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[font="tahoma][size="2"]So you hate organized religion, but you love Jesus?[/size][/font]
Jesus is God; church is made by humans.......
Had enough with all the hypocrisy? Ready to divorce your church and go it alone?
[font="tahoma] [/font][/color]Here's the problem.....Christ used humans to start His church.
One of the real draw backs of the Reformation has been a distrust of humanity's ability to continue what Christ entrusted human beings to maintain - specifically, His Church. It started with the Reformer's charge of corruption in the Catholic Church, which was accurate; unfortunately, they did not stop with simply identifying the corruption. With the exception of Luther (he was excommunicated), the Reformers rebelled and labelled the entire Catholic Church as corrupt, worldly, and sometimes went as far as identifying the Pope as the antichrist. Monarchies encouraged this religious rebellion because they wanted to break away from the Vatican, as well.
This basic distrust for all organized religion, spawned countless vain attempts to recreate the early church - of course, all failed because as soon as the new church movements became large, they fell into the same conundrum as the Catholic Church; they had to add structure, organization and standardization of doctrine/practice/worship. Consequently, all attempts at recreating the early church became an exercise in chasing rainbows.
Today we have witnessed the death of Modernism - mainline Protestantism is in it's death throws; atheism/fundamentalism are gasping for air; and Postmodernism is taking root. The interesting thing is, in the midst of all this change, the old Reformation-born distrust of organized religion is getting stronger! It is now part of the conservative Protestant narrative - 'real Christians' love Jesus, not some building! Religion is of man, not of God! I believe in the Bible (a product of the church), not church!
Admittedly, I find this dualistic thinking absurd. Religion is the framework and method that humans use to communicate and relate to God. A parallel claim might be, "I believe in ideas, not language!" Furthermore, the fact that God has included humans in His plan for our redemption from the very beginning, tells me that He wants us to be obedient and responsible for spreading His Word and caring for His Flock. The method Jesus decided to use according to Mathew 16 is His Church.
Believing that humans are totally depraved and God is the only force working through us for good is an extension of Gnostic dualism; magnified by Calvinism; and perpetuated by a misunderstanding of Paul's use of the word 'flesh'. Paul was not a Gnostic! He did not condemn our flesh (humanity); he condemned our flesh (worldliness)! Also, his use of the word 'work' refers to relying on our sinful tendency (old nature) to cut corners and justify the ends with our means because it will not get us closer to God. Instead, God wants our obedience (God + human submission) and our participation (practicing our sanctification by loving God and neighbor).
Church is not the problem. Our unwillingness to participate in loving God and our neighbor in the context of Church is the problem. If God trusts humans to spread His word; we can trust humans to lead us in worship; listen to our worries, fears, sins; and to walk with us in our sanctification and sometimes show us the way by their example. [/size][/font][/color]
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[color="#5D5D5D"][font="tahoma][size="2"]So there is my opinion - please share yours! I want to understand![/size][/font]