"Authorized Christian Club"? What a derisive term for this Church for whom He laid down His life. It is His Body; it is the Bride of Christ.
I’m saying the church is believer-wide. And that it’s an error for the Roman Catholic Church to say the church founded by Christ — which He did so through the keys of faith — is restricted to it. You can only take offense by begging the question. The believer-wide church gets authority to make judgments inasmuch as it will faithfully obey the Holy Spirit. I am saying that it appears that no earthly Christian congregation is completely faithfully obeying the Holy Spirit. And this would be an issue except that complete faithful obedience is not possible until salvation is complete and Christ already allows for that.
In a nutshell: I am one of those crazy evangelicals. But not so crazy as to say there is not a valid (if imperfect) practice of Christianity within the present day Roman Catholic Church.
By the way, please try not to feel too bad about what I’m saying even if (as you probably do) you beg most strongly to disagree. The problem of “church tainted by man” is pan-Christian, I am not tarring the Roman Catholics alone. It’s all too obvious in some of the more self-arrogant branches of evangelicaldom and I see it very frequently. But I try not to get brittle over it, because it won’t go away until all Christians’ salvation is complete.
I agree very much with all the good things you said about the church of Christ. I disagree with you about its scope and foundational nature. I hope if you at least see my point of view you will not be quite so scandalized over the terms I am using.