***We have been used to found three autonomous local churches in our work. ***
Christians are not autonomous. They are subject to the Bishops of their area, and finally to Christ.
“Christians are not autonomous.”
Misrepresentation of what I said. I said nothing about the “Christians.” True Christians, regardless of earthly affiliation, or no earthly affiliation at all, are attached to Jesus Christ and sealed by the Spirit of God — ALL an operation of God, not of man, nor of any visible church on the earth.
What man does, man can disolve. What a visible earthly church does, it can disolve. (Or it can keep instituting new stuff for itself over 1,600 years). But what God does is forever. When God “births” and individual, that is a child of God forever. When God seals an idividual, that seal lasts forever.
Visible churches on earth come, and they go. The Body of Christ, which is not headquartered in any city on earth, but from the Right Hand of God Himself, where the ONLY Head of the Church sits presently, doesn’t come-and-go, it was founded ONCE-FOR-EVER in Christ’s Blood, and it remains. That is the CHURCH.