“But that sort of community with its requisite humility impinges upon the individual who with Bible and God has everything he needs. Their Church is invisible; their churches opportunistic assemblies of people so fractious...”
MD, you are better than that! That doesn’t describe the Baptist church I attend. All the Baptist churches I’ve been in teach we are a body, and cannot neglect each other. 2 Tim 3 instructs Timothy to use scripture to teach, rebuke, etc - not for him to toss out Bibles and hope they somehow take root somewhere. And since the pastor of the church I’m part of works part time in addition to being pastor, he’s a pretty strange opportunistic fellow. In fact, we rent a place for worship...we’re not exactly rolling the the dough. And if anyone wants to know our finances, there are quarterly statements available near the entrance.
On the contrario, one benefit one gets in the denominational congregation is a result of the intentionality AND also of the way protestant pastors are trained. I have seen ham-handedness among Catholic pastors that just leaves me breathless with astonishment.
What I meant by opportunistic was NOT people seeking their own good, like Lewis's hell, in constant competition. It was more like the two black Baptist churches down the road. The reason there are two is so that when people get mad at one they can go to the other. In our rural community they are about 1.4 mile apart. And similarly with the flavors of white Baptist Church in Scottsville. There are at least three white Baptist churches, One was founded because the son of the patriarch (no better word, really -- I know this guy and we have double-teamed some people together) was a fulminant alcoholic who got in a lethal and crippling DUII accident and the congregation decided he was fit to be a pastor if he had kids like that. (His daughter is promiscuous as well.)
Or the splitting, dividing, combining of different Episcopal Churches in my life time. Then there's the proliferation of groups descended from the Wesley boys.
So there's the (I admit oft-exaggerated) number of various denominations. How many sorts of Lutheran are there in the US? And then when the conscientious and devout lay person moves to a new community he or she may not find the denomination from which he came.
TO me this would be a problem. I would drive the necessary miles to a Catholic Church. But it seems that, among the kind of group I'm trying to describe without using an unintentionally offensive descriptor, one doesn't find THIS sort of Wesleyan, but it doesn't really matter, one just finds a group with whom one feels a certain compatibility.
THAT's what I meant by accidental and opportunistic. Sorry. I have an archaic vocabulary, which I don't want to change, until I offend someone.
By contrast, as an Episcopalian And a Roaming Calflick, I just went to the nearest place. Even if the pastor was a commie, HE didn't really matter. It was the sacrament I was there for.Mind you, once I had "done my time" as parochial administrator and it would be a bad thing for me to stay in the congregation when the job was done, I was delighted to have a "good reason" to go to my current congregation where the only official connection I have is I do some security work for them (and even that is not paid work. And if my health doesn't turn, that's going to be coming to an end.)
It's a university parish. The students make it the most fervent and fermenting place I've been in in a long time. I get to do some teaching and some mentoring. And I LOVE IT! But I never would have gone for that reason until I had a good, pastoral and canonical reason to cut loose from the church down the road.
Because I am a Catholic and I bloom where I am planted, and I go to St George's rather than St Thomas's because that's where the Diocese told me to go and "serve" as a regular lay-guy. And there I dealt with what I found, nourished (as we think of it) not by the pastor or the teaching but by Jesus himself.
And to say it again, that is why many protestant congregations are far more vital and exciting.
I'm not saying this correctly, but my main purpose is to clarify and in so doing salve any wounds I may have caused. WE can go back to clean up the details.
I thank God and you for the affection in your rebuke.
One of the reasons I get all cranky about the fracture of the churches is that I know there are people with wonderful gifts, natural and spiritual, (stand by for syntax) of the benefits of whose gifts we are deprived.
When I was still an Episcopalian and I was teasing a Cahtoic friend about the fercoiously awful hymnody in some of their parishes I said, "When we left, we took beauty with us." He said, "well, we want it back!"
That's kind of how I feel when I see the piety, devotion, wisdom and other graces among some of y'all.
Correct me if I am wrong, but from what know of Baptist communities(I'm no expert) some allow women pastor's and other restrict it to only men according to the Southern Baptist Convention-many of the communities allow freemasonry and others are completely against joining.Also,I have never seen any united teaching by Baptists against being a Homosexual or Lesbian.
Where is your unity or concrete unchangeable teaching that you must adhere to on these things. If you are truly united than you would have them.
“That doesn’t describe the Baptist church I attend. All the Baptist churches I’ve been in teach we are a body, and cannot neglect each other.” —> that is true as you state, however, on this thread we have Orthodox Presbyterians, individuals (who seem to be searcing for the reasons for the Trinity, so at an initial stage of searching), various other congregationalists, pentecostals and even a paleo-Christian or Judaic-Christian (URi’el— I’m not sure what group you would be in, sorry)
I have yet to see a quarterly statement from the Vatican on their vault. ;O)