Talk Elections

For those of you who don't know, the churches of Christ are autonomous, Protestant congregations throughout the world (but most common in North America) united through common beliefs and practices.  They are congregational in structure, and every congregational is led by and independently elected all-male eldership.  They seek to base practice and doctrine on the Bible alone, and see themselves as the modern-day equivalent to the First Century churches established by Christ.

The churches of Christ are a product of the Stone-Campell and Restoration movements and first became prevalent on the American frontier during the early 19th Century. These churches comprise about 5,062,074 members in over 40,000 individual congregations worldwide. There are approximately 13,000 congregations in the United States. Overall U.S. membership was approximately 1.8 million in 2001 and 1.9 million in 2008. Estimates of the proportion of the US adult population associated with the Churches of Christ vary from 0.8% to 1.5%.  In terms of adherents, it is twelfth largest Christian group in the United States and the fourth largest in terms of number of congregations.  Members of the churches of Christ are likely to refer to themselves simply as "Christians" or "members of the Church".   

Core tenets of church of Christ doctrine, as based on the Bible, include Baptismal regeneration, the importance of God's grace in salvation, the Bible as the unfiltered word of God, and the independence of the local congregation.  The churches of Christ are also notable for their lack of instrumental music in worship and their taking of the Lord's Supper, or communion, every Sunday. 

Please note, that the church of Christ is not the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church), the International Council of Churches of Christ, or the United Churches of Christ (UCC). 

For more information see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Christ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Christ)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_Movement  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restoration_Movement)   

Horrible Churches for their view that it's wrong to use musical instruments in church and full immersion baptism is essential for salvation (I say this as someone who was baptized by full immersion two months ago of my own choice despite being baptized as a baby.)

I do like the Disciples though, I think I might be closer to them theologically more than any other denomination, except for my weird charismatic tendencies.

The New Testament never contains a reference to musical instruments being used in the early church and the use of musical instruments in religious services was uncommon in the United States until the early 20th Century. 

So?

Yeah the Bible doesn't mention Powerpoint or church web sites either.

In the early church era, Christians still worshiped with Jews with the addition of communal suppers for the Communion.  While you don't generally play music while you eat, the Old Testament has plenty of examples of the Jews using musical instruments in their worship.

Although he does make a valid counter-point against some people like really traditionalist Catholics and some very "high church" Protestants who basically think anything other than a piano or organ is inappropriate and no modern instruments should ever be in church. There's no biblical basis for such a position. I suspect Nathan might sympathize with it but for different reasons.

Correct! That's my position for reasons of maintaining a certain aesthetic to the liturgy, though I'm by no means opposed to other acoustic instruments as long as they don't become the primary means of musical expression in a church, which I think should remain the traditionally ecclesiastical keyboard instruments. Clearly there's no Biblical reason why this should be so, why an organ should be appropriate and a two-necked axe with a ton of reverb not, but that is the way the culture of Western Christianity has developed.

Not all of them are Acapella Churches of Christ.

This is the denomination I've always attended.

This? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churches_of_Christ_in_Australia

In all seriousness, this doesn't seem theologically any worse than snake-belly-Low, charismatic literalist Protestantism usually is, but that is a branch of Christianity that I do not like very much anyway (though I can respect it).

Yes, that's the one.

Edit: As in, the non-acapella ones, although I've met some people from one of the acapella ones. Indeed, I used to be in the church band a few years back.

The difference I think is that is a bit less theologically rigid, since after all that's the tradition my church comes from. Plus believe it or not they are even gay Pentecostal churches. But of course the more liberal strains admittedly are a very recent development.

We had some of these kids at my high school. I remember two girls in particular because they were not allowed to use profanity, which we all thought was a bit silly. I remember one of the girls was reading her copy of an assigned novel from English class, and she would white out the words she found inappropriate.

Haha, what? Wow. I hear people say "f**k" and "sh!t" at church events all the time.

I'm pretty sure my cousin is a preacher at one....well, I know he is a preacher (in the church he grew up in, which sounds really weird to me, but that's his deal), but I'm not 100% sure they are a Church of Christ.....stand by.....nevermind, it's a Community Christian Church...whatever the hell that is.

Non-denominational?

That's what the internet is telling me.  I went to a few services there, they seemed like slightly more laid back S.Baptist's to me....but I was just a dumb kid and didn't get into any deep theological discussions with anybody(not like I'd get into any deep theological discussions now as dumb adult, but you know what I mean).  I'm pretty sure they believed in the V.birth, raised from the dead, will come back..ya know, the "important stuff".  Not sure about the "literal translation" part, but I'd lean towards yes.

So laid back like the type of church I'd go to? Like he preaches in jeans and in a very down to earth and non-aloof style? And yes almost everyone there would believe in the virgin birth and Jesus raising from the dead, and that's probably true even at Nathan's. The difference between both and the Southern Baptists would be over people believing the Earth was created in seven literal days 6000 years ago and if the vast majority of the world's population goes to hell, and I doubt the Southern Baptists ever give sermons about how God first revealed the birth of Jesus to people from "the 99%" (direct quote) instead of the rich elites and nobles that could've got it more attention.

Not that laid back and maybe on Wednesday nights he might wear jeans, I have no clue.I'm sure a lot of S.Baptists buy into that, but certainly not all of them.Now that's true of them, and if you read what Jesus said, (and believe in it) it's probably true.I don't even know what that part means, so I can't address it.

Wait, so the churches of Christ, Nathan's church and BRTD's church don't believe that the world was created 6000 years ago in 7 literal days and that the vast majority of the population goes to hell?

It's a reference to the sermon given at the first Sunday of Advent where the guy giving it (who looks like the "orgcore" guy on that "scenesters" site by the way), compared the shepherds who were told by the angels of the birth of Jesus to us today because they were of "the 99%" and not some rich nobles that God could've just easily revealed this to. I doubt any such quoting happens at Southern Baptist churches, more likely you'll hear some Tea Party rhetoric nonsense.

I just remember it notably because that day I used it to explain to someone else on IM that just because they do faith healing rituals and talk about God sending visions and talking to individual people doesn't mean they're right wing fundies.


The churches of Christ probably do. I'm saying most people at mine and Nathan's churches don't.

Why don't they believe the latter (majority of people going to hell)?

Because we dare hope.

I think it's your church that's in the minority on this issue BRTD. 

But look at the stats. A majority of people are not Christians, using the loosest definition possible. And what about those guys like the Ancient Babylonians/Egyptians/Chineese/Indians/Mayans/Aztecs/Incans/Greeks/Persians/ anyone else I missed that died long before Jesus was born?

You're just bringing up one theological view, which by the way isn't held by the Catholic Church or very much at all in the mainline churches, and isn't even universal amongst evangelicals, as I'm going to a nominally evangelical church. In the same sermon I mentioned above with the "99%" reference, the same guy covered how the magi who came to see Jesus, the "Three" Wise Men*, were Eastern Religious scholars, not Jews or Christians, and then talked about how God can work through people who aren't Christian and kind of tied into that sermon series' general theme of "Jesus is for EVERYONE". I've never heard any of the pastors by the way talk about hell, or do that whole "Pray this and give your life to Christ right now!" type of thing that people commonly associate with evangelicals.

*As you might already know, the Bible never gives a number to them, people just often assume three due to the three gifts mentioned and assuming a proportionality.


Perhaps, but primarily because other churches have far more olds.

What we dare hope is, among other things, that the Church Invisible exists and the Harrowing of Hell occurred from eternity.

BTW Nathan do you think most people at your church believe in the Virgin Birth and that Resurrection?

Because I'm not sure if dead0man thinks they are, but those are obviously hardly held only amongst fundies, by the last poll about 78% of Americans believed Jesus rose from the dead, and any church that denies those things would be edging on Unitarianism...But of course you also have people like Spong.

Indeed. Persian, I'd suspect, but I've heard suggestions that they could have been from as far off as Korea or China. It's quite obvious that it took them some time to arrive because even factoring in that Herod wouldn't have noticed them missing immediately, he still went after male children under the age of 2, so it clearly took them a while to arrive (even if Herod was being a tad conservative in his estimates). There was an incense route (http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1107) that they may have followed, although the Bible doesn't mark out the route they took. My father suggested to me once that the star they followed may well have been the same pillar of fire the Israelites followed in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, but again, that's speculation. Not really relevant to the discussion here, but an interesting point to consider.

Anybody that never got a chance to be saved gets saved automatically....or at least that's how I learned it.

Probably. I know our priests do, and most of us believe in some form of Real Presence, so it'd be kind of weird if many of us rejected the Virgin Birth and Resurrection. We have an older congregation and people in this area who are religiously observant are usually much more traditional on these issues than they are on ones of what we might call political theology. Even our UUs are more Christian stylistically than ones in most places.

Spong is to be quite honest something of an embarrassment these days, particularly among the kind of liberal-but-Incarnational theologians who hold sway at places like EDS.

In Amherst? So you're one of the youngest people there? That's kind of weird.

Churches full of olds make me uncomfortable, even if they're progressive, which is part of the reason I'm not comfortable with most mainline churches, (I know we have some here that have a broad age range like the one I went to on Christmas Eve but the median age was still around middle aged there.)

The average age is around fifty, but there are some young families. I'm the only young adult most weeks but there are kids around and most age and generational groups over say mid-thirties or so are pretty well represented. It's not a growing church but it certainly isn't shrinking; Amherst actually has a very vibrant faith community relative to what its politics might lead one to expect. For instance it's also home to what I think is the only mosque Westa Woosta, unless they fixed that place in the Springfield area up since last I checked, and there's a Hasidic rabbi who's a very beloved local personality. Aside from Grace Episcopal where I go, the Catholic, UU, and Congregationalist churches, as well as the Newman Center at the university, are all quite well attended. There's also Motown Man, a street performer who does a capella Motown covers (they're really good!), hosts a local-access talk show that people actually watch, and runs a ministry to the poor out of the motel where he lives, apparently by choice.