RINO Tom]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

These hot takes are growing so tiring.  Every atheist thinks he's the first one, and no one else has thought of the idea.

You can believe in a religion and believe that certain parts of an overall holy book were either made up as allegory or mistranslated.  That should not be stunning to you.

[Del Tachi]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

These hot takes are growing so tiring.  Every atheist thinks he's the first one, and no one else has thought of the idea.

You can believe in a religion and believe that certain parts of an overall holy book were either made up as allegory or mistranslated.  That should not be stunning to you.

Then what is the basis for your faith?  I believe a lot of "Mainline" interpretations of Scripture go beyond simple cases of mistranslation or misappropriation and instead simply turn a blind eye to plain Biblical theology.  What is the Scriptural foundation for infant baptism, for example? 

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

These hot takes are growing so tiring.  Every atheist thinks he's the first one, and no one else has thought of the idea.

You can believe in a religion and believe that certain parts of an overall holy book were either made up as allegory or mistranslated.  That should not be stunning to you.

Then what is the basis for your faith?

I don't necessarily agree with this or think it tells the whole story myself, but many liberal Christians would say that the basis for their faith is the figure of Jesus rather than the specific literary content of the Bible.

[DC Al Fine]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

These hot takes are growing so tiring.  Every atheist thinks he's the first one, and no one else has thought of the idea.

You can believe in a religion and believe that certain parts of an overall holy book were either made up as allegory or mistranslated.  That should not be stunning to you.

Then what is the basis for your faith?  I believe a lot of "Mainline" interpretations of Scripture go beyond simple cases of mistranslation or misappropriation and instead simply turn a blind eye to plain Biblical theology.  What is the Scriptural foundation for infant baptism, for example? 

I see what you're getting at, but infant baptism isn't really a Mainline-Evangelical thing. Plenty of conservative Protestants think they have a Biblical case for it and would protest (pun intended) at being called Mainline.

*Examples include: Household baptisms in the New Testament, covenant theology, Paul's rhetoric about circumcision and baptism etc. Not trying to derail the thread with a baptism debate, just giving a tl;dr.

[John Dule]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

These hot takes are growing so tiring.  Every atheist thinks he's the first one, and no one else has thought of the idea.

You can believe in a religion and believe that certain parts of an overall holy book were either made up as allegory or mistranslated.  That should not be stunning to you.

So basically, everything you like in the text is cherrypicked as "real," while all the stuff you disagree with is "mistranslated." How incredibly convenient for you.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

These hot takes are growing so tiring.  Every atheist thinks he's the first one, and no one else has thought of the idea.

You can believe in a religion and believe that certain parts of an overall holy book were either made up as allegory or mistranslated.  That should not be stunning to you.

So basically, everything you like in the text is cherrypicked as "real," while all the stuff you disagree with is "mistranslated." How incredibly convenient for you.

The "mistranslated" talking point has always seemed stupid to me too, especially since we still have the Bible in its original languages so if people think something in it is mistranslated they can always just check other translations or consult people who can read Hebrew and Greek and translate it themselves. It's not like the Sanskrit Canon where like half of it only survives in the form of Kumarajiva's translations into Chinese.

[RINO Tom]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

These hot takes are growing so tiring.  Every atheist thinks he's the first one, and no one else has thought of the idea.

You can believe in a religion and believe that certain parts of an overall holy book were either made up as allegory or mistranslated.  That should not be stunning to you.

So basically, everything you like in the text is cherrypicked as "real," while all the stuff you disagree with is "mistranslated." How incredibly convenient for you.

The "mistranslated" talking point has always seemed stupid to me too, especially since we still have the Bible in its original languages so if people think something in it is mistranslated they can always just check other translations or consult people who can read Hebrew and Greek and translate it themselves. It's not like the Sanskrit Canon where like half of it only survives in the form of Kumarajiva's translations into Chinese.

Using critical thinking on an incredibly old text is not cherrypicking.  As for "mistranslated," I do not mean literally from language to language.  These were verbal stories for years.  I get John is of the atheist libertarian variety and the others I am arguing with here are conservative Christians, so ... I won't waste too much time just getting nailed to the wall, but it is completely consistent in my mind to look at some Old Testament stories and hypothesize that they might not have happened as eventually recorded.  It is perfectly reasonable to believe that my hypothesis of the God they attempted to describe when getting the Bible together might actually resemble something else than they had in mind given their world they lived in, and that further scientific discovery does not discredit the Bible but rather might shine light on the true nature of God that people back then could not understand.  This could go on and on, obviously, and I respect that many might not agree.  I do find it frustrating, though, that this discussion often finds secular people and religiously conservative people supporting each other AGAINST a "liberal" Christian ... something fundamentally wrong with that picture, to me.

I honestly am not flaming, I GENUINELY do not understand how someone could ridicule (maybe too strong of a word, but bear with me) the Christianity of someone who isn't willing to accept every single detail of the Bible as literal truth.  No one is a true Biblical literalist on all of the laws and things, so to me you are all just drawing the line at the point that makes the most sense to you ... as am I.  Belief in the Resurrection is the make-or-break for me, and thankfully there are still a few Mainliners I can hang out with who agree ... for now. :/  I do not look forward to a hypothetical future where Christianity becomes anywhere near a fringe belief and society is drawn into an even more intense culture war between "the (really, really) religious" and the "not religious."  That will be a very, very sad day.  Mainline Protestantism is a very necessary bridge to stop that, in my own view.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I don't disagree with any of what you're saying; I'm not a Biblical literalist myself, not by a long shot. But I have seen people impugn the actual translation of the Bible from language to language as something that vitiates our ability to understand the intent of its authors, and I (falsely) assumed that that was the talking point that you were referring to. For that I'm sorry.

[DC Al Fine]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

These hot takes are growing so tiring.  Every atheist thinks he's the first one, and no one else has thought of the idea.

You can believe in a religion and believe that certain parts of an overall holy book were either made up as allegory or mistranslated.  That should not be stunning to you.

So basically, everything you like in the text is cherrypicked as "real," while all the stuff you disagree with is "mistranslated." How incredibly convenient for you.

The whole translation and literal/allegorical divide is just one gigantic over simplification. Unless you are dealing with specific examples the question is meaningless. Basically 100% of Christians are going to read some texts like the Psalms figuratively, and some texts like Jesus rising from the dead literally. It only becomes a meaningful critique when you are dealing with why a person or school reads a text a certain way.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

I mostly agree with you.  However, some people add stuff that the Bible doesn't actually teach, and that's where I start to get skeptical.  I don't know much about this denomination, so I don't really have an opinion.  I'll give a couple of examples:

1: Some Fundamentalist Christians are opposed to dancing, because it can lead to sin.  Some are against the celebration of Christmas, because of its connections to a pagan holiday.  But nowhere in the Bible does it actually say that Christians shouldn't dance or celebrate Christmas.

2: Some Fundamentalists make weird claims about the end times and about how some politician or celebrity is the Antichrist.  This should be criticized.

The bigger problem in American Christianity today, I believe, is the opposite.  Any suggestion that parts of the Bible are in error strike at the foundation of the faith.

[RFayette]

It's routinely stunning to me that religions criticize the fundamentalists within their own ranks. If you really think that your special book is the revealed word of God, shouldn't you be following that thing to the letter?

To add to what Carpetbagger said, here are lots of denominations that accept Biblical inerrancy - such as the Southern Baptists, Missouri/Wisconsin synod Lutherans, PCA, etc. - that would be much better received here.  I think a lot of people here are objecting to the Church of Christ's legalism in terms of creating rules that have no basis in the Bible - such as no instruments in church.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Fun fact: John Cornyn belongs to it.

Anyway HC though I'm actually pretty sympathetic to the Restorationist movement in general, they were sort of 19th century hipster Christian's. CofC is of course the most fundamentalist offshoot of it.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

I honestly am not flaming, I GENUINELY do not understand how someone could ridicule (maybe too strong of a word, but bear with me) the Christianity of someone who isn't willing to accept every single detail of the Bible as literal truth.  No one is a true Biblical literalist on all of the laws and things, so to me you are all just drawing the line at the point that makes the most sense to you ... as am I.

Well, speaking as a non-religious person, there's the exasperating observation that the sort of believers we are discussing are able to critically examine and reject certain truths when it suits them, and then arbitrarily turn off their critical faculties when the evaluation of a religious truth becomes too much of a threat to their sense of self. But to be fair I think that is a very human flaw which all of us have somewhere.    

To my mind, a holy book of divine revelation having mistakes or myths or teachings which can be considered morally wrong in it is an absurdity in itself.

The "mistranslated" talking point has always seemed stupid to me too, especially since we still have the Bible in its original languages so if people think something in it is mistranslated they can always just check other translations or consult people who can read Hebrew and Greek and translate it themselves. It's not like the Sanskrit Canon where like half of it only survives in the form of Kumarajiva's translations into Chinese.

Okay, but (leaving aside all of the other problems in manuscript transmission) Jesus likely didn't speak Greek, or at the very least not the polished and discursive Greek we read in the Gospels. So even sticking to the original languages of the text one has to assume there is some kind of translation issue to be considered...if one believes we are reading the authentic sayings of Jesus somewhere.

And of course, we know that translators have 'given their spin' on certain passages in ways which have profoundly influenced subsequent theology written in those languages. Luther was famous for this: I'm not a theologian so feel free to correct me, but I understand that e.g. Karl Barth was very much reading Paul through Luther, and much of that has to do with how he interpreted the meaning of certain obscure Greek terms as they were translated in Luther's Bible.