Posted on 07/05/2023 5:51:32 AM PDT by Cronos
To clarify, those churches should not to be confused with your local Church of Christ (without the word "United") which are mostly independent and almost all of which very much push believing in Jesus, loving God and others, and living holy lives.
I grew up in the Congregational Church, one of UCC’s predecessor churches, in the 1950s. Even then, the theology was thin and pale, and did little to inspire. Looking back, it fits the description of trying to make a gallon of lemonade with one lemon. Now, they just imagine the lemon is there. About 10-15 years ago, my youngest daughter was seeking. church she liked, and asked me to take her to a UCC service.
The minister began the sermon talking about going to an Indians game that week, and how he liked the stadium hotdogs. The rest was less memorable; but I did have the awareness at the time to note that nowhere in the sermon was Jesus Christ ever mentioned. A few references to God more or less wanting us to be nice to our neighbor, and that was about it.
Nice building though.
As has to happen, dividing the wheat from the chaff...
Our congregation/fellowship quit the UCC last year. The gay agenda was just too much and we voted to leave with 94% saying to quit.
We do not miss them.
Believe it or not, members of what is now the United Church of Christ were once called Puritans.
Post Modern Christendom always moves left and punches right.
In the mid-1990’s, the UCC issued a new hymnal whose cover was solid black. It included many traditional hymns, but they had all been rewritten, often extensively, to conform to the woke ideology of the Religious Left. For example, all references to God as a father or Jesus as a king were removed.
Soon after these “black hymnals” were published, I attended a service at a Congregationalist church in East Whittier, Calif., a community that is as red as a taillight. In the pews were the “black hymnals,” but the older hymnals were there as well. At the service, I got the feeling that many of the parishioners resented the “black hymnals” and preferred to sing traditional hymns.
Yet liberalization advocates incessantly claim that affirming homosexual practice is “needed” in order to appeal to the values of non-religious Americans, especially in younger generations, and suggest that after the dust settles from recalcitrant conservatives leaving, the liberalized church will become freshly appealing to new people.
I’m all for encouraging unchurched people to go to church. But, too many of these liberal types are not going to go to church because of liberal theology. The churches are pandering to people who don’t want to go church at all.
The dying mainline churches are less of a problem than the self proclaimed evangelical and charismatic congregations that preach a watered down gospel and feel good teaching. This is more prevalent in the charismatic and pentecostal ranks, but this is not to condemn strong preachers like Rod Parsley or John Hagee (though I ml don’t agree with all their theology). However, the noncharismatic evangelical world is filled with weak teachers and heretics: Rick Warren and Andy Stanley, to cite two.
The dying mainline churches are less of a problem than the self proclaimed evangelical and charismatic congregations that preach a watered down gospel and feel good teaching. This is more prevalent in the charismatic and pentecostal ranks, but this is not to condemn strong preachers like Rod Parsley or John Hagee (though I ml don’t agree with all their theology). However, the noncharismatic evangelical world is filled with weak teachers and heretics: Rick Warren and Andy Stanley, to cite two.
Every denomination of the “CHURCH” has infiltrators. The remnant must arise to expel them from their congregations. The true Gospel must be taught and boldly preached from the pulpit. Politically correct, double-minded elders and deacons must be replaced as well.
Prominent catholic on free republic picks stats on arguably worst sect of non Catholics possible to promote notion Protestants truly do suck
(You know they are all alike those dang pesky Protestants )
It’s still August 23rd 1572 in Cronosville lol
It’s baffling how ignorant the most chauvinistic Catholics are about non catholic Christians
I did not grow up around Catholics like this
Much like the fact neocons hate the south and our history and like to exploit that to their own ends these are two facts of this forum I was unaware of in righties till I joined here in 2000
There is an impulse there between those two groups which are sometimes linked
Virtue signaling
Pretending to mind read on your part, woedaddy?
Thanks for that clarification!
As I understand it, that’s one of the churches that joined together in the 50s to form the UCC.
This seems to be similar to the case of the Lutheran-Calvinist Prussian Church force created by the Kaiser in the 1800s.
Young goodman brown was prophetic
“In short, we see that churches that go beyond compassion for self-identified members of the LGBTQIA+ community (which we could all do a better job of)”
UH???
The problem is not too little compassion, but too much. What I call “pathological compassion” - it destroys the receiver, the giver, and society as a whole.
They’re the spoiled brats and society is their permissive, “compassionate” parents.
What’s needed is a big dose of tough love... and stop indulging the delusionals - it’ll help their sanity and society’s.
The leftists take over to grab the assets (building plus endowment) strip it all to finance leftist causes, and when there is nothing left, like locusts they move on to start the process over at another church.
The only solution I see is to not have assets; to have the church be completely dependent on weekly donations, so that if the donors withheld their cash it would have immediate and dramatic impact.
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