Denominations (or Communions, so as to include the non-Protestant groups) are the Church. One particular Communion may not be able to say that it, and it alone, is the Church--but no particular Communion is without some claim to being part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
The Grammarian: What are denominations, but groups of Christians? Denominations (or Communions, so as to include the non-Protestant groups) are the Church.
For someone with your name, better reading comprehension is expected than what you are displaying. If you want to disagree with the metmom assertion of "organism, not an organization," then you should have said so.
But to turn your back on that root point and then make a lot of noise about merely different levels of the very corporatization metmom discriminated from is, I think disingenuous.
In short, you are addressing org charts, while metmom is addressing the divine family of souls who have received Christ in their hearts and minds and lives.
Some people see those two things as separate subjects.
Nope...Anyone can call themselves Christians...
But you also say, "denominations are not the church." What are denominations, but groups of Christians?
Denominations are groups of people who call themselves Christians but are in fact made up of Christians and non Christians...It is only the Christians in a denomination who are the church, the Body of Christ...
Denominations (or Communions, so as to include the non-Protestant groups) are the Church.
There is no Church...There are churches...
One particular Communion may not be able to say that it, and it alone, is the Church--but no particular Communion is without some claim to being part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
There is no catholic, apostolic church...
Jesus said where two or three are gathered together, He is there in the midst.
Nobody needs a denomination, a building, an organization, whatever, to be a church.
Believers are the church and where believers are gathered together, there is the church.